Monthly Archives: May 2009

Pickled Fiddleheads

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IF YOU LIVE IN the Seattle area, next time you’re at a farmers market look for the Foraged and Found Edibles booth and pick up a copy of Christina Choi’s Wild Foods Recipe Calendar, with illustrations by Emily Counts. This month-by-month catalog of the Pacific Northwest’s wild cornucopia is a treasure trove of recipes and information. 

I tried the Pickled Fiddleheads recipe first.

The biggest challenge of fiddleheads isn’t finding and picking them—that’s relatively easy once you have an understanding of their habitat (moist woodlands, stream banks, swampy areas). No, the hardest part is cleaning the curly little buggers. (Before and after photos below.) 

Here’s a cleaning tip: Use two large bowls filled with water. Soak your fiddleheads in one and use the other as a rinsing dish. The chaff will come off easily enough with a little rubbing. When chaff begins to accumulate in your rinsing bowl, strain it out. This tedious sink-side work will be paid off handsomely with a pickled batch of springtime fiddleheads.

1 lb fiddleheads, cleaned
2 lemons
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp kosher salt
8-inch piece wild ginger (optional)
1 tsp whole black pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp whole allspice
1/2 lb shallots, sliced 1/8 inch thick
4 pint jars with lids and screwcaps, sterilized

1. Remove strips of lemon zest with a peeler, then juice lemons.
2. Pack fiddleheads tightly into canning jars, layered with shallots and lemon zest.
3. Bring to boil water, vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, salt, spices, and optional ginger.
4. Pour over fiddleheads so that liquid reaches to within a 1/4 inch of rim, then secure lids and process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

 

I went down to the crossroads: Devil’s Club Chocolate Sauce

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IMAGINE STUMBLING through a jungle of malicious trees. Brush up against one and it leaves a rash of spines. Its broad, prickly leaves hang like prehistoric green parasols, shutting out the light and obscuring your vision. You half expect to see a giant dragonfly buzz by.

Did you land in one of the nine circles of Hell? Nah, just another ill-advised attempt to bushwhack through a patch of devil’s club right here in the Pacific Northwest.

Devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus) is a shrub endemic to this region and a few other isolated pockets of North America. In rainforest conditions it can grow to a height of 15 feet but is more commonly three to five feet tall. The spines are no joke. They cause excruciating pain until you take the time to carefully tweezer them out like splinters.

With a cool, resiny, evergreen sort of flavor, the buds can be used to give woodsy depth to savory meat sauces and sweet desserts alike. You want to get them while between 1-2 inches in length, before the leaf has a chance to uncurl and its spines harden. Wear appropriate clothes and a thick pair of gloves.

Devil’s Club Chocolate Sauce

1 dozen small devil’s club buds, chopped
1/2 cup half and half, plus extra just in case
1/4 sugar
4-8 oz bar baker’s chocolate*, chopped
1 tbsp butter

* I used a 4 oz Ghirardelli 100% cacao unsweetened baking bar. If using a bar with, say, half the percentage of cacao you’ll want to double the amount to 8 oz.

1. Infuse the half and half with devil’s club by covering the buds in a bowl with the cream and refrigerating for at least an hour.

2. Strain half and half into saucepan. Add sugar and bring to gentle boil, stirring. Remove from heat.

3. Off heat, mix in chocolate and butter and stir vigorously. Keep a 1/2 cup or so of warm milk or cream on hand for thinning.

4. While warm and viscous, pour over ice cream or fruit.

Here’s the thing about devil’s club: You want to be careful about heating it. Too much heat and it loses that remarkable aroma. Used properly, the devil’s club buds will add an extra dimension of flavor to the chocolate sauce, a piney flavor that deepens the sauce and imparts the mystery of the woods to whatever you’re serving.
Second photo from top by skagitstan.

Dept. of Horn Tooting

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If you enjoy a fish story, head over to your quality news stand and pick up a copy of the May/June Gray’s Sporting Journal—and I’m not saying that just because I have a piece in the current issue, adapted from a chapter in the book. If you’re not familiar with GSJ, check it out here. There are few better outlets for the reader (or writer) who could care less about trophies, secret spots, and the latest outdoorsy fashion statements.

I really like the artwork the editors paired with the story. Though a salmon fisherman isn’t likely to encounter such breakers along the beaches of Puget Sound, the painting captures the feel of the elements, how you can disappear into your thoughts on a good day of saltwater casting even when the beach is crowded with other anglers.

Semolina Gnocchi with Wild Mushroom Sauce

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At the monthly meeting of the Puget Sound Mycological Society last Tuesday the chef of Serafina, a Seattle restaurant, gave a cooking demonstration using this recipe. I’ve tweaked it slightly to suit my needs, using chives instead of green onions because that’s what we’ve got in the garden, and pulverizing the porcini for a richer sauce.

Semolina Gnocchi

2 cups milk
2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup semolina flour
1/4 cup parmesan, grated
2 tbsp chives, chopped
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil milk and butter over medium-high heat. Slowly whisk in semolina. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir a minute or two. Stir in parmesan, chives, and seasoning. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring. Remove from heat and stir in egg yolk.

2. Grease a baking tin and spread mixture on tin to cool for several minutes. Using a spatula, spread and flatten gnocchi evenly so it’s approximately 1/3 inch thick. Refrigerate. Trim edges and cut into 1-inch squares.

Wild Mushroom Sauce

1/2 oz dried porcini
1 medium leek, divided
1/2 lb fresh morels, sliced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil, plus more if necessary
1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
splash Madiera
1 heaping tbsp mascarpone cheese
salt and pepper to taste

1. Pulverize dried porcini and bring to boil in 2 cups water with 1/2 leek, trimmed and roughly chopped. Reduce heat and let simmer 5 minutes before removing from heat.

2. Saute morels in pan with butter and olive oil until browned, about 4 minutes. Season. Add remaining leek, cut into julienne, and cook another few minutes. When leek has softened, add sage and deglaze with Madiera. When Madiera has evaporated, add 1/2 cup of mushroom-leek broth and reduce by half.

3. Gently brown gnocchi in olive oil and butter in another pan, preferably nonstick. Cook in batches, removing to warm plate in oven when done. Finish mushroom sauce with mascarpone. Add more mushroom broth if necessary. (At this point I added a touch more Madiera.) Check seasoning and ladle over gnocchi.

Serves 4. Eat with good friends who bring good wine. A spinach salad with toasted nuts and cheese pairs nicely.

Forager walks into a bar…

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Q: HOW DO YOU eat a gigantic alien space egg?

A: Very carefully!

Da-dum-DUM! Thanks, I’ll be here all week.

But seriously, I’ve been nibbling on this giant western puffball for days and barely made a dent. I figure it was close to 10 pounds when I found it on an eroded slope above MLK Jr. Blvd in Seattle. By contrast, the puffball pictured here—a bit smaller than a bowling ball—is half the size of the one I picked.

Sliced, cubed, and pan-fried, fresh puffball is a dead ringer for tofu…

Puffball Miso Soup

1 cup cubed puffball mushroom
3 cups water
2 small carrots, peeled and sliced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
2 heaping tbsp miso
1 tbsp peanut oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
pinch wakame flakes
soy sauce to taste

1. Bring water to boil in pot and add carrots. Continue to simmer, covered.

2. Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and carefully sauté to lightly brown. Lower heat.

3. When carrots are tender, stir in miso, then add wakame flakes, green onions, and contents of sauté pan to pot. Cook 2 more minutes and serve, seasoning with soy sauce.

Serves 2 as appetizer.

Riding the Radio Waves

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Listen to an archived edition >>

I found myself in the U-District studios of NPR Seattle affiliate KUOW 94.9 FM this morning, sitting in a sound room with “Weekday” host Steve Scher and two other local foragers, Patrice Benson, president of the Puget Sound Mycological Society and Christina Choi, a co-founder (along with Jeremy Faber) of Foraged and Found Edibles, a company that provides wild foods to area restaurants. If the other two guests were nervous they certainly didn’t show it. Meanwhile my own stomach was doing back flips.

Despite the nerves, in a fortunate coup of timing I had an ace up my sleeve—or more accurately an elephant in the corner. While en route to the studio this morning I was able to stop off and nab a western giant puffball (Calvatia booniana) that was fruiting on an eroded slope above Martin Luther King Blvd. right in the heart of the Central District (less than half of which is pictured at right). The mushroom was bigger than my head. It looked more like an alien space egg. I had a prop!

Once the show went live all mental preparation went out the window. It was auto-pilot all the way—and I’m pleased to say this auto-piloting forager was able to navigate the radio waves without crashing and burning, landing safely an hour later. I even had fun. Hats off to Steve Scher and all his colleagues at KUOW for making us feel so comfortable.

You can listen to an archived edition of the hour-long show, “Nature’s Bounty: A Forager’s Delight.”

Fancy Foothill Treats

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No, I didn’t bag a succulent spring lamb in the foothills, just the fiddleheads and nettle sauce. The reawakening is moving steadily higher into the mountains, bringing with it culinary goodies that have mostly played out down here at sea level.

For instance, stinging nettles are past their prime around Seattle now. Any taller than a foot or so and they become fibrous, with tougher stems and leaves that can be grainy. But in the foothills above 1,000 feet in elevation they’re young and tender. Of course, your mileage may vary. Further south in the Sierra you would need to go higher.

Same goes for the fiddleheads, and this topic deserves some further discussion. While I can’t speak to ostrich ferns of the eastern U.S., if you’re foraging lady fern fiddleheads, make sure you get them at the earliest possible stage, when they’ve just emerged from the root cluster and are no more than an inch or two above the ground (see image at right). Sometimes I’ll take them a little higher if the fiddleheads are still tightly coiled, but you want to avoid those specimens that have already started to unwind. The further along in the development, the more apt to be bitter. Also, it’s worth remembering that fully leafed-out fern fronds are actually toxic.

Here’s another tip when harvesting fiddleheads: Soak them in water back at home for a few minutes before removing the papery sheaf. The chaff is easier to rub off when wet.

For this meal I took advantage of a few rambles about town and in the woods. I got the lamb chops from a local butcher, who sources from a small-scale farm. The fiddleheads and nettles came from the foothills. Mint I found growing wild while walking around the neighborhood. I grilled the lamb chops and topped with a creamy nettle-mint sauce. The fiddleheads I boiled for 5 minutes and sauteed in butter. (The following night I sauteed the fiddleheads with chopped shallot and finished with cream and a splash of cognac.)

Nettle-Mint Sauce

Handful of blanched stinging nettles, roughly chopped
Handful of fresh mint, blanched 5 seconds and shocked in cold water
1 shallot, rough cut
3-4 heaping tbsp plain yogurt
lemon juice squeezed from 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil, more or less
salt

Process all these ingredients in a food processor. I don’t have exact measurements because I pretty much eyeballed it. You want the sauce to be creamy, not pasty like pesto. Hence the yogurt. You can adjust the strength of the mint or nettle flavor however you want. This is just a start; tweak the recipe to your forager’s heart’s content.

I also spied some oyster mushrooms feasting on a dead alder tree during my foothills ramble. Though too small to be harvested, I know their zip code and will be back.

Cooks & Clams

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I feel like I’ve just been run through an intensive 10-week cooking class condensed into a single night. My head hurts—and not just because of all those Grand Cru wines brought home by the House Sommelier. The lesson here: Take a couple professional gourmet chefs clamming and you’ll reap the rewards. Not that it felt like work to get to the meal. I’ll take this troop clamming any day.

My foraging pupils were Becky Selengut, aka Chef Reinvented, who teaches cooking classes at PCC, cooks for hire, and is co-author of the Washington Local and Seasonal Cookbook. Her old colleague from the Herbfarm restuarant, Jet Smith, joined us. And completing the trio was Amy Pennington, the gogogreengardener herself, a former lieutenant to Tom Douglas, creator of Urban Garden Share, and no slouch in the kitchen.

Don’t let the fem pink gloves fool you… Most of the conversation simply can’t be re-printed, as I’m trying to run a family-friendly blog here. I’ve been known to let loose some colorful language myself, but these three make drunken sailors sound prim and more than once did I blush in the hot sun.

We started with the oyster beds, which were fully exposed by a low tide that virtually emptied this small bay in south Puget Sound. A few down the hatch and the rest into the bag.

Did I mention the extraordinary sun? After a libation and bit of sunbathing in the beautiful sun, we attacked the clam beds. With one other clammer in sight, we had the pick of the litter. I don’t think I’ve ever raked up a limit in such record time. The clams were practically jumping out of the sand volunteering for Becky’s Grand Plan. Both native littlenecks and non-native Manila clams filled our buckets. The Manilas have short siphons and can be found just an inch or two below gravelly sand, while the natives are just a little deeper, usually three or four inches beneath the surface. On this day we found mostly Manilas—big ones too.

A patch of sea beans (Salicornia sp.) provided the final treat. We munched on them through the day and took home enough for dinner.

Back at the ranch the cooks started working their magic. A few observations:

 

  • Pros work very quickly. I was still polishing off my second glass of rose champagne and the ladies already had three sauces ready to go.
  • Pros don’t get stressed out, certainly not when entertaining at home for such a small number of guests.
  • Pros make it look simple but their hamster-in-a-treadmill brains are forever concocting fiendish new designs to blow the minds of their hapless victims.

Though I’ll do my best to parse the recipes here, please understand that the chefs were working improvisationally throughout and I don’t think I saw a single measuring cup or spoon on the premises. What follows is an approximation, no doubt made murkier by the myriad wines and champagnes making the rounds. (The alcohol, I now realize, is the equivalent of a forager blindfolding his charges before entering a top secret hunting ground.)

Three Sauces

The first sauce was made by steaming a handful of clams in vermouth, shallot, parsley, and thyme. The clams were set aside for the first course and the broth strained into a blender along with some corn, blended, strained, and cooked down to a smooth sauce in a small pot, seasoned, and set aside.

The second sauce was composed simply of a small handful of parsley, blanched for 5 seconds and shocked with cold water, then blended with olive oil and salt into a cohesive oil which was strained and set aside.

The third sauce was made with a dried ancho pepper, reconstituted in warm water, seeded, and blended with tomato paste, olive oil, and salt.

First Course: Pan-Fried Pacific Oysters with Clams in Corn Sauce and Drizzled with Chili and Parsley Oils

That’s what I’m talking about. We’re not in Kansas anymore is right. The oysters were floured, dipped in egg, and dredged in homemade breadcrumbs, then pan-fried in a generous allowance of butter. These got plated in pyramid formations in shallow bowls ladled with the corn sauce, then topped with a garnish of thinly sliced olives and red onion bathed in red vinegar to turn a jaunty fuchsia. Steamed clams and drizzles of chili oil and parsley oil completed the sumptuous picture.

I mean, isn’t that what any of us would do with a few fresh oysters?

Second Course: Cambodian Shellfish Amok

I’ve actually made a dish similar to this, and the beauty is just how simple it is for us normal home cooks to make. My contribution on this night was to scrub the clams, which is kinda important since freshly foraged clams will have slimy stuff on their shells, while Amy scrubbed and de-bearded the mussels. Onions and kaffir lime leaves got sauteed in coconut oil in a big pot with amok powder and Thai bird chilies. Our pile of shellfish, about 140 clams and two-dozen mussels in all, was then dumped into the pot along with a can of coconut milk and steamed. The shellfish hotpot was finished with fresh lime and cilantro, and served with baguettes for dipping up the curry-like broth.

Third Course: Oyster and Sea Bean Succotash with Stir-fried Bok Choy

We finished off the meal with a southern twist, using the bok choy as a bridge from the previous course. Chopped bok choy and onions were stir-fried with diced bacon while the succotash was composed of corn, blanched sea beans, chopped oysters, steamed and chopped carrots, chopped shallots, blanched fava beans, and diced bacon, all of which got sauteed together in bacon grease and butter.

The succotash really got me. I’m rendered helpless in the presence of salty-sweet; a night at the ballpark can’t be fully consummated without a bag of kettle corn, and usually I’ll eat myself right into a barf bag, such is my weakness for salty-sweet. In this case, the sweetness of the corn and carrots married with the saltiness of the oysters and sea beans, while the crispy bacon and fava beans added textural complexity. It was a dish that, on the face of it, looked so easy, and yet its flavor was as good as anything I’ve ever eaten. I watched it happen right before my eyes and still can’t believe how good it was.

And I suppose that’s how I feel about the meal in general. Yeah, I was there to witness it but I couldn’t quite believe my senses. Our Wine Sommelier, April, who came home to this feast after a late night pre-opening party for the Grand Cru Wine Bar over in Bellevue, is one lucky lady.

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

Houston, we have cover art!

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Here it is folks, the Fat of the Land book cover. The book won’t be published until August 30, but it feels a little bit more real now, even if the jacket only exists as pixels on a screen.

Try as we may, pretty much all of us judge books by their covers. Social scientists suggest there are evolutionary reasons for this, since making a snap judgment about a friend or foe was often a decision fraught with life-or-death consequences for our prehistoric ancestors. Like all cliches, there’s a grain of truth at the heart of the book cover trope. I know I’m guilty. One of my favorite books of the year probably wouldn’t have gotten even a cursory flip-through at the bookstore if I hadn’t decided to buy it sight unseen after reading a review.

Happily, I’m pleased with the cover. I like the type fonts and those deep blue cobblestones. The fork is a nice touch, too, and the crab—well, that was my idea. You can’t really go wrong with a crab. Crabs are cool (the ones you eat, that is).

Okay, enough of that. I’ve still got to make a few edits to the first typeset pages and get those in by tomorrow. Then it’s out of my hands forever.

P.S. You can pre-order it now.