Spring Strawberry Salad

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Tasha

With maple candied walnuts and creamy goat cheese balsamic dressing.

For some reason, this spring I’ve been craving the fresh new foods that come with the changing season, much more than I normally do. The strawberries in my yard are nowhere near making fruit yet, but a few weeks ago, the strawberries in the market were suddenly glorious. A strawberry out of season tastes Ok, but when they’re actually ready, ripe and fully red, full of sweet juice that seems composed of the very flavor of renewal and new growth, they are magical things to eat. I was immediately obsessed. Another good thing about food in season is that it’s bountiful, and therefore on sale, and I pretty much stuffed as many fresh ripe organic strawberries into my gullet as possible. I also came up with this recipe, the first one in a while that I’ve invented without looking anything up or searching for ideas. So:

For the salad:

Lightly shred about a handful of lettuce (I like red leaf or butter lettuce) per person.

Add 1 small or 1/2 large grated carrot per person.

Add grated radish, about half as much as the carrot.

Add sliced strawberries, as many as you like, I suggest a lot.

For the dressing:

Put about 4 Tablespoons of plain fresh goat cheese in a jar.

Add heavy cream up to about the top of the cheese.

Add 1 Tablespoon good quality balsamic vinegar.

Add a pinch of salt, and stir together (a small whisk is great for this).

Add a little water, stir, and add a little more, until the dressing reaches the consistency you’d like. Taste and adjust seasonings.

This makes a fair amount of dressing, enough for about 6 people to have salad, and maybe find some other things to spread it on.

For the walnuts:

Lightly crush 1 cup of walnuts (I just do this with my hands).

In a skillet, melt about 1 Tablespoon butter over medium heat.

Add two teaspoons of maple syrup, one teaspoon of brown sugar, and a large pinch of salt. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, and then add the walnuts. Stir until most of the coating is on the nuts rather than the skillet. Let cool.

If you run out of time, this is also good with un-candied walnuts or pecans, although these lightly candied ones add a really nice touch.

Sprinkle the nuts on top of the salad, and let each person add the creamy dressing as it’s served.

Now, if only I can find some fresh peas …

DIY Crème Fraîche – and Kohlrabi Salad

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Tasha

Or, why I like The Joy Of Cooking so much.

I know, it looks like strange bedfellows, but keep reading . . .

If you’ve never had crème fraîche, I recommend trying it. It’s kind of like sour cream, but a little less sour and much more subtly flavored. And expensive, at least here. It’s a cultured food, so we figured that if some of the cultures are still active, we might be able to get more crème fraîche by adding some of what we had to some plain cream. Good quality organic heavy cream is about 1/4 the price per ounce of crème fraîche, at least in Flagstaff, AZ.

And in fact, if you look up crème fraîche in the KNOW YOUR INGREDIENTS section at the back of The Joy of Cooking (I love that part of the book), they suggest as a substitute: adding one tablespoon of buttermilk to one cup of heavy cream, warming it to 110° F on the stove, and then pouring in into a jar, letting it set loosely covered “until the cream has thickened and has a pleasant mildly sour flavor,” anywhere from 6 hours to 3 days.

We tried the same thing, using one tablespoon of store-bought crème fraîche to one cup of cream. And, almost three days later, tada! It’s funny because it looks like nothing is happening for quite a while, the cream still very liquid, and then finally a few more solid clumps appear, and the then bam! it’s done. Once it gets as thick and mildly sour as you would like, store it in the fridge to keep it from becoming overly acidic.

These directions say to leave it in a warm place while the cultures are working. Our house is short on warm places in the winter, so the first time I tried it, I left the little jar near the stove, figuring that whenever I heated something up it would get a little warmth. That was the time it took almost the whole three days, but definitely worked. The next time, I actually forgot to heat it at the beginning, I just added 1 tablespoon of the first batch to one cup of fresh cream and stirred it around. I thought it might benefit from a warmer place, so I put it in the middle of the burners on the stove as I was cooking dinner, checking from time to time to make sure the jar was getting warm, but not hot, and to rotate it around a bit. That time the whole jar had become thick crème fraîche by the next morning!

Ok, so once you have some crème fraîche, kohlrabi is probably not the first thing you are inspired to put it on. Dolloped in soup or on waffles might sound more luscious, and both are wonderful. But, if you’ve never had kohlrabi, I definitely recommend it. It’s one of those winter vegetables that looks knobbly and scary on the outside, but on the inside has a lovely subtle flavor, in this case a little cabbage, a little nutty, and quite good.

I tried one recipe for kohlrabi salad earlier this winter, but I thought the amount of lemon juice in the dressing overwhelmed the soft flavors. If you look up almost any specific vegetable in Joy, it will tell you not only whether it is good raw or cooked, and how to cook it, and whether to peel it first, but it also gives a list of flavors that compliment that veggie particularly well. That features was a huge help when we joined our local CSA – even though I had never heard of most of the greens we got, they were almost all listed, and I could figure out at least whether they were for cooking or salad, and what they were likely to taste like.

Under kohlrabi it says, among other things, that it goes well with cream, parsley, and dill. As do carrots, and so . . .

Recipe Sketch: Kohlrabi and Carrot Salad with Crème Fraîche

This makes enough for 2 or 3 servings, feel free to make more!

Peel, taking off the woody outside layer (chew on a bit if you are not sure), 2 small kohlrabi

Scrub one medium carrot (I pretty much never peel carrots)

Grate the kohlrabi and carrot on the largest teeth of your grater (a trick I only recently figured out is to leave the carrot top as a handle, start grating from the skinny end, and stop when you get almost to the top).

Put these in a bowl, add 2 – 3 tablespoons of crème fraîche, and mix with your fingers, it should be slightly creamy all over.

Sprinkle on about a tablespoon each of chopped fresh dill and fresh parsley. (Remember how I keep herbs in a jar in the fridge? Dill keeps practically indefinitely that way.)

Mix together, taste, and add a pinch of salt if desired. If you are not serving it right away, you may find that the veggies have absorbed some the liquid and the salad is a little dry, if so you can add a little more crème fraîche or regular cream before serving.

I love all harmonious delicate flavors in this salad. And, as you might guess, some crème fraîche mixed with the cream for carrot and raisin salad is pretty great as well.

If you can’t find any crème fraîche to start from where you live, you may be able to get the cultures from a source like New England Cheesemaking Supply.

I did a little research on using the same process to make perpetual yogurt, which I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never tried, but it’s now next on my list of kitchen projects. From what I’ve read so far it seems only slightly more complicated, heating the milk, I presume to kill of any unwanted bacteria, then adding the yogurt or culture once it’s cooled back to warm.

What about you – have you made your own crème fraîche or yogurt, or other cultured food? Any tips or thoughts?

Recipe Sketch – Carrot and Raisin Salad

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Tasha

For this recipe, I wanted to give a nod to the fact that we don’t really follow recipes. At least I don’t. At least not usually. You know what I mean? I read one and think, “That’s a good idea!” and I may even refer back to it while I’m cooking, but I’m not using any of the exact quantities specified, I am leaving things out, and I am putting in things that aren’t called for.

Of course, there are also the nights when I just want to settle down and cook something from exact notes, especially my own exact notes, about what to put in and how much.

But, I think being more experimental, at least some of the time, is a great way to learn about cooking, about flavors, and about what you like. And some recipes, like this one, seem made for a non-measuring preparation every time, even after I have figured out just how I like them.

So, at least some of the time, I’m going to post in the form of a recipe “sketch” that acknowledges the fact that many of us are going to make our own version anyway, as well we should.

Recipe Sketch – Carrot and Raisin Salad

Grate some carrots, on the biggest holes in your grater. These make up most of the volume of the salad, so grate as many as you need for about as much salad as you want.

Add some raisins. Pour some in and mix to see if you think it’s enough.

Grate in citrus zest. I like lime the best, but Meyer lemon is also lovely. Squeeze on a little juice of the same citrus.

Salt. It seems weird, but a small (not tiny) amount of salt is totally what makes this come together.

That and heavy whipping cream. Actually, mixing the cream with crème fraîche is even better. I like to add just enough to make a little liquidy dressing for the carrots and raisins.

Mix, taste and adjust.

I love these flavors! A little salty, a little sweet, a lot of fresh. Also, a fantastic way to use up carrots from your fridge right before you leave town. And a good use of multicolored carrots. Sometimes I think I buy heirloom vegetables just for the colors.

So what about you? Do you “follow” recipes?