Roasted Fennel and Red Onions

This picture of Oliver holding our freshly unearthed fennel bulb sparked enough comments on Facebook that it seemed a fennel primer was in order.
As wild and unruly as this plant looks, there are really only three parts to deal with: fronds, stems and bulb. The feathery fronds can be cut from the stems and used like other herbs. Trim the stems to look like celery, and use them the same way (chopped in soup, for example).
Cut the stems from the bulb, and then cut off the root end. With the root end on the cutting board, make crosswise vertical slices, removing and discarding the hard core in the center. For this recipe, I make the slices about 1/2" thick. Give these slices a good rinse, as fennel, like leeks, can hold a lot of dirt.
What you do from here depends on how you feel about the licorice-like flavor of fennel. If you eat the slices raw in a crudité, you will get the full, assertive flavor. Roasted, in the recipe below, the flavor mellows, and melds with the sweetness of the onions.

Roasted Fennel and Red Onions

1 (or 2) fennel bulbs, sliced as described above
2 large red onions, peeled of all papery layers and cut into 3/4" wedges
2 T olive oil
Salt
1 T balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 425˚. Toss fennel and onions with the olive oil in a roasting pan and season with salt. Roast for 35 minutes, stirring after 25 minutes. Drizzle with the balsamic, toss again and roast for an additional 5 minutes, until caramelized and tender. Taste for seasoning and serve hot or warm.

(Adapted from Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day)

Sweet Roasted Butternut Squash & Greens over Bow-tie Pasta

This time of year the greens are piling up from Seton Harvest, so it is always nice to find a new way to use them. The recipe below is popular with all three of our kids, so you should be able to get some greens into your kid's diet, if that is part of your plan.

Admittedly, butternut squash is not exactly in season, but you won't mind once you taste this recipe from Lynn Rosetto Kasper and Sally Swift's winning little book, How to Eat Supper. [Much thanks to Francie on this one, who both cooked the dish and typed the recipe in!]

Sweet Roasted Butternut Squash & Greens over Bow-tie Pasta

(10 min prep time; 35 min oven time)

5 qts salted Water in a 6-qt pot

3 – 3 ½ lb Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded & cut into bite-sized chunks*

1 med to large Onion, cut into 1-in chunks

2 big handfuls Escarole (or Curly Endive, Beet greens, Yukina savoy – what we were using from the farm -- or even Spring Mix greens) washed, dried & torn into small pieces

1/3 tight-packed cup fresh Basil leaves, torn

16 fresh Sage leaves, torn

5 large Garlic cloves, coarse chopped

1/3 cup good-tasting Extra-virgin Olive Oil

¼ tsp Red Pepper flakes

1 tight-packed tbsp Brown sugar (light or dark)

Salt & fresh-ground Black Pepper

1 lb Bow-tie Pasta

½ cup Half-and-half

1 to 1 ½ cups (about 6 oz) shredded Asiago cheese

1. Slip one large or two smaller shallow sheet pans into the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Bring the salted water to a boil.
2. In a big bowl, toss together all the ingredients for the roasted vegetables (2^nd grouping of ingredients) for the roasted veggies. Be generous with salt & pepper.
3. Pull out the oven rack holding the sheet pan. Taking care not to burn yourself, turn the squash blend onto the hot sheet pan & spread it out. Bake for 25 min or until the squash is tender, turning the veggies two or three times during roasting.
4. As the squash becomes tender, drop the pasta into the boiling water & cook it until tender, but with some firmness to the bite. Drain in a colander.
5. Once the squash is tender, turn on the broiler to caramelize it. Watch the veggies closely, turning the pieces often. Anticipate about 5 min under the broiler. You want crusty brown edges on the squash & wilted, almost crisp greens.
6. Scrape everything into a serving bowl. Add the half-and-half, hot pasta & 1 cup of the cheese. Toss to blend, tasting for salt & pepper. Add more cheese if deserved. Serve hot.

*Addl tip for peeling winter squash from Kasper & co-author Sally Swift: Tough skin & hard flesh make winter squash annoying to peel, but there is a relatively easy way to sidestep most of the work & the dangerous knife slips. With a chef’s knife, halve the squash lengthwise. Flip it cut side down and cut it crosswise into 1-inch thick slices. Now it’s easy to trim away the peel & seeds from each slice. Cut the crescents of squash into 1-inch chunks, and you are done.

Seasonal Ingredient Map

I just stumbled upon a cool new tool to help you find seasonal ingredients, wherever you are. Epicurious.com has a new seasonal ingredient map that gives you a sense of what's in season now, as well as handy links to their kitchen dictionary and recipes for each item. In April, for example, the site lists asparagus and spinach as in season in Indiana. If you are in California, you can expect to see artichokes, asparagus, beets, cherries, Kohlrabi, lettuce, mushrooms, spinach, strawberries, and tangerines. I'm not sure when tangerines are in season in Indiana, but I'll keep you posted!

Great Lattes, and a Free Espresso Machine

Are you the sort of coffee drinker that gets panicky or depressed when Starbucks announces the closing of 600 stores across the country? Do you drink a Grande Caffé Latte four, five, or more times a week? Would you like a free espresso machine? Then read on.

A Grande Hazelnut Caffé Latte at our local Starbucks is $3.94. For that seemingly miniscule amount of money, you get 2 shots of espresso, 12 or 13 oz of steamed milk, and about 1oz of hazelnut syrup. And with espresso machine / grinder combinations costing $1000 or more, why would you even bother?

The answer is twofold. First, you can make the best espresso drinks you are likely to taste anywhere, right in your own home. Second, as you will see below, if your household drinks 2 a day, five times a week, you pay for that fancy machine in the first year.

What makes a great espresso? High quality Arabica beans, lightly roasted the same day the coffee ships. An exceptional example is Daterra Farm coffee, a single-origin coffee from the Cerrado region of Brazil, processed and roasted by the appropriately-named Terroir Coffee. Like a wine from a Premier Cru Bordeaux vineyard, single-origin coffees reflect the soil and character of their particular region. Cerrado produces a delicious coffee with the least acidity, an ideal trait for espresso coffee.

The darkest Daterra Farm roast (which is really a medium roast) is called Calabria, and it is a fine choice for large milk drinks like caffe lattes. Kenneth Davids, editor of CoffeeReview.com, says it "dominates milk with a smoky heaviness that resolves quickly into a milk-sweetened version of…dark chocolate." When this coffee is roasted only days before grinding, and ground seconds before brewing, the resulting espresso shot can be a life-changing experience.

Of course, to transform those roasted beans into that beautiful shot, you will need some equipment. The coffee brewed for this article came from a Rocky burr grinder and a Silvia espresso machine, both made by Rancilio. To make that sixteen-ounce hazelnut caffé latte at home, you would need the following:

2 oz Dattera Farm Calabria Style Espresso	$1.12
12-13 oz Horizon Organic Milk	$0.75
1 oz Torani Hazelnut Syrup	$0.16
Total	$2.03

At that price, if your household drinks two per day, five times per week, your yearly savings would be $991.73. The first year you can pay for Rocky to grind your beans and Silvia to brew your espresso; what you do with the money in subsequent years is up to you.

For you sticklers who point out that electricity, water, and maintenance are not figured in the calculations, please note that neither is the fuel savings of driving to the coffee shop, and then being "upsold" a pastry. If you are one of those disciplined souls for whom coffee is more communal experience than nagging addiction, forget the above and head to a great local coffee house like Penny Lane. Your time and money will be much better spent.

© 2008 J. Andrew Hubbard

Maui restaurant delivers all that memory promised

My plane landed in Maui just after noon, and on arriving at my hotel I immediately made my dinner reservation. Yes, I would be eating at 11:30 p.m. Evansville time, and yes, it was about a 45 minute drive each way on twisting roads cut through lava rock, but I had to go back.

I had last eaten at Lahaina Grill eight years ago, and the black and white-tiled dining room, pressed tin ceiling, bold florals painted by Maui artist Jan Kasprzycki, and the whole dining experience itself had been calling me back ever since.

I was seated promptly, and received celebrity-worthy service from Lisa (although so did, I suspect, her other tables). Jurg Munch, the gracious and casually elegant Chef / Owner, strolled through the dining room visiting most tables, including mine.

The tasting menu, which offers smaller portions of several appetizers, salads, entrees, and desserts, allowed me to taste a wide swath of the menu. Although the cuisine might best be described as New American, touches of Hawaii abound. The bufala tomato salad localizes an Italian favorite of tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, balsamic vinaigrette, and truffle oil by using tomatoes from Hana, and the strikingly beautiful black Kilauea sea salt from the neighboring island of Molokai. Corn, spinach, and asparagus come from Upcountry farms in the town of Kula. The Caesar salad was beautifully composed of a small wedge of baby romaine lettuce, garlic-anchovy dressing, shaved Parmesan, and draped with a glistening anchovy (one of the best I have ever eaten).

I expect spectacular seafood from a restaurant surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and the entrees did not disappoint. First I sampled the sautéed mahi-mahi with Kula spinach, herb infused mashed potatoes, Gorgonzola, pancetta and Chardonnay beurre blanc. If you tend to shy away from fish because you prefer a “meatier” entrée, the Maui onion and sesame seed crusted seared ahi with vanilla bean Jasmine rice and apple cider-soy butter vinaigrette will convince you that seafood can be as savory and flavorful as a steak.

Such savoriness was a theme throughout the menu, and evidenced the chef’s understanding of umami. Umami is that meaty, savory flavor, sometimes called the fifth taste, which comes from the glutamates in foods like tomatoes, cured meats, Parmigiano- Reggiano, anchovies, mushrooms, and seaweed, where it was first discovered. Unlike sweet or sour flavors that can often take a lead role in a dish, umami undergirds and intensifies all the flavors. If you have ever had trouble replicating your favorite Chinese dish at home, part of the problem may have been the umami flavoring (most likely MSG) the restaurant uses.

Desserts continued the Hawaiian theme. The “road to Hana” dessert is made from layers of Hawaiian vintage chocolate cake, chocolate sour cream mousse and macadamia nut caramel. It is a named for the 68 mile coastal road that takes 3 hours to traverse because of its some 600 odd curves, and is every bit as thrilling. The sunken chocolate cake is nicely paired with a homemade ice cream spiked with Kona coffee. But my favorite dessert was the simplest: a triple berry pie sprinkled with local raw brown sugar, which added a caramel note and a pleasant crunch to each bite.

I went back to Lahaina Grill four days later with 10 friends to confirm my impressions, and even the less adventurous eaters seemed to savor every bite.

In sum, Lahaina Grill was everything I remembered it to be. If you visit Maui, it deserves to be among your top choices. I just hope it doesn’t take me eight years to get back again.

TRIPLE BERRY PIE

One Pie, Serves 10

Ingredients (crust):
12 oz. All-Purpose Flour
1 pinch Salt
3 oz. Unsalted Butter
3 oz. All-Purpose Shortening
¼ cup Sour Cream
½ cup Ice Water
1 Raw Egg, scrambled
3 packets Sugar in the Raw

Crust Method:
- Gently rub flour with salt, butter and shortening together.
- Add sour cream and ice water, gently knead until all ingredients are folded into the dough without over mixing.
- Place in a bowl, cover dough with a moist towel or plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for about 1 hour.

Ingredients (filling):
12 oz. Blueberries
12 oz. Raspberries
1 cup Granulated Sugar
¼ cup Granulated Tapioca
¼ cup Crème de Cassis liquor

Filling Method:
- Mix all ingredients together. Line a 9", pie pan, sprayed with vegetable pan coating spray, with approximately ½ of the prepared dough, rolled out to approximately 1/8" thick, add berry mixture, cover with remaining dough. Cut a ¾" hole into the middle to allow steam from berry mixture to escape whilst baking. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with raw brown sugar.
- Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit with a fan on for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake until berry mixture starts bubbling, approximately 40 minutes.
- Cool and store in refrigerator until served. Garnish with vanilla flavored whipped cream, fresh seasonal berries, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream if desired.

Note: In case you were counting, the Chef considers the crème de cassis to be the third “berry” in this recipe.

(Recipe from www.lahainagrill.com)

© 2008 J. Andrew Hubbard

Rutabagas for Thanksgiving (and the Morning After)

If you have never eaten a rutabaga, or worse, had a bad experience with one, this column is for you. There is an easy way to add rutabagas to your Thanksgiving feast, but first, a bit about this under-appreciated vegetable.
Rutabagas, also known as yellow turnips or swedes, look almost exactly like a turnip, but are in fact a different species of plant. They are a member of the Brassica genus, which makes them related to mustard greens and cabbages, as well as broccoli and Brussels Sprouts. Being a member of this unpopular family may be the reason they don't make it to many American tables.
The result of a cross between a cabbage and a turnip centuries ago, rutabagas have an earthier, sweeter flavor than turnips. When boiled, both turnips and rutabagas can turn bitter to the point of being inedible. The trick, it seems, is to add a potato to the water and the bitterness disappears. The next logical step was to make a mash of potatoes and rutabagas. It turns out that the ratio isn't important; you can just add a rutabaga or two to your standard mashed potato recipe this Thanksgiving, or use half potatoes and half rutabagas. Just be sure to make a lot, because you will want leftovers to make the recipe below for Friday's breakfast.

Rutabaga and Potato Pancakes

For every 2 cups of leftover mashed potatoes, add:
1 egg
1 teaspoon of chives, minced
A few tablespoons of flour (if necessary, to help the mixture hold together)

You can form the mixture into small patties, and refrigerate for an hour if you have time. Heat a tablespoon or two of oil over medium-high heat in a skillet. Add patties or put about 1/2 cup of the mixture per pancake into the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the bottom side is golden brown. Flip the pancakes, and cook a few minutes more until brown. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and serve immediately, or keep warm in a low oven. You can make this recipe both fancy and French by dredging the patties in bread crumbs before frying, and then calling them croquettes.

Levantine Aubergine

Don't let my fancy, rhyming description in the title fool you. Baba Ghanoush is quick, easy to prepare, and a great way to stem the burgeoning tide of eggplants this time of year. But back to the title of this post. Levantine is the fancy way of saying there are versions of this dish in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, northwest Iraq (the province of Mosul), and southern Turkey near Adana, Gaziantep, and Mardin. (Thanks Wikipedia!) Aubergine, what the rest of the English- speaking world calls eggplant, well, that's the rhyme.
Let's dive right in to Baba Ghanoush. The steps are simple; heat your egglplants over high heat to soften and break down the walls. Use an open flame like a gas burner or a grill if you want it to have a smoky flavor. Then, scrape out the flesh, add a little tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper, whiz in the food processor or mash together, and you're done. Below is the recipe I use; if you want more of certain flavor or less, adjust accordingly. If you have a big enough food processor (14 cup or so) or bowl, this recipe doubles easily.


Baba Ghanoush

2 lbs eggplant (this is about 2 large globe eggplants or 5 medium Italian ones)
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 T lemon juice
2 T tahini
2 T extra-virgin olive oil (this the place for the best oil you have!)
Salt and Pepper

Heat burners on your gas grill to high until hot (or build a hot fire on your charcoal grill). Puncture the eggplants all over with a fork so they don't explode. Grill them over the hot fire, turning about every 5 minutes or so until the walls break down (around 20 minutes for a medium globe eggplant). Remove them to a tray and slice them in half lengthwise, and allow them to cool for 5 minutes or so. Scrape out the pulp and allow to drain in a colander for 3 or 4 minutes to remove the excess water. Transfer the pulp to a food processor and add garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and oil, pulsing about 8 or 10 times. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Chill for 30-45 minutes, covering with plastic wrap touching the surface (as you would for guacamole). Serve with any or all of the following: tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, and pita wedges. Drizzle (or drench) with olive oil.

A few additions (add these to taste) to get you started:

• onions
• smoked paprika
• cumin
• mint
• cilantro
• parsley