Fried Clams with spinach and sweet and sour red onion puree

Not everything comes from the farm that I am cooking with. of course, I have to succumb and buy some things from the store but what is really neat are all the things that I can forage.
I am picking mushrooms constantly. Well, one variety, which is the only one I can identify for certain. Today I found one lonely asparagus in a field far from any gardens. Was it wild? I am not sure. I ate it right there in the middle of the field surrounded by goats and their poop. I hope I don't get sick because that sure wasn't sanitary. Stupid health department would put me in jail if they had their druthers. Anyways, it was lovely. Then there is the ocean. I have gathered seaweed and clams for these two recipes. I dug cockles and butter clams and picked sea lettuce. the people on the beach said cockles were no good, but I kept saying the French eat them and I thought they were pretty good anyways, despite the French. I prepared them in a beer batter and served them with a sort of spinach pudding, lets say, and a sauce of pureed red onions with butter, honey and vinegar. The seaweed went with mussels (I didn't forage them but they were from a local farm, Westcott Bay) Swiss chard and farm butter.

(Have I mentioned the butter here? We make it from raw cream all you have to do is beat it, pretty simple. We have a special mixer that sits on top of a gallon glass jar but one could use a hand held or stand mixer. The key is raw milk though. Unlike regular store butter this actually tastes like something. I think it cultures as it sits on the counter. It develops some really cheese-like flavors. Everyone around here spreads it like cream cheese.)

Fried Clams with Spinach and Sweet and Sour Red Onion Puree

For the Spinach

½ White onion medium dice
tbs. Butter
1lb Spinach
2 tbs. Apple cider vinegar
2tbs. flour
1 tbs. Honey
¼ - ½ cup Milk
2 Heritage Farm fresh eggs separated and whites beaten to stiff peaks
Sauté onion very slowly in butter so it starts to sweeten. (10 min.). Add vinegar and honey and reduce until completely absorbed by onion. Blanch spinach in boiling water until wilted (15 seconds) and put in ice water to stop the cooking. Squeeze out as much moisture as possible there should be about a cup and 1/2 . Put this mixture in a high speed blender with the part of the milk, onions and egg yolks and flour. Blend until very smooth It should be a somewhat thick consistency which can be adjusted with the milk. Fold in the egg whites and bake at 375 for about 30 minutes in a greased and floured 9" baking dish. Let cool and then cut into rectangles. Reheat to plate up.

Red Onion Puree
1/2 red onion sliced
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup honey
4 tbs butter
Cook the first three ingredients until the onions are tender and then puree in a high speed mixer adding the butter until very smooth. It should have a good balance between sweet and sour. It can be adjusted to your licking

For the clams
Cleaned clams taken out of the shell and separated into foot, lips and body. (To clean the clams let them sit in sea water and cornmeal overnight, open them with an oyster shucker or a butter knife. Separate it into it's major body parts. Slice the foot into along the tube to make one flat piece for frying. Slice out most of the guts from the body and rinse everything to get the last of the dirt out.)1 bottle beer
flour
oil for frying

Mix beer into flour to make a batter about a pancake consistency. Coat clams with plain flour and then into batter and then into hot oil (350) and fry until golden. It should only take 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper assemble like my picture.

Steamed Mussels with Swiss Chard and Seaweed Butter

For the Mussels
One Shallot
!/4 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
2 tbs. Bacon fat

Saute shallot in bacon fat on high heat with cleaned mussels and vinegar; cover pot. Cook until shells open. Strain cooking liquid and take mussels out of shell.

For the butter: Collect sea lettuce from the beach. Dry in oven at 200 degrees. Blend in food processor with butter -- 4 parts butter to one part seaweed.

To assemble in restaurant fashion: Saute diced swiss chart stems in a couple teaspoons of bacon fat. Add cleaned mussels and a few tablespoons fresh cooking liquid, a bit of fresh cream, and then finish by swilling in a few pats of seaweed butter.

Creamed Swiss Chard with Hazelnuts

We're still cooking with greens. 'Tis the season. I put together a very easy recipe for Swiss chard that has many variations. This is a very light version of creamed chard and should only take, maybe, fifteen minuted to prepare.

1 bunch Swiss chard
1 small sweet onion or a large shallot
toasted hazelnuts
1 ½ tbs. red wine vinegar
2 tbs chicken fat
small pinch chili flakes
a bit more than a ¼ cup cream
salt and pepper to taste
a few drops hazelnut oil

1)Separate chard into leaves and stems. Small dice stems (cut length ways then turn 90 degrees to finish the dice as you would celery)then tear leaves into smallish pieces
2)Small dice the onion
3)Warm fat on medium high heat, and when hot saute the onions until soft (3-4 min.), then add chili flakes and chard stems and cook for another minute.
4)De-glaze with vinegar and quickly move into step 5
5)Add chard leaves and season with salt and pepper. The leaves will start to wilt quickly and release some liquid at this point add the cream to make a sauce and finish cooking the vegetables.
6)Top with chopped hazelnuts and drizzle of oil

I served this dish with a fried egg. It would be very nice with smoked trout, grilled salmon, a pan roasted chicken breast with crispy skin, or grilled steak. Currants and pine nuts would be a good addition minus the hazelnuts. You could leave out the cream and make quick, fresh tomato sauce to stew the chard in (later in the season, of course). Or try using coconut milk and a little fish sauce for a thai version if you dont want to be local.

Icicle Radishes with Chicken Jus

This is our beautiful chicken palace and our lovely hens. Here they are seen frolicking in the open pastures of our farm. Don't they look happy. Such nice birds and with gorgeous eggs. Their was a nasty rooster, though. So I got my killing stone out and made chicken jus out of it for this recipe. An elemental sauce of pure chickeny goodness. I should also note that I ate my first chicken testicles and I have to say quite awesome. Maybe, kind of like sweetbreads, but creamy and I think tastier.

1 bunch icicle radish and the greens

1 bunch purple top Milan turnip

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

2 tbs. honey

3 cups chicken jus

Chicken jus is a very rich, brown chicken stock that has been reduced to a glaze or glace in fancy French cooking terms. You could substitute a rich chicken stock if you didn't want to go to the trouble of making chicken jus, but it's not that hard and is a very versatile sauce.

For the chicken jus

5 lb chicken bones or wings or a combination (the more meat the better, but the bones are less costly)

1 small onion

1 bulb garlic

1. Cut chicken into small pieces with a cleaver
2. Brown the chicken in the oven in a roasting pan at 425° or brown on the stove top in heavy bottomed pot at medium high heat. I prefer to do it on the stove top because you can get the bones more thoroughly browned. But in both methods I am looking for a lot of color which is going to translate to flavor.
3. When you think the bones are about a third done add the garlic and onion to the pan to also brown. The overall color should be getting pretty close to burnt, so don't be afraid to cook the heck out of it.
4. When everything is nice and golden (am I stressing there needs to be a lot of color and your kitchen might get smoky and greasy) if browning in the oven put the bones in a pot and cover with water and make sure to get the fond out of the roasting pan, that is all the browned bits at the bottom. Do this by pouring water into the roasting pan and scraping up all the caked on stuff. If cooking on the stove top just pour water over to cover scraping up the bits in the bottom of the pot.
5. Reduce on high by half. It is OK to boil vigorously. I cover with water and reduce a total of three times to get as much flavor out of the chicken as possible.
6. Strain through a very fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth. Skim the fat off the top or even better do the stock the day before and chill to remove the fat.
7. OK, now that the chicken jus is ready we can cook the vegetables. First clean the radishes and turnips reserving the greens from the radish. Use a vegetable peeler to get off any root looking parts or dirt, but the skin is OK by me.
8. Put vinegar and honey in a pan and reduce by half then add the chicken jus and bring to a simmer
9. Add the cleaned turnips and radishes and cook until tender and sauce is reduced and coating the veggies
10. Add the greens and wilt slightly and season with salt add cracked pepper
11. Serve on a platter to your very special guests and they will love you for making radishes and turnips taste so good

"korean food" american style

In trying to create local food here on the farm I find myself running into a dilemma: normally my pantry is stocked with ingredients from around the world. I usually stock soy sauces, sesame oil, seaweed, chili pastes, fish sauce, miso, Thai curry paste, coconut milk, crab paste, exotic vinegars and countless other flavors to experiment with. It's simple to create a complex dish by using a little crab paste, for example, to add a bit of umami that is lacking from a dish of sauteed baby bok choy. I love Asian flavors. But how do I create an Asian inspired meal without these ingredients. I can't make miso on the fly and the only spices I'm allowing myself right now is dried chili, coriander, mustard, and pepper. So this is me trying to create the experience of Korean bar-b-que. I fried and also grilled some fish to wrap in spinach leaves and I made a bunch of assorted salads in an attempt to emulate the fabulous banchan of a Korean meal. And with the kimchi I have been making I was able to add a bit of authenticity.
The next door neighbor, Mark Marankovich? gave us a buch of halibut and some really nice rockfish, so I grilled the rockfish on skewers and fried the halibut for the meat to use for the lettuce wrap. For banchan I had grilled potatoes with chili sauce (slice and cook the potatoes in the oven and then when cooled grilled them 'til crispy and golden while brushing with chili paste. I normally use a white miso vinaigrette for this dish, but chili was a good alternative), sauteed green garlic with a scallion and leek dressing, kale coleslaw, radish and parsley in apple cider vinegar, pok choy sauteed in kimchi juice.These dishes, except for the kimchi, don't really have a counterpart that I was "riffing on", I just tried to create some salads that could work together and along with the fish. The green garlic dish is sauteed green gralic dressed with a very fine puree of leek and scallion seasoned with apple cider vinegar, honey and emulsified with egg yolk. The radish and parsley dish was a very good condiment and could easily dress chicken or grilled steak. It is chopped parsley, diced radish with apple cider vinegar diluted with water and sugar to season. Very simple but actually the best dish.

Spinach wrap of Pan Fried Halibut with Green Radish and Parsley Banchan

For the halibut
1 lb halibut cut into small sizes for frying
1 cup rice flour
1 cup Ap flour
1/2 cup beer to make a loose batter
1/4 cup chopped parsley
salt to taste
1 1/2 cup oil to pan fry the fish

I made some concessions to my local farm cooking by using oil and rice flour, I know.

1) Heat oil to medium high in a small enough cast iron skillet so the oil is about 1/2 an inch high
2) Mix all the ingredients except the fish together to make a loose batter
3) Dredge the fish in flour and then coat with the batter
3) Fry to golden and crispy

Radish and parsley with apple cider vinegar

1 Bunch of radishes small dice
1 cup of parsley chopped fine
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar

Mix the radish and parsley together in a bowl and then make the dressing by mixing the vinegar, water and sugar and then toss with the parsley/radish mixture. Let rest for a few hours to draw out the water from the radish and for the flavors to meld. This is kind of a sweet and sour mix so adjust to your liking.

I also missed a week. There was a recipe but I had some technical difficulties (the problem of living on an island) but I will try to post it, so I don't prove myself a liar.

"cabrito"

Well, I cooked the goat I killed last week. It turned out great. We had a great party and I met a bunch of the other farmers here. The goat was easy but did take a few days to put together. First it went in a brine for twenty-four hours. Then a spice rub for another day and then finally on the smoker. I guess having a smoker is pretty important for this recipe. I was going to do it over my fire pit but the smoker is much easier to control, and we have one, so I used it. The guests being farmers were pretty well acquainted with cooking whole animals. One gentleman told me he likes to do goats in the Argentinian way. He explained to me he builds a big fire and then pokes two big skewers in a cross shape through the animal and props it vertically next to the flames to roast. That sounds pretty easy. Anyways, I smoked the goat for about six hours.

My recipe is a combination of two techniques. Layne (my boss and owner of Quail Croft Farm) told me the best way she had ever done it was with low smoke for three hours and then in a low oven for another three and covered to create a wet cooking environment. This sounded good to me but she didn't tell me about any seasoning. Octavio who bought a goat from Layne (wish I had a photo) a few weeks ago, told me he used a brine and then a spice rub which was the traditional way to cook cabrito (I mentioned this before, it is a goat that has only been milk fed and never pastured.) Apparently, the most tender. So I followed both recipes. I used a basic brine and mixed my own"very, extra special spice mixture," blah, blah, blah whatever. I don't know why there has to be such a mystery sometimes to cooking. You know, pick your spices to your taste, it's not very hard. I used a lot of coriander, dried chili, cumin, black pepper, sugar and I skipped the salt because I used a brine. I toasted the coriander and ground it in a spice grinder. Is that a recipe.


I guess some sort of recipe would be useful

For the brine
Use these proportions and make enough to cover
1 gallon water
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
I also threw in some other stuff I had around a bunch of garlic and bay leaf, but honestly I don't think it really adds much flavor.

For the dry rub (approximately)
1/2 cup coriander toasted and ground in a spice grinder
2 tbs cumin toasted and ground
1/2 cup dried chili (I used the korean stuff not local but not super spicy and nice flavor, kind ok like paprika which would be a good substitute.)
1/4 cup sugar

Procedure
1) Cover whole goat in brine for one day
2) Pull it out of the brine and let air dry for an hour
3) Apply spice rub, refrigerate for one day
4) Get smoker ready or fire pit or webber
5)Smoke for three hours at one hundred degrees
6) Raise temperature to around three hundred degrees and continue to smoke for three more hours until an internal temperature reads 160 Also put a pan of water in the smoker to create a wet environment to help keep the meat moist.

P.S.
With the liver and kidneys I made chopped liver. Good recipe. Baby goat liver is really good. Very mild.For next time, maybe.

Green Split Pea Salad

Jim and Christina Sesby's started this farm
about ten years ago They have four milkers and sell the raw milk and cream to the locals. The milk is gorgeous; sweet and rich with flavor. Jim and Christina are crusaders for raw milk. The state agencies and the Dairy Board are of the opinion that raw milk is a health hazard. But, that is just not true. These cows are clean, the milk room is practically spotless, and the milk is handled with the utmost of care. Milk from a normal dairy is often contaminated; why bother with cleanliness when the milk is going to be pasteurized anyway. Really the lack of support for this product is another example of big business and there lobbies stealing our democracy. But its not a total loss with people like the Sesby's working hard for us to eat well.

Projects abound around here. Christina is experimenting with making cheese. There will be some piggies coming soon, which entails learning some curing and chacuterie, hopefully. Right now we have some pork bellies to cure and smoke for bacon next week. And soon, the chicks and little turkeys will be arriving (meat birds).

I killed a baby goat yesterday. One of my projects. We're having a potluck here for the producers of a film called "Good Earth" and for our local Slow Food organization. I thought a whole animal on the bar-b-que would be awesome and a great learning experience for me. It was really important for me to do the slaughtering. Christina was there to help me through the whole process, really holding my hand. I used a knife. It was quick. I got blood all over my jeans. We tied it up in the barn were we gutted and skinned it. The killing was intense for me. My mother just passed away and I had, for the first time in my life, an extremity of emotion that I had never felt before. It was like being on drugs at times. The killing of the goat brought me back to that place. It wasn't reliving my mothers death, but the emotions had an equivalency. It's clarity I felt the most; a sense of connectedness. The kid has a hanging wieght , of probably around, twenty or twenty-five pounds. I only paid fifty dollars for it. A pretty good deal. Why isn't this more normal? People do this all the time, but most aren't born here. A cabbie in Seattle, from Eritrea, told me he goes to a farm for all his meat and kills it himself; a taco vendor in Portland told me the same; a man named Octavio came to Quail Croft (my other internship and were I procured the kid) for his "cabrito" (the tiniest milk fed kid he could find). There is a community of people out there that are more intimately connected to there meat, and, I guess, I am part of that community now.

Anyways, that goat is for another meal. This week I wanted to cook over an open fire to practice for the goat. I built a fire pit. I stacked up some rocks in a circle and then I layed a grate over the center; quite easy and cheaper than a Weber. We did a whole turkey that I brined and then put a spice rub on. It turned out real nice. Also, we had leeks braised in chicken broth, a split pea salad, and fresh bread with butter. Although the turkey was very good, we've all had bar-b-que, I thought the salad was a bit different, so here it is.

Split Peas and Miner's Lettuce with Egg and Yogurt Dressing

This recipe uses miners lettuce which I foraged and is, I believe, pretty hard to find in the produce aisle, pea shoots would be really good, actually, probably better than the lettuce, but I had a patch on the farm, so use it, right. I didn't record the exact measurements, but cooking is not a recipe and one has to know techniques and how to adjust. The ideas good; make yours better.

3 cups green split peas
a few big handfuls of miner's lettuce about equal part lettuce to peas
4 hard boiled eggs (for a small egg 8 min in simmering water)
1/4 cup fresh goat cheese ((I used the Quail Croft Cheese which I had a hand in making)
1/2 cup sliced leek

dressing
2 egg yolks
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp whole grain mustard
1 bunch chives
1/2 cup mint
1 1/2 cups yogurt

1)Saute the aromatics and then add the split peas, cover with water and cook until tender but not mush
2)Let the split peas cool which gives you time to make the dressing by combining the egg yolks, mustard, vinegar and herbs in a blender and pulsing until very smooth, then slowly add the yogurt to make creamy dressing. Pass it through a chinoise or a fine meshed strainer. It wont be super thick, kind of like cream consistency.
3)Dress the peas and greens and don't forget to season with salt and pepper
4)Finish by sprinkling some goat cheese and topping with hard boiled egg
5)Some bacon would make this perfect

Again, this tasted pretty good. I hope this is a fairly accurate recipe. If there is any interest in publishing these I will be sure to make these right. For now just trust your gut instinct.