You win some and you loose some. Usually at this time my friend John and I purchase raw, uncured fresh olives from Pennas, in California, by mail (actually UPS). Green a bit earlier and black into first two weeks of November. I have been using a recipe for green olives I was given by a Turkish boat captain. He had a small farm/homestead outside of Bodrum and would put up his olives using a water cure method. A former diver assisting archeologist in studying and sorting antiquities on the Mediterranian bottom. He was a good fellow with a dead-on preparation.
I actually stumbled upon the green olives at my local super market. Several trays in the produce department. After not too much work I put up a case of 1/2 pint jars of the olives. In addition to eating them as I wished they made a great gift for olive lovers. 10 Nov 09: I'm going by on the way home on the off chance they are (still) there. Not likely, but it's worth a stop.
After some years John suggested we try the black olives. I trolled literature for some time before arriving at a simple salt-cure. I found the results to be beyond my wildest imagination. Deep rich earthy flavors with hints of all those words they use to describe amarone or even classic clarets. So simple, coarse salt packed above, around, and over the olives. Keep raking it up and adding more salt as necessary to keep it covered. I've done it in an orange crate and in a burlap sack (John's favorite) but it all works. The time is the only thing: not quick, but all I did was check it often. I will reduce them to a thin covering of a pit, which while it tastes great, is not so satisfying as a plumper outcome, pulled from the salt sooner rather than later.
While I have probably eaten pounds of lye-cured olives I never thought it a path worth following. Apparently it is a fast trip to cured olives. Bitter from the tree the taste will leave your mouth only slightly sooner than your memory.
I think part of the secret is to cure the olives and then flavor them before serving. Rosemary or orange or lemon zests, the durable garlic, hot and spicy touches. The more delicate scents appeal to me but a green olive scented with cracked red peppers is intoxicating. My last pass a curing the olives and scenting with lemon and mildly hot peppers didn't work for me; the flavor was off. I reviewed all I did but couldn't understand what made them turn off in that direction.
If you have ever eaten Canard Chez Allard, memorialized in Patricia Wells book Bistro Cooking, you can almost feel the urge to get to Chez Allard in Paris and compare your to theirs. Mere Allard was certainly not living when I first went there; her hayday being around 1940. The history and gravitas sweats out of the wooden paneled walls. The olives impart their scent and an ephemeral spin to the fowl. Slow cooking at it's best and regional ingredients. I think this one is coming to the table before the year is out.
All of these olives are so far distant from the gigantic, pimento stuffed, green things that were never, ever properly washed of their packing brine. I know that brine made it into "Dirty Martini's" for some reason I can't fathom.
27 October 2009
25 October 2009
Chard
Sunny, intense fall day. How am I helping to put the garden 'to bed' for the winter? By cutting yet another 1-1/4 pound bag full of chard. It's 25 October and that's late in the growing season here. This year was a late-May/Jun/Jul monsoon period of little sun and all the greens seemed to respond well. Not green peppers and not green tomatoes but chard, kale, broccoli and such. I think our chard produced from cool June, now through cool October.
Back on 8 November 2009, most of the chard torn out to prep beds for winter; however, the remaining few small plants are indeed sprouting new growth. Warm 55 degree brilliant day today. I doubt there's even sufficient leaves for a single bite.
In lieu of those greens fennel from the market with maitake (fabulously available from our local market) sauteing a 1/2" dice of each separately and them recombining to heat and eat. I should be focusing on the brussels sprouts but the fennel really pleases each and every time.
Now for the other greens: kale. A brassica (like cauliflower or brussels sprouts) unique in its color, texture, and flavor, we had both curly and plain leaved kale. We had actually deffered eating it with the bountiful chard present. So what happens; you have to i) get it out of the garden, ii) spread the eating out over time, iii) can't eat it all tonight. Into the boiling water very briefly and into freezer bags. Wonderfully it will come out ready for whatever preparation you want to make. I prefer to slice it thinly (more surface area this way) and, since it's been in the water twice already (hot and freezing) it needs only oil and garlic/shallot/onion to bring out it's best. I've been noticing the garlic puts it over on the earthy sharp side in terms of flavor. Yet the shallots or onions put it on the sweeter side. Salt to taste after cooking and before serving. Certainly grind some pepper over it and a splash of vinegar is a real finish. Fresh lemon juice is great too.
A great, great green to accompany most any hearty other side or main.
Back on 8 November 2009, most of the chard torn out to prep beds for winter; however, the remaining few small plants are indeed sprouting new growth. Warm 55 degree brilliant day today. I doubt there's even sufficient leaves for a single bite.
In lieu of those greens fennel from the market with maitake (fabulously available from our local market) sauteing a 1/2" dice of each separately and them recombining to heat and eat. I should be focusing on the brussels sprouts but the fennel really pleases each and every time.
Now for the other greens: kale. A brassica (like cauliflower or brussels sprouts) unique in its color, texture, and flavor, we had both curly and plain leaved kale. We had actually deffered eating it with the bountiful chard present. So what happens; you have to i) get it out of the garden, ii) spread the eating out over time, iii) can't eat it all tonight. Into the boiling water very briefly and into freezer bags. Wonderfully it will come out ready for whatever preparation you want to make. I prefer to slice it thinly (more surface area this way) and, since it's been in the water twice already (hot and freezing) it needs only oil and garlic/shallot/onion to bring out it's best. I've been noticing the garlic puts it over on the earthy sharp side in terms of flavor. Yet the shallots or onions put it on the sweeter side. Salt to taste after cooking and before serving. Certainly grind some pepper over it and a splash of vinegar is a real finish. Fresh lemon juice is great too.
A great, great green to accompany most any hearty other side or main.
24 October 2009
Tomatillos
Apparently the tomatillo was not a target of the late blight ravaging brandy wine, ugly, beefsteak, and other varieties of basic tomatoes. Actually a relative of the gooseberry family, but clearly a nightshade, it has appeared in our local Great Barrington markets.
I always loved the stews, often with pork, and salsas incorporating roasted tomatillo. The roasted tomatillo is sympathetic with the roasted red peppers done on my stove top. I made a wonderful recipe once with a 1" dice of pork and browned and throwing off a rich sauce, fennel 1/2's to hold the mixture, which incorporated tomatillo, while it baked in a moderate oven. I wish I could find that particular recipe in the house: I know it is printed and leaved in one of our cook books. Where o where? It might have been occasioned by a purchase from Snow's Farm in Sandisfield. A wonderful homestead farm nearby.
A morning hour spent separating them from the paper husk was grounding. The focus or meditation on ingredients supplies power to me whenever I cook. Without knowing I guess the paper husk may insulate the fruit from an intense sun in the lower lats. Some had yellowed last week when I scoured the (2) plants Karen had sheparded through the growing season. The tacky fruit coating is always tenacious but removes from the hands with a simple washing. They were left on a newspaper to dry and possibly will be cooked on Sunday morning.
The newspaper was a refreshing issue from this week, our daily Berkshire Eagle, entirely in black and white: no spot color. I hope it was an intentional choice: the B+W resonated with me. It reinforced my sense of the Walker Evans images filling my head as I read the current biography. I have spent some time, long, long ago, making pictures incorporating vegetables in images only as B+W. A different appreciation of the food unit.
I surely hope I can reconstruct the pork/tomatillo/fennel recipe.
I always loved the stews, often with pork, and salsas incorporating roasted tomatillo. The roasted tomatillo is sympathetic with the roasted red peppers done on my stove top. I made a wonderful recipe once with a 1" dice of pork and browned and throwing off a rich sauce, fennel 1/2's to hold the mixture, which incorporated tomatillo, while it baked in a moderate oven. I wish I could find that particular recipe in the house: I know it is printed and leaved in one of our cook books. Where o where? It might have been occasioned by a purchase from Snow's Farm in Sandisfield. A wonderful homestead farm nearby.
A morning hour spent separating them from the paper husk was grounding. The focus or meditation on ingredients supplies power to me whenever I cook. Without knowing I guess the paper husk may insulate the fruit from an intense sun in the lower lats. Some had yellowed last week when I scoured the (2) plants Karen had sheparded through the growing season. The tacky fruit coating is always tenacious but removes from the hands with a simple washing. They were left on a newspaper to dry and possibly will be cooked on Sunday morning.
The newspaper was a refreshing issue from this week, our daily Berkshire Eagle, entirely in black and white: no spot color. I hope it was an intentional choice: the B+W resonated with me. It reinforced my sense of the Walker Evans images filling my head as I read the current biography. I have spent some time, long, long ago, making pictures incorporating vegetables in images only as B+W. A different appreciation of the food unit.
I surely hope I can reconstruct the pork/tomatillo/fennel recipe.
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