Fish. Ribs.

Nettles

Stinging nettle pesto.  A bunch of nettles, blanched and squeezed dry, equal amounts almonds (unpeeled) and Parmesan, and olive oil.  Done with a food processor.  Thinned with chicken broth.  Help from here.

And for an unpictured recipe that started with the last post: Poached Chicken with Morels.  Pretty heavily based on a Jacques Pepin Complete Techniques recipe and an oddly hypnotizing Gordon Ramsey video.  First a terrific whole Tea Hills chicken was poached for around 50 minutes in water flavored with half an onion, some carrot, celery, peppercorns, coriander, thyme, bay leaf, and salt.  After poaching, covered, the skin was removed and the thighs, drumsticks, and breast(s) were ready to go in the morel sauce.

For the sauce, it was 1/2 a cup white wine and minced shallot cooked down until pretty dry, then 1/3 cup of sherry cooked until really dry, then halved, rinsed morels with some chicken broth and a cup a cream cooked down until the sauce would easily coat the chicken.  A little salt and pepper and sauce was super rich and heady with morel flavor.  Minced tarragon garnish. 

I'm not a cream sauce nut, but here it just captures the flavor of the morel so well.  And the sherry complements the heady mushroom flavor perfectly.  A real nice treat.

Found

Morels.  Hopefully.  Don't want to wind up like this guy.  Still trying to identify that one up there.  Kinda looks like a verpa bohemica (scroll down), i.e a false morel, but the inside is different--either way, this one isn't deadly.

A Grey or Black I think.

And a Spike or Half Free.  Again, I think.

A book, a botanically aware friend, and this webpage have all been very helpful, but there's a bit more research to be done, especially for the top and bottom ones.

Also in the woods were ramps (get them while you can), flowering trilliums, jewel weed, mustards, spring beauties, and an owl.  Spring in NE Ohio.

P.S. If you know any of those pictured mushrooms to be poisonous please let me know ASAP.  TIA.

* Upon consulting with this expert, the top and bottom ones are both Half Frees at different maturities, and the middle one is a young Yellow.  Sweet.

Brinner

Duck fat fried potato, Toulouse sausage cooked with chard and garlic, sunny side up egg, and radish microgreens w/ sliced radish coated with a vinaigrette.

Chard and radish from Firefly, micros from Muddy Fork (they were more pristine on Saturday, but perfectly okay four days later).  The vegetables are coming . . . .

Pretty Alsatian

Choucroute garnie, cobbled together from what was in the fridge and these two recipes.  Basically, the following:

(1) Toulouse Sausages (made with New Creation pork and Urban Growth garlic) got seared in duck fat (Plum Creek for the duck);

(2) Sausages were pulled and set aside and onion, garlic (Firefly), and largely diced homemade guanciale (Tea Hills pork) were cooked in the fat that remained in the pan until the onions were soft;

(3) In went some chix stock (also from Plum Creek birds) over the onion and garlic--white wine would have gone in too if I had some around--along with some homemade sauerkraut (got to start using that stuff up), peeled and rough diced Ohio apples (Nature's Bin--sorry Buster), a few bay leaves, and some juniper berries;

(4) The sausages got nestled in the mix and the whole thing got covered and placed in a 300 degree oven for about 45 minutes--until the sausages were cooked through and the guanciale was tender as could be;

(5) While the sausages and kraut were slowly cooking away in the oven some small peeled potatoes (Save a Lot--desperate times . . .) were boiled until tender;

(6)  When the potatoes were soft they got buttered and salted and were served along with the choucroute garnie, a simply dressed salad, and some good mustards (Honsa Haus).

All washed down with one of those Greenhouse Tavern Oregon pinot noirs (which the Greenhouse people gave to me through this blog--it was a classic Oregon pinot, not sure what it costs and the price/value, but I really enjoyed it), the whole thing felt pretty French.

Fried Chix and Fuzzy Fiddleheads

Fried Plum Creek chicken, fiddleheads (great even not defuzzed), asparagus, and fried lemon.  Drizzled with Ohio Honey.  The chix, honey, and fiddleheads were all from the Shaker Market.

Standard fry-job on the chicken.  For the veg, just a quick saute in olive oil with salt and pepper.  First in the pan was the straight from the yard asparagus, and after about 2 minutes the rinsed fiddleheads joined.  All said, the whole veg saute took about 5 minutes.

Now to find some local morels . . . .

First of the Season

 

Asparagus from the yard, blanched, shocked, dried, and heated back up in butter.  Up there with a monster of a New Creation pork chop.  Thin sauce of chix stock, mustard, cider vinegar, butter, and yard chives.  The chop was seasoned with salt, pepper, Spanish paprika, and olive oil and left to sit a bit before being seared on the stove and finished in a 450 oven.

If nothing else, perennial fruits and vegetables may be one of the greatest benefits of a steady garden plot or a nice yard.  And strawberries are right around the corner.

Ersatz Fish Tacos

Halibut tacos.  The fish was seared and roasted, not fried.  Some leafy greens, not cabbage.  Yogurt thinned with lime juice, no mayo.  And some avocado, cilantro, and hot sauce just because.  Quick, healthy enough, and delicious.  They just weren't these.

Of particular note to those in the Cle, even if I appear to be the last person to have discovered the place, La Plaza in Lakewood is for real.  Tacos made to order on the weekends, and a ridiculous selection of tortillas brought in from Chicago.  No knock on our local place, but some random paper bagged tortillas picked up at La Plaza were unbelievable good--super pliable and corny with a perfect texture.

And thanks Megan, for cutting that fish.

Local Fish Dinner

And it's not even deep fried.  Some pan fried Lake Erie yellow perch with a brown butter/ramp green/cilantro/lemon juice sauce.  The greens are chard with finely chopped ramp whites and garlic cooked in olive oil.

The perch was incredibly clean tasting, but I think the fillets benefit from some type of coating, if even a light dredge in flour, before cooking.  Whole perch may be a different story.  Still, a very mild and pleasant fish.

The local greens were a nice change of pace.  From Firefly Farms at Shaker, as were the garlic and ramps.  The fish, of course, was from Kate's.

Next up is asparagus.  There's almost enough in the yard to justify some cutting.  Spring.  Finally.

Pork w/ Red Wine Sauce

Broiled pork chop and broccolini.  The pork was seasoned with salt, pepper, Spanish paprika, and olive oil and left to sit on the counter for about .5 hrs.  For the broccolini, it was a quick blanch in salted water, a shock in ice water (while interesting, I'm not going to let what this dude says about shocking maybe not being so effective change the way I do things--it seems to work okay in my world), a shake dry, and then into a pan of hot olive oil with salt, pepper, and some diced shallot to finish cooking.

The sauce is a reduced veal stock red wine mix that had some thyme steeped in it.  Some butter was whirled in there to finish.  It's no duck press sauce, but whatever, it was quick and tasted really nice.

Broiling the room temp chops takes around 5 min, and leaves just enough time to finish the broccolini and the sauce, and maybe even make a quick salad.  A real simple, elegant dinner.  

More Randoms

Polenta, oyster mushrooms cooked in veal stock, and egg.

Chicken w/ chimichurri sauce (salsa verde?) (this recipe + shallot and lemon juice) and sauteed chard w/ garlic.

Couple of Randoms

 

Pork tenderloin with quinoa w/ cranberries and a leaf/bibb lettuce salad with mandarin orange segments.

Tenderloins of all sorts have been getting a bad rap for a while now, and often for good reason .  They can be expensive and boring.  But prepared well, there's no reason they can't be really enjoyable.  And regarding cost, eating out I've seen some pretty expensive short rib, offal, and the like, so it's not like that stuff is exactly free.  Anyway, you can now get your very own New Creation pork in Ohio City at Market at the Fig.  Just across the street from the West Side Mkt.  They've got Miller beef too.  A major void has been filled.

Spaghetti alla puttanesca.  Or at least pretty close.  Anchovy, garlic, chili flakes, capers, canned tomato, and some parsley rounded out the sauce.  No olives.  It was fine that way.  I heart simple pastas.

Curried Fish

More Lenten goodness, in what I imagine to be a kind of South Indian style.

The fish is bronzini coated in mixture of curry powder, turmeric, fenugreek, cumin, ginger powder, coriander, salt, pepper, and a little canola oil to make all those spices into a thick paste.  I never cook fish this way--it's always seemed to me that this kind of treatment was somewhat disrespectful to a nice piece of fresh seafood.  Normally it's just salt and pepper and maybe a bit of coriander--I figured heavy spicing was for the less fresh stuff--but it's clear I've been missing out on a really good thing.  The spice mixture formed an almost breading like crust that complimented the flavor from the super fresh fillet (from Kate's . . . always from Kate's) while makings things texturally interesting and keeping it all kind of healthy.

For cooking it was pretty simple too.  Super hot pan with some canola oil (a generous amount) and a pat of butter.  The fish went in skin side down while the flesh side got pressed down with a flat pot lid to crisp up the skin (the sizzling oil made it tough to press down on the fish with bare hands).  About two minutes on the skin side and another maybe two minutes on the flesh side and the fish was perfect.  The spice paste protected the fish from the intense heat while frying the ground spices at the same time.

For veg, it's a cauliflower curry.  First some onions got sweated in olive oil with salt and pepper, then in went curry powder, cumin seeds, ground cumin, ground coriander, and a bit of minced garlic.  Then in went some crushed canned tomatoes and fresh cauliflower with a little more salt.  That got covered and simmered for about 15 minutes while being stirred every now and again to break things up.

Really nice, healthy, quick meal.  Could have used a squeeze of lime, but it wasn't worth a trip to the store.  All in all, a whole new way to cook fish over here, and not disrespectful at all.

Just in time for Lent

British style fish and chips.  Beer battered Lake Erie perch and french fries with a homemade tartar sauce.

I love fried fish, but generally shy away from frying things dipped in batter.  Usually it's just a dredge in flour or cornstarch, a dip in egg wash, and another dip in flour, cornstarch, cornmeal, or some mixture of those things.  Safe, tasty, and consistent.  With batters I'm always fearing looking down at bubbling oil with big clumps of floating wet flour and naked fish or whatever sadly drowning and burning away under the surface.  But it had a been a while, and St. Patrick's Day is coming up, so why not?

For the recipe I googled around and checked out the usual go-to sites.  More helpful, at least for peace of mind, was watching YouTube.  After viewing lots of videos--this one was key--I figured it was time to give it a shot.  I also realized I really like British cooking videos on YouTube.

For batter I wound up going with 2 cups flour, 1 tbs baking powder, salt, pepper, 1 bottle Sapporo, and some seltzer to thin things to a lump free pancake batter like consistency (the seltzer wouldn't have been necessary if less flour was used).  I left the batter to chill in the fridge while I made a sort of tartar sauce and cooked off the fries.  Double fried, always.  The oil temp hovered between 325-350 for both the fish and potatoes.  When the fries were done I kept them warm in the oven (note to self: no sense trying to keep cooked fries hot, it's a waste of good fries--better just to make good skillet potatoes or suck it up and get two fryers going, or to just eat the fries while the fish is cooking).

Once the fries were done the fish went into the batter and then into the oil (peanut--so clean) to fry.  No need to dredge.  And nearly no stray batter floating in the oil.  A true Lenten miracle.

Great pub style fish and chips with local fish from Kate's.  Super simple.  And invented by my people.

The 512

Back from a quick trip to visit an old friend in his hometown, Austin, TX.  Those goats live in his front yard--great for getting rid of table scraps.

It was my first trip down there, and after a few days I'm ready to pick up and move.  For health reasons though, I think I'll stay up here--while my buddy is in pretty good shape, our reunions tend to be hard on the liver. This trip was more to see a buddy than to eat myself sick looking for the best taco or trying to find the perfect Tex-Mex breakfast.  So even though I heard great things about the food scene in Austin I tried not to over research the visit.  That said, we ate pretty well.

A rare CFT pic from inside a restaurant right there.  No hate to the restaurant bloggers, it's just that when I'm out I'm more of an eater than a recorder.  Also I just feel goofy taking pics of food in front of people.  It's my cross to bear.  Regardless, that lovely assortment is from Curra's, a great spot pretty close to my friend's house.  We had chips and queso, breakfast tacos, a carnitas plate, and shrimp and octopus ceviche.  Margaritas too. 

The food at Curra's was very good and the atmosphere perfect for a first morning out after a way too long day of trying to fly out of a snowed in Hopkins Airport (a trip that should have taken around 5 hrs took 22, and involved renting a car and driving a few hours to another airport) and a long night of catching up over Lone Stars.  The place was cool, serving food from Mexico's different regions.  I'm not saying Diana Kennedy was manning the grill, but it was a real treat.

Other breakfast spots included Magnolia Cafe and Jo's, both on South Congress, and the flagship Whole Foods.  The vibe in Magnolia kind of summed up the whole Austin experience for me--unpretentious, enjoyable, and diverse (as long as you're white or Mexican).  Jo's was also pretty par for the course, with simple ready to go little breakfast burrios, and quality hot and cold coffee drinks, which is great because during the trip it went from near freezing to oven hot about fifty times.  My macchiato order got me some odd looks, but that's fair enough.  I'm a snob and they're not.

We also checked out some farmers markets we spotted while driving around.

Watch out for hipsters on bikes.  Wait, they might be punk.  Either way, watch out.  Bikes are everywhere down there.

On Saturday it was the SFC Farmers Market in Republic Square. And HOPE, by some train tracks and pictured above, on Sunday.  Apparently winter in Austin is like fall in Cleveland, or maybe we just got to the markets late, because there was mostly Brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, and the like.  But what they also had was Gulf seafood (at Republic Square), kombucha on tap, a variety of ethnic foods, and a few charcuterie vendors.

This place (Kocurek) didn't have much left by the time we got there, but Dai Due, right near the pictured stand, had some salt pork and chicken stock that looked pretty good.  I had already picked up provisions for our meal in--a stew with local grassfed beef shank (great, inexpensive cut), red wine, local carrots, canned tomatoes, and onion--at Whole Foods while my friend and my cohabitant were practicing yoga before spotting the market.  It was nice to get the stock (I was going to use water), and the salt pork, which seemed really fresh/wet compared to other stuff I've seen labeled as such, to add to what we had.  The stuff wasn't cheap, but the stock was rich and and salt pork cooked up well. 

Not sure how things are regulated down there, but if it's not near impossible, I can't figure out why we don't have artisanal charcuterie at the Cleveland farmers markets.  No knock on the WSM or places like The Sausage Shoppe, but the places named above used great meat in their products.  It makes a difference, because those folks in Austin were putting out great charcuterie (based on my limited sampling), and judging by the websites it looks like they don't have near the history as the spots around here.

And the famed Austin food truck scene . . . .

The Local Yolk.  Rumor has it they make a mean fried egg sandwich--but they were out of deviled eggs.

Pueblo Viejo.  Very good tacos.  Trouble staying stocked.  Their gorditas, the last order of which I saw the person in front of me get, looked particularly good.  There were tons of classic taco trucks scattered throughout the city, but sadly I didn't have a chance to do comparisons.  Most of our truck eating was at food cart parking lots that were in the different neighborhoods.

Food truck art.

#19 Bus.  Closed Sundays best as I could tell.

Ugly Banjos.  Didn't get to try that one either.

Pig Vicious.  Bacon everything.  Also trouble staying stocked.

We also stopped at The Mighty Cone and enjoyed fried food in tortilla cones.

Gotta say, as the food cart trend is going full blast, this food was really more novelty for a decent price than super good food.  And they seem to always run out of stuff.  We definitely missed some of the "can't miss" Austin trucks, and I'm not denying that these things are great for people looking to serve food at good prices with low overhead,  but I think this link best sums it up for me.  For late night eats, I loved the food trucks.  During the day, in the heat, I'll just as soon take my meals indoors with a beer.

We also ate a dinner at Uchiko.  That place is for real.  It was like Shuzio Tsuji came to Austin and opened a spot.  Great food, great service, and a reasonable price for the quality.  One of my favorite meals in a long time.

Other stops included Allens Boots, The Continental Club, Barton Springs, The Alamo (get there early), Thom's Market, Hole in the Wall, The Horseshoe, and countless other little bars, dive and otherwise.  We also stopped at Central Market.  Cleveland grocery stores could learn a lot from that place.

All in all, Austin gets my vote for best city in the U.S.  As cool as anywhere with just about no cynicism, except at East Side Showroom.  That place wouldn't let our drunk asses in--feis kontrol at its finest.