peach ketchup

peach ketchup

2250g (5 lbs) peach puree (see below)
500g (17.5oz/2.5 cups) brown sugar
432g (15.25 oz/2 cups) cider vinegar
6g (1 Tblsp) ground ginger
2g (1/2 tsp) ground cloves
2g (3/4 tsp) fresh grated nutmeg
50g (2 1/2 Tblsps) shiro miso

To make peach puree: wash 3 kilos (about 6.5 lbs) of ripe peaches. Cut each in half lengthwise, remove and discard the pit and lay them out, cut-side down, in a single layer on silpat or parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake in 350F/176C oven for about 20 minutes or until skins wrinkle and they begin to release liquid. Remove from oven and allow to rest until they are just cool enough to handle. Slip the skins off the peach halves and transfer to a food processor. Save the clear, flavorful juices for another use (I froze mine in ice cube trays to add to iced tea). Process the peaches in batches to make a smooth puree.

Place all of the ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together until well blended. Pour into a large roasting pan (about 30.5cm x 40.5cm/16"x12"). Bake in a 149C/300F oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until it has reduced by nearly half, deepened in color, and the flavor is rounded and balanced.
Wash and sterilize seven 1/2-pint canning jars. Pack them with the hot ketchup, leaving 1/2" headspace at the top and seal tightly. Fit a deep pot with a rack, or place a folded dishtowel at the bottom. Place the sealed jars into the pot and add boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the jars. Set pot over medium-high heat and process the jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the hot jars from pot and allow to cool completely. Label and store for up to a year.

a good year for peaches

I don't know what happened to the peaches this year.
Did the stars and/or planets align just right? Or were my unwitting prayers answered by a peach fairy?
I have no explanation, but I'm convinced that something super natural took place.

My peach tree is now seven years old. It was just a whip with roots when my father gave it to me; no thicker than my thumb or longer than my arm. Looking at that stick-in-a-pot, it should have taken an elastic imagination, or a leap of faith, to believe that one day it would produce bushels of fruit, but I knew better. I had seen him nurture these things; spent a lifetime watching sticks turn into trees.

I planted it even though I had given up on growing fruit. The loss of a half dozen fruit trees, along with the dream of an orchard, was still painfully fresh.

It was three years before the tree bore fruit. Just enough for a few pies at first, the yields continued to increase with each passing year. Quantity was never an issue, but if I'm being completely honest, the quality of the fruit has been unremarkable in flavor. Last year, they were insipid, at best.

If anything, gardening is an investment of hope. I take the time and effort to grow plants with the hope that they will produce something extraordinary. When they don't, I assess the circumstances, make adjustments, and try again. Or, if they require something beyond my control, I move on.

A tree is different.

Trees take years, sometimes decades, to hit their stride. When there is so much time and effort and hope invested, it's not so easy to just start over.

Last fall, after the disappointing harvest, I was pruning the tree and considered taking a saw to the trunk and starting anew. But I didn't. I confessed my intention to my father, hoping he wouldn't be offended. He just shrugged and suggested I waited another year.

I was acutely aware on the day that I picked the first of this year's peaches that it was the two month anniversary of my father's passing. I won't get into whether I think that he, in spirit, had anything to do with the transformation. I won't even get into whether I believe such things are possible. I will only say that every peach that I picked off my tree this year was extraordinary: intoxicatingly fragrant, embarrassingly juicy, a flawless balance of sugar and acid. They were everything I hoped for.

ICC 2010: the dishes

Once again, Starchefs gathered together some of the most talented chefs from around the world to share ideas and techniques at the 5th Annual International Chefs Congress.

The event kicked off with a panel discussion on this year's theme: Art vs. Craft. Present on the panel were chefs Dan Barber, David Kinch, and Thomas Keller, with Michael Rhulman moderating. The discussion brought up some thoughtful points about intent and perception. While Barber and Kinch were willing to entertain the notion of chef/artist, Keller adamantly stated that he was a craftsman, not an artist. The consensus seemed to be that it was hubris for chefs to label themselves as "artists", though it was OK for the consumer to do so. The lack of a radically opposed point of view, which would have added another dimension to the conversation, became apparent when Barber admitted that the panel was mostly ''vanilla' on the subject.

Here are most of the dishes prepared on the main stage over the course of three days:

Continue reading “ICC 2010: the dishes” →

parmesan pasta

I developed this pasta analog last year for a client who was diagnosed with Celiac disease.
It contains no gluten— only Parmesan, water, and methylcellulose.
The recipe was featured in an article about Molecular Gastronomy written by Peter Barrett for Chronogram Magazine.
You can find the recipe here.

summer pasta

In these, the last days of summer, autumn encroaches clever and lithe.

I try to ignore the signs, but it's worse than that.

I see the chlorophyll drain from the leaves and tell myself it's just the sun. I notice the flowers looking dry and wan and say it's because I didn't give them enough water. And… isn't the goldenrod blooming extra early this year?

I'm in denial.

It's not because I dislike autumn. I don't. But because I will miss summer.

It's not even that it's been a good summer. It hasn't! Losing my father cements it as one that I will poignantly remember forever.

Still… I hate to see it go.

I think what I'll miss most is the bounty at my fingertips.
The joyful sight of fruits on the vine.
The perfume of herbs baking in the sun.
The many colors of ripe.
Nature, in all of her white-hot intensity.

But it's not over yet.

As the sun arcs lower in the sky and night grows longer and cooler, summer vegetables rush to put out their last flush. It's a well known fact that leafy greens, crucifers, and root vegetables taste sweeter when nipped by cold, but I would swear that late-season tomatoes and corn are the best of all. They are only sweeter in memory.

Colors and flavors, the icons of summer, are arranged atop a swath of emulsified tomato milk like notes on a scale. A seasonal keyboard.

Tucked in between are tubes of parmesan pasta. I'll tell you about those next time.

These are covered by a strip of reduced corn juice, thickened by its inherent starch and bursting with flavor. Its form is controlled by freezing, then tempered to a fluid sauce.

Just for this dish, I ignore my tendency towards minimalism, my carefully managed urge to over garnish. I lay it all out. Let nature play all of her notes at once. A crescendo of flowers and herbs.

This is my tribute. An homage. A celebration.
The swan song of summer.

tomato milk and cornflakes

More bottom-of-the-bowl goodness: tomato milk.
Tomato milk is the lovely elixir that occurs when tomatoes mingle with bufala mozzarella and basil.
It is liquid essence.

Late-summer native corn has no peer.
When we're not eating it straight off the cob, I'm juicing it for sauces and soups.
As is often the case when juicing vegetables, the remaining pulp is dry, flavorless fiber that is discarded. A wonderful by-product of juicing just-picked corn is that the pulp is juicy, tender, and full of flavor.

corn flakes

Note:It is important to use the pulp from corn that has been juiced on the same day that it is picked, before the sugars convert to starch and the pellicle toughens.

After juicing corn kernels, remove the pulp from the juicer basket and saute it over medium heat with 1 Tablespoon of butter for each cup of pulp until it just begins to brown. Season with salt and scrape pulp onto a baking sheet that has been lined with silpat. Compress corn pulp into a 1/4" thick even layer, using fingers or a spatula. Dehydrate at 65C/150F for 2-3 hours or until uniformly dry. Break off a segment of dried pulp and gently crumble into flakes with hands, letting flakes fall back onto silpat. Repeat with remaining dried pulp. Spread flakes evenly on silpat and bake in 82C/180F oven for 30 minutes-1 hour, until crisp and lightly toasted.

bread and tomato water

While it's true that fruits and vegetables are often at their best at a certain time and place, I'm not a slave to eating seasonally or locally or [insert buzzword]-ly. There are so many opinions and discussions on the topic, but as far as I'm concerned, quality gets the final word.
Right now, on my patch of earth, there's a whole lotta quality to be found.

In late August, the local tomatoes clearly demonstrate the tenet of simple preparations. They are of optimum quality and so abundant that they make their way into nearly every meal. A quick and satisfying lunch involves nothing more than thick slices, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with good olive oil. The best part comes at the end— the umami-laden tomato water that collects at the bottom of the bowl. When meals are that casual, etiquette is tossed aside, and the savory juices are noisily slurped directly from the bowl.

If there is good bread at hand, a hunk is used to mop up the juices. The yeasty, malty flavor and chewy texture changes the taste entirely— transforms it into something else. If I had been brought up in an Italian house I would compare it to Panzanella, but my bread and tomato association leads to Açorda.

Açorda is a rustic bread soup from Portugal. At its most basic, it's made by pouring a water, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil broth over day-old bread. Typically, the bread used is Broa— a dense, round loaf made with wheat flour, enriched with cornmeal.

There are gussied-up versions of Açorda; my favorite involves prawns cooked in the broth with tomatoes. For today, I've ignored the prawns and the cooking, but kept the impression of the dish with a hunk of my mother's excellent Broa soaked with seasoned red and yellow tomato water, olive oil, garlic bulbils, green coriander seeds and sprigs.

Outside of summer, it would never occur to me to attempt a dish whose sheer simplicity relies entirely on an ingredient used at its pinnacle of flavor. Like it's inspiration, it's a humble dish— the food of peasants. But it's also profoundly good and begs a revision to an old adage:

[wo]man can live [happily] on bread and [tomato]water alone!

potatoes halibut garlic

earthy potatoes the color of an Aegean sky
silken paint spread on a porcelain canvas

piquant bulbils strewn across a Skordalia triptych
like stray pearls from a necklace that has come undone

Poseidon offers fish from the depths of a torrid ocean of oil
they emerge blistered and weightless as ghosts

caught up in the fantasy I imagine
[only for a moment] that I've made something new
something original

foolish me it's only fish and chips

skordalia

200g red bliss potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
200g purple potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
100g extra virgin olive oil
7g garlic, thickly sliced
salt
50g french bread, trimmed of crust and soaked in milk
25g white wine vinegar
25g red wine vinegar
garlic bulbils

Place the red bliss potatoes in a bowl and drizzle with 10g of olive oil. Add half of the garlic and a sprinkle of salt. Toss well, then pack into a bag and vacuum seal. Repeat with purple potatoes. Sous-vide at 85C/185F for 45-60 minutes or until very tender when pressed.
Empty the contents of the red bliss potatoes into food processor and add half of the remaining olive oil. Process until smooth. Squeeze excess milk from bread and add to processor along with white vinegar. Process until smooth and fluid, adding some of the milk if too thick. Season with salt. Repeat with purple potatoes, using the remaining ingredients and the red vinegar.
To serve, screen the skordalia through a stencil onto plates or serve in separate bowls. Sprinkle garlic bulbils over top.

halibut crisps

115g halibut, cut against the grain into 1/4" thick slices
rice flour
salt
peanut oil for deep frying

Season halibut with salt on both sides. Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap on a flat surface. Cover with a thick dusting of rice flour. Place a slice of halibut over top of rice flour and generously dust top with additional flour. Cover with another sheet of plastic wrap and pound until paper-thin, adding more rice flour if necessary. Repeat with remaining fish slices. Cut pounded slices into 2" discs with round cutter.
Heat a pot of oil for deep frying to 190C/375F. Fry discs for 1-2 minutes, or until crisp but still pale.
Serve with skordalia. If desired, sprinkle with dehydrated, pulverized kalamata olives and cinnamon basil stems.

garlic bulbils

When garlic scapes are left to mature on the plant, they form bulbils that are like miniature garlic cloves. These are not true seeds, but they can be planted as such. Although they take two to three seasons to develop heads, I find they're a more reliable way to propagate garlic than starting with individual cloves. For one, [because they're airborne] they don't harbor soil-borne diseases. And two, they produce a truer strain of the parent plant— and isn't perpetuating a species an important reason to save seeds?

Some of these bulbils will go back into the garden once they have hardened off, but many will find their way into the kitchen. I can't resist playing with these tiny, tender bursts of mild garlic flavor.

Freshly harvested, they add fantastic flavor and texture when simply sprinkled on a dish.
Pickled in a vinegary brine with a pinch of sugar, they become succulent.
They soften and mellow in an olive oil confit with seeds and spice. Today I added green fennel seeds, grains of paradise, crushed sumac berries, and fleur de sel.
Or, they can be flattened with a rolling pin between sheets of silpat and dehydrated. The flakes will keep their flavor and crisp texture if sealed in a jar, though I doubt they'll be around for too long.

lamb coconut yogurt garlic

Garlic scapes are the flowering seed heads and stems of hard neck garlic varieties. It used to be that farmers removed them to direct the plant's energy into developing the bulb rather than the seeds, and would discard them. At some point, an enterprising farmer thought the mildly-flavored scapes were a marketable novelty, and now they are popular seasonal treats at farmers markets. Incidental crops like these are often a win-win situation.

When harvested just as they begin to curl, the stems are tender and mild. By the time that the seeds begin to form, they harden and become tough. At that stage, I like to use them as skewers for grilled meats and vegetables, allowing heat to release their aroma and infuse the food from within.

This dish is loosely based on souvlaki, with deliberate Greek flavors. Instead of the ubiquitous oregano, I used winter savory (Satureja montana), an under-utilized perennial herb that tastes like a blend of thyme, pine, and lemon, to season the lamb and tzatziki.

The tzatziki was made with yogurt curds, which readily form when yogurt is gently heated to 170F/76C. The process is identical to making ricotta, but as the yogurt is already acidic, it doesn't require the addition of buttermilk. The curds are folded into coconut milk, along with savory, garlic and cucumber.

The ground lamb is blended with minced aromatics (savory, onion, garlic scapes) and coconut powder, then wrapped in a blanched fig leaf and grilled.

I know that gif's are sometimes annoying, and even though these shots are overexposed, I thought that it effectively demonstrated the leaf-folding technique.
Actually, I'm kind of mesmerized by it. I'm alternately disturbed and amused by the furling and unfurling. As it folds up, I think "Silencing of the Lamb", then it pops open, exposing itself like a Cypriot burlesque queen.