Risotto with Fennel and Fennel Frond Pesto

Risotto with Fennel and Fennel Frond Pesto

Olive oil and/or butter

1-2 bulbs fennel, trimmed and thinly sliced lengthwise

Squeeze of lemon juice

Trimmings of fennel stalks – fronds separated from stalks

4-5 cups of chicken or vegetable stock

Fennel fronds

Olive oil

Salt

Clove of garlic (optional)

Pine nuts

½ medium onion, diced

Olive oil and/or butter (about 1 tbsp total)

1 cup Arborio rice

¼ cup white wine

Additional squeeze of lemon (optional)

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Salt and white pepper to taste

Prepare the fennel and the broth. Saute the sliced fennel in the oil or butter over moderate heat, browning it a little. Add a little water, turn the heat down, cover the pot and let the fennel braise. Add a squeeze of lemon and set aside while you make the risotto.

Meanwhile, bring the chicken broth to a boil, add the fennel trimmings (not a lot of fronds) and cook slowly to impart a fennel flavor to the broth.  Or make a vegetable stock using fennel.

Make the pesto. Place fennel fronds in a food processor, Add a little olive oil, salt, a few pine nuts for texture, and garlic if using. Process until it makes a thick pesto.

To make the risotto, saute the onion slowly in the oil and/or butter. Add the rice and stir to coat. Add the white wine and stir to allow it to evaporate. Add 1/3 cup of stock, turn the heat to medium low or low (so it just simmers) and stir until the stock is absorbed. When the liquid is absorbed, add another 1/3 cup of stock, wait until it’s absorbed, stirring occasionally, and then repeat until the rice is tender but still al dente. This process will take about 20-25 minutes.

Add the braised fennel and fennel frond pesto to the risotto, and adjust seasonings.

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The Season’s First Dill Pickles

With the heat wave this last week, my dill flowered and I saw pickling cucumbers at the farmers’ market, so I decided to make the first of the season’s cucumber pickles. I didn’t can them because I am conducting an experiment. When my grandmother canned dill pickles, she added powdered alum, which supposedly keeps them crisp. I have read that grape leaves have the same effect. So I picked a couple of grape leaves and added them to the jar. This is a refrigerator pickle, so I used a light (3:1) ratio of water to vinegar, went light on the salt, and added a clove of green garlic from our CSA, a sprinkling of hot pepper flakes and the dill.

Pack the pickling cukes in a 1 ½ quart jar with a bale (I got about 12 in there), adding 2 grape leaves, 4-6 heads of dill flowers with stems, and a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes. Bring to a boil 4 cups of water, 1 1/3 cup of distilled white vinegar (could use cider vinegar), and 2 tbsp salt, stirring until the salt dissolves.  Pour over the pickles and set the jar aside until cool. Refrigerate tightly sealed. The pickles will be ready in about two weeks.

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Cherries and Berries and a Couple of Sorbets

I’m posting this now because this past weekend – Fathers’ Day – is when the cherries are usually ready for picking at our local orchard. This year, everything is about three weeks ahead of schedule, and instead of following the strawberries, cherries were ripe at the same time. The orchard grows over a dozen different kinds of cherries, under “tents” that keep the birds away, and it’s a visual and well as culinary treat to sample some of each.

The early season caught me off guard, and I didn’t make the most of the cherry harvest for preserving.  But did get to make both cherry and strawberry sorbet. There’s enough body in the fruit to keep the sorbet from becoming too icy, but I added a little kirschwasser to each to forestall the ice and perk the flavor.  This is a pretty standard formula for fruit sorbet around here, inspired by the inimitable David Lebowitz’s book The Perfect Scoop.

Strawberry Sorbet

I quart strawberries, hulled and sliced

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp kirsch

Macerate the strawberries in the sugar, lemon juice and kirsch for an hour or so, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Puree in a food processor and chill well. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Cherry Sorbet

1quart cherries, pitted

½ cup water

1/3 cup sugar (or a little more, depending on the sweetness of the cherries)

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp kirsch

Cook the cherries with the water, sugar and lemon juice over moderate heat until the cherries are tender, about 10 minutes. Cool. Puree in a food processor. Add the kirsch and chill the mixture well. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

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Young Summer: Rhubarb and Strawberry Spritzers

Pam Corbin’s wonderful book called Preserves, part of the River Cottage handbook series (just published in an American version called The River Cottage Preserves Handbook), contains a recipe for ‘beena, made from various fruits throughout the season. It’s basically a fruit syrup to which you can add brandy to make a cordial… or in my case…seltzer to make a spritzer.  If you have an abundance of fruit, you can make enough to can. Tigress of Tigress Can Jam made beautiful Rhubeena in Weck jars for the May canning and blogging event. At that point in the season, I was being pretty stingy about the rhubarb, but as more became available after I was satiated with making rhubarb sauce, jam, ketchup, “rhu-barbecue sauce,” and chutney, I made “rhubeena” and then rhubarb butter from the pulp. As it turns out, rhubarb can have a long season! The ‘beena is typically used with fruit that’s past the point of jam-making, so waiting was a good thing.

Since making the syrup is akin to the start of a jelly, I also used strawberry syrup in my spritzers since I had started a jelly-making experiment and didn’t finish it. Both the rhubarb and the strawberry version were very sweet, so cutting them not only with seltzer but also with lime turned out to be a refreshing drink on a hot day at the beginning of summer.

I used the method that Corbin calls for but reduced the amount of sugar in the rhubarb by a lot! She used about about 11/3 cup sugar for every 2 cups of juice and I used 2/3 cup. And we still found it pretty sweet. The strawberry version was closer to her proportions (3:4) since it was originally intended to become jelly, also too sweet for the purpose.

Basically, you cook a pound of rhubarb (4 cups cut up) or strawberries (about a quart) in 3 tbsp of water per pound of fruit and cook gently until the juices are flowing, mashing the fruit as it cooks to release the juice. This can take 10 minutes or less for strawberries or longer for rhubarb. I cooked the rhubarb for about 30 minutes and kept it covered to preserve the juice instead of evaporating it. The mixture was then placed gently into a jelly bag and left to drip overnight. The next day, sugar in the proportions mentioned above was added and the mixture gently heated to dissolve it. That’s it.

This can be kept in the refrigerator or canned using a water bath method. Ours disappeared in a matter of hours.

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Pickled Broccoli Stems

The stems of broccoli are as great as the florets but because of their different consistencies, some people don’t see how to use them together unless the head is cut lengthwise into slim slices so that the tops and bottoms cook at the same rate. I often cook the tops and stems separately and then combine them, as in broccoli salad, or broccoli pesto on pasta. Having come back from our CSA farm last week with 12 heads of broccoli – yikes – but having a bunch of family folk here over the weekend, we had a kind of broccoli-fest. Not overtly a fest but a large batch of soup (separate post) and pickles and a large “salad.”

Pickled broccoli stems have been all over the net for a year, in my world seen mostly in The New York Times. I experimented with two ways of making these fresh pickles, which are ready to eat in a matter of hours.  In both batches, I trimmed the thick outer skin, and cut the stalks into matchsticks of about ¼ inch or less square by 1½ inches long.

I salted one batch (Martha Rose Schulman, NYT) and let it sit for a couple of hours to draw out the excess moisture, then dressed it with a vinaigrette of sherry wine vinegar, olive oil and minced garlic, letting it sit for another half hour or more before serving. It would definitely last longer but not in our house.

For the other batch (Molly O’Neill, NYT), I blanched the broccoli matchsticks in salted boiling water for a minute. Then I combined them with rice vinegar, crushed coriander seed, cumin seed, and pink peppercorns (newly re-discovered) or red pepper flakes, (she used a red chili), minced garlic and salt.

They were different but both great.

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Curried Broccoli Soup

This soup is similar to the curried asparagus soup that I posted a while ago but includes potato to create a creamy texture without using dairy.  Although I sometimes make a soup like this with chicken broth, I respected the vegetarians among us and made it with water. I didn’t think ahead enough to make vegetable broth. The addition of highly flavored onions provided the spunk that made this potage really delicious. At the end, I added freshly cooked broccoli florets and the little beads that make up the florets to spark things up.  There’s no strict requirement here so you have to tune it as you go.

Curried Broccoli Soup

3-4 heads broccoli

2 medium onions, sliced in half crosswise and then lengthwise, making moon-shaped slices

1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil

2 tsp hot curry powder (or regular curry powder and ½ tsp cayenne powder)

2 medium white or yellow potatoes, peeled and cubed

Water or vegetable broth

Salt

Prepare the broccoli. Separate the stalks from the florets, reserving the little beads that fall off of the florets and a few florets to parboil for garnish. Peel the stems and chop them into ¾-inch pieces.

Heat the oil in a large pot and add the onions, cooking over medium low heat until translucent. Add the curry powder to combine, cooking for a few minutes. Reserve a few onions for a later garnish, adding a little cayenne to them. Add the broccoli stems and potatoes to the pot and stir to coat with the curry mixture. Add water or broth (start with a relatively small amount and add more if needed, bring to a boil and then simmer until the broccoli stems are crisp-tender. Add the broccoli florets (except for those set aside for garnish) and continue to cook until the vegetables are soft.

Puree in a food processor and season to taste. Parboil the served broccoli florets and serve them as garnish along with the broccoli beads and the reserved onions.

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Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam with Cardamom

When I was reading about cooking with currants in Edible Portland, I spotted a recipe for strawberry-rhubarb jam with cardamom, submitted by Janie Hibler. While I didn’t follow the recipe, I took the suggestion about adding cardamom to this classic fruit combination and it was great. I was lucky to have scooped up both rhubarb and strawberries — the last of the season – at the farmers’ market so I was in business. I made only a very small batch but this would be a recipe to repeat for gift giving. The cardamom imparts a spicy, almost smoky taste, which will be good for the year-end holidays.

I was worried about having to cook this too long so I added a small bag of lemon seeds and the juice of a lemon to the macerating fruit. I don’t know if that helped develop the gel (or if it just came from the sugar or rhubarb) but it set up quickly. I also added crushed cardamom seeds (the little black ones inside the hulls, not the hulls) in cheesecloth, which flavored the liquid. A small amount of purchased ground cardamom could be added instead, but keep it under a half teaspoonful.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam with Cardamom

3 stalks, about ½ lb, rhubarb, trimmed and cut into small slices (2 cups)

1 qt strawberries, hulled and sliced (3 cups)

2 cups sugar

Juice of 1 lemon, seeds reserved and tied in a cheesecloth pouch

6-8 cardamom pods, hulled and seeds crushed and tied in a cheesecloth pouch (or scant ½ tsp ground cardamom)

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and let macerate for about 3 hours, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Prepare canning jars and lids. Place fruit and its syrup in a large saucepan and bring to a boil, cooking to the gel point (220 degrees or until a droplet gels when tested on a cold plate). Process in a water bath canner, boiling for 10 minutes. Remove lid and turn off heat, let set for 5 minutes and then remove to sit undisturbed for a day. Makes 3 half pints.

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Currant-Strawberry Jam

I have had a love-hate relationship with strawberry jam from the beginning of my canning career. Strawberry jam ranks up there with tomato sauce as the most-canned produce item in the history of my pantry. While tomatoes have never let me down, I’ve been all over the block with strawberries. But now I have a new secret ingredient: currants. The day that I went to pick strawberries (which I prefer doing since I can pick ones that are not over-ripe and thus better for jam), the farm market was selling red currants, which they grow. I decided to make this for the June Tigress Can Jam, which is all about berries.

Homegrown red currants are not so available around here so I buy them when I can. I knew they are high in pectin content and would be a good buddy for the strawberries. With the extra boost of pectin, I could cut down on the cooking time and preserve the fresh bright flavor of the strawberries. It worked! This gelled in less than10 minutes of cooking time and made a jam that is bright, flavorful and “clean” tasting.

I could have added the whole currants to the strawberries but I was concerned about the knotty little seeds, so I looked up a technique written by Harriet Fasenfest of The Preserve, a cooking school in Portland, Oregon devoted to preserving; it was published in an issue of the Edible Portland magazine. (It’s interesting to read her mission and her point of view on the Preserve website, http://www.portlandpreserve.com.) She also makes apple pectin extract similar to one that I found in an old preserving book that I purchased in a second hand bookstore last month and was already in the middle of an experiment. More on that later.)

For the jam, boil the currants in a little water (like making cranberry sauce) until they burst, let them sit until cool (or longer, as I did, so as to develop the pectin), then strain them to remove the seeds. The result is a concentrated currant mixture that I added to the strawberries, using the typical 3:4 ratio of sugar to fruit. While I had only a small amount of currants available, I could well imagine doubling the amount.

Currant-Strawberry Jam with thanks to Harriet Fasenfest, The Preserve

¼ pint red currants, stemmed (1 cup)

½ cup water (or half the measure of the currants)

1+ quart strawberries, sliced (4 cups)

3 cups sugar (or ¾ of the measure of the berries)

Place the currants and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil and continue cooking until the currants burst. Turn off the stove and let them cool for a couple of hours to develop the pectin. Push them through a sieve to remove the seeds and set the liquid aside.

Meanwhile, combine the sliced strawberries with the sugar and let them macerate for several hours, or overnight, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar.

Prepare the canning jars and lids. Combine the strawberries and currant mixtures and cook over high heat until the gel point has been reached (220 degrees F but test on a cold plate). Process in water bath canner for 10 minutes once the water returns to a boil. After 10 minutes, remove the lid, turn off the heat and let sit for five minutes before removing to let sit undisturbed for a day.

Makes 3-4 half-pints.

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Peas and Fennel

I was excited to get fennel from our CSA early in the season. In past years, the farmers have grown it late and it’s been a little tough. Unlike what you see at the grocery store, which is trimmed (for good reason), this fennel is about 30 inches high, with tons of fronds and a smallish but delicate bulb, We’ve been eating it raw, thinly sliced, as part of salad, but here I lightly braised fennel slices and combined them with snap peas from our garden. Simply prepared, this brings out the best of cooking and eating with the seasons.

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Peas-in-Pods Potato Salad

The amiable heirloom golden sweet snow peas from India that I planted in my pot garden have finally peaked and are now fully harvested. With a quick hot spell that saw arugula start to bolt and peas forming in the snow pea pods, I was worried that these little gems would toughen, especially since the advice from Pinetree Seeds was to harvest them while small. However, the thinness of the outer wrapping and the gentle nature of these nutty-tasting peas made them just as perfect when over-ripe as when they first arrived a few weeks ago. I would never guess they weren’t saved to be eaten at that stage!

We quickly parboiled the peas in their pods, sprinkled them with olive oil and salt and then tossed them into steamed yellow potatoes that had been doused with white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and herbs. Then I tossed in a few pea shoots, which is now all that is left to eat on these plants. This was a great summery potato salad.

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