It all started with an innocent Facebook post: “Eat your heart out, Julia Shanks.”
My friend Dave had made a soup he was exceptionally proud of, and wanted to share a photo with me. Somehow his words got minced, and friends assumed he challenged me to a cook-off.
Dave accepted the challenge. Or I did? However it happened we decided to face off on April Fool’s Day.
The rules were set: We each prepared a three-course meal featuring common ingredients: goat cheese for the appetizer, pork for the entrée and strawberries for dessert.
The judging was fierce, and I just barely eeked out a win. What put me over the top was my dessert: Chocolate Mille Fuille with Chocolate Mousse and Minted Berries.
Chocolate Mille Fuille
15 sheets of filo dough 1 ½ tbs. cocoa powder 1 ½ cup sugar 1 cup melted butter
¼ cup sugar 3 egg yolks 1 egg 7 oz. heavy cream 10 oz. melted chocolate
1 qt strawberries 1 tbs. freshly chopped mint 1 tsp. vanilla ¼ cup sugar, or to taste
1. For the filo sheets. Lay them out, and keep them covered with a damp towel at all times to keep them from drying out. Take one sheet at a time. Cut it in half. Brush it with melted butter and sprinkle cocoa powder and sugar on top. Fold into quarters and place on a buttered cookie sheet. Repeat this process until you have 30 squares. Bake for 10 minutes at 425, or until golden brown.
2. For the filling: Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl, and place over simmering water. Stir until sugar dissolves and the temperature is approximately 110 degrees. Remove from heat and whip until mixture is cold. In a separate bowl, whip cream until soft peaks. Fold cream into egg mixture. Gradually stir chocolate into base.
3. Wash strawberries. Cut into quarters. Toss with mint, vanilla and sugar.
4. To assemble: Put a chocolate filo square on a plate. Put a spoon of custard in the middle and top with another filo square. Garnish with strawberries.
Strawberries grow in a three year cycle, the first two years yield modest quantities of berries and the third yields a bumper crop. After that, the plants lose their oomph. If you’re careful to save the runners – the small off-shoot plants from the primary plant – you can continue to propagate strawberry plants year after year.
This is my third year on these strawberry plants – my first attempt at growing my own. Indeed the yield has been impressive. I’m picking pints at a time instead of handfuls. And I’m getting a little decadent in my consumption. The first few days, I savored each berry on its own. Then I started adding them to my morning cereal. And now I’m making daiquiris. It feels so decadent to enjoy them in a blended cocktail; perhaps not the best showcase of the sweet flavors. But they were so delicious, I didn’t care. I’m sure the rum added to my sense of complacency.
Strawberry Daiquiris 1 pint fresh strawberries 1 pint ice ¼ cup rum 1 tablespoon sugar (more or less to taste) Mint to garnish
1. Wash and hull the strawberries. Cut if half.
2. Put in the blender the strawberries, rum, ice and sugar. Blend until smooth.
The strawberry production continues in my little urban garden, yielding a handful of berries a day: still not enough for a pie or jam, but certainly a lovely accompaniment to a dessert or salad. And as I pick berries, conveniently located next to the mint patch, I’m reminded of what a lovely combination they are.
I stopped baking in earnest in 1997, when I left my last restaurant job, as a pastry chef. I was never a particularly good baker by professional standards (which would probably explain why I didn’t last long at that job), but managed to hold my own in the circle of home cooks.
The desserts I make today are the same I made 15 years ago… Thankfully, they’re timeless and always in good taste (sort of like the clothes from Eileen Fisher). The chocolate molten cake is a mostly flourless chocolate cake that is intentionally undercooked so the inside is gooey and lava-like.
My favorite garnish for the molten cake is berries tossed with mint, a sprinkle of sugar and a touch of vanilla. The preparation yields a garnish that your guests will actually want to eat, even with commercially grown berries (as opposed to a lone mint sprig or a rock-hard, bland strawberry)
Chocolate Molten Cake
yields: 4 – 6 oz. servings
6 oz. semi sweet chocolate 4 oz. butter (1 stick) 2 eggs 2 egg yolks 1/4 cup sugar pinch of salt 2 tbs. flour extra butter and flour for ramekins.
1. Butter and flour 4 ramekins.
2. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter.
3. In a mixer, whip eggs, sugar and salt until tripled in volume
4. Slowly mix in flour and chocolate/butter mixture until well incorporated.
When I perused the aisles at the local nursery last year for ideas on what to plant, I picked up a six pack of strawberry plants. They looked healthy, with tiny white flowers showing promise to produce berries. I planted them under the still leaf-less dogwood with hopes they would generate more flowers and subsequent berries. I got a total of 6.
This year, the plants crept past the dogwood into the garlic patch; from the beets to the kale bed. And the plants produced more fruit than I anticipated. I didn’t like how they cramped my other vegetables, but I decided wait and see how they tasted before I uproot them.
My first harvest was enough to actually make something, but opted for savoring their flavor, not masking it with too much sugar or cream. I also wanted to make sure they were worth the space. The berries were soft and juicy, as opposed to the hard and crunchy “berries” sold at the supermarket. They had a bright acidity with a little sweetness. (Though, right after brushing my teeth, I would have given them a different, less favorable description.)
I could have made strawberry shortcakes or a pie. Instead I decided to toss them with arugula and scallions from the garden, and season simply with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and black pepper. The salad was a perfect foil for Vanilla Scented Duck Breast (same marinade as used here). And the duck skin played the role of croutons.
The big question remains – will the plants live to see another season? The berries were good, and the yield was better than the raspberry plant. But I don’t like they way the plants creep around. I will probably cut back what has crept too much and leave the rest.
You’ve heard of carnivores, and perhaps even omnivores… but do you know what a locavore is? I can tell you, I am the first two and working towards the third. Yes, I eat meat (carni-) and everything (omni-) and I try to eat local (loca-). With Boston area farmers markets opening up this month for the season, my locavore efforts increase.
The Locavore Movement was founded by “a group of concerned culinary adventurers who are making an effort to eat only foods grown or harvested within a 100 mile radius of San Francisco for an entire month.” This was August 2005. The notion was that local foods are better for the environment, the economy and our health. In just a few years, the challenge has spread across the country, and people are thinking about local foods year-round.
By now, we know why local foods are better for the environment. The statistics are in every paper on a weekly basis: the average American meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to table. To get the food to the table, it must be processed, packaged (think about those 3-packs of tomatoes that are in a plastic webbed container wrapped in yet more plastic), shipped (in refrigerated trucks) and warehoused (in climate controlled storage facilities). And this process of “farm to table” can take up to 3 weeks – each step adding to our “global consumption” of petroleum. By purchasing foods from local farmers, we minimize the environmental impact of each step in this literal food-chain.
Sometimes it’s hard to see how buying local is better for the economy. After all, local produce often costs more than the Californian and even Chilean counterpart. Cambridge Local First compiled a top ten list for buying from locally owned business: this can easily be applied as general reasons for buying local. I will summarize for you now: When you buy locally, the money you spend stays within the local economy. The business owners spend their profits in Massachusetts (or wherever local is for you), and those taxes go towards local infrastructure: roads, schools, police, etcetera. By supporting local farmers, you keep jobs in your local community. When you shop at large chains the profits go to the economy of the large chain’s headquarters.
The health benefits are straightforward. When food travels less, it can stay on the vine longer. The longer it stays on the vine, the more time it has to absorbed essential nutrients from the soil and sun. Further, the minute produce is picked it begins to leach out its nutritional value (this also speaks to why frozen vegetables can sometimes be better than fresh).
Let’s be honest, though… being a locavore in California is much easier than in Massachusetts… And August, the agricultural jackpot, is less oppressive than taking this challenge in February. But when I think about the resources in New England, we are really quite fortunate. We can get seafood from Maine to the Cape even in the depths of winter. King Arthur Flour is based in Vermont. And local meat and dairy suppliers abound from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. The real issue is getting fresh produce in the darker, colder months. From November to April, we’re mostly reliant on farmers farther afield.
If you want to buy local in Massachusetts, the best resource is The Federation of Massachusetts Farmers’ Markets website. The site lists all the area farmers’ markets with dates, times and locations. More importantly, all the vendors are mentioned with links to their websites and/or contact information. Many vendors will also list their product offerings to make menu planning easier. If you can’t get to the markets during the allotted times, you can always visit the farms!
Right now, strawberries, asparagus and salad greens are at their peak. For a recent dinner party, I wanted to serve roasted asparagus (requiring a 450F oven), but was also baking the strawberry rhubarb pie (at 375F). I opted to put the asparagus on the floor of the oven for a searing heat that caramelized the spears without overcooking them. This impromptu method worked so well, it is now my standard method for roasting asparagus.
Strawberry shortcake showcases the sweet berry. This variation puts an Italian spin on the American classic.
Balsamic Glazed Strawberry Short cake
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 1/2 cup sugar 2 quarts strawberries 1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
1. Put sugar in a sauce pan. Add 1/4 cup water. Put over high heat, stir sugar to dissolve. Continue cooking for about 7 minutes or until sugar turns amber brown. Add balsamic vinegar. Continue cooking until liquid is reduced by half. Remove from heat. Just before serving, add strawberries. Serve Biscuits with strawberries and cream.
Biscuits: 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour 1 tsp. salt 1 tbs. sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. yeast 4 tbs. butter 2/3 cup milk
1. Dissolve the yeast in milk. Combine dry ingredients. With a knife or fingers, cut in the butter. Mix in milk.
2. Roll out to 1/4” thickness. Cut into desired shapes.
