It’s hot …

… and cooking is the last thing on my mind.

Thank heavens for the farmers’ market, and for that magic moment at the height of summer when all the berries converge.

On Saturday, our market still had strawberries – last of the crop, according to the vendor who had sold out by 11. Raspberries were everywhere, the first fat blueberries had arrived, and one vendor even had early Marionberries. Another had ripe, tart red currants, glowing like rubies. I bought some, though I have no idea what to I’ll do with them.

There were also loads of cherries – this seems to be a bumper year for the cherry crop. I bought a bag of those to take to a barbecue, but I saved the berries for myself, and I’ve been eating them by the handful and the bowlful – mostly just as they are, sometimes with a little cream and (in the case of the Marionberries, which haven’t reached their sweet peak yet) a sprinkle of sugar. I did make an easy cobbler with some of the blueberries this morning, heavy on the berries and light on the sugar. That’s breakfast for the next few days.

I’d live on fruit alone right now if I could, but my body has a protein habit. Finding a way to satisfy that with a minimum of kitchen time can be a challenge. Not so this week; the young fisherman who’s been bringing live crab to market also had smoked tuna loins. I threw together a simple rice-and tuna dish that’s a distant cousin to the tuna noodle casseroles I grew up with. You don’t need a recipe for this kind of thing, just a general method.

Last night, after the coastal breezes blew the heat away, I cooked up a pot of brown Basmati rice and put it in the fridge overnight. This evening, I mixed it with some finely diced onion, fresh peas, and about half of the tuna, shredded with my fingers. To boost the smokey flavor, I crumbled up an ounce or so of Rogue Creamery’s Smokey Blue cheese, mixed that in with the tuna and rice. The zest and juice of half a lemon and a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise to keep everything moist, a sprinkle of parmesan and half an hour in a 350 oven and I’ve got dinner (and a couple of days worth of lunch).

These are the kinds of dishes summer calls for: things you can throw together quickly, filling but not heavy, and full of flavor. Not to mention endlessly adaptable. No peas? Dice up some summer squash, or broccoli, or whatever you find at the market. No rice? Use pasta. Trying to watch the fat content? Moisten the casserole with stock instead of mayonnaise.

And then have berries for dessert.

“The season of bounty …

… is here.” That’s how one of the vendors at the Albany Farmers’ Market put it this morning, grinning as she tucked my purchase into my backpack for me. Looking around at stalls brimming with variety, I couldn’t argue: Snap peas and sugar peas, lettuce and leeks on one table, flats of berries and cherries on another; late asparagus over there, jams and jellies and honey over here, fresh-baked bread nearby. We’ve finally reached the season of more food than flowers – not that I have anything against flowers, but they aren’t why I go to the market.

Never mind that the weather is still cloudy and cool (the farmers don’t). It’s summer. Just look at the calendar: Solstice falls tomorrow, and while we in North America tend to call it the first day of summer, I like the older traditions of people who marked the start of summer and planting season in May, and thought of the solstice as mid-summer. Which makes tonight Mid-Summer’s Eve, a night to frolic and feast and enjoy the longest day of the year.

Which seems as good an excuse as any to do something special but easy with the gorgeous cherries I brought home from the market today, in a mixed flat with strawberries and raspberries (which will probably get eaten plain, by the handful, if my berry-red fingertips are any indication.)

Really good fruit doesn’t need much help. A simple preparation that focuses on the flavor (and doesn’t tie you to the kitchen on a summer’s day) is just the thing. I thought about cherry pie, with the ruby-red fruit bubbling up in the interstices of a latticed crust, but that takes work, and who am I out to impress today, anyway? Still: Cherries … pie crust … hmmm… ooh, ooh – cherry galette!

A galette is just an easy, rustic pie. Instead of laying the crust in a pie pan and fiddling with a top crust, you center it on a baking sheet, mound the fruit in the center and pull up the dough to partly cover the top. The filling needs less liquid than you might use in a pie – otherwise it tends to leak out before it sets. Bake and serve as you would any old pie.

This recipe makes a small galette – big servings for two, or small ones for four. The almonds and kirshwasser are chosen to punch the pure cherry flavor, and that they do!

Mid-Summer Cherry Galette

Ingredients

• Crust for a single-layer pie. Make your own, or buy it in the refrigerator case
• 2 pints ripe local cherries, pitted and halved. (A cherry pitter makes this a snap!)
• 2 tsp kirschwasser (cherry eau de vie) or lemon juice
• 1/4 cup + 1 tsp sugar, more or less, depending on the sweetness of your cherries. I like to taste fruit, not just sugar.
• 1/4 cup almond meal. I use Bob’s Red Mill, but it’s easy enough to grind up a handful of raw almonds in the food processor.

Method:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Roll out pie crust on a baking sheet (I used a tart pan because it was handy).

Toss cherries with 1 tsp of the kirsch (or lemon juice, if your cherries are especially sweet).

Mix 1/4 c sugar and almond meal; toss that with the cherries. I chose almond meal as a binder for the juicy cherries because almond and cherry are well-matched flavors – and because typical fruit pie thickeners – corn starch, tapioca – can result in a gluey filling. Besides, I had almond meal in the pantry.

Mound filling in the center of the crust; pull up the edges, pleating and pinching as you go, to mostly cover the fruit. Don’t worry if it isn’t symmetrical – galettes are supposed to look rustic!

Brush crust with remaining kirsch or lemon juice; sprinkle with remaining tsp sugar.

Bake 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Some juice will invariably leak out.

Serve warm or cool. Top with ice cream – or creme fraiche!

Happy Solstice!

Fall harvest: Put some away for later

Autumn market haul

Thanks to a packed schedule of work and theater, I haven’t been keeping this blog up the way I’d hoped to, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been neglecting the height of the harvest season. Far from it: at this time of year, practically every meal I eat (well, except the occasional hit-and-run “meal” of cheese and crackers or storebought hummus) is packed with local goodness: Tomatoes (yes, mine finally ripened). sweet corn, tomatoes (so did my next-door neighbor’s), eggplant, tomatoes, late-season berries, tomatoes …

Now the fall fruits are coming in. There were so many apple vendors at the market today that I went a little nuts, coming home with probably 20 pounds of gorgeous, crisp apples: Big, juicy Gravensteins, crisp little Daveys, Cox’s orange pippins, the quintessential English apple, and several heirloom varieties I can’t even remember.

I also picked up some perfectly ripe red Bartlett pears, a half-dozen late-season peaches, three beautiful little globe eggplants, an assortment of hot peppers, a nice big pork shoulder roast (I see slow-cooked pulled pork in my future), a dozen ears of yellow corn, two winter squash (a sugar pumpkin and a French heirloom variety, Galeux d’Eysines), and a pound of green beans.

A lot of food for one person, to be sure – but  I’m putting some away now for the months ahead, when fresh local produce will be hard to find and dear when you can find it.

I don’t can. I know how, but I have neither the equipment, the storage space nor the patience to stand over a hot canning kettle on a fine fall afternoon. I do, however, have a large freezer in the basement, and an ample collection of freezer containers. So I came home from the market, hauled out my trusty Applemaster and my big enameled cast-iron kettle, and set to work.

Four hours later, I’ve got several quarts of easy home-made applesauce, one of rosy-pink apple-pear sauce with dried cranberries, and some fabulously aromatic  peach chutney just off the stove and ready to spoon  into containers. Tomorrow, I’ll blanch the corn and cut it off the cob to freeze in meal-sized bags, and cook up a batch of eggplant curry to eat with some of that chutney. The squash will keep till next weekend, when I’ll roast and peel it and freeze the chunks for curries, soups and pies.

It’s getting late for local peaches, so you may want to squirrel this recipe away for next summer. It works best with slightly underripe fruit that’s still firm enough to stand up to the long cooking without completely disintegrating:

Peach Chutney

Autumn Peach Chutney

Ingredients:

• 5-6 large peaches, peeled, pitted and cut in chunks
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1 Serrano (or other hot pepper) seeded and minced
• 1/4 of a red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 3-4 Tbsp crystallized ginger, chopped fine
• 2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 5-6 whole peppercorns
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp hot red pepper flakes (more if you like a very spicy chutney)
• 1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring. Turn heat very low and simmer 45 minutes-1 hour, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick and brown (if the peaches are very juicy, it may take longer for the liquid to evaporate).

Cool and spoon into half-pint freezer containers, leaving some head-room for expansion as it freezes. Keeps well in the freezer for up to 6 months; thawed and refrigerated, it will keep for a few weeks. Goes great with curries, or as a sweet-sour-and-spicy condiment for pork, lamb or fowl.

Experiments in ice cream

Oatmeal ice cream

Summer fun – houseguests, festivals, travel – have kept me from foodblogging for the past couple of weeks, and also made me miss a couple of weeks at the market. I made up for the latter yesterday with a market run that netted summer squash, turnips, lemon cucumbers, a fistful of fiery cayenne peppers, a big white onion, poppyseed cake, smoked bacon – and a mixed half-flat of berries: blueberries, raspberries (I still can’t get enough) and two varieties of blackberry, including intensely sweet Hoods (which grow on virtually thornless canes, making for scratch-free harvesting).

I’ve been craving ice cream, and a serendipitous Livejournal entry by a friend in Califormia gave me two inspirations: Blackberry puree, and (no, really) oatmeal ice cream.

Hm. Blackberries and oats: That, plus some sweetening, is my basic recipe for a very tasty blackberry crisp. The thought of turning those flavors and textures into ice cream … hmmmm …

Lacking an actual recipe, I improvised, using ingredients on hand and a variation on the the basic cooked-custard French Vanilla ice cream recipe that came with my Donvier ice cream maker (the sort with a cylinder that sits in the freezer just waiting for the ice cream impulse to strike, and requires no laborious churning – just a few turns of the paddle and it’s done).

Even using reduced-fat milk, the oatmeal provides a lush, silken texture that’s absolutely decadent. With plenty of cinnamon and a vein of deep purple berry goodness running through it, this is a fabulous summer-time ice cream. You could probably even pass it off as a healthy(ish) alternative to regular ice cream, although “healthy” is not one of my concerns when I want ice cream.

The oatmeal does give this ice cream a good deal of texture. People who, like me, love oatmeal will probably like it. People who find chewy ice cream off-putting may not – but it strikes me that you could run the cooked custard through a food processor and get it close to silky smooth, if you liked, before proceeding to freeze it.

Oatmeal ice cream with a blackberry swirl

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk (I normally use whole milk for ice cream, but I had 2 percent in the fridge; in this recipe, there’s no loss of creamyness.)
• 1/2 cup raw oats (I like steel-cut Scottish oats, but regular old Quaker oats would be fine. Just don’t use the instant stuff)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or more, to your taste. I used about a tablespoon, but I really like cinnamon).
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups cream or half-and-half (I used 2 percent milk enriched with three-fourths of a cup of home-made creme fraiche).
• 1 pint fresh blackberries (reserve a few nice ones for garnish)
• Sugar and/or fresh lemon juice (optional)

For optional topping:

• 2 Tbsp raw oats, toasted in a dry skillet until fragrant and golden-brown. Careful not to let it burn!
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar

Ingredients

Method:

In a lidded saucepan, combine milk and salt; bring to a boil. Add oats and cinnamon, reduce heat, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. When cool, beat eggs and sugar into the oatmeal. Return to burner, cooking over a low heat and stirring constantly until the mixture is thick and creamy enough to coat the back of the spoon. Cool, then add cream and vanilla. Refrigerate several hours to overnight.

When thoroughly chilled, pour mixture into your ice cream freezer and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

Meanwhile, heat the blackberries in a small saucepan, breaking up with a wooden spoon, just until they begin to disintegrate and give up their juice. Press through a sieve set over a small bowl to remove seeds, pressing with a wooden spoon to get all the blackberry goodness. You should end up with an all but seedless blackberry puree. Taste; if too tart, add a little sugar; if too sweet, add a squeeze of lemon juice. Cover with plastic wrap and chill. Don’t be surprised if the puree gets quite thick; blackberries are packed with natural pectins.

When the ice cream is mostly frozen (scoopable but not hard), transfer to a lidded freezer container with a bit of extra space: spoon in a layer of ice cream, add some of the berry puree and continue alternating, running a spoon or spatula through the mixture a couple of times. Your goal is not a uniform blend, but ice cream with veins of berry running through it. Return to freezer for at least two hours to ripen. (Note: If, as I did, you use reduced fat milk instead of cream, the ice cream may freeze up too hard to scoop. Just let it sit outside the freezer for a few minutes before serving, or give it a few 10-second bursts in the microwave).

When ready to serve, mix the toasted oats with the brown sugar; place a scoop (or two!) of ice cream into a dish, sprinkle on some of the oat/brown sugar topping and crown with a perfect blackberry.

Makes a little over over a quart of ice cream. Share it with friends.

Hot cherries

Cherry salsa with basil

I live in a neighborhood of gardeners, and it’s common for us to share our bounty. I’m not just talking drive-by zucchini drop-offs in the dark of night, either. None of us seem to grow exactly the same things, but all of us wind up, sooner or later, with more than we can consume on our own, and those over-the-fence swaps are one a great way to share the wealth and catch up on the neighbors.

One neighbor grows Queen Anne cherries, and maybe it’s the tree’s location or her tender, loving care, but she consistently gets ripe cherries before they come to the market. I was unpacking the car on Saturday after returning from a trip to Ashland when she hollered over from her porch: “Want some cherries?”

Oh, yeah.

Queen Annes are those dappled red-and-yellow cherries, sweet and juicy, not quite as packed with cherry flavor as the darker varieties, and thus, I think less suited for baking or cooked sauces. But they’re great for nibbling (I brought a little bag to work for lunch today) and lovely in uncooked dishes that show off their flavor and vivid colors.

This cherry salsa is just such a dish, with the flavors of basil, lime and chiles providing a zippy contrast to the sweetness of the fruit. It’s a fantastic accompaniment to fish, pork or – as I had it on Sunday – roast chicken. And very easy to make, especially if you happen to own a cherry pitter. (You can buy fancy ones from Williams-Sonoma, OXO or KitchenAid, but my cheap plastic Norpro model has served me well for years). I like it pretty hot, but you can tone the heat up or down by adjusting the amount and variety of peppers you use.

Cherry Salsa

Ingredients:
1 pound cherries, pitted
2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1/2 small onion, or 1 large shallot, chopped
1 or more hot peppers (jalapeño or your choice), seeded and minced.*
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Black pepper and salt to taste

*I used three tiny, incendiary red peppers of unknown lineage, given by another gardening friend last year and ensconced in my freezer ever since. Peppers freeze remarkably well; just clean and chop them quickly before they go limp from thawing.

Method:
Throw everything but the salt and pepper into a food processor and pulse just until the cherries are coarsely chopped and all the ingredients are blended. Turn out into a non-reactive dish, taste and adjust seasoning. Refrigerate; served chilled as a side dish to meat, fish or poultry, or as a dip for blue-corn chips.

Now we’re getting somewhere

As Culiaria Eugenius points out, the coming of summer brings a shift from greens and peas and more greens into the rich variety of summer produce. At yesterday’s market, I had to keep reminding myself that I’m heading out of town later in the week, so I restrained myself to one of Wood Family Farm’s excellent rib steaks, a bunch of garlic tops that are already opening (hey, they were only 50 cents a bunch), a few of what will probably be the last sugar-pod peas, some of the first green beans, a half pint of cherries – and two pints of raspberries.

It’s too hot to cook indoors, but I thawed the steak and gave it a good massage with a mixture of smoked paprika, cumin, rosemary and a dash of dried chipotle, plus a little salt, then put it in a bag to soak up those smokey flavors with plans to grill it tonight, once the ocean breezes start blowing in from over the Coast Range and cooling things off. There will be green beans – just gently steamed with a dab of butter – and perhaps a pan of garlic tops and mushrooms set to simmer at the edge of the grill. Some of the steak (I can’t eat it all at one sitting) will get sliced for use in a salad or wrap; there are enough green beans for a second meal, and somewhere along the line I’ll do something with the cherries. This week, I anticipate at least 3-4 meals from mostly local food. And it’s just going to get better as the summer progresses.

Yesterday, though, I couldn’t bring myself to cook at all. I rinsed and nibbled some of the peas, raw, for lunch. And then there were the raspberries.

Raspberries and I, we have history. I love them with a love that surpasseth understanding, above all other fruits, even summer-ripe peaches or the crisp antique apples of fall. Until I moved to the Willamette Valley, I’d never lived anywhere raspberries were grown; they were always rare, imported treats, so expensive that I never bought more than half a pint at a time, and carefully doled them out a few at a time as toppings for ice cream or cheesecake.

I still remember the realization, that first summer living in Oregon, that I could eat as many raspberries as I wanted. Followed, soon afterward, by an encounter with an acquaintance who was complaining that the raspberry canes in her back yard had run amok, and that she didn’t really like raspberries, so if I wanted to come over and pick some, I could help myself.

I think I came close to “too many raspberries” that summer. But never since.

Now I have raspberries growing in my own back yard. In their third year, they’ve spread out nicely along the eastern fence, and they’re thick with nascent fruit this summer; with a few weeks, I should be harvesting bowls full a day.

But not yet, so I snatched up two pints of the first market raspberries – Cascade Bounty, a relatively new cultivar – and brought them home.

There are lots of fine things to make from raspberries: Jam, pie, a simple puree (simmer raspberries an a very small amount of liquid – water, white whine – until they fall apart, sweeten to taste or not, then press through a strainer to remove the seeds) that can be used in everything from drinks (a few tablespoons of raspberry puree + sparkling water over ice!) to sauces to desserts.

But at the start of the season, I don’t bother. I just eat them.

I managed to consume nearly half a pint on the way home from the market. And a few more as I gently picked through them looking for squashed or overripe berries that might promote mold.

And then, for dinner, just this:

Raspberries. Cream. That’s all.

Warning: This post contains decadence

Late though it may be, strawberry season is finally upon us. And the strawberry lovers rejoice, and little chins drip red with sweet juice, and pint jars are sterilized for the making of jam.

I bought a half-flat of Seascape strawberries at the market this past weekend, with notions of making something special for a going-away barbecue I threw for some friends who are moving to the Virgin Islands. But it was a party, and there was socializing to do, so I wound up just rinsing them and passing around the green pasteboard cartons, to the delight of my guests. And perhaps it’s a sign that after 30 years the Willamette Valley is truly home, but I found myself feeling sorry that my friends would be moving to a Caribbean island where strawberries have to be shipped in from the mainland, and cost more than gasoline.

The berries didn’t all get eaten, though. And on Sunday night, with my visiting sister to egg me on, I used the last of them in a dish that had been tickling my imagination since I first read about it a few weeks back: Deep-fried strawberries.

Hush, now. I know what you’re thinking. This is not some grease-sodden variation of deep-fried Twinkies on a stick. This is pure, delicate strawberry indulgence, wrapped in a crisp-tender, egg batter that reminds me of my mother’s Sunday morning popovers. It’s a little fiddly, but the results are fabulous.

Trust me on this.

Deep-fried Strawberries (with Honey Whipped Cream)

1 pint ripe strawberries, rinsed, hulled and patted dry.

Batter:

• Oil for frying
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup white wine (I used a nice Oregon Pinot Gris)
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil of your choice (not olive oil)
• Powdered sugar
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1Tsp honey

Method:

I don’t deep fry often enough to own an appliance for that purpose; I use my wok, because the slope of the bottom makes it easy to get the depth of oil required for frying without using quarts of the stuff. You can also use a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Pour oil into the vessel of your choice to a depth of about three inches, and heat gradually to 300-350 degrees. A candy thermometer, the sort that clips to the side of the pan, comes in handy here. High heat is necessary to quick-seal the surface of the batter, which is what keeps it from absorbing too much grease.

Set a roasting or cake-cooling rack on a cookie sheet drain the berries after frying, or else several layers of paper towels.

Mix the batter: Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, then in a separate bowl (I use my Pyrex measuring cup) whisk together the egg, wine and oil until well blended. Whisk that into the dry ingredients until thoroughly blended; the batter will be fairly thick and not runny.

Dip the berries into the batter and swirl to cover throughly. I found a wooden barbecue skewer worked best for this. Transfer a few battered berries at a time to the hot oil and fry for about 60 seconds, turning once to brown evenly. As soon as the batter begins to brown, remove the berries from the oil and place on rack to drain off excess oil. Once all the berries are cooked and drained, arrange on plates and sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar. For extra indulgence, whip cream with honey until soft peaks form, and serve as a dip for the berries.

These are best eaten still warm, but not piping hot (as I discovered when I burned my palate on the first one). A pint ought to feed 3-4 people, but my sister and I ate them all, just the two of us, because we could.

The eggy-ness of the batter surprised me, but it makes sense: When subjected to high heat, the berries begin to give up their juice; the egg creates a sticky and somewhat water resistant batter; when it hits the oil it seals around the berries, containing their liquid. A different style of batter – tempura, for instance – would melt under the juice and dissolve into mush

Early cherries

While cool weather slows the progress of some of our usual late-May/early June crops, Rick Steffens Farm continues to provide us with glimpses of things to come, thanks to their extensive cold-frame operation. This weekend, in addition to strawberries and tender sugar-pod peas, they brought perfect, ripe Bing cherries, weeks ahead of season, harvested from dwarf cherry trees they keep under cover as part of a crop test they’re doing with the clever agriculturists at Oregon State University.

Cherries always make me think of clafouti, that easy, classic French country-kitchen dessert that’s a cross between a tart, a flan and a light, eggy cake. Served warm with dollop of creme fraiche (or, if you can’t find that, unsweetened whipped cream), it’s a lovely, not-too-sweet, not-too-heavy dessert that shows off the flavor of the fruit. While you can make clafouti with other fruits, cherries make the definitive version.

My recipe comes from my dog-earned, food-stained copy of Mastering The Art of French Cooking, which was the second cookbook in what is now a large collection (after the Joy of Cooking my mother gave me when I left home). After three decades, it’s still one of the books I return to again and again for basic techniques and excellent recipes. I’ve tweaked this one over the years, but it’s still faithful to the original, and absolutely delicious.

Cherry Clafouti

Ingredients:

• 2 cups ripe cherries, pitted. I have a nifty little cherry-pitting utensil, but for years I got by with the rounded end of a hairpin – scoop the loop of wire into the stem end of the cherry and down around the pit, give a tug and out it comes.
• 1/4 cup kirsch or brandy (optional)
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted.
• 1 1/4 cups rich milk or cream
• 1/3 cup sugar, plus 2 tsp for topping. For this purpose, I dip into my canister of vanilla sugar (sugar in which a couple of split and scraped vanilla beans have been buried)
• 1 tsp vanilla (if you don’t use vanilla sugar)
• zest of one lemon
• 3 eggs
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup sifted, all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup almond meal*

Method:

For a classic Clafouti a la Liqueur, soak the cherries in kirsch or brandy while making the batter; drain before adding to the dish.

Use 1 Tbsp of melted butter to grease the bottom and sides of a glass or ceramic pie pan or baking dish. Reserve the rest.

Combine the remaining ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and beat on high speed for a minute or so until thoroughly blended and foamy. (I use my wand blender when I don’t feel like messing with the KitchenAid). Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Drain the cherries and arrange them in the bottom of the baking dish.

Blend remaining melted butter into the batter and pour over the cherries. Place in the middle of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. Sprinkle reserved sugar over the surface and return to oven to bake for another 20-30 minutes, until the top is puffed and browned (it will deflate as it cools). Remove from oven. Serve hot or warm, with creme fraiche or unsweetened whipped cream.

* In France, the cherries often go into the dish unpitted, for the delicate almond flavor the pits impart to the batter. Having just gone through several thousand dollars worth of dental work, I choose to pit my cherries and add a little almond meal (sold as “almond flour” in the Bob’s Red Mill brand at several local supermarkets) instead.

Another fine thing to do with rhubarb

My house smells amazing right now, and it’s all because of rhubarb.

Well, rhubarb, spices, cider vinegar and a recipe one of my LiveJournal friends shared today, which made me think of the four stalks of Rheum rhabarbaraum still sitting in my vegetable drawer, suvivors of last weekend’s rhubarb-pear crisp.

It’s original with my friend; she found it on the Web, and it appears to be everywhere – in fact, if you Google the word “Bifana,” you’ll find it on just about every recipe site under the sun, usually credited to Michelle O’Sullivan of Las Vegas, Nev. (or, more often, to nobody at all, this being the Internet.)

The dish may or may not be related to the Portuguese bifana, a popular snack made from marinated and pan-fried pork cutlets served in a crusty roll. This recipe, rather, calls for roasting a pork tenderloin basted in a magnificently flavorful rhubarb chutney – and the chutney is what caught my eye, because (a) I love chutneys and (b) I thought I had most of the ingredients in the house, including that wonderful almost-fresh rhubarb.

“Thought” is the operative word here. As it turns out, the gingerroot in the vegetable drawer had gone moldy, and I didn’t feel like a trip to the supermarket tonight.  So I improvised with candied ginger – the pungent, moist Trader Joe’s variety that isn’t covered in sugar crystals. And I don’t use garlic powder, but fresh minced garlic is always a perfectly good – dare I say “better”? – substitute for that. Since I was in a “what the heck” mood and a little short on raisins, I chopped up a few slices of dried mango (available from Asian grocers) and threw that in, too, because I never met a chutney that couldn’t benefit from mango.

Here’s the recipe. My friend called the flavors “surprising,” and I concur: It’s sweet and sour and slightly hot but not incendiary -  and utterly delicious. I think it’s going to be even better after overnight refrigeration allows the flavors to blend. And easy - other than 15-20 minutes of simmering, it took all of maybe 5 minutes to put together. It’s cooling now, and then I’ll pack it in a container and refrigerate it. This weekend I’ll pick up some local pork to go with it – if I can keep myself from just consuming it by the spoonful.

Oh, and the original recipe, with instructions for roasting the pork, can be found here, among other places.

Rhubarb Chutney

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root (or use candied ginger and either reduce the sugar or add a splash more vinegar)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (or, if you must, garlic powder)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon dried red chile pepper (or more, if you like your chutney hot)
• 4 cups diced rhubarb
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 1/3 cup golden raisins
• (optional) 1/4 cup dried mango, chopped coarsely

Method:

Combine sugar, vinegar, ginger, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, cloves and red pepper in a large, non-reactive saucepan. Bring to simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Add rhubarb, onion and raisins. Increase heat to medium-high and cook until rhubarb is tender and mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat and let cool.

This makes about two cups. Refrigerated, it should last a couple of weeks due to the high acid content, though I doubt it will get a chance.

Two things to do with strawberries

I managed not to eat them all straight from the pasteboard box, and as promised, here are some nifty things to do with really good strawberries. You know the ones I mean: Red and tender all the way to the heart, so fragrant they smell up your whole refrigerator, and sweet as a May morning. If you can’t get fresh, local berries, my condolences. Don’t bother with these recipes, or (for the panna cotta) substitute good preserves. Anything but those hard, red-on-the-outside, white-on-the-inside excuses for strawberries most supermarkets stock. They’re marginally acceptable when piled on shortcake and smothered in whipped cream, but not for any recipe that’s meant to show off the delicate strawberry flavor and fragrance.

The first dish was yesterday’s lunch, inspired in part by a desire to finish off the wonderful spinach I’d bought the week before. The second is a happy coincidence: I’m providing food props for a local theater production, and among them is “creme caramel” – but I’ve been substituting panna cotta, because its gelatin-and-cream base is more refrigerator-stable than the egg custard of real creme caramel. I had a couple of extras, so …

Spinach salad with strawberries and balsamic vinegar

Ingredients:

Spinach
Ripe strawberries, sliced
A few spears of fresh asparagus, the smaller the better
Good balsamic vinegar
Freshly ground pink peppercorns
Sea salt

Method:

Tear greens into bite-sized pieces and spread on a plate. Arrange a few spears of asparagus, lightly steamed or roasted, on the greens. Top with a few sliced strawberries (I got cute and made strawberry fans by slicing from the tip not quite to the stem and then fanning out the pieces). Drizzle with a balsamic vinegar – less is better than more, here. Sprinkle with ground pepper and a tiny bit of sea salt.

If you’re not the kind of person who keeps pink peppercorns on hand, fresh-ground black pepper is good, too, but the pink variety has a subtle, floral flavor that goes wonderfully with berries and other fruit.

Panna cotta with caramel and strawberries

My recipe for this luxurious Italian dessert is adapted from one by Lynne Rosetto Kasper, host of the wonderful public radio cooking show, The Splendid Table. Hers makes enough for a big dinner party, so I’ve jiggered the proportions, and I’ve upped the gelatin-to-cream ratio just a bit to make them easier to unmold.

Ingredients:

1 tsp unflavored gelatin (that’s about half an envelope)
2 Tbsp cold water
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-dairy sour cream. Make sure to get the kind that lists “cultured cream” as its only ingredient. You don’t want agar or other thickeners in this. (Or ever, really).
Caramel sauce (make your own if you want, but I use Mrs. Richardson’s Butterscotch Caramel Sauce, which is to die for)
Strawberries, hulled

Method:

Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl. Let it stand for 5 minutes.

In a small saucepan combine the cream, sugar, salt and vanilla and warm over medium-high heat. Do not allow it to boil. Stir in the gelatin until thoroughly dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

Put the sour cream in a medium bowl. Gently whisk in the warm cream until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Rinse a half-dozen small ramekins, pyrex custard cups, or coffee cups with cold water. Place a spoonful of caramel sauce in the bottom of each, and then fill with the cream mixture. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours (can be made a day ahead of time, and if covered with plastic wrap once it’s chilled, it holds up well for a couple of days in the fridge).

When ready to serve, run a knife around the edge of the panna cotta, place a dessert plate on top of the ramekin and invert. It should plop right out onto the plate; if not, carefully run the knife up the side and gently pry it loose. Make sure to get all the caramel sauce out of the ramekin and onto the custard (a spoon may be needed). Top with ripe strawberries. Makes six small desserts.

I’ve got house guests coming this evening, and plan to ply them with berries and panna cotta. I don’t think they’ll mind