Cook the Books: Tender, A Cook and his Vegetable Patch

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month.  The selection for May is Nigel Slater’s Tender, A Cook and his Vegetable Patch.

Nigel Slater is right to be poetic about his vegetable patch. He understands that obtaining vegetables from the places where they grow changes your relationship with food. It also changes your relationship with the earth. You’re immediately more aware of seasons and how local microclimate affects what grows and how well. This in turn informs the food that you prepare for yourself, your family, and your friends. And it affects your attitude, likely your health.  I personally think this is a big deal.  Many of us are extraordinarily fortunate to have choices to make about our food, and I am pretty clear on my priorities.

I am devoted to the organic CSA farm we’ve belonged to for years, especially during months when we go to the fields and pick our own vegetables, fruits and flowers. It’s amazing, for example, to become lost in a forest of okra with beautiful creamy hibiscus-like flowers and prickly leaves and seeing how the small part we eat actually grows. I routinely make the rounds of local farms that sell their produce, whether fruit, vegetables, meat or eggs, and come to know the farmers as well as their livestock. Not to mention my penchant for stalking favorite farmers markets and pick-your-own farms, and foraging in woods and fields, or even my “lawn.”

Most of all, however, my kitchen garden is a daily source of sustenance, both physical and inspirational. As Nigel Slater says, the fruits and vegetable of the garden have “signaled an important, life-enhancing new order” in the kitchen so that “the delight in food (extends) far beyond what is on the plate.” That delight truly blossoms in your own garden. I’ve had a kitchen garden for as long as I can remember, certainly growing up in a rural area, and then improvising as I struck out on my own. Sometimes, my garden was a pot of herbs on a fire escape or, later, many pots in a courtyard. Other times it has been an ambitious conversion of a former lawn, and now it’s both, minus the fire escape. I grow enough quantity and variety to feed us sustainably, and since we use organic methods, we are restoring and regenerating our little plot. Bonus.

I was therefore very excited when Nigel published Tender, a chronicle of his garden’s vegetables, and then a second chunky door-stopper of a volume, Ripe, which focuses on fruit. (You could retire your hand-held barbells with these guys.) Before this month’s challenge, I’d read every chapter of Tender, had focused on the accounts of his garden (which I covet) but had only casually dipped into his endless lists. I had barely read the recipes. I’m an avid fan of Nigel’s work. I faithfully read his online column in The Guardian, and keep Appetite, one of his previous books, within short reach. The premise of Appetite revolves around combinations of ingredients and techniques that give the cook self-confidence not to rely on recipes (even though his recipes are very instructive and delicious). It’s a treasure trove of ideas. And so is Tender.

Once I decided to “cook the book” (since that’s the point of this adventure), I first found myself consulting his lists in the sections of each vegetable chapter labeled “Seasoning…” and “And…” as well as the introductory narratives. So many good ideas! That’s how we ended up with sliced beets and cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel. Really. And a salad of beets and apples sprinkled with walnut oil and nuts. (Page 043)  Same with chard braised in heavy cream with a tad of mustard. (Pages 181-182)

As for the recipes, I opted to cook only what’s in season here, which is a little limiting in mid-May, but includes asparagus, fava beans, leeks, green onions, kale, chard, and herbs such as tarragon and mint, all from my garden or local farms. I also used storage beets from last season’s CSA harvest, which we just can’t seem to finish. Aargh.

Of the recipes, I first made Nigel’s delicious Pilaf of Asparagus, Fava Beans and Mint (Page 032), which includes a minty yogurt sauce that should not be omitted. The rice, rinsed three times before cooking, cooks up light and fluffy. The vaguely Indian spices, including cinnamon, cardamom and cumin, along with bay and thyme, provide an alluring backdrop that surprisingly complements the freshly cooked spring medley. I didn’t peel the fava beans since they were so tender, but you could. This rice dish is derived from a similar recipe in Appetite. He just added veggies for Tender.

A Chowder of Mussels and Leeks (Page 289) was outstanding. I share Nigel’s notion that onions have an awkward relationship with fish, and so leeks are more successful.  Based on the taste and texture of this chowder, there’s no doubt about it.  I drastically diminished the amount of bacon, butter and heavy cream in Nigel’s recipe, which improved it for my taste and waist. I thought that, throughout the book, there were more bacon, butter and cream ingredients than I would ever want.  Of the 29 chapters featuring individual vegetables, 20 used bacon, 24 used butter, 20 used heavy cream and 26 used cheese. Holy cholesterol. Despite that, I did make a version of Spring Leeks, Fava Beans and Bacon (Page 296) but cut down on the pig.

Kale with Golden Raisins and Onions (Page 279) is a riff on a Mediterranean classic made with chard and also features blood oranges and capers, which I thought were terrific complements. I make kale salad with oranges all the time and the combination was as good hot as cold. I served this by itself, and also with whole-wheat pasta and chickpeas. I’m usually on a roll with Red Russian flat-leaved kale at this time of year because it overwinters in my garden under mounds of fall leaves and wakes up to produce big bushy plants with the most tender greens imaginable. They’re delicate and sweet like lettuce and have none of the leathery texture of mature plants. Sorry, Nigel, I think kale in July is just fine, and it lives in my garden year-round, as does chard.

Appetite contains one of my favorite Nigel Slater recipes, which he entitles “really, juicy spicy meatballs.”  Made with ground pork, bacon (ha!), lemongrass or lime leaves, garlic, hot peppers and cilantro, these little buggers fry up into the most delectable crusty morsels. Therefore, Chicken Broth with Pork and Kale (Page 281) was definitely on my list. No bacon in this one, thankfully, but plenty of hot chiles (from my garden, brought indoors in pots during winter), garlic, green onions (from the farmers’ market). I halved the meatballs in the recipe because we typically eat much less meat than others, and because I wanted some ground pork left over to make the meatballs from Appetite. Both were outstanding.

I know this is a ridiculously long post, but there’s one more observation I want to make about this book: it screams “Editor,” and “Market.”  A few years ago, I put together a book (on design not on cooking) that we shopped to publishers. The creative geniuses behind Mile End Cookbook were the producers and I loved every minute of working with them.  In meeting after meeting with editors and publishers, I got feedback like this: make a chunky book, or one that has an unusual proportion; combine personal stories with information; have “process” or “how to” sections; make lists; organize chronologically, alphabetically or seasonally but make inserts that break things up; use callouts; make it graphically interesting (more important for our book than this, but something I care about); and so on.  In Tender, there are also telltale editorial signs like must-have chapters on vegetables Nigel doesn’t grow successfully or at all. And recipes recycled from other books. What I’m saying is that Tender and Ripe feel contrived: hastily prepared crossovers between memoir and a hodge-podge instruction manual. I’m not disappointed, not at all. However, I am just not convinced that a personal encyclopedia of ideas that just pop into your head or your text or those of your editors, is a great genre. Nonetheless, as Jamie Oliver says on the cover of Appetite, “Nigel Slater is a genius.” His books have a permanent place on my favored shelves since they’re so chock full of great ideas and indomitable passion for food, gardening and quality of life.

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Cook the Books: The Mile End Cookbook

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month. This month’s selection is The Mile End Cookbook by Noah and Rae Bernamoff.

It was about the pickles, or so he said. Handing me a Christmas present, he proclaimed that this book was “up my alley” since everything was made from scratch. He frequents the Mile End restaurant in Brooklyn, and I said that I would cook for him from the book if he would promise a trip. “To Montreal?” he asked, knowing that we’d been there many times, and that a childhood friend, now a writer, chronicles Jewish life in that community. No, I meant to New York, to the original restaurant in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn or to the new ‘branch’ in NoHo. I was hoping to take the field trip this month, but work and school and obligatory events have interfered, so all I have is the book. For now.  I was pleased that Meg and Briggs chose this volume for our monthly cook-along, since I finally stopped procrastinating. Most of the dishes I wanted to try are real productions, taking place over days, and sometimes weeks. I followed three paths through the book: the pantry, invented traditions and nostalgia.

THE PANTRY. My exploration of the book back in December started with a riddle. Question: When is a teaspoon not a teaspoon? Answer: When it is Kosher salt. Besides thinking that the dishes in the book are too salty to start with, I was quite aware of the pitfalls of Kosher salt. It’s not all processed the same way, so crystals vary in size, weight and sodium content. Consider this: ¼ teaspoon of Morton’s Kosher Salt weighs 1.2 grams and contains 480 mg of sodium, and the same ¼ tsp of David’s Kosher Salt weighs 1.5 grams and contains 590 mg of sodium. Per ¼ teaspoon, the salt that Mile End recommends, Diamond Crystal, weighs 0.7 grams and contains 280 mg of sodium. That’s roughly half of the other two! Wow, that could blow your recipe (or your blood pressure).  I have no way to prove this, but I believe that Diamond Crystal used to have larger granules and therefore was even less salty than it is now. (The restaurant might even be using a coarser grind. I will sleuth it out when I go.)

I made a batch of Vegetable Pickling Brine (page 64) in December and used it for Pickled Beets (page 72).  Although I didn’t remark on the saltiness at the time, I later realized I should cut it in half. When the summer vegetables that the Bernamoffs pickled become available, I’ll try this section of the book again, but with reduced sodium.    

INVENTED TRADITIONS. I like the way the restaurant and cookbook invent new traditions. For example, in honor of their origins in Montreal, the Bernamoffs created a brunch dish they call the Mont Royal (page 101), which combines the simplicity of lox with potato latkes, regrettably often reserved for Hanukkah and now revived for everyday.  The combination was superb, especially the contrast between the sleek fish and the crispy edges and creamy centers of the latkes topped with crème fraiche and chopped chives.

Over five days, I cured a fatty piece of sustainably farmed salmon in salt, sugar, peppercorns and dill. The fish mixture was drained and restarted every day until the last, when it air-dried in the refrigerator. The fat’s the key since it transports the salt mixture to the core of the fish, producing delectable Lox (page 56). I scrimped a little on the salt with no ill effect. The Potato Latkes (page 168), made much smaller than the generous Mont Royal, were just right, and better than the potato pancakes I’ve been making. Must be the matzo meal and the abundance of chopped chives in the batter.  This is a keeper.

NOSTALGIA. Among the premises of Mile End – the restaurant and the book – are to re-create for today traditional Jewish food of the past, to demystify made-from-scratch ingredients or dishes, and simply to produce at home the comfort food of a damn good deli.  While the gift of the book was inspired by pickles, my own excitement focused on Beef on Weck (page 128). This sandwich epitomizes the comfort food of my youth in Western New York. It’s my Proustian madeleine, the trigger to memories of picnics and parties and family gatherings. There’s something special about the way the Kummelweck Roll (pages 182-83), a kaiser roll showered with caraway (kummel) seeds and coarse salt, interacts with minimally flavored Roast Beef (page 41) and pungent Pickled Horseradish (pages 86-87). It’s the combination that works, since the crunchy-topped roll, lightly toasted, soaks up Beef Jus (pages 92-93) in the soft center. The combination of ingredients creates a memorable explosion of taste and texture.

My family was in shock. How could something this simple taste so complex? As the person preparing it over a couple weeks’ time, I was thinking the opposite. How many steps and preps did it take me to get to simple sandwich bliss?  A bunch. The beef stock that was turned into jus took one full day and an overnight, but produced the most delicious beef stock I’ve ever made. Since I make beef stock only once a year, the investment was worth it since I had several quarts to add to the freezer. New favorite.

The rolls too needed a sleepover in the fridge and some patient periods to rise, but they were an awesome sight as they emerged from the oven. Mile End twists the dough into a pretzel-like Kaiser shape, but my memory recalls kummelweck rolls with quartered creases. I therefore made a couple where I sunk a dowel (handle of a wooden spoon) into the dough until it hit bottom, repeated it turned at 90 degrees, and scrunched the dough back together. Definitely, that’s the one. Like challah bread, Mile End’s version of the kaiser roll included egg, which gave the bread a good crumb, but I doubt that the weck rolls of my past had an egg in them. No matter. These were amazing.I just happened to be in Western New York last week on a business trip and saw beef on weck on a sandwich menu, served on some version of ciabatta that was sprinkled with caraway seeds and salt. I was tempted for one second to order it, but I resisted, knowing that I would be going home to make my own, more authentic version in the best deli tradition of Mile End.

There will be more kitchen experiments forthcoming from this volume. Even so, I’m holding out for smoked meat when I finally get my trip to the restaurant …this spring?

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Pickled Beets from the Mile End

The Jewish cookbook that I received for Christmas (ha) is coming in handy. Written by Noah and Rae Bernamoff, the Mile End Cookbook claims to redefine Jewish food just as the Brooklyn delicatessen of the same name has become a haven for those who crave a modern approach to traditional dishes. The gift-giver thought of me, he said, because of my propensity to pickle or otherwise preserve for the pantry all kinds of fresh and typically organic produce of whatever persuasion: fruits and vegetables for sure but also poultry, meat and fish.  I might have to cook my way through this book, and there are a few recipes (like the Kummelweck Rolls of my childhood) that particularly beckon. 

Off the bat, I liked how the authors make a large batch of generic vegetable pickling liquid that they store at room temperature for up to 2 months, dipping into it as needed for a particular dish.  Seasonings are added according to the individual recipe. I am planning to make Finnan Haddie (poached smoked haddock) for New Year’s with pickled beets as an accompaniment.  They make a great pair.  The sweet-tart flavor of the earthy beets perfectly offsets the creamy smoky fish. 

Although I made less of both the brine and the beets than the recipes called for, I maintained the proportions so that I could evaluate the results. Though next time I would diminish the amount of allspice in the beets, everything else was spot on. I made this with “Cylindra” beets from my garden. I happen to use the Diamond Crystal kosher salt that the Bernamoffs call for. If you use another brand, like Morton’s, google the conversion factor since the difference in grain size significantly alters the salt content.  

Pickled Beets, adapted from the Mile End Cookbook

1½ lb red beets, peeled and cut into ½-inch chunks

1½ tsp whole allspice berries (or less to taste)

1 large bay leaf (the recipe called for fresh but I used dried)

4 sprigs of thyme

1½ tsp black peppercorns

Vegetable Pickling Liquid (see below I need about 5-6 cups)

Place the beets and seasonings in a saucepan and add enough pickling liquid to cover the ingredients by about 1 inch. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan, and cook over low heat until the beets are just fork-tender, 30-45 minutes. Let the beets cool completely before storing them in their brine in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They will keep for about 6 months.

Mile End Cookbook’s Vegetable Pickling Brine

7 tbsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt

5 tbsp sugar

1½ c plus 2 c water

1½ c cider vinegar

1½ c plus 2 tbsp distilled white vinegar

Heat the salt, sugar and 1½ c water in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring, until thee salt and sugar crystals are fully dissolved and the liquid is clear. Remove from the heat and add the remaining water and the vinegar. Allow the brine to cool completely before storing in a covered container at room temperature, for up to 2 months.

Makes about 3 quarts.

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Gingered Beet Salad

This started out labeled as chutney, and no one knew how to eat it. Meaning what would that spicy condiment accompany? Pork or chicken satay maybe, served alongside a cucumber raita? What made it chutney, I suppose, was the diminutive dice, 1/8 inch max. And the even tinier cubes of hot green pepper and ginger.  Doused with a little red wine vinegar and a squeeze of lime juice, this is a delicious concoction that I used to serve up at picnics, until it baffled our guests. 

So this year, it dawned on me that there was nothing precious about the size of the diced beets. Dice them larger (3/8 to ½ inch), toss them with the same spicy dressing and some snippets of cilantro, and voilà, a beet salad anyone would recognize. It’s a great alternative to the ubiquitous diced beets with balsamic vinegar since each bite is surprisingly refreshing because of the restorative character of fresh ginger.  It makes a great addition to a picnic buffet since the beets can be roasted well in advance. And even after being dressed, it keeps well for a few days. If making it early, add the cilantro just before serving.

Gingered Beet Salad (or Chutney), adapted from Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Vegetables

4 medium red beets

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger

1 tsp finely chopped jalapeno or Serrano pepper

1 tsp salt

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Pinch of cayenne (a little more if mild)

2 tsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp lime juice

1 tbsp torn cilantro leaves

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the beets in a shallow roasting pan, toss them with olive oil, a splash of water and a little salt. Cover the pan tightly with foil and roast the beets until tender, 30-60 minutes depending on the age and size of the beets. Cool them, peel them and cut them into ½-inch dice for a salad, or 1/8-inch for chutney.

Combine the beets with the ginger, pepper and seasonings, and toss with vinegar and lime juice. Taste and adjust for salt, vinegar and spiciness.

Toss with cilantro just before serving. Leave the leaves whole or torn into large pieces if serving this as a salad. Mince the cilantro if using as chutney.

Serves 3-4 as a salad, and 6 as chutney.

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Waste Not Want Not: Beet Stem Broth for Summer Onion Soup, and Beet Soup with Tarragon Cream

I discovered a new vegetable broth, my latest “favorite.” Made with the red stems of beets and the greens of leeks or spring onions, it has all the flavor and color of a light beef stock but it’s entirely vegetarian. Lightly salted, it could pass for consommé. In fact, I tried it out on a few family members who agreed with me. Making vegetable broth is a cinch. I tend to use complementary ingredients, things that might work together in a stew, and then not too many. Here I washed and chopped the stems from a couple of bunches of fresh organic red beets and cut the dark green tops off of two small leeks, washing them well and chopping them coarsely. Covered with salted water two times the depth of the vegetables, the mixture cooked for about 30-40 minutes.  It keeps, refrigerated, for a week or so, which allowed me to make two soups with it.

Our CSA distributed four pounds of large torpedo onions that were light red, juicy and not too pungent They were not suitable for storage and should be refrigerated and used in a couple of weeks. They were perfect, light companions for the beet stem broth and made a terrific light and flavorful summer onion soup. I used two large onions and about two cups of broth. To prepare the onions for soup, cut them in half vertically and then slice them thinly crosswise. Place a combination of butter and oil in a saucepan and slowly cook the onions until they collapse and start to brown, about 20-30 minutes. Stir them occasionally. Be careful to keep the heat low enough so that the onions do not burn. (If you were using yellow storage onions, add a pinch or two of sugar to caramelize them at the end. These onions were sweet so they didn’t need sugar.) Add the broth and cook for another 20 minutes. Serve with cheese toasts. By the way, you could make the vegetable broth in the length of time it takes to cook the onions.

The second soup used two large beets from the weekly CSA haul, combined with a large reddish torpedo onion and the beet stem broth. I served the soup both hot and cold, like a summer-time borscht, marbled with a delicious tarragon cream. To make the soup, cook 1 large diced onion in a little butter and olive oil until translucent and add 2 large diced cooked beets (or grated fresh beets) and broth. If using cooked beets, you will need about 2 cups of broth; for raw beets, the cooking time will be longer so use more broth, about 2½ cups.  Cook until very tender, 30 minutes or so, and puree with an immersion blender or food processor. 

For the tarragon cream, fold snipped fresh tarragon into sour cream and let it sit for 15 minutes. Add a little tarragon vinegar (or white wine or cider vinegar) to thin it. Stir it into the soup or add a dollop on top. 

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Dark Days 18: Oxtail Stock and Borscht

A continuing series on weekly meals that use sustainable, organic, local and ethical food during the challenging winter months. For more information, go here to the DDC section of Not Dabbling in Normal’s website: Dark Days Challenge.

In which I discover a new meat stock, which promises to be as versatile as it is delicious…

I don’t know what got into me when I bought oxtails from a local organic dairy farm. I bought only a pound, three slices of varied sizes. It takes a while to make this stock, though it’s mostly untended, but in order to get enough meat for a meal, you probably need about 4 pounds. That’s what most recipes call for if you’re serving about four adults. I went back to the farm for more but they had sold out for the season. As it turned out, it didn’t matter, since I parlayed my three little pieces into 2+ quarts of delicious stock using only local organic raw ingredients, local wine and homemade chicken stock. And the meat that I harvested was plenty for my purpose: delicious beet and beef borscht.

My approach to this traditional stew is not authentic, I’m sure, but I really don’t know what is authentic since dishes like this are generic and personal at the same time. Since the oxtail stock was incredibly flavorful, I wanted it to shine through. So I cooked grated beets in the stock and prepared the other ingredients separately, combining them and the shredded oxtail meat at the end. This approach gave a freshness to the dish that’s appropriate to the warming season.  During the dark days, green garnishes are hard to come by, except for the beginning of spring when we can forage bittercress from the lawn and garden. So that’s what I sprinkled on top. We ate this for a few days in a row and it got better and better.

Borscht

3 medium-large beets

1 medium onion, chopped

Vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, minced

6 c liquid, combination of 4 c meat stock and 2 c water (see below for oxtail stock)

2 waxy potatoes

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

2 c sliced cabbage

Meat from oxtails (amount variable)

Optional herb garnish

Grate the beets and set aside. Slowly cook the chopped onion in vegetable oil until soft. Add the garlic and cook until the garlic becomes aromatic. Add the grated beets to the pot and stir to combine. Add the liquid, bring to a boil and simmer for about 25 minutes or until the beets are tender.

Meanwhile, place the potatoes in a pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and lightly boil the potatoes until tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the potatoes to cool and add the carrots, cooking them until crisp-tender. Drain and reserve the carrots. Cube the cooked potatoes.

Saute the cabbage in a little vegetable oil, browning it lightly. Add a little liquid from the beet mixture, cover the pan and let the cabbage cook until crisp tender.

Just before serving, combine all of the ingredients and cook for about 5 minutes to combine flavors. Serve garnished with optional herbs.

Oxtail Stock (for 2 quarts)

1 lb oxtails

2 carrots, cut into 3” pieces

1/2 c peeled celeriac cubes

1/3 c white wine

1 onion, quartered

4 c chicken stock

Water (about 3 cups)

1 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Slice some of the outer fat from the oxtail. Render the fat in a small, heavy Dutch oven (e.g., Le Creuset enameled cast iron covered pot) over medium low heat. Add the oxtails to the pot in one layer and sear them over medium to medium-high heat, to brown them on all sides. Turn down the heat if the fat starts to burn. The browning process will take about 20 minutes in total. About halfway through, add the carrots and celeriac to the pot and brown them also.

When the meat and vegetables are browned, remove them to a plate and pour off excess fat. Deglaze the pan with white wine and let it cook down a minute. Return the meat and vegetables to the pot, add the onion, and pour in the stock, water and salt. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover the pot with foil and place the lid on top, taking care to seal the pot well. Place the pot in the oven for 10 minutes at 300 degrees. Turn the heat down to 225 degrees and cook for 2 hours. Check the pot occasionally to make sure that the liquid is not boiling.

Remove the pot from the oven and set it aside to cool. When cool, refrigerate the stock. Remove any fat that solidifies on top before using.

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Cooking with Color: Tomato-Calendula Salad and Blue Potatoes with Beets

Okay, I admit that I play with my food. I love compositions and juxtapositions on multiple levels — color, taste, texture, size, cut and so on – with intuitive, spontaneous, of-the-moment combinations of ingredients on hand. Summer’s bounty provides a wide palette, a basketful of opportunities to compose. There are amazing chefs throughout the world who’ve made their reputations on this technique (think of Michael Bras and his signature salad of micro greens, mini veggies and flowers). I love that stuff but I’m usually feeding a different crowd and have more limited means. I can be artful but informal enough to avoid the look I call “contrived casual.”  (Since my photos are taken quickly, full frame and with available light, they definitely are casual and immediate. Like the food. Always room for improvement if I would take the time.)

 On Saturday mornings, I go to our CSA farm to pick up the week’s allotment and frequent the local farmers and farmers’ markets. Some produce gets bagged and refrigerated pronto but inevitably, I have little still life compositions of flowers and fruit and vegetables all over the house, at least for a day or two. That’s the inspiration for cooking with color. Sometimes, I find myself combining colorful combinations: green broccoli with yellow squash, purple onions and red peppers. Or yellow peppers, green and white cucumbers, and dark red beets. Here, however, two days in a row, I had the inclination to stay within a color palette. 

First I composed young “blue” potatoes and dark red beets, each cut similarly, steamed, dressed lightly in olive oil and homemade tarragon vinegar, and sprinkled with tarragon leaves. Then delicious sweet yellow-orange cherry tomatoes halves, combined with tiny cubes of mozzarella, dressed in olive oil and salt, and garnished with the diminutive leaves of spicy globe basil and (yes they’re edible) calendula flowers. Both dishes were pretty and despite the similar colors, the ingredients had a contrasting burst of taste that was good, very very good.

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Roots Stew with Cabbage and Dill Seed

The Spice Rack Challenge this month features dill, in honor of the coming spring season. The challenge in general is supposed to focus on dried ingredients. However, I like dill as an herb only in its fresh form but appreciate its dried seeds as a spice. Seasonings are often lumped together colloquially as “spice,” but actually, herbs and spices come from different parts of a plant and are cooked differently. Herbs represent the green parts: leaves and stems. Spices are from the woodier sections of plants, such as: seeds (cumin), mature flowers (star anise), bark (cinnamon) and roots (ginger). Because they are tender, herbs are typically, though not always, added toward the end of cooking so that their flavor is still present. Spices, whether ground in combinations like curries or whole like cumin seed, are added to the oil- or fat-based sauté of aromatic ingredients such as onions and garlic or thrown in the pot with the liquid early in the game.  

I preserve fresh dill in the freezer ground up as pesto, little logs wrapped in plastic and then paper, squeezed out and chopped off as needed. Dried dill weed does nothing for me, even when I tried it for a garnish for my stew by reconstituting it several ways — in sour cream, water and vinegar. No luck.  As dead as a batch of sweeping compound.  However, I was able to take advantage of last summer’s excellent dill vinegar, another way to preserve herbs.

So, it turned out coincidentally (or not… brilliant thinking on the part of Mother’s kitchen?), this was a perfect, full-revolution weekend for dill seed.  I planted some in my pot garden and used some in a stew of various roots – kohlrabi, potatoes, carrots and Chioggia beets — yet another attempt to thin the refrigerator and cellar before new crops arrive. I sparked up the stew with dill vinegar preserved in the summer. 

While I typically make some version of this as a soup, I decided to try a stew in order to maximize the spicy effect of dill seed. I added it to the initial sauté, a move I wouldn’t make with its cousin caraway, which tends to become bitter when cooked for a long time. (I add caraway at the end.) The dill seed was a perfect complement to this vaguely Viennese vegetable mix.

Roots Stew with Cabbage and Dill Seed

2 tbsp butter or vegetable oil

1 large or 2 small leeks, cleaned and finely diced (or use 1 small onion)

2 carrots, peeled and cut into ¼-1/3 inch cubes

3 kohlrabi, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1 large or 2 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1 tbsp dill seeds

Approximately 2 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade

¼ small savoy cabbage, cored and shredded

3 medium Chioggia beets, steamed and cut into1/2-inch cubes

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp dill vinegar

Optional finish (omit the vinegar above)

½ sour cream

1 tbsp red wine or dill vinegar

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Dark Days Week 13: Local Borscht

Borscht, hailing from the Ukraine and widely served throughout Eastern Europe, is perfect for the dark days of winter. As with the stuffed cabbage that I made earlier in this series, I like the idea of cooking food from regions that experience winter the way we do.  This was easy to make from local organic ingredients, which included beef responsibly raised on organic pastureland, carrots, beets and cabbage overwintered from our CSA harvest, tomato puree and parsley that I froze in the fall, and local onions and carrots. I added non-local but organic red wine vinegar.

This was the ultimate slow food. I started by making a great beef stock from roasted bones and back ribs on one weekend and the borscht on another weekend.  For the stock, I browned the bones in the oven at 400 degrees for about an hour, turning them part way through and then cooked them in a pot of water with local carrots, onion, celery (I harvested it last fall and still had a few spindly stalks) and parsley stems. The mix never came to a boil and simmered for about 8 hours. After it cooled, I refrigerated it to let the fat coagulate on the surface. Removing the fat, I ended up with several quarts of clear and flavorful stock. By the way, the difference between stock and broth is that stock is made with bones and broth is made without.

I also roasted the beets in advance. Beets are sometimes cooked with the rest of the borscht ingredients, but I like adding them at the end so that they don’t overwhelm the color of everything else. I cooked the borscht very slowly because the meat was very lean, and I couldn’t count on the ingredients all being cooked within the same time. I like this technique, which I believe came from a recipe in the New York Times, because the beef is not browned first.

This is a one-pot meal. It can be garnished with sour cream and dill, but I rather liked the clear brothy version.

Borscht

1 or 1¼ lb stew beef in ¾-inch cubes

2 c best quality beef stock, preferably homemade, for stew or 3 c for soup

I tsp salt (omit if using canned stock)

A few grinds of pepper

1 bay leaf

1 medium onion, diced (about ¾-1 c)

1-2 carrots, diced (about 1 c)

2 medium waxy potatoes, peeled and diced (about 1 – 1 ¼ c)

1 tbsp butter or oil

1 ½ c shredded green cabbage

¼ c chopped parsley

¾ c tomato puree (or sauce without seasonings other than garlic or onion)

¼ c red wine vinegar

4 medium beets, precooked, peeled, and diced

Optional: sour cream and dill or parsley

Place the beef cubes and stock in a saucepan and bring just to a boil, skimming the gray scum that floats to the surface. Turn the heat down and add the salt, pepper, bay leaf, onion, carrots and potatoes. Saute the cabbage and parsley in the butter or oil until lightly browned and add to the saucepan along with the tomato puree and vinegar. Return to a simmer over low heat and cook, partially covered, for about 1 hour. Do not let it boil. Add the beets to warm. Either serve immediately or refrigerate the borscht after it is cooled and remove any fat that has hardened on top before reheating.  Garnish with additional parsley or dill and serve with sour cream, if desired.

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Winter Squash and Beet Salad

I might be getting punchy because of the weather but this little salad really perked me up.  It was pure serendipity, a chance encounter of leftovers, with colors, textures and flavors that worked together and made me smile. The colors reminded me of the magenta and chrome yellow cosmos that my daughter likes to pick at our CSA farm in early spring, a perfect antidote to the grungy snow.

I had lightly cooked cubes of butternut squash with ginger on the counter and cubes of pickled beets in the fridge. When combined on the same plate, and served at room temperature, I had a dark days salad (or a compote to be served on the side of something that needs perking up) that dazzled the taste buds. You can’t make this stuff up. It just arrives. Farewell, January. Can’t say I’ll miss you.

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