Stephencooks

Fennel, Apple, Onion and Pancetta Pizza

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ennel seems to be constantly on my mind when I'm in the market lately, so I almost always seem to have a bulb or two waiting for me to use one way or another. And for me one of the best pairings for fennel is pork, in any format, so when I was thinking of pizza recently this fennel/pancetta combo easily came to mind.

Onions and apples are also great pals with pork so it wasn't a long jump to this happy grouping: fennel, onion, apple, pancetta. Add in my current favorite cheese combination -- Parmigiano Reggiano, Manchego and fresh mozzarella -- top with a few toasted pine nuts, dried grape tomatoes and some scallion threads and you have a very simple but interesting pizza. 

Sweet Risotto with Pear Compote and Ganache

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ndrew Barrow is a busy British food and wine writer and photographer who writes for a number of print publications and maintains a suite of blogs about food and wine which are listed, linked and described on this page at spittoon.biz, his flagship wine blog.

I've been corresponding with Andrew about food and photography almost since the day I started Stephencooks.com and he has been both encouraging and inspiring. The stunning quality and mood of his photography, whether the subject is food or more general, is a pleasure every time I visit one of his sites, and the breadth and sophistication of his food taste is constantly eye-opening. Add in his fresh, low-key writing style and the result is a pleasant few moments returned on every visit to his sites.

When I checked in at Andy's food blog Spittoon Extra a couple of weeks ago it was therefore no surprise to be blown away by his Dessert of the Week feature, where he presented Sweet Risotto with Rhubarb Compote. Though I love all preparations using rice, including of course rice pudding, and have spent many, many hours standing with a spoon over pots of risotto, I had never heard of or thought to try a sweet risotto. However, within minutes of clicking on that post I knew that situation would come to an end soon.

Rhubarb isn't generally available in the winter in the U.S., but since every year around this time I become obsessed with pears and pear preparations I had no trouble deciding what to use instead. I tinkered a bit with the risotto recipe but basically it's the same as Andrew's, using U.S. measures and adding a bit of the compote to the pot at the finish. The pear compote is a simple poaching of diced pears in sweet wine with some subtle flavorings and the ganache is an adaptation of Emeril Lagasse's method, which adds a bit of light corn syrup to deliver a more reliable and pleasing consistency to the result.

As you might imagine, this dessert was a big hit among the diners at my table!

Braised Fennel with Leeks and Bacon

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y friend Donna Quadri-Felitti -- a tremendously inspiring cook who has had a great influence on me -- taught me to braise leeks probably ten years ago and it's become a routine part of my schtick. I've varied the recipe this way and that over the years but this version is the winner so far and therefore deserves to be covered in a standalone post.

Of course, I've been braising fennel for a while too (see Seared Pork Medallions with Braised Fennel for example) but for some reason I'd never thought to do them together, or to add bacon to either, though now that I've done it I can't for the life of me figure out why it too so long to get this idea.

In any case, this is an easy side that goes especially well with roast or grilled meats. Leftovers of the preparation are also especially welcome in the refrigerator too, as a little knot of this stuff (warmed for a few seconds in the microwave) on top of a bowl of rice makes a quick and satisfying lunch. It also makes a nice addition to salads or hearty soups.

I served it the other night as an accompaniment to Fusion Flank Steak with Japanese rice and it was a pretty perfect pairing in my book.

Roasted Pear Salad with Honey Butter Dressing

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inter brings the fruits of the Pacific Northwest pear harvest to our supermarket produce aisles and this salad of Bosc or d'Anjou pears has become an annual favorite around here when the cold winds blow. (Pears can be held in cold storage for up to six months after their fall harvest with little or no deterioration of flavor or texture, if picked before they are ripe. Ripening them at room temperature is actually considered preferable to tree-ripening, which can make pears mealy or mushy.)

         
         Got Pears?


Here are some more pear recipes from the Stephencooks archives:
Pear Bread Pudding
Pear Gorgonzola Bacon Pizza
Crab, Brie & Pear Pizza
Roasted Beet and Pear Salad
Duck with Roasted Pears

This recipe, like a lot of the ones you find here at Stephencooks, was adapted from another one.  I got some nice pears for my Seared Sea Scallops with Roasted Pears when planning a dinner for some new friends but then got an email answer to my usual question to guests about allergies and strong likes or dislikes: "serious seafood allergy - no seafood of any type or quantity!"  This salad -- using a vegetable broth instead of fish broth, and serving the pears with a vinaigretted knot of baby spinach and scallion threads instead of seared scallops -- was the result of my last minute menu change for the evening.

I served this with the Fusion Flank Steak and the peppery accents of the steak went well with the sweetness of the pears.

Poached Sockeye Salmon

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y neighborhood supermarket had wild-caught sockeye salmon for $8.99 a pound and a couple of different versions of farm-raised "Atlantic Salmon"  for an average of $4.99 a pound. For several reasons -- mostly related to sustainability and taste -- I've come to prefer the wild-caught salmon from the Pacific northwest to the pale, overly fatty and bland farm-raised East-coast product. Yes, I understand that the the fish has to travel 3000 miles to get to my table, and that it's therefore not local, but this is a matter of taste. Not only is the color of the uncooked fish an inspiring red-orange, but also the taste is stronger and more nuanced than the pallid farm-raised cousin.

Anyway, I bought it.

Poaching is the best way to go with most fish fillets, since it's gentle and allows delicate fillets to keep their integrity. And, the poaching liquid, when reduced, makes a flavorful sauce. This dish, though it has a fairly long list of ingredients, is actually quite simple: make a broth, poach the fish in it, then reduce the broth to serve as a sauce. The addition of some carrots, green peppers and cilantro serves to add interest to the sauce and the orange color of the carrots seems to intensify the visual appeal of these beautiful sockeye fillets.

Fusion Flank Steak

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usion as a culinary idea has been around for a long time, and to call a recipe a "fusion" dish today has dated feel. Fusion came on in the 70's and 80's, at a time when Americans and Europeans were just starting to pay attention to the range and depth of Asian cuisines that lay beyond the familiar neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Sushi, Thai food (outside pad thai), and Vietnamese pho were still largely unknown and untried  by most Americans when Wolfgang Puck opened Chinois on Main in 1983, giving the movement a home and a platform.

I never quite understood what was so radical about bringing herbs, spices and techniques from Asia to western cuisine, but that was probably because I was doing business in Japan in the early 80's and taking side trips to other Asian destinations almost every time I went to Tokyo on business. In Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai, especially, I ate at exquisite restaurants where Asian-influenced Western dishes were almost the rule, and, with my exposure to these new experiences (and probably also because I lived just a few short blocks from the markets in Boston's Chinatown at the time) Asian cuisine was exerting influence on my own cooking. Later I found out it was a movement in fashionable cuisine and was, uh, unimpressed.

In any case, this dish, adapted Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking, is one of my oldest takes on the fusion thing, and the bottom line is that it's good food by any standard, old-hat though the style may be. My father, Grillmaster Bill, taught me in the 60's how to marinate a flank steak and cut in in thin slices across the grain and it's always been a favorite around my house. This version uses Chinese flavorings in the marinade and is served sitting in a puddle of flavorful broth made from the marinade in the style of the inspiring Becky Lee Simmons, chef at Katahdin Restaurant here in Portland.

I served the steak with a mound of Japanese rice and a knot of my Ginger-steamed Cabbage (with the shrimp omitted due to a guest's allergy issues and some shaved fennel and leeks cut in spaghetti strips added before cooking). The combination was well-received by the first guests to eat a meal cooked in my new kitchen.

Scallop and Pancetta Pizza

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eople sometimes ask me how I keep coming up with different pizza combinations, and the answer is simple: what I have on hand + what the food mood is at the moment = the next new pizza. This pizza is a perfect case to illustrate how this works.

We're in the middle of what seems like the fifteenth snowstorm of the season. I just got my lungs full of good Maine air with half an hour of shoveling and so the food mood in the kitchen is: warm comfort food! On hand is a container of scallops and three of my favorite cheeses: fresh mozzarella, Manchego and Parmigiano Reggiano. In the freezer is the chunk of pancetta I always keep on hand for moments like this, and of course there are onions, garlic and parsley available. So there it is: a very satisfying winter pizza, perfect for refueling shovelers (another 4 inches fell while I made it) or for greeting skiers, sledders, skaters or boarders on their return.

Moroccan-style Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Orzo "Risotto"

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his was a nice bonus from a leg of lamb I prepared for another occasion. After trimming and boning the leg I had a pile of lean bits and pieces and a good amount of fat, which I put aside in the freezer for another time...which turned out to be a very good move, since I eventually thawed the package, ground the meat and made these tasty gems.

I'm back......!
I've been renovating an 1865 brick town house in Portland, Maine -- typical money pit project. We just moved in and I'm setting up my new kitchen, which will be the subject of a post in the near future.
THANKS to all who sent notes inquiring about my health during the hiatus!

The recipe is a typical pseudo-ethnic product of mine. Of course, if I were a chef and had to market it I'd call it "Moroccan-influenced" instead of pseudo-ethnic, but it's the same thing. Not the real thing and not pretending to be. Developing these recipes involved my usual loosey-goosey procedure: I read a bunch of recipes from disperate sources (cookbooks, files of torn-out recipes, the 'net), then close the books and throw stuff in that's available from my larder and seems to fit the theme.

The result -- a flavorful meatball with curry undertones and a sweetish tomato sauce redolent with cinnamon, saffron and mint -- was a big hit around here, especially paired as it was with the orzo, which was cooked risotto-style using a dilution of the sauce for the broth. Despite the long list of stongly-flavored ingredients in the meatballs none dominates, so the flavor of the lamb survived quite well. I served the dish with pita bread and a fresh salad of mesclun, lettuce, quick-blanched sugar snap peas, baby carrots and baby turnips, topped with sweet, juicy nectarine slices and a crumble of goat cheese.

Poached Cod in Lemon Fume Broth

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've been going through an obsession with poached fish lately. This was one of the first "serious" cooking techniques I learned, when I was young and poor in New York City. A Julia Child recipe for poached fillet of flounder, with a velouté sauce made from the reduced poaching liquid, became my routine dinner-date-at-home recipe. Once mastered it was easy, and produced enough of a flurry in the kitchen to let my guest know she was getting something that took a little work. Add a candle, soft music and a bottle of wine and it made my little railroad flat in the East Village into a pretty romantic place...

Fast forward a good many years to Portland, where we are living in an apartment with no grill while we wait for renovations to be done on our house. I have access to fabulously fresh fish at the dockside markets and I'm infatuated with the food that chef Becky Lee Simmons puts in front of me at Katahdin, a great under-the-radar restaurant just steps off the beaten path in Portland.

This current situation has led me to more and more prepare dishes like this poached cod in lemon fumé broth, which, to be honest, is a blatant homage (much nicer sound than rip-off) to many similar plates Becky's prepared for me over the last year. Ok, to be different I put my rice (molded into a hockey puck shape with a ramekin) next to the fish, whereas Becky would have put the fish on top of a less architectural mound of rice, but otherwise it's hers, more or less, with a nod to dear Julia as well.

The main difference between this sauce and the velouté is the omission of flour and milk (but not the butter!), so this dish has a lighter feel than my old standby, in which the delicate sides of flounder were draped with creamy white sauce and decorated with a scattering of minced herbs. Here the fish is out front, with the sauce in a more supporting role, and it seems to me that the flavor of the broth is more pronounced and accessible than when it's used as a base for velouté, and this in spite of the lemony slant of this particular version. In any case, this is an easy, flavorful way to prepare any fresh fish, especially if it's delicate and less likely to survive more stressful methods like sauté or grill. I usually pair it, as Becky does, with a small nest of cooked greens, a good fresh bread and crisp pinot grigio.

Late Summer Pizza with Four Cheeses, Sweet Cherry Tomatoes and Fresh Oregano

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he story this week is that the  ripe cherry tomatoes from our Wolf Pine Farm share was remarkable for their juicy sweetness -- so when E asked if we could have a pizza night I knew those little beauties had to have the star position.

This is a simple pizza made of the most basic ingredients: cheese, tomatoes, oregano, onions, garlic and a few bits of meat and olives. As I usually do when using fresh tomatoes for a pizza topping, I dried them for a while in the toaster oven and this seems to have increased their sweetness. The combination of the sweet juice with the bacon bits and tasty cheese mixture, accented by the fresh oregano, made this a memorable pizza of the season.

We ate this pizza with a simple green salad, accompanied by a bottle of pinot grigio and Kenneth Branagh's exuberant and summery HBO Films version of "As You Like It" -- with memorable performances by Kevin Kline (Jacques) and Bryce Dallas Howard (Rosalind).

Farro with Kale, Tomatoes and Fresh Mozzarella

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'm a little late getting on the farro bandwagon, it seems, but better late than never.  I was browsing for a gift in the spectacular Browne Trading Company store here in Portland and found a pack tucked away on a shelf, grabbed it, and now I'm an enthusiastic convert.

Farro (also called emmer wheat, and sometimes confused with spelt, a similar grain -- check the label for the genus/species, which is triticum dicoccum for farro) was apparently first cultivated around 10,000 years ago and may be one of the first agricultural products. It fed countless generations in the Middle East and later in Europe and what is now India and Pakistan, but was gradually replaced by other higher-yielding grains and has become a niche-market product, with relatively small acreage dedicated to its production. As a result the cost is high (around $12/lb at Browne Trading). It seems ironic that foods such as lobster (fed to prisoners and used for fertilizer in colonial times) and farro,  the food of the masses for thousands of years, have become high-value delicacies, though it seems understandable -- though not pleasant to contemplate -- when we recognize that probably the only way to feed the Earth's current population is through high-yield factory farms and livestock operation.

In any case, it's a wonderful grain. Somewhat like large barley or wheatberries, it has a pleasing mouthfeel -- firm to the the tooth but at the same time yielding, with no chewiness -- and clearly is a candidate for many different uses, especially since, like rice, barley and pasta, it absorbs and is transformed by flavors from the cooking liquid. In researching the possibilities for future farro forays I've bookmarked many nice alternatives for inspiration (see the links in the last paragraph before the jump).

Many of the farro preparations are hearty soups and stews, which seem to me to be perfect fall or winter fare, but the idea of a lighter dish based on seasonal vegetables seemed to me to be the right way to go in August. The juicy picture at The Food Section -- just farro, ripe tomatoes and mozzarella -- got me started, and, after reading a bunch of recipes I went to work with the produce I had on hand from my Wolf Pine Farm share. The results were pronounced "outstanding" by E.

I served this warm, with a side salad of simple greens and some crusty bread, but the leftovers were very satisfying served as a cold side salad to accompany a steamed fish fillet on the following day. When served cold I found a nice addition was something crunchy: cucumber chunks, fresh celery slices or perhaps walnut pieces are good candidates.

By the way, there's some disagreement about how to cook farro: there's the "soak-it-first" crowd (Paula Wolfert, Guiliano Bugialli and Bon Appetit) and the "just-boil-it" group (Ilva at Lucillian Delights, Giada di Laurentis, Lidia Bastianich and Gourmet). There's also a wide range of opinion among the soakers on how long, from 30 minutes to overnight. I decided to follow the package instructions (I was using the vacuum-packed farro intero from Rustichella d'Abruzzo -- they also sell farro spezzato, which is a cracked version of the same grain), which called for a 45 minute soak. Also, I cooked it in unsalted water, since the package directions didn't mention salt, though some of the others cited used salted water.

Summer Squash and Fresh Corn Soup

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t's zucchini and summer squash season...an old joke in Maine is that you have to be sure your car doors are locked in August when you go to pick up the mail or you'll find the car full of zucchini when you get back! And I guess the growing conditions are pretty good this year, since I got a single summer squash in my Wolf Pine Farm share box last week that was just two ounces shy of two pounds...

My friend Alanna, the Veggievangelist, posted a nice cream of zucchini soup the other day, and it sounded so perfect that I set out to make her recipe (which she said was adapted from Julia Child's The Way to Cook) but of course I can't help going my own way once I'm in the kitchen, even if the map is from Julia by way of Alanna.

The presence of a couple of leftover ears of fresh Maine corn influenced me, of course, and the incredibly flavorful celery on hand from last week's farm share box also was crying out to be included, as was some tarragon from the herb garden and some of the nice carrots that also came in from the Wolf Pine farmers. Oh - and I tossed in some saffron to juice up the already-beautiful yellow color.

I usually make soups with my left hand while I'm cooking something else for dinner, and often over several nights, so this was no exception. I think the flavor gets better if the ingredients have some time to get to know each other. In any case, this was easy and also a big hit around here. I served it with salad from the Wolf Pine Farm box, and the usual casual summer supper accompaniments, white wine and crusty French bread from Standard Bakery.

If you're really swimming in zucchini and summer squash you might be interested a couple of other recipes from the Stephencooks archive -- both of which just scream summer on the farm:

Lobster, Zucchini and Corn Pizza

Zucchini/Rutabaga Cakes with Tomato Marmalade

Salad of Chiogga Beets and Romano Beans

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ast week in the Wolf Pine Farm share we had -- along with summer squash, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and parsley --  beets and green beans, two of my favorites. But they were both unfamiliar versions so I checked in with the Veggievangelist herself, Alanna Kellogg at A Veggie Venture.

Alanna instantly identified the newcomers:  romano beans -- a broader, flatter bean than the usual variety -- and chiogga beets. The beets were such a bright red that I first thought they were radishes, but when they had been roasted  they were a pale translucent pink, slightly redder on the root end. Their taste was earthy and sweet, with a silkier mouthfeel than the deep maroon variety.

I have my regular routines, and with beans I usually blanch them and then season them with salt or sometimes a fresh herb while they are still warm. Great in salads or all by themselves. With beets I nearly always just roast them and skin them and then use them in salads. So, after going through the usual routines with these two (the beans were a little tougher than regular string beans so they took a little longer in the boiling water) I had the idea to bring them together in what seemed to me to be a perfect midsummer salad -- with some sweet onions, a few slivers of blanched baby carrots and a dijon vinaigrette dressing they were a perfect addition to a casual supper of poached fresh fish and fresh corn on the cob.

By the way, Alanna has more great ideas for these two vegetables: see Chiogga Beets with Horseradish Cream and Garlicky Romano Beans - take note, by the way, in the bean preparation, of the rosemary-infused oil(!).

Marinated Lamb Kebabs with Onions, Peppers and Nectarines

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he American Lamb Board, seeking to shore up demand which, according to their market reports, has fallen off significantly over the last two years, has enlisted a top-flight PR firm (Fleishman-Hillard) to spread the word. Apparently getting bloggers to write about lamb is part of their strategy so they Fedexed me a nice gift box containing a boned leg of lamb on ice, bags of dried herbs, some skewers and a leaflet with recipes.

Since I never heard of the American Lamb Board I asked my friend Farmgirl Susan, a bonafide sheep farmer and the creator of the wildly popular blog Farmgirl Fare, if she could tell me something about the organization.  She said:

""I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know anything about them. We're not currently members of the Sheep Society or whatever those groups are called. Usually they're aimed at larger producers and/or people who don't know the words 'organic' or 'natural.'

"That said, I am certainly in favor of anything that helps to not only get more people eating lamb, but lets them know that their lamb doesn't have to come all the way from Australia or New Zealand (or Iceland, which is the place Whole Foods is touting their lamb is from now).

"But of course, naturally raised, grass-fed lamb that is hopefully locally produced is not as easy to come by--and it's going to cost more than the stuff at your average supermarket whether it's American or not. Unless it's marked otherwise, supermarket lamb will most likely come from animals fattened up quickly on grain in feedlots."

I get such offers of marketing swag every now and then and accept them with the warning that I may or may not write about the product, and that if I do write about it my comments may be positive or negative. Usually I don't write about the stuff that shows up (cookbooks, spice mixes, useless cheap kitchen gadgets, etc.) but I like lamb and so decided to cook it and blog about it.

My friend Julia's son Luke recently graduated from college and as luck would have it the lamb gift arrived a few days before the planned lawn party bash to celebrate Luke's achievement. Since I'm living in an apartment (while we renovate an old Victorian in Portland) with no outside space and therefore no grill I asked Julia if I could contribute kebabs for grilling at the party. (Julia and Joe use a gas grill, which is not my style, but beggars can't be choosers!)

Since it was a party I spent a little time on design of the kebabs and ended up with an appropriately festive look: red pearl onions at each end of the skewers, wrapped in pepper slices (green at one end, red the other), flanking two chunks of marinated lamb separated by a slice of mango apricot.  Since the vegetables need a longer time to cook than the meat they were blanched before being marinated.

The kebabs were served with triangles of pita bread and most guests washed them down with beer or wine. The result was generally acclaimed by the 30+ guests at the party. For my taste the marinade obscured the flavor of the lamb (I like a chop, simply grilled with rosemary and garlic), but since the dish was such a crowd-pleaser I can certainly recommend it.
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Tana, of I Heart Farms -- a passionate advocate for food quality and small producers -- also wondered about the American Lamb Board. See what she dug up (and what she thinks about it) by clicking HERE.
(Photo by Tana Butler)

By the way, if you want to see what some of your other favorite food bloggers have been doing with the American Lamb Board goodie bag, click the links below:
Amuse Bouche
Livin' La Vida Low-Carb
White Trash Barbeque
Get Your Grill On
Christine Cooks
Kalyn's Kitchen
Simply Recipes

Maine Open Farm Day - July 22, 2007

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ur membership in the Wolf Pine Farm CSA share program has opened up a wonderful world of locally-grown food that is not only the product of our friends and neighbors but that is also cultivated using time-honored and sustainable natural methods. Over the last two years we have been buying more and more meat, eggs, cheese and butter from the neighboring farms that distribute through Wolf Pine Farm, and also seeking out other direct-from-the-farm suppliers at our local farmers' market.

This Sunday's Maine Open Farm Day, organized for nearly 100 farms by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rurual Resources, offers another chance to get to know Maine's small farmers. Last year we had a great time visiting the farmers at Wolf Pine Farm and came home with pork chops, bacon, butter and several skeins of beautiful locally-grown alpaca yarn (which became a nice warm scarf for me over the winter, courtesy of E's mom!).

And to add to our incentive to support our local farms, over the winter we read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which laid out for us the grim facts of the industrial food picture as it exists today. Let's just say it's not pretty: food robbed of its taste and nutritional value, produced on environmentally disastrous and humanely unacceptable factory farms, all in the interest of delivering cheaper food and "food products" to millions of undiscriminating consumers. To be honest, I felt after reading the book pretty hopeless about the future of our food, and nostalgic for what has been so carelessly lost, but my visits to Wolf Pine Farm and my one-at-a-time finding of traditional sources of produce and meat have helped me keep up interest and hope in the face of such bleak realities.

Wolf Pine Farm is once again hosting their local foods breakfast from 8 - 11 ($7 for the regular breakfast, $9 for breakfast with bacon, and $4.50 for kids under 7) and is offering farm tours at 11 and 3, and many of the other participating farms are having similar events.  Click HERE or the Maine Open Farm Day banner above to find a farm near you to visit. Get some eggs from pastured chickens, butter from grass-fed cows, fresh goat cheese, pork from pigs raised in the open air instead of crates -- or just have a beautiful day in the Maine countryside. 

Seared Tuna with Avocado and Fennel-Onion-Caper Salsa

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hen the local fishermen are bringing tuna to the docks I can't resist this preparation. Most of the local catch goes directly to Tokyo, but apparently not all of it, for which I'm grateful. We may be getting tuna that doesn't, for some reason, meet the Tsukiji Fish Market mimimun standards but, not being as knowledgable as the legendary fish-graders there, I'm pretty happy with the cuts that show up in the case at Harbor Fish here in Portland.

The tuna is given a quick sear in a hot pan, leaving the center raw and fresh. The pairing of seared tuna with avocado is, of course, a reference to a popular maki item at sushi bars, and the salsa was inspired by the fennel and parsley in our Wolf Pine Farm share basket this week. I served this with a fresh salad and -- what else? -- a mound of Japanese rice.

Grill Basics: The Cook'N'Kettle (Updated 7/07)

I'm reposting this, since it's one of the two most-commented-upon posts I've done here at Stephencooks (the other one is Old Forge White Pizza) and because the contact information for Baker's Cook'N'Kettle needed to be updated. I figure that since this post comes up at the top of a Google search for "cook'n'kettle" I have some responsibility to keep it current! Click HERE to see the original post and comments.

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e're talking about charcoal and hardwood here. I do have an indoor Thermador gas grill, but I only use it if there's a howling Northeaster going on, or (more frequently) to finish meats begun on the charcoal for a dinner party. Basically, gas is good for home heating, dryers and cooktops - but for barbeque you need a fire that produces smoke.

My father, William Stanley Smith, was a brilliant surgeon, researcher (he had a hand in some of the basic science that led to hip replacement), and teacher. All of these things about him I know based on reports from others. But I had direct experience with his expertise at grilling and smoking and, though he's gone, I still have that wonderful gift.

Around 1960 a friend introduced Bill to the Cook'n'Kettle, a cast iron kettle grill on a stand. He applied his scientist's mind to the problem of the perfect steaks, smoked turkeys and roasts, and after a few years of taking measurements, timing carefully and keeping records in a notebook, he had it down. While most guys were timidly poking at a burned steak on their grills, he was in the den, watching the Tigers on TV. When my mother asked when the meat would be done, he'd look at his watch and say, "eight and a half minutes," without missing a pitch. The results were spectacular.

About fifteen years ago, after a lifetime of apartment living, I moved to a place where I could grill outside and got a Cook'n'Kettle of my own, and one afternoon I sat my father down to extract the secrets. (My three brothers also have them -- one has two -- and my daughter does too. We're featured in the Cook'n'Kettle marketing literature -- "Three Generations of Cook'N'Kettle." At last count, our extended family owns six Cook'N'Kettle setups.) I'll be revealing Bill's secrets as time goes on in Stephencooks.com, but this post is about the tool.

Fennel

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his week's Wolf Pine Farm share brings us fennel, along with butterhead and romaine lettuce, mesclun, garlic scapes, scallions, sugarsnap peas, baby carrots, baby turnips and kale.  Fennel is a big favorite of mine, not only because of its pungent, distinctive flavor but also for its versatility. It can be served raw in a salad, as an interesting ingredient in soup (Fish Chowder with Fennel and Corn), grilled (Grilled Fennel/Chicken Salad), puréed as an ingredient in cream soups, boiled and added to mashed potatoes for a different twist, incorporated into a sauce for fish (Black Bass with Fennel-Orange Cream) or, my favorite, cut in long shreds and braised in wine and butter. These tasty "noodles" make a flavorful bed for a piece of grilled fish, or, in this recipe from the Stephencooks archives, a piece of pan-seared pork tenderloin.

Seared Pork Medallions with Braised Fennel

(For more tips on using your farm share, click the Wolf Pine Farm logo in the upper left corner of the screen to go to A Veggie Venture's page of recipes keyed to this week's share, or check out the Stephencooks archive of Wolf Pine Farm-inspired recipes by clicking on the Wolf Pine Farm Share tab in the directory in the upper right of the screen. )

Pan Seared Filet Mignon with Shallot-Wine Sauce

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here it sits: a tray of beautiful two inch thick prime filet mignon steaks. Twelve bucks a pound at least, and everyone is looking forward to a perfectly cooked steak. Talk about pressure!  There's nothing more disappointing than an overcooked steak, especially when it's a top cut, but with a little care and attention you can come through with the goods every time.

Its true, we eat a lot of vegetables and fish around here, especially in summer when the farm share is in full swing and the boats are putting in at the docks across the street with fresh fish every day. But every once in a while we like a nice steak. When it's just the two of us, firing up a grill seems to be a bit much, so I've studied and done trials and kept notes and I've finally got the art of a perfect pan-seared steak down pat. Actually, it's seared in the pan for a few minutes and then roasted, which produces a perfect crust on the surface without any charring or burning. 

Sauce is, for me, as much a part of the perfect steak dinner as the meat, so I always make some sort or other. This one is based on Julia Child's classic Sauce Bercy, made from shallots, white wine and herbs (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1, with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck). I served this with a crusty French bread and a salad made of fresh Wolf Pine Farm greens.

Making the Most of Your Farm Share

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his is the third week of our farm share from Wolf Pine Farm and Farm Manager Natalie tipped me off in an email about the contents: "garlic scapes, kohlrabi, chinese cabbage, romaine lettuce, parsley, mesclun, sugarsnap peas, possibly another cooking green such as swiss chard, kale, or even mustards, and possibly radishes or turnips again."  Her uncertainty about the last few items illustrates that one of the challenges a CSA farm manager faces is the conflicting demands of shareholders who want advance notice of the share contents versus the necessity of waiting until the last possible moment to select the crops for harvest, to maximize yield and deliver produce at peak quality and taste. This also explains why Tuesday picker-uppers don't always get what the Wednesday and Friday members get.

Swiss Chard Demystified!          My pal Helen at Beyond Salmon (a CSA shareholder last year at Brookfield Farm in Massachusetts and this year at Waltham Fields Community Farm) posted an informative primer on Swiss chard, along with a very yummy recipe. CLICK HERE to check it out.

Obviously in the early season there will be a lot of salad and cooking greens, so it seemed to me a good time to share my method of keeping them fresh all week. It's really simple: fill a large bowl with cold water, separate all the leaves,  remove any rubber bands, etc., and plunge the greens in the water. Swish them around vigorously with your hands and then lift them out, letting them drain for a few seconds over the bowl. Transfer to the spinner and spin vigorously (I like my Zyliss spinner, but Oxo spinners have a large following these days). Lay out a blanket of paper towels (maybe 6 sheets, unseparated and folded to double thickness) and put a layer of the greens on them; lay another 6 sheets, doubled, on them and then more greens until the spinner is empty. Roll the towels loosely into a log and place in a 1 gallon  (11" square) food storage bag. Don't use a tie or other closure -- leave the bag open -- and refrigerate. Greens prepped this way will stay crisp and fresh for up to a week. Tip: if you are doing several different kinds of greens at the same time, pull a couple of leaves out and put them in the bags outside the paper towels so you can easily see which bag has which greens.

Here are a couple of timely recipes from the vast Stephencooks archive:

Garlic Scapes with Absorption Pasta and Wild Mushrooms
Vegetable Medley Stir-Fry, with Baby Turnips, Kohlrabi, Carrots and Onions