Wednesday, June 23, 2010

CSA Harvest #4

Hello everyone! We are super excited about some of the new product today in your bags. We have been harvesting all morning and think that you will really enjoy. It's been raining so much and we can not wait for the clear skys to come.

Todays Harvest:

Spring Peas (Most likely the last week)
Baby Onions
Purple Top Turnips
New Potatoes
Red Beets
Assortment of Berries (Mulberries and Alpine Stawberries)
New Zealand Spinach
Fresh Chamomile for tea
Chervil

We hope you enjoy. Good luck with this week's recipe, "Spring Onion Flan".

The Turnips, Peas and New Zealand Spinach are perfect for the sauteed vegtables on top of the flan.

Spring Onion Flan

This flan acts as a great base for some freshly sauteed vegtables. We will use any combination of vegtables based on what is in season. Cook the vegtables seperately in salted boiling water to insure uniform doneness. Cool the vegtables and then once the flan is finished in the oven, saute the vegtables in butter or oil, season with salt and place on top of the Spring Onion Flan.

Onion Flan: Step One
6 spring Onions
4 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbs. Butter

- Slice the onions and Garlic very thin
- Heat a non- stick saute pan and add the butter. Once melted add the onions, season with a few pinches of salt.
- Once the onions and garlic become very aromatic but not colored add the cream and continue to cook for about 10 minutes on low. The onions and garlic should be completly soft.
- Once the milk mixture is cook through, place in a blender and puree until smooth.
- Be sure there are no lumps. We always blend the mixture for three minutes longer than we think we should. This insures a velevety smooth base.
- Let the base cool and proceed to step two.

Step Two:
Onion Puree
1/2 cup Half and Half
4 whole eggs
4 oz milk
2 Tbs Parmesan
Salt and Pepper

Method:
- Combine the onion puree with the “Step two” ingredients and taste. Adjust seasoning and strain.
- Portion the mixture using a scale (if you don't have a scale use a laddle and mesure the same amout of each dish); make sure each dish is filled with exactly the same amount of liquid.
- Cover each dish with aluminum foil.
- Place into a hot water bath inside a 325 F oven. (The water level should be higer than the flan level inside the dish)
- Bake until set (the flan will be solid when set) and assemble the dish.




Some Pics of a recent variation.


Sauteed carrot, celery root, sunchoke and arugula.


A set flan with vegtables on top. We usually add some sort of foam to finish it.

This is a very rewarding recipe so good luck and enjoy!







Basic Salad Dressing

Emulsified Vinaigrette:

1 part Vinegar
.5 part H2O
Dijon Mustard
Honey
Red Chile
Pepper
Salt
1 Yolk
3 parts Oil

Method:

- Combine all ingredients except for the oil and stir. Using a whisk, blender or immersion blender, begin to agitate.

- Start incorporating the oil one drop at a time. Then progress to a very small stream until all is added.

- Once the ingredients are together you will need to adjust to the taste. Questions that you will need to ask yourself are:

o Is it too tart?
o Does it have enough sweetness?
o Enough salt?
o Does it need more flavor? Mustard, Pepper, Chile?

Use this dressing on anything that you need to season. Sometimes we will even add a little to sauteed vegtables and fresh herbs.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Cooking Demo Vinaigrette

I'm having difficulty uploading videos directly to the blog. The link below will take you to youtube and you can see our cooking demos

Here is the first of many cooking videos. Hope you enjoy this vinaigrette!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7mAx2HmdU4