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Cooking with Herbs
I
demonstrated seven dishes at Blandy Farm for Arborfest
2005 on As
always, I cook without formal, written recipes. There is clearly method
behind my madness and I have attempted to convey that in the so-called
recipes below. Treat them more as guidelines and feel free to deviate as you
please and you will have captured the spirit in which I offer them. Recipes Apples with Bacon, Thyme,
and Honey Butternut Squash with
Sage and Brown Sugar Sautéed Redfish with
Porcini Cream Apples with Bacon,
Thyme, and Honey Key here
is the quality of the apples. I used Blushing Goldens
because they are one of the finest cooking and eating apples that I know.
Look for a crisp apple with good flavor and excellent acidity. Hint: go to a
farmer’s market. You are not going to find such an apple at the
supermarket. 4 slices bacon 4 apples, peeled and sliced 2 sprigs fresh thyme 2 T honey salt to taste Slice
the bacon vertically into 1/4” strips. Render in a sauté pan until
almost cooked. Add the apples and toss well. Strip the leaves from the thyme
and add. Cook until the apples are as soft as you want. Add the honey and
toss well. Taste for seasoning. Butternut Squash
with Sage and Brown Sugar Here’s
a quick way to enjoy butternut squash in minutes. 1 T oil 1 small butternut squash 3-4 sage leaves 2 T unsalted butter 2 T light brown sugar Cut the
neck of the squash off just where the bulbous part starts; save the bulbous
part for some other use. Slice the stem off. Stand the neck up on your
cutting board and slice the skin off, all the way around. Split the peeled
neck in two, lengthwise. Place the two halves split side down on the cutting
board. Slice into uniform 1/8” half moon pieces. Heat
the oil in a sauté pan and add the squash. Toss and cook until the squash is
soft, four to five minutes. Shred the sage leaves with a knife and add to the
pan along with the butter and brown sugar. Toss well to coat the squash. Herb-Marinated
Pork Loin Steak This is
a marinade that I typically use for pork tenderloin or chicken breasts for
the grill. I had never done a pork loin steak this way before, but it was so
good that I will keep this in my little bag of tricks. I suppose you can buy
center cut loin steaks at the store (I don’t really know), but I simply
cut a ¾” steak off a loin that we had in our cooler. This is
one of those freeform recipes in that it really doesn’t matter what
herbs you use in the marinade. At the restaurant, we use whatever we happen
to have on hand. Whatever mix we make, it is generally half parsley. We use
assertive herbs such as rosemary and sage sparingly. There can never be
enough garlic. We avoid licorice tasting herbs such as tarragon and chervil.
I don’t think cilantro has any place in this recipe; you may disagree. The mix
I made at the demonstration consisted of parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary,
basil, and chives. 1 or
more pork steaks 1 c
assorted minced fresh herbs per tenderloin black
pepper garlic,
minced, one head per tenderloin extra
virgin olive oil salt Mince
the herbs and garlic. Add them along with black pepper and enough olive oil
to form a fluid paste to a seal top plastic bag. Place the pork steaks in the
bag and massage the herb paste all around them. Place in the refrigerator
overnight or longer. Heat a
sauté pan on high heat and film with oil. Cook the pork steak on one side
until you can see that the bottom side has cooked. Flip and cook until done.
Total cooking time is about 6-7 minutes for a ¾” thick steak. Here’s
a rip off of Szechuan Green Beans. 1 T oil ½ onion, diced ½ lb filet beans, strung and cleaned 1 clove garlic, minced water 1 T soy sauce, or to taste black pepper Heat the
oil in a sauté pan and start sautéing the onion. Once it starts to brown, add
the beans and toss them until they are well coated. Continue cooking 2-3
minutes, add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add a splash of water to
steam the beans (if needed). When the water is evaporated and the beans are
done to your liking, add the soy sauce, toss well, and let it evaporate.
Taste and season. This is a long-standing staple of
the One Block West lunch menu. 1 T oil oyster sauce salmon fillets sesame seeds Rub the show side of the salmon
(not the skin side) with oyster sauce. Put the sesame seeds in a shallow
dish. Press the salmon, oyster sauce down, in the sesame seeds. Heat a sauté pan over medium high
heat and film with oil. Sauté the fish, moderating the heat so that the
sesame seeds brown but do not burn. Turn the fish when half-cooked and cook
the other side. Salmon is best when it is still a bit rare in the middle.
Serve with a drizzle of oyster sauce and garnish with finely chopped green
onions. Oyster sauce is available in
oriental groceries and larger grocery stores. Creamed
Leeks This is
such an old fashioned dish that I think nobody thinks of it any longer. 2 T butter 4 large leeks ½ c heavy cream salt to taste Clean
the leeks and chop. Melt the butter in a sauté pan and cook the leeks until
they are very soft, but not browned. Add the cream and continue cooking.
Reduce until thick. Season. Sautéed Redfish
with Porcini Cream Redfish
is a mild white fish. I originally designed this sauce for halibut. Rockfish,
grouper, or corvina are good substitutes. ¼ c dried porcini 1 c warm water ½ c heavy cream 2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped 2 fresh sage leaves, finely shredded salt
and white pepper to taste oil flour redfish filets salt and pepper to taste In a
small bowl, cover the dried porcini in the warm water and let rehydrate until
soft, about 15 minutes. Remove the porcini from the water and chop. Place the
porcini and the liquid in a sauce pan and reduce until ½ cup remains. Add
heavy cream and herbs and reduce again by half. Season to taste. Heat
oil in a sauté pan and dredge the filets in the flour. Sauté over high heat
until halfway cooked, then flip and cook until done. Sauce with the porcini
cream. |
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