However, part of the appeal of the restorative powers of a spring tonic is symbolic. Consuming freshly harvested ingredients for the first time each spring is invigorating. Even the act of watching them grow is. And while we don’t rely as heavily on the larder as our ancestors once did, the symbolic consumption of a spring tonic is still an essential rite of spring observed by many. For me, there is no plant that embodies this spirit more than the dandelion, which despite its inherent beauty and millennia-long importance, is still one of the most highly contended plants today. 

RELATED: Meet the Bartender-Botanist Showcasing Forgotten Ingredients

The dandelion genus, Taraxacum, is composed of roughly 60 species that can be found growing in nearly every corner of the globe. Its name comes from the jagged young leaves that look like lion’s teeth (dent de lion in French). Dandelion roots, flowers and leaves have been used both culinarily and medicinally for hundreds of years, if not longer. Recent scientific studies have corroborated their therapeutic potential by showing that, in addition to high levels of vitamins and minerals, they possess diuretic properties that aid in liver and kidney function, as well aa bitter compounds that assist with digestion and appetite stimulation. 

European cultures have a longstanding tradition of making alcoholic beverages with dandelions. Prior to the widespread availability of hops, dandelion was a common bittering agent used to flavor herbal beers known as gruit, and dandelion wine was so common, it was referred to as the poor man’s wine because anyone and everyone could—and did—make it. When European colonists came to America in the mid-1600s, they brought the seeds of common dandelion T. officinale with them as a taste of home in the New World. Of course, this would have unforeseen consequences.

Dandelions are aggressively invasive and have since spread across the entirety of this continent and others, rightfully earning their reputation as one of the most prolific weeds in the world. Part of their success is due to their puffball heads, known in botanical lingo as a pappus, which contain seeds that can be carried by the wind as far as five miles from their origin. Another contributing factor is their deep taproot, which, despite the best efforts of gardeners, will sprout new growth if even a small piece is left behind. 

While its tenacity is what villainizes the plant for some people, I view the dandelion as a welcome part of my backyard lawnscape, as it’s one of my favorite ingredients of the year. I use the dandelion’s young greens raw in salads and, as they get older and more bitter, they are great cooked in soups and braises. The roots make a great addition to my homemade spring amaro and can be roasted and ground to use as a decaffeinated coffee substitute, like its close botanical relative, the chicories. My favorite part of the dandelion, however, is the flower heads, which are full of wild yeast that make them perfect for fermenting into wild sodas, beer or wine.

RELATED: A Forager’s Guide to Sweet, Wild Finds

In doing our research on the subject over the years, my wife Katie and I have learned that there was a history of making dandelion wine in both of our families until just a few generations ago. A video recently circulated in my family of a distant aunt talking about how her mother (my great-great-great grandmother) who immigrated from Lithuania used to make dandelion wine each spring and how the whole family (including the kids) would drink it. On Katie’s side, her great-grandfather, who lived in Hanover, Pennsylvania and was brought up in the traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch, learned of the practice of making dandelion wine from his German immigrant ancestors and continued to make it well into his old age. 

The recipe below is adapted from Katie’s great-grandfather’s original recipe, but I’ve taken the creative liberty of substituting honey for sugar since the floral notes of honey pair perfectly with dandelion flowers (although this technically makes it dandelion mead, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it). Once complete, I use this dandelion wine to add florality and sweetness to a cocktail I’ve befittingly named the Spring Tonic along with roasted dandelion root- and flower-infused gin, yellow Chartreuse, lemon and a good tonic water, such as Fever Tree’s Premium Indian Tonic. This cocktail is best enjoyed on a blanket in the grass on a warm spring day, preferably nestled among dandelion blooms.

Spring Tonic

The good thing about foraging for dandelions is that you don’t have to travel far to find them, as they are likely growing on your lawn or not far from it. However, if foraging dandelions or fermenting your own dandelion wine seems daunting to you, fret not. You can purchase dandelion root tea from popular tea brands such as Traditional Medicinals and Yogi, and dandelion wine is part of a growing trend of alt-wines being produced by small purveyors across the country, including Brooklyn’s Enlightenment Wines Memento Mori, which ships nationwide. 

Makes 1 cocktail

Ingredients:

1 ½ ounces roasted dandelion root- and flower-infused gin (see below)
1 ounce dandelion wine (see below)
½ ounce yellow Chartreuse
½ ounce lemon
Fever Tree Premium Indian Tonic, to top
Dandelion green (or flowers) for garnish

Directions:

Add all ingredients to an ice-filled Collins glass and top with tonic. Garnish with a dandelion green or flower. 

Dandelion Root- and Flower-Infused Gin

Makes approximately 1 liter

Ingredients:

1-liter bottle of London Dry Gin (preferably Tanqueray)
1 teaspoon roasted, ground dandelion root (see below)
20 grams dandelion flowers

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a two-quart jar and allow to infuse for two hours (or longer for stronger taste).

Strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer and discard the solids. Will keep indefinitely.

Roasted, Ground Dandelion Root

To prepare dandelion roots, unearth the taproot from the ground and clean them so that there is no dirt remaining. Coarsely chop the roots and spread on a baking sheet. Put in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and roast until dark brown and giving off a smell that is similar to coffee and chocolate (roughly 30 minutes). Once cooled, grind in a coffee or spice grinder. Will keep indefinitely, but will begin to lose potency after six months.

Dandelion Wine

Makes approximately 1 gallon

Ingredients:

2 quarts dandelion flowers
3 cups of honey
1 gallon water
Juice of 2 lemons

Directions:

Pick the dandelion flowers from the plant, making sure to get the yellowest, healthiest-looking flowers. Remove as much as possible of the calyx (green part) from under the flower head if you want to reduce bitterness. Personally, I don’t mind a bit of a bitter brew.

Bring the water to a boil and pour over the dandelion and honey, stirring well to loosen the honey and incorporate all of the flowers. Allow to sit at room temperature until cold. 

Once cooled, add the lemon juice and pour all ingredients into a large food-safe container and loosely cover with a cloth or loose-fitting lid that will allow air to escape but prevent bugs from entering. 

Once fermentation is active (about a week), strain out flowers and transfer liquid to a fermentation vessel with an airlock or another food-safe container covered with a cloth or loose-fitting lid. Allow to ferment for an additional 4-6 weeks, until signs of fermentation begin to slow, indicating that most of the sugar has been converted to alcohol. 

Rack out the dandelion wine, being careful not to disturb the yeast lees that have settled to the bottom and decat into swing-cap bottles. Allow it to sit in a cool, dark place for two weeks. It’s possible that carbonation will occur during this time, so check the bottles every so often to make sure they don’t over-carbonate. 

Store in the refrigerator. It will keep for a year or more.

Danny Childs is the mixologist behind the @slowdrinks account on Instagram and the bar manager at The Farm and Fisherman Tavern in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Danny’s beverages embody the flavors of the mid-Atlantic by using ingredients foraged from the wild and picked from his cocktail garden. His work has led to a role on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste committee, a 2019 IACP-nominated cocktail column, and in 2021 he was the recipient of the Philly Mag “Best of Philly” award in the cocktail category. His book, Slow Drinks, will be released with Hardie Grant in 2023.

The post A Botanist-Bartender’s Ode to the Dandelion appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Education

For seaweeds to regrow, they not only need to be harvested by leaving some of the seaweed attached to the rock, but they also need to be cut in the right place. The best place to cut the seaweed will depend on the species. Most seaweeds will not regenerate if their stipe (stem‑like structure) is cut. In many seaweeds, the new growth happens in the part of the blade (leaf‑like structure) closest to the stipe. Leaving this part intact and leaving several inches (or more for large kelp) of the blade is important for the seaweed to be able to regenerate. Furthermore, many seaweeds have separate reproductive structures that need to be left intact to ensure they can reproduce. Still other seaweeds are long‑lived perennials and require extra consideration. It is also important to know the ecological role of seaweeds in areas where you are planning to harvest. Take a class and learn about the specific seaweeds you want to wild harvest.

[RELATED: 8 Sea Vegetables You Can Cook With]

In addition, depending on where you are harvesting, a license may be required.

Abundance

Only harvest a particular kind of seaweed if there is an abundance of it growing in the area you are planning to harvest from.

Only Take What You Need and Can Process

Seaweed takes an enormous amount of space to dry. Ensure that you only harvest what you need and what you will be able to dry or process in your space.

Harvesting by Salvaging

Harvesting by salvaging is a great way to be sustainable. Where I live, we routinely get big winds and ocean swell, which rips up healthy seaweeds and deposits them on the beach like treasures for me to find. To determine if the seaweed is still fresh and of adequate quality to be consumed or used in the bath, use your senses. It should smell briny and fresh, it should not be slimy to the touch but should feel lubricated and gelatinous, and the color should look uniform and vivid. For elusive species, or those found only in deep water, salvaging is often the only way to harvest them.

Reciprocity

Practicing reciprocity is essential to sustainability. In healthy ecosystems, there is a balance of give and take among all of the living organisms. When you harvest seaweeds, you become a member of their ecosystem. The organisms that make up an ecosystem function together as a whole, and thus it is essential to listen to the ecosystem and be sensitive to its needs. What can you give back to an ecosystem after taking something, in order to restore balance? Giving back is personal and can be done in many ways. Taking action on local threats to the ecosystem where I harvest and global threats to the larger ocean ecosystem are ways in which I choose to give back. Sharing the love and wonder you have for an ecosystem with your community is a great way to engage people and grow support to protect the health and integrity of local ecosystems.

Photo by Chris Adair.

Commercial Harvest

In the province of British Columbia where I work and live, a commercial seaweed harvester is legally obligated to harvest by pruning and is only allowed to harvest by hand, cutting the seaweed a minimum distance from the holdfast or stipe, which varies depending on the species. As a commercial harvester, I feel very fortunate that our local regulations help to ensure that harvesting is done sustainably.

Where to Harvest

Seaweeds that are being harvested for food should come from clean water. Urban centers and areas near sewage outfalls are not safe places to harvest. Since seaweeds are masters at concentrating the minerals in the water in which they grow, they should be harvested far away from industrial areas such as pulp and paper mills, mines, shipyards and other industrial sites that discharge chemicals or heavy metals into the ocean or upland waterways. Areas with strong tidal currents are better than areas with more stagnant water, as the currents regularly bring water in from the open ocean and flush the old water out.

[RELATED: The Future of Ocean Farming]

Listening to the Ecosystem

As I was preparing to harvest bull kelp one day, many years ago, I had a very strong sense that it was not an appropriate day to be “taking.” I second‑guessed myself and headed out to harvest anyway. As I was walking out of the ocean with a heavy bag full of bull kelp, a wave picked me up and smashed my masked face into the sand. I picked myself up slowly, feeling shocked and disoriented, and began looking around for my bag of bull kelp. Although I searched the area for some time, I never found it. Since then, I take a moment before harvesting to listen to the ecosystem. I ask permission. When I am finished harvesting, I look out at the kelp forest or the intertidal seaweed garden and I say, “Thank you.”

Wild Watercress, Kelp and Cauliflower Soup with Crispy Fermented Jerusalem Artichokes

Photo by Laura Jany.

“This is a beautiful, vibrant green spring soup that comes together quickly and is simple to prepare. Wild watercress has a refreshing, clean and peppery flavor that is balanced out by the deeply savory umami taste of kelp, while cauliflower lends its silky texture to this mineral‑rich spring‑ time soup. Prepare the fermented Jerusalem artichokes at least three days in advance.”—Laura Jany, wild food forager, Kelowna, BC

INGREDIENTS

Crispy Fermented Jerusalem Artichokes
3–4 Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes)
2 Tbsp (30 mL) pickling spice
6 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp (15 mL) Himalayan sea salt Garlic salt to taste
Olive oil

Wild Watercress, Kelp and Cauliflower Soup
1 medium onion
2 medium carrots, peeled
2 stalks celery1 leek
3 Tbsp (45 mL) unsalted butter
1 cup (250 mL) cauliflower florets
3–5 strips dried bull kelp
3 bunches fresh wild watercress, roughly chopped
Sour cream or coconut milk (optional)
Salt (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

PREPARE FERMENTED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES
Note: It isn’t necessary to ferment the Jerusalem artichokes prior to roasting. It does, however, add a tangy flavor and supports ease of digestion. If you prefer to skip the fermentation process, simply wash the Jerusalem artichokes, then proceed to the roasting steps.

To ferment: Gather enough Jerusalem artichokes to fill a small jar. Wash the tubers but do not peel. Add 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of pickling spice and 6 garlic cloves to a medium jar. Add tubers, leaving an inch (2.5 cm) of space at the top.

Dissolve Himalayan sea salt in 4 cups (1 L) of filtered water, then pour into the jar, ensuring the tubers are covered. Close jar and leave at room temperature until fermentation begins, about 3 to 4 days. When the contents are actively bubbling, store the jar in the fridge until ready to use. (The fermented Jerusalem artichokes will keep for up to 1 month.)

PREPARE WATERCRESS, KELP AND CAULIFLOWER SOUP

Preheat oven to 425F (220C) and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Peel and roughly chop onion, carrots, celery and leek. In a large saucepan, melt butter and add onion, carrots, celery, leek, cauliflower and kelp strips. Stir and cook until onion is translucent, 5 to 6 minutes. Add enough water to cover vegetables and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer until vegetables have softened, about 15 to 20 minutes.

ROAST CRISPY FERMENTED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES

While the soup cooks, slice raw or fermented Jerusalem artichokes thinly with a mandoline. Use a paper towel to pat the slices dry. Toss slices with garlic salt and a drizzle of olive oil until coated. Roast on the prepared baking sheet until the edges are starting to brown and chips are crispy, about 20 minutes, tossing occasionally to ensure even roasting.

FINISH SOUP AND SERVE

Remove soup from heat, add watercress and cover. Allow the greens to gently wilt, about 2 to 3 minutes. Use an immersion blender to purée soup to a smooth consistency.

Ladle puréed soup into bowls. Stir in a spoonful of sour cream or coco‑ nut milk, if using. Add salt to taste if needed (bull kelp often provides enough salt and additional salt may not be necessary). Garnish with Crispy Fermented Jerusalem Artichokes.

Excerpted with permission from The Science and Spirit of Seaweed: Discovering Food, Medicine and Purpose in the Kelp Forests of the Pacific Northwest by Amanda Swinimer (Harbour Publishing, April 26).

The post How to Harvest Seaweed Sustainably appeared first on Modern Farmer.

If you’re looking for a reason to get back into a cooking routine this winter, turn to these new cookbooks. In them, you’ll find recipes that are comforting, reinvigorating and perhaps even a little bit challenging. Best of all, they’re worthwhile additions to any cookbook collection. Turn to them in winter—and beyond.

Good Enough: Embracing the Joys of Imperfection & Practicing Self-Care in the Kitchen

Truly a judgment-free cookbook, Leanne Brown’s Good Enough celebrates all the feelings that come up around cooking—the good and the bad. At a time when American parents are overwhelmed, employee burnout rates continue to rise and the new Omicron variant takes the world by storm, we should all be a little bit gentler with ourselves. Begin in the kitchen with Brown’s cookbook, featuring tips on how to stock your fridge and pantry, as well as recipes for morning smoothies and yogurt bowls, simple salads and sandwiches for lunch, as well as entrees that are nourishing without being overwhelming. Take it one day and one meal at a time.

(January 11, Workman)

Unbelievably Vegan: 100+ Life-Changing, Plant-Based Recipes

Chef Charity Morgan has worked with celebrities and NFL athletes (including her husband, linebacker Derrick Morgan) to transform their eating habits and transition to following a plant-based diet. Her cooking was featured in the 2018 pro-vegan documentary The Game Changers, and now she’s sharing more than 100 of her recipes in a new cookbook. Morgan leans on her Puerto Rican and Creole heritage in meat-free recipes such as Caribbean ceviche made with soy curls and pastelillos (hand pies) with saffron aioli. You’ll also recognize ingredients and food traditions from the South, where she lives with her family, including plant-based versions of Creole gumbo and smoky jambalaya.

(January 18, Clarkson Potter)

101 Thai Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die

Looking to immerse yourself in a specific cuisine this winter and also cut down on your weekly takeout orders? Consider cooking from the latest cookbook from celebrity chef and restaurateur Jet Tila, in which he breaks down all the pantry ingredients you’ll need to make more than 100 classic Thai dishes. He also teaches you how to make your own curry pastes—a key step in getting maximum flavor out of the enclosed recipes. Tila, who specializes in Thai and Chinese cooking, has included everything from panang curry chicken and Massaman beef curry to pineapple fried rice, laarb and Thai sausage.

(January 25, Page Street Publishing)

The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook

Are your backyard chickens laying too many eggs for you to keep up with? Fifth-generation Maine chicken keeper Lisa Steele is here to help. In her new cookbook, which grew out of her popular Fresh Eggs Daily blog, Steele shows you all kinds of different ways to cook recipes with eggs, including steaming, grilling, baking, frying and even drinking them. Bourbon Maple Sour, anyone?

(February 15, Harper Horizon)

Salad: 100 Recipes for Simple Salads & Dressings

At some point this winter, all you’ll want to eat is a fresh, crunchy piece of lettuce to remind you of the warmer weather that’s to come. As Dutch author and food stylist Janneke Philippi shows in her new cookbook, your salads don’t have to be boring. In fact, hers are anything but. Take the radicchio and chestnut salad for example, featuring red apples and a tangy mustard-yogurt dressing, which balance out the aforementioned ingredients’ bitter notes. Or a steamed dumpling salad? Yes, dumplings! There’s also a range of winter-appropriate grain, rice and pasta salads, such as roasted pumpkin with goat cheese and spelt or a black rice salad with beans and red chili. Allow Philippi to show you how to use greens as a canvas, adding savory, spicy, hearty or light elements to match your cravings.

(February 15, Smith Street Books)

The post 5 New Cookbooks We’re Finding Comfort In Right Now appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Cookbook author and longtime vegan Zacchary Bird embraces this sort of association. In his new cookbook, The Vegan Butcher: The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Meat, Bird provides vegans, as well as other eaters looking to consume less meat, with the techniques to make meatless cuisine taste like, well, meat. He includes plant-based versions of classic meat-centric dishes such as roasted turkey, pork belly, Nashville-fried chicken and Korean barbecue ribs, as well as vegan seafood, featuring oyster mushroom scallops, watermelon and eggplant sashimi and Baja fish tacos. The recipes graduate from basic to advanced recipes in each chapter, ranging from store-bought options to making everything from scratch. Bases include vegetables, proteins, legumes, seasonal fruits, mushrooms and more.

Don’t get too hung up on the meat-centric terms used in some of the recipe names—everything in the book is vegan. As food writer Alicia Kennedy pointed out in one of her recent newsletters, the words we use to describe vegan foods are bound to be tied to meat. “Our culinary language is based on meat; as more people move toward plant-based diets, there will be a period of overlap as we come to new or redefined terminology,” she writes. “Just as we’re adapting our diets because of changes in the weather, we can adapt meat-centric language to apply to vegetables where it makes sense without getting too tied up in what exactly the dictionary definitions are of things like ‘ribs’ or ‘butcher.’”

Before the release of The Vegan Butcher, we caught up with Bird to discuss vegetable butchering, meat substitutes and the future of plant-based eating. And as a treat, he shared a recipe for mushroom steak frites with us at the end.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Modern Farmer: People generally associate the word “butcher” with meat, not vegetables. Why did you choose the title Vegan Butcher for your cookbook?

Zacchary Bird: The name and cover design really captures the book’s mission: to showcase the versatility of what modern plant-based ingredients and techniques look like through familiar meals that look, chew and taste like you’d expect to be off the menu for vegans! The recipes range from simple and traditional—like homemade tofu or mock duck from bean curd skin—to an entire three-layer vegan and gluten-free turducken so that anyone looking to replace meat can find dishes in there that get them excited.

MF: Despite it being a vegan cookbook, a good number of the recipes have meat-centric names. What was the thinking behind naming them after their meat counterparts despite the proteins being substituted with other items?

ZB: Instead of telling people who are used to having fried chicken on a Friday night to have a bowl of lentils, the book is trying to offer a direct vegan substitute for familiar favorites. I wanted the recipe names to focus on explaining what we’re recreating. The book also offers a myriad of ways to replace each ingredient to really drive home the point that you can take flavors from non-vegan dishes and match them to similar textures for fantastically similar results. For example, the Nashville-fried Chicken can be made from seitan, washed seitan, tofu, okara, cauliflower or mushrooms.

MF: Will vegan food ever be able to step out from behind the meat-centric terms used to describe the way it tastes?

ZB: For sure, and it will! But we’re still in the stage where (at least according to my comments on social media) people don’t understand why a vegan would make food that tastes and looks like meat. Vegans haven’t given up meat because of its awful flavor or texture. It’s because they want to eat more ethically, environmentally friendly or (if you want to!) more healthily. It’s a simple fact that people have nostalgia for food they grew up eating, so I don’t think it’s shocking that we try to find better alternatives for them—and until we come together as a society and agree that one single ingredient is the best substitute, such as tofu for chicken—the easiest way to explain what we’re making is to compare it to what it’s trying to be an analogue of.

MF: What are some of your favorite techniques for transforming vegetables into a meat-like dish?

ZB: Smoking, charring and searing are all lovely ways to get a bit of burn in there. Vegan meals tend to be veggie-centric, which doesn’t hold up to long cooking times like meat does to get all that smoky flavor. So things like using a smoker box on your [grill] or introducing liquid smoke [to a dish] can be a great shortcut to that flavor with plant-based food. A good marinade loaded with umami (soy sauce, mushroom, sun-dried foods, fermented foods, miso, etc.) will help add in the rich savoriness often lacking in vegan alternatives.

MF: You include diagrams that show how eggplant can be cut and transformed into chicken schnitzel-like and lamb chops-like meals. Are there other fruits or vegetables that have those sorts of parallels?

ZB: They make such a great parallel to those classic cross-sections butchers have showing the different cuts of meat against the silhouette of a cow. I really wanted to invite the reader to think of plant-based ingredients in this same way as we explore which substitutions work for which animal product. The book has step-by-step images of the “butchering” process of ingredients being prepared as plant-based meat. For example, if you can get your hands on fresh banana blossom (as opposed to the canned stuff popular in vegan seafood recipes, which is also covered in the book!), I show you how to separate the leaves—which are inedible but great to serve things on—then separate the florets and remove their bitter components to be used as pulled pork. Then, we get to the heart of the blossom, which can be sliced up fresh in salads or, as I prefer, marinated, beer-battered, fried and then served as battered fish with hot chips and tartar sauce.

MF: If there were only one concept or idea to take away from your cookbook, what is it? 

ZB: The versatility of plant-based options! I didn’t want to just tell readers to make a bolognese out of crumbled seitan, when I know lentils and walnuts, home-made or store-bought plant-based minced or even rehydrated textured vegetable protein (TVP) make a great meat substitute…so I put them all in! I hope that having multiple options to use as the base for each instills the idea that you can really explore and find your favorite alternative for a particular meat instead of trying the first one offered and deciding you don’t like it. There’s no one official way to do it and that’s wonderful news for a crafty home cook.

Photo courtesy of publisher.

The post Becoming the Vegan Butcher appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But why does he call himself a “revivalist?” Why not “expert” or “specialist” or even “chef” or “recipe developer”? Because, as Katz explains, fermentation has been around for as long as people have been eating and preserving food. “There’s all sorts of innovation in the world of vegetable fermentation, but the basic ideas of how you do it are ancient. I haven’t really observed anyone making up completely new concepts of fermentation,” Katz says.

Instead, he says that the world of fermentation is experiencing a “huge amount of cross-pollination and experimentation and diversification.” Take kombucha, for example, which is thousands of years old. While it’s not a new food, Katz notes that people are experimenting with different flavors or letting it ferment into an alcoholic beverage. And yet it’s all still a riff on the same ancient recipe. This is where Katz shines and where he can shed light on traditional techniques and offer up his own twist on them.

It’s this thread that links the recipes in his latest book, Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys. Part cookbook, part textbook, part personal memoir, the book details not just how to produce fermented foods but how Katz’s own views on fermentation have expanded over the years. When he published his first book, Wild Fermentation, in 2003, it brought sauerkraut, miso and kimchi to mainstream American kitchens, starting a fermentation revolution in the process. Michael Pollan called him the “Johnny Appleseed of fermentation,” sprinkling bits of knowledge wherever he travelled. The book was a manifesto for a generation of home cooks and practiced chefs alike and served as a springboard for Katz.

Through that success, he was able to travel the world, talking more about fermentation along the way. With each talk he gave and every stamp he collected on his passport came the opportunity to learn a new recipe. “I’ve been invited to teach in so many different parts of the world, and hosts who wanted to show me how they ferment,” Katz says. “I’ve gotten to taste and see and learn about making a lot of food.” These travels informed his latest book. While he was always aware that fermentation was practiced the world over, he didn’t always have a clear view of the different styles or techniques of different regions. This new book tries to “give people contextual underpinnings for the fermentation concepts” found around the world.

That sort of global context is needed for fermentation, which is—yet again—having a bit of a moment. Or at least, some kinds of fermentation are popular now (Katz says he hopes that you stick with your pandemic sourdough and feed your starter!), but it’s not an inherently trendy way of cooking. In fact, the method permeates so much of what we eat in the western world, but it’s simply so normalized that we don’t recognize that bacteria and yeast are key to our lives and our plates. Fermentation isn’t just kimchi and sauerkraut, it’s also yogurt and vinegar and beer. “These are not fad foods, these are foods that have enduring popularity,” Katz stresses. “If we step back and look at fermentation in the expansive western diet, there’s coffee, bread, cheese, pickles, cured meats, condiments…all of these things we take for granted.”

In Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys, Katz encourages us to reframe the western view of cooking, to highlight and celebrate global tastes and traditions. “Fermentation is an essential part of how people in every part of the world make effective use of food resources. It’s really integral to food traditions.”

Katz learned that himself when he first tried his hand at fermentation. In his 30s, he moved from New York City to Tennessee, and he found himself tending his first garden. It was everything a rural transplant could dream of, until his vegetables started ripening—all at the same time. “I was such a naive city kid. It never occurred to me that in a garden, all the cabbages and all the radishes would be ready at the same time.” Desperate to do something with his bumper crop of cabbages, he made sauerkraut for the first time. “It was so easy, and so delicious, so satisfying, that I just started playing around with it.” Thus began Katz’s own journey into fermenting, which he says is pretty common around the world. Now, he looks forward to turning something “fundamentally bland” such as milk into something tangy and tasty and more interesting.

For a beginner, Katz says this book is not going to provide a step-by-step guide to fermenting your first pickle (for that, try Wild Fermentation). Instead, this latest release is more of a log of fermentation itself—how it’s evolved and changed from place to place and the pleasure that can be found in experimentation.

Fermenting oats. Photo by Sandor Katz.

Kisiel

The following recipe is from Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys by Sandor Ellix Katz (Chelsea Green Publishing, October 2021) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher.

The most fundamental technique for fermenting grains is extremely simple: soak them. Bacteria and yeasts are naturally present on dry grains, but they are dormant in the absence of water. This is true whether the grains are whole, cracked, or finely ground, so long as they are raw. As soon as the grains are soaked, the dormant organisms awaken and begin metabolizing nutrients and reproducing.

Porridges and gruels are among the most widespread applications of grain fermentation, found across all civilizations born of grain agriculture. Unfortunately, these traditional grain ferments have long been waning in popularity, eclipsed by baby foods, sugary cereals, and other processed foods that render porridges and gruels comparatively unappealing to kids, in spite of their vastly superior nutritive content.

At the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UGS) in Pollenzo, Italy, I was excited to meet Andrea Pieroni and hear about his ethnobotanical field work studying traditional foods of the Balkans. He subsequently sent me some of his papers to read, which were fascinating and informative, but also sad, insofar as one of the major objectives of his work is to document disappearing traditional practices. In one journal article, Andrea and a team of co-investigators include a list of the “most uncommon (and endangered) recorded preparations” among Eastern European traditional practices, with “gruels and sour beverages made of cereals” heading the list. “Fermented oat (Avena sativa) dishes were a popular component of the Eastern European diet,” they write, “but now are strongly declining.”

I love oat porridge and gruel. Porridge is thicker and more substantial; gruel is more watered down—thinner and soupier. They both feel so wholesome and deeply nourishing for me—all the more so when they have been fermented. Their nutritional profile contrasts sharply with the processed breakfast cereals that have become staple foods in the Western world and beyond, which are nutritionally deficient, high in sugar, and potentially harmful over time. These processed cereals are also high-profit products through which we transfer wealth to a few vast multinational grain-processing corporations, relying upon them and the infrastructure that enables them to exist for one of our most basic daily necessities, which they satisfy poorly.

Fermented oats have many different regional names. In Estonia, write Andrea and his collaborators, a beverage called kile was made of oat flour mixed with water; it was let to stay in warmth for a night. This filtered sour beverage was consumed instead of sour milk on the side of the meal. If the filtrate was boiled, it became a kind of gruel, which was also called kile, but also kiisel or kisla, and eaten hot with butter or fat or later, as a cold jelly. The boiling procedure took a long time at slow heat and required constant mixing; it had to meet an exact standard of sourness, otherwise it would not produce the required result. Similar gruels (also similarly named) were prepared from rye or from rye and potatoes. In Belarus, lacto-fermented gruel was called kisiel, but also a semi-liquid fermented dish from the oat flour was called by the same name. It was eaten with poppy or cannabis milk and is now, as in Estonia, recognized as a historical use only.

Inspired by this description, I began experimenting. And because my maternal grandparents, Sol and Betty Ellix, came to the United States from Belarus, I adopted the Belarussian name kisiel for this sour oat milk and porridge. Both the oat milk and the porridge that this simple fermentation produces are compelling in their deliciousness.

Timeframe
2 to 5 days, depending upon temperature and taste preference

Ingredients
Makes 1 quart/1 liter of oat milk and porridge for 4 to 6 servings

About 2 cups/200 grams oats, rolled, cracked, or milled into flour
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Soak the oats in about 1 quart/1 liter of water, in a loosely covered container.

Stir, smell, and taste the soaking liquid daily to monitor the evolving flavor. I’ve gone as long as 5 days, at which point I detected notes of coconut.

When you decide it is ready, strain the soaking liquid from the solids. Enjoy the flavorful and nutritious oat milk raw.

Transfer the soaked oat solids to a pot, cover with 4 cups/1 liter of fresh water, and add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then gently simmer over low heat, stirring frequently to prevent burning on the bottom of the pot, until liquid thickens.

Enjoy your porridge with sweet or savory seasonings, as you prefer. (I love mine savory, with butter, peanut butter, miso, and garlic.)

The post The Godfather of Fermentation Loves Your Pandemic Sourdough appeared first on Modern Farmer.

To Soak or Not to Soak?

There are two main things you need to know about canning legumes. The first is that they’re only safe to can in a pressure canner (not a water bath canner) since they’re low-acid foods. And second, dry beans and peas need to be rehydrated by soaking in water before they’re packed into jars. Lentils don’t need to be presoaked. Peanuts will need to be soaked, but the process is a little different.

I know you can find recipes on the Internet that don’t include soaking the beans or peas, but they’re not approved methods. When you don’t presoak the dried beans and peas, you run the risk of them soaking up all the water and becoming a big clump of beans. There’s no way to tell if the heat penetrates the center of the clump to make them shelf stable. The beans and peas can also swell so much that they break the jar. There’s nothing more depressing than opening up the canner and finding broken jars.

There are two ways to soak beans: the overnight method and the quick-soak method. For both methods, you need to wash the beans or peas and remove any small pebbles that might be mixed in with them.

For the overnight method: Put the cleaned beans in a large bowl or stockpot and add 10 cups (2.4 L) of water per 1 pound (454 g) of beans or peas. Cover the bowl or pot and put it in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours.

For the quick-soak method: Put the cleaned beans in a large stockpot and add 10 cups (2.4 L) of water per one pound (454 g) of beans or peas. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 2 minutes then remove from the heat. Let the beans soak for 1 hour.

Photo by Imfoto, Shutterstock.

I prefer to use the overnight method for soaking legumes as I think there is less issue with the legumes splitting and the skins coming off. I also think it’s more hands-off than the quick-soak method; however, if I’ve forgotten to soak the legumes the night before, I’ll happily use the quick-soak method so that I can get the canning done that I’d planned for that day.

Every once in a while, someone will ask me about canning sprouted legumes, ones that have been soaked long enough that they start to germinate. The official answer is that there are no approved guidelines or processing times for canning sprouted legumes. In my opinion, the extra nutrition that’s gained by soaking legumes would be destroyed by the high heat of the pressure canner. Also, the enzymes that cause digestibility issues are water soluble, which means they’ll leach out during they soak and that water will be discarded.

If you’re extra sensitive to the digestive effects of legumes, use the overnight soak method and change the water several times.

How to Can Legumes

Once the beans have been cleaned and soaked, they’re ready for canning. To keep things simple, I’m going to just use beans as the example, but know that peas and lentils are canned the exact same way. The instructions below are an overview on canning legumes.

On average, 1 pound (454 g) of dried beans will give you about 7 cups (1.2 kg) of cooked beans. This is a very rough estimate and the actual amount will depend on the size and shape of the bean. You’ll need three or four 1-pint (500-ml) jars or two 1-quart (1-L) jars to pressure can a pound of dried beans. This should help you estimate how many jars you need to prepare.

Pour off the water that the beans were soaking in and give the beans a quick rinse with fresh water. Drain again. Put the beans into a large stockpot and cove with fresh water. Heat the beans over medium-high heat and gently boil for 30 minutes. The beans will not be fully cooked by the time they’re done boiling; they’ll finish cooking in the jars while being processed.

While the beans are boiling, prepare the pressure canner, jars and lids. Wash the inside of the pressure canner and the rack with hot, soapy water. Place the rack in the pressure canner and fill it with a few inches (8 cm) of water, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Place the canner on the stovetop and heat the water over medium heat.

Wash the lids in hot, soapy water and set aside. Check the instructions on the box of lids; some manufacturers (Bernardin®) recommend that the lids be placed in boiled water to keep them hot and some manufacturers recommend that the lids simply be washed (Ball®).

When the beans are finished boiling, it’s time to remove the hot jars from the canner and pour out any water that is in the jars. Don’t dry the jars; the water remnants will evaporate quickly.

Turn the heat off from under the beans and ladle them into the jars, leaving a generous 1 inch (2.5 cm) of headspace. Don’t discard the water the beans cooked in, as that will become the broth to fill the jars with. I like to use a slotted spoon and evenly distribute all the beans between the jars before adding the broth; this way I don’t end up with a jar with very little beans in the end.

You can add ½ teaspoon of non-iodized salt per 1-pint (500-ml) jar and 1 teaspoon of non-iodized salt per 1-quart (1-L) jar and any dried herbs at this point, if desired.

When the beans are distributed, ladle the bean broth into each jar, leaving 1 inch (2.5 cm) of headspace. Using a bubble remover tool remove the air bubbles from the jars. Recheck the headspace, adding more broth if necessary. If you run out of broth, top the jars off with boiling water.

Wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth and add the lids and bands. Tighten the bands to finger-tight, like you would a mayonnaise jar. Place the jars in the prepared pressure canner and lock the lid in place. Process the jars at 10 psi (69 kPa) for 75 minutes for 1-pint (500-ml) jars and 90 minutes for 1-quart(1-L) jars, adjusting for altitude if necessary.

Photo by Lost_in_the_Midwest, Shutterstock.

Be sure to let the canner vent for 10 minutes and fully come up to the correct pressure before you start timing.

When the beans are finished processing, turn off the heat and allow the canner to naturally depressurize. This will take 30 to 60 minutes. Refer to the instructions that came with your canner.

Once the pressure canner has depressurized, lay a clean kitchen towel on the counter to set the jars on. Remove the weight from the vent opening or open the petcock and let the canner sit for 10 minutes before opening the lid. This keeps the liquid in the jars from surging and the lids from being compromised.

When you remove the canner lid, open it away from your face to avoid the blast of steam. Let the jars sit in the canner for another 5 minutes before removing them.

Using a jar lifter, remove the jars from the canner and place them on the prepared towel to cool. Leave at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) of space between the jars. Let them cool for 12 to 24 hours and then check the seals. If everything has sealed, the jars are ready to be stored away. Use home-canned legumes within one year. If any jars failed to seal, put them in the refrigerator to use within a week.

Butter Beans and Ham

In the South, mature white lima beans are often called “butter beans.” Creamy butter beans and ham are a classic Southern comfort food. And if you want creamy butter beans, you have to cook them long and slow and stir them often…or you can just pressure can them. These can be served as a side dish or as the main dish by serving them with a pan of corn bread.

Yields 14 (1-Pint [500-ml]) or 7 (1-Quart [1-L]) Jars

Ingredients:
2 lbs (907 g) dried mature lima beans (aka butter beans), presoaked*
8 cups (1.9 L) water
1 lb (454 g) diced ham
2 cups (320 g) chopped onions**
7 bay leaves

*The beans need to be soaked using the overnight or quick-soak method before beginning this recipe.
**You’ll need approximately 3/4pound (340 g) unprepared onions.

Instructions:
Prepare the pressure canner, jars and lids. You’ll need 14 (1-pint[500-ml]) or 7 (1-quart [1-L]) jars. Fill the canner with a few inches(8 cm) of water, according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and put the canner on the stove over low heat with the jars inside to stay hot.This is a hot-pack recipe, so the water needs to be about 180°F (82°C).

Drain the water from the soaking beans and put the beans into the stockpot with 8 cups (1.9 L) of fresh water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to a gentle boil. Boil for 30 minutes.

The beans will not be fully cooked by the time they’re done boiling; they’ll finish cooking in the jars while being processed.

Remove the beans from the heat, and using a slotted spoon, put them into the prepared jars. Divide the ham and onions between the jars. Add1/2bay leaf to each 1-pint (500-ml) jar and 1 bay leaf to each1-quart (1-L) jar.

Fill each jar with the water used for cooking the beans, leaving 1 inch(2.5 cm) of headspace. Remove the bubbles with a bubble removal tool and recheck the headspace. If you end up short of broth, top the jars off with boiling water. Wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth. Put the lids and bands on the jars and load them into the pressure canner.

Process the jars, according to the manufacturer’s instructions, at 10 psi(69 kPa) for 75 minutes for 1-pint (500-ml) jars and 90 minutes for1-quart (1-L) jars, adjusting for altitude if necessary.

After processing, allow the canner to depressurize naturally, then remove the jars and let them cool on the counter for at least 12 hours. Check the seals and store the jars for up to 1 year.

For serving, empty a jar of Butter Beans and Ham into a medium stock pot and heat over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until the liquid is bubbling and the beans are heated thoroughly, stirring frequently.Remove the bay leaf before serving. Serve with a side of corn bread or biscuits.

The post How to Can Legumes appeared first on Modern Farmer.

With his new cookbook, The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora, Chef Alan Bergo explores not just the variety of plants that surrounds him near his Minnesota home, but the full scope and every part of those plants. Similar to the “nose-to-tail” ethos of cooking meat, Bergo embraces a “whole plant” philosophy when he cooks and forages for ingredients. And it all started with a squash growing in a friend’s garden. 

“I looked at the shoots and I was like, ‘this looks so delicious. I have no idea what this plant is, but I want to eat it,” he says. After discovering that the shoots were early squash vines, Bergo started researching and finding recipes that revolved around all parts of the plant. A girlfriend’s stepfather shared a Nepalese curry recipe that called for squash vines. He tinkered with a soup from Oaxaca with squash shoots and masa dumplings. The squash is the finished product many of us are used to, but Bergo says that’s a relatively new and privileged way of thinking. “If you are operating in a subsistence way, where you need food, are you going to wait until that squash is completely ripe? Or are you maybe going to thin some of the vines… and harvest food from that plant through the entire growing season?” Now, Bergo says that foraging taught him about vegetables, as he sees them through their whole growing season.

Bergo now forages and creates recipes full-time on his website, embracing the seasonality of the ingredients, he says this way of looking at food and plants took some time to fully develop. He describes it as an instinct, one that can be cultivated with time and practice. He jokes that his book is less a prescriptive, precise collection of recipes and more of a “teach a man to fish situation.” Besides, Bergo says, the very act of foraging is an adventure, a way to channel your inner Indiana Jones. “It’s a total rush. I feel like every day I’m out there just hunting treasure.” 

Bergo’s love of the treasure hunt began when he was working in restaurants around the Midwest. He used to negotiate with the owners, begging for one day a week to go out into the wilderness and bring back his catch to put on the menu. “I felt kind of like I was playing hooky a little bit,” he says. “I was going outside and playing all day and digging in dirt and really feeling the ingredients more than when I was specifically cooking with them.” Those adventures pushed him to take chances with his menu. It’s something he encourages other chefs to do, though he admits it’s easy to get used to having reliable growers delivering produce right to your door.

Alan Bergo’s new cookbook comes out June 24. Photo by Adrian Danciu

“When you’re a chef, it’s almost like you’re lord of your own little kingdom. And that is a very comfortable place to be,” Bergo says. “I can put an order in and have anything delivered to me at a time of my choosing, the place of my choosing. I have everything at my fingertips.” 

Bergo wants to inspire people to step outside of their kitchen comfort zones, even for a few steps. He organized his book not by season, but by the function and taste of the plant. That way, many items in recipes are interchangeable. Can’t find nettles? That’s ok! If you have lambsquarters, or amaranths or even kale from the grocery store, you can make it work. The book aims to teach you how the flavors of the plants work together. 

That’s not the only thing that sets his cookbook apart from others. Like many tomes about foraging, this one also comes with a warning. Bergo says inexperienced foragers should ideally learn from a more seasoned instructor or use his book in conjunction with a field guide. Among all the edible plants waiting to be plucked, there are some that are poisonous or dangerous. (Bergo recalls getting a rash on his face after an unfortunate incident involving the sap from wild cow parsnip.)

Even with the potential dangers, Bergo says the world of wild food is absolutely worth the effort. Most people can get started with minimal tools. Bergo himself just uses a sturdy basket with a lid and a good pair of scissors. For those interested in starting to forage, Bergo suggests checking out social media pages for local foraging groups. There are often pages of tips on where to find the best trails, as well as lots of advice for the novice forager. And once you’ve found your bounty, The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora can help you prepare it in a totally new way. 

So next time you take a walk along a trail, keep an eye on your surroundings. You might just spot your dinner. 

The following recip is excerpted from Alan Bergo’s new book The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora: Recipes and Techniques for Edible Plants from Garden, Field, and Forest (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2021) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher.

Wild Green Cakes

Makes roughly 10 cakes

There’s a reason this is the first recipe in this book. It’s a hybrid of a recipe by French Chef Jacques Chibois and one outlined by Sam Thayer in his third book, Incredible Wild Edibles, and it’s a statement on the culinary dichotomy of these two chefs, since wild plants are high-quality ingredients sought after by chefs, but also available to anyone who takes the time to get outside and learn about them. Many different species of plants can be used, and no two batches I’ve ever made have been exactly the same. My favorite part of this recipe is how the greens continue cooking on the inside of the cake, almost as if they’re cooked under pressure, retaining a bright green color, with a tender bite that eats almost like meat. The cakes are meant to be a mild side dish—a different way to get your greens. If you want to jazz them up, consider serving them with a yogurt-, tomato-, or mayonnaise-based sauce. Sometimes I add cooked onions, seeds, or other alliums and herbs if I have them, so think of this recipe as a blank slate you can make your own. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, or as an appetizer: I’d struggle to think of a meal that wouldn’t welcome a few green cakes.

2 packed cups (455 g) blanched and shocked wild greens, or a mix of spinach, parsley, and kale
2 large eggs
1/4 cup (30 g) flour or flour equivalent
Kosher salt, to taste
Fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
Fresh-grated nutmeg or your favorite spice mix (such as Dried Ramp Leaf Rub, page 168), to taste (optional)
Cooking oil, such as lard or grapeseed oil, as needed for cooking the cakes
Fresh lemon wedges, for serving (optional)

Squeeze the greens dry very well. Chop the greens fine and mix with the eggs and flour. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste; it should be well seasoned. Ideally, you’ll now let the batter rest for 30 minutes or so before cooking, but it can be cooked straightaway if needed. Cook a small piece of the mixture to test the seasoning and adjust to your taste. Shape 1/4 cup (2 ounces / 55 g) into cakes with your hands, then fry on medium-high until browned on both sides. If your cakes seem loose or wet, mix another spoonful of flour into the batter. The cakes are sturdy and reheat well, so I usually make them in large batches. Serve with lemon wedges.

Variations
Using different grain flours and seasonings can give you different themes. For example, Latin American–flavored cakes made from quickweed and fine cornmeal, scented
with cumin, are great used to scoop up
guacamole—a bit like fried plantains. By the same token, chard or wild beet green cakes bound with buckwheat or millet flour would be at home with Eastern European flavors such as sauerkraut and pork sausage. Middle Eastern–inspired cakes could be made with malva or violet leaves, seasoned with baharat spice mix, bound with ground wheat flour, and served with tahini sauce.

• Nutmeg is traditional here, but other spices, especially seeds from the carrot family, are really good in nutmeg’s place.
• Play around with combinations of bitter and “sweet” greens. Horseradish greens can be unpalatable for some people, but mixed with other greens (1 part to 3 parts) they can add a nice depth.
• Use the cakes as vehicles for dips, sauces, and salsas.
• After the cakes are cooked, they’re great in a lot of places you’d use a meat patty or ground meat.
  

The post Cooking the Whole Plant: From Root to Petal appeared first on Modern Farmer.

So I was excited when our editor recently suggested I try out a new cookbook, The Zero-Waste Chef by Anne-Marie Bonneau. I have been thinking a lot lately, not only about the ridiculous amount of food that goes to waste (up to 40 percent of food in the US goes uneaten), but also how we are slowly destroying our planet with toxic waste, namely plastic packaging that many food products are sold in. 

Bonneau’s book begins with some startling statistics on the subject of food waste.

American consumers generate, on average, 4.5 pounds of trash per person every day, totalling 268 million tons of waste per year. Half of that ends up in landfills, which emits methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. 

The amount of plastic that ends up in our oceans is also truly staggering. By 2050, some researchers estimate that there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. Thus far, recycling efforts have not lived up to expectations. Only nine percent of plastics are actually being recycled. The rest are either burned or thrown in landfills. 

The zero-waste solution addresses both food waste and the need for disposable packaging. In her book, Bonneau gives an extensive menu of tips on how to mitigate both of these problems. She gives instructions on freezing, glass jars and composting, as well as the kitchen tools needed for your entire zero-waste journey. The book also suggests how to replace plastics and other disposables.

In the recipe section, there are many examples on how to use scraps to make usable food items, such as vegetable broth. There are also recipes for food items you would normally buy in disposable packaging at your grocery store, such as ketchup or honey mustard.

Bonneau also reminds us not to stress out if we can’t achieve 100 percent zero-waste perfection. For me, this was a huge relief as it’s really hard to achieve zero waste when our food supply chain is designed almost entirely around disposable packaged goods. If each of us could achieve just 50 percent less waste, it would already be a huge improvement.

I tried two recipes from the cookbook, Lebanese Tabbouleh and Frugal Fennel-Frond Pesto Pasta. Both were very easy and quick to make. The tabbouleh was mostly simple to make without disposable packaging, as it required mostly vegetables, except for the bulgar wheat. It took trips to three different stores before I could find any, and unfortunately, it was packaged. I could have made the pasta dish without packaging, but didn’t have the time to make fresh pasta. I had to rely on packaged pasta. I hope Bonneau will forgive me. I came close.

The following is an excerpt from The Zero-Waste Chef by Anne-Marie Bonneau, reprinted with permission from Avery/Penguin Random House.

Lebanese Tabbouleh

Serves 4

1⁄2 cup bulgur  (cracked wheat)
½ cup boiling water
1 large bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves finely chopped (about 2 generous cups)
1 small bunch fresh mint, leaves finely chopped (about 1⁄4 cup)
1 medium cucumber, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
1 medium ripe tomato, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
½ cup minced scallions, white and green parts
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed
2 tablespoons fresh  lemon juice (about 1 lemon), or more as needed
1 teaspoon salt, or more as needed
Freshly ground black pepper

Unless you grow your own parsley, you must buy an entire bunch at the grocery store or farmers’ market for a recipe that might call for  only  a  few  sprigs’  worth  of  the  vitamin- rich,  dark  green  leafy  herb. In the past, that may have caused you to skip the parsley altogether. But now you have this incredibly fresh, parsley- based salad recipe— tabbouleh. It calls for a large bunch of parsley along with mint, cucumber, tomato, onion, garlic, fresh lemon juice, and olive oil. A bit of bulgur wheat adds a hint of chewiness.

In a small heat- resistant bowl, combine the bulgur and boiling water. Set aside for 1 hour to allow the bulgur to absorb the water.

In a large bowl, combine the parsley, mint, cucumber, tomato, scallions, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.

Drain the bulgur and toss with the salad. Add more salt, lemon juice, or olive oil to taste.

Allow to sit on the counter or place in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours to allow the flavors to meld.

And now for your next recipe … Thick parsley stems taste much stronger than their flat leaves. But you can use them here and there rather than composting them all. Brew some tea. Toss a few stems into your stash of vegetable scraps for broth— but only a small handful, as too many of any herb will overpower the flavor. Or finely chop some and add to the black-eyed pea and mushroom burgers (page 199), fennel-frond pesto (page 209), or stir-fry (page 181).

Frugal Fennel- Frond Pesto and Pasta

At my farmers’ market, a couple of vendors give away fennel stalks and  fronds.  Most  fennel  buyers  want  the  stalks  and  fronds  lopped  off,  nipping  what- on- earth- do- I-   do- with- this- stuff  guilt  in  the  bulb.  So,  I  get  one  of  the  main  parts  of  this  pesto  for  free— the wispy fronds. However, if this cookbook sells so well that it drives up the price of fennel fronds, I apologize.Although I have no tips on how or where to find flour for free, I  can  save  you  a  lot  of  money  on  expensive  tools  to  make  pasta.  Homemade pasta does turn out beautifully when you run the dough through  a  pasta  machine,  but  if  you  don’t  have  one,  then  a  work  surface, a knife, and a rolling pin will suffice. And if you have a clean wine bottle, the rolling pin becomes optional, Chef MacGyver.

Make the pesto: Toast the raw nuts in the oven at 350°F for  5 minutes and stir. Toast for another 3 to 5 minutes, until fragrant but not dark.

Place the toasted nuts, garlic, fennel fronds, parsley, and salt in a food processor. Pulse to make a paste. Scrape down the sides of the food processor if necessary.

With the processor running, stream in the oil in a slow trickle, until the pesto is well blended. Transfer to a large serving bowl. (If not using immediately, refrigerate or freeze in a wide- mouth jar.)Make the pasta: Place the semolina in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour in the hot water. (Alternatively, you can make this directly on your work surface. For a beginner, you may prefer to use a bowl.)With a fork, incorporate the flour from the edges of the well into the water. Continue until you’ve combined all the flour and water and have formed a crumbly dough.

Serves 3

For the Pesto
1⁄4 cup raw nuts, such as walnuts, pecans, almonds, or hazelnuts
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 cup packed fennel fronds (see Note)
½ cup packed fresh parsley leaves
½ teaspoon salt
1⁄4 cup olive oil

For the Pasta
21⁄2 cups (250 g) durum semolina
3⁄4 cup (125 ml) hot, not boiling, water
1 teaspoon salt

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. The bowl will likely contain enough unincorporated flour that you won’t need more on your work surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. It should spring back after you make an indentation in it with your thumb. If it doesn’t spring back, keep kneading it. This can take about 10 minutes. Cover with a clean dish towel and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 2 equal portions; smaller portions are  easier to work with. Lightly dust the work surface with semolina, if necessary, as you roll out each piece of the dough to about  1/8 inch thick.

Dust the dough with semolina. Roll each piece of the dough up into a very loose tube (see the picture opposite). You will be slicing noodles from these tubes, so you don’t want it too tightly wound and stuck together. Cut 1/4- inch- wide noodles from each roll.

Add the salt to a large pot of water and bring to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until tender, about 2 minutes. Reserve at least 1/3 cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta in a colander. Whisk the saved pasta cooking water into the bowl with the pesto. Blend and toss the pasta in the pesto and serve

Note:

The pesto recipe works well with kale stems also. Replace the fennel fronds with 1 cup of 1⁄2- inch pieces of kale stems.

And now for your next recipe … You now have leftover fennel stalks. Shave them with a vegetable peeler and add them to a salad, such as the bean, vegetable, and grain salad with lemon-garlic dressing (page 206).

The post Frank Cooks: The Zero-Waste Chef appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I am a passionate cook and I do get excited when I run across a new recipe that is both unique and delicious. But the number of ingredients I can ingest is finite. And it’s not often that I run across a recipe that I feel is a show stopper.

I always enjoy the backstory of cookbooks and what motivated a given chef toward a certain cuisine, philosophy or style. If I find the story interesting, I look more closely at the recipes, which is what I did with chef Gregory Gourdet’s new book, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health.

Gourdet, the son of Haitian immigrants, grew up in Queens. He dropped out of pre-med and enrolled in the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, before he eventually lucked out with his first job at New York City’s Jean-Georges flagship restaurant.

His early years weren’t easy, though. Around this time, Gourdet also fell into an intense multi-year spiral of drug and alcohol abuse. When, years later, he eventually had his “aha” moment, he did what many recovering substance abusers do. With equal intensity, he plunged into health and fitness: yoga, CrossFit and jogging.

His cookbook contains 200 recipes that are free of gluten, dairy, soy, refined sugar and legumes. A lot of them are Paleo-friendly with a focus on superfoods (high nutrients, best fats, with most minerals and antioxidants). Having lived my own life on the Mediterranean diet and having conducted my own six-month experiment as a vegan, some of these recipes piqued my interest (except for the excluding legumes part). A lot of his recipes have a Haitian influence and I love Haitian food, which is often spicy. He even mentions Haitian spicy peanut butter, which my foundation produces as part of its poverty alleviation work in Haiti.

I browsed through all the recipes and decided to try my hand at his Poule Nan Sos dish. I love stewed chicken dishes and it’s not often I make ones that are spicy.

Photo courtesy of Frank Giustra.

I followed the recipe instructions carefully, but I made a judgment call to add canned tomatoes to the tomato paste for which the recipe called. The 1/2 cup of paste seemed insufficient for the three pounds of chicken. It turned out to be a mistake as the end product was more watery than it should have been. Also, the peppers we purchased weren’t nearly hot enough, so the dish didn’t get the kick it deserved. Having said that, the flavors were delicious and I would recommend trying this dish for yourself.

The following is an excerpt from EVERYONE’S TABLE by Gregory Gourdet and JJ Goode. Copyright ©2021 by Gregory Gourdet and JJ Goode. Published by Harper Wave an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

Photo by Eva Kosmas Flores

POULE NAN SOS
Serves 4

When I was a kid, we often left Queens on Sunday mornings to visit Mémère, my paternal grandmother, in New Jersey. Along with warm kisses and a few words of broken English, this chicken stew would greet us. Its official name (poule nan sos in Haitian Creole, or “chicken in sauce”) is quite an understatement. The meat is marinated
overnight with onions, garlic, thyme, and chiles along with citrus, the fruits juiced and then rubbed forcefully onto the chicken to access the fragrant oils as well. After the meat takes on all that flavor, it’s stewed with the marinade and loads of bell peppers for a satisfying, thrilling stew. This dish is Haiti, something we make time and
time again. I suspect you will, too.

For Marinating the Chicken
3 pounds mixed bone-in chicken
thighs and drumsticks, rinsed
and patted dry
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 juicy orange, halved
1 juicy lime, halved
1 juicy lemon, halved
2 medium yellow onions, cut
into 1/8-inch half-moon slices

8 garlic cloves, roughly sliced
2 Scotch bonnet or habanero
chiles, cut in half and sliced
thin
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves

For the Dish
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄2 cup tomato paste
1 tablespoon kosher salt

2 red bell peppers, seeded and
deveined, cut into long, thin
slices
2 yellow bell peppers, seeded
and deveined, cut into long,
thin slices
2 cups chicken stock, salted
homemade or store-bought
Small handful roughly chopped
parsley sprigs

MARINATE THE CHICKEN
Put the chicken pieces in a large bowl and season with the salt. Squeeze the citrus halves over the chicken, then spend a minute or so rubbing the cut sides of the citrus against the chicken. Add the onions, garlic, chile, and thyme and toss well, rubbing the chicken as you do.
Cover and marinate in the fridge for at least 12 hours or up to 48 hours.

MAKE THE DISH
Preheat the oven to 375 ℉.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, guiding any stuck-on aromatics back into the bowl. Set a strainer over a small mixing bowl.

Pour the marinade through the strainer, reserving the solids and liquid. Pat the chicken very dry with paper towels.

Heat the oil in a wide heavy, ovenproof pot (I use a 31/2-quart braiser) over medium-high heat just until shimmery. Cook the chicken, skin-side down, occasionally turning the drumsticks but not the thighs, until the skin is deep brown about 8 minutes. Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate.

Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the tomato paste and salt, and cook, stirring often, until it turns several shades darker, about 3 minutes. Add the bell peppers and the reserved solids from the marinade, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peppers soften slightly and take on a little color, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up and in a single layer, then take a minute to pile the peppers, onions, and other aromatics on top of the chicken. Then evenly pour in the reserved liquid from the marinade along with the stock. Cook in the oven, basting every 15 minutes to coat the chicken with the peppers and sauce, until the sauce has thickened slightly and the meat pulls off the bone with a gentle tug from a fork, about 1 hour. Garnish with the parsley and serve.

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Gill Meller’s Root, Stem, Leaf, Flower shows home gardeners how to put their bounty of fruits and vegetables to use. First released in the UK last year, the cookbook reads like a love letter to plants. The 120 recipes are organized by seasons and ingredients, making it easy to find new purposes for the springtime boom of asparagus and rhubarb and summer’s surplus of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and more.
(March 9, Quadrille/Chronicle Books)

Super Natural Simple

When you’re feeling overwhelmed or overextended or are simply out of dinner ideas one year into a global pandemic, this is the cookbook to reach for. At the heart of Heidi Swanson’s recipes is a deep appreciation of fresh produce, which she utilizes in 120 non-fussy vegetarian recipes, many of which are rooted in California cooking. The third cookbook from the James Beard Award-winning blogger and author, Super Natural Simple offers easy yet appealing soups and stews, single-skillet and sheet-pan meals and sweet one-bowl bakes for the busy home cook.
(March 23, Ten Speed Press)

The Chef’s Garden: A Modern Guide to Common and Unusual Vegetables

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(April 20, Avery)

Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution

Looking beyond wheat, Roxana Jullapat set out to highlight the diverse world of ancient grains—that is, grains unaltered by domestication. “I was struck by the fact that our conventional global supply reflects only a handful of wheat varieties,” writes the baker and grain advocate in the book’s introduction. “This is especially shocking considering the diversity of flavorful, nutritious grains found in nature.” In Mother Grains, Jullapat focuses on barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, rice, rye and sorghum, and pays respect to the farmers who grow them. In addition to more than 90 recipes for bread, rolls, cakes and more, Jullapat offers tips for sourcing, storing and sifting ancient grains.
(April 20, W.W. Norton)

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(May 11, Countryman Press)

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