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General Reference/Tutorial

General Reference/Tutorial, Savory Snacks, Sides

Pickled Cherries (small batch)

Either you’re going to think that I am crazy, or you think that this is genius … pickled cherries? Who would have thought!

But they are amazingly good and should take my word for it and make a batch yourself. This is only a small batch and worse case, you will have to give the ones that you don’t like away, but trust me, you will be making more! Sweet and briney, a perfect addition to a cheese plate or along side pork. And while cherries are in high season and relatively inexpensive, you should go for it.
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8. July 2015
General Reference/Tutorial

Berbere Spice Mix

I was making a jar of one of my staples — Berbere Spice — so I thought that codifying the “recipe” would be good. What is Berbere Spice? It is an Ethiopian spice mixture, a mix of sweet and savory spices. I’ve seen a number of different configurations of the spice, but the main components involve some heat (chiles, pepper cayenne) and some sweet flavors (cinnamon, clove, cardamom and nutmeg). Toss it with vegetables before roasting, use it as a dry rub on pork or poultry before grilling. You can even add it to fruit or yogurt with a touch of honey; maybe pie? [grin]

Oh, and you’ll be surprised at how “every day” the ingredients are … you might actually have a vast majority of them in the pantry. Having the whole spices and toasting/grinding them yourself is preferable, but if you just have ground (and no spice mill) just mix together the ground that you have.
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4. June 2015
General Reference/Tutorial

Sweet and Salty Ramp Butter, with Honey and Sea Salt

Things to do with Ramps, Part 3: Make butter. And not just any butter … butter that you will be looking for any and every excuse to use. It’s sort of like garlic herb butter, but lots and lots better, very mild and incredibly good. I just made four rolls of this and have stashed them in the freezer to use all summer long (if I have enough will power to make it last that long). Try it, you soooo won’t be disappointed!
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2. May 2015
Dinner, General Reference/Tutorial, Lunch, Pasta

Homemade Ramp Fettuccine, with Pancetta and Parmesan

Things to do with Ramps, Part 2: Make pasta. Yes, I’ve been on a bit of a pasta making kick these days anyway, but I figured that this wouold be a good experiment to see if the rampiness-flavor would shine though, even if you make pasta out of it. And I am happy to report that it does, almost to the point where it didn’t need any more dressing up, so I just rendered some panchetta and added some parm, and voila.

As always, my home made pasta directions are designed to use an old-fashioned hand-crank pasta machine. I don’t use my KitchenAid for this, but I am sure that you could. Just follow those directions staring with paragraph three.
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20. April 2015
General Reference/Tutorial

Ramp Chimichurri

Things to do with Ramps, Part 1: Two thinks that I love are Chimichurri (Sauce) and Ramps (German: Bärlauch). If you don’t know what chimichurri is, the short answer is that it is a green sauce made of herbs, garlic, some acid (i.e. lemon or lime juice or vinegar), chiles (fresh or dried) and olive oil. Typically the herbs are parsley, and sometimes cilantro/coriander and sometimes oregano. It originates from Argentina, when it is traditionally put on steak, but it certainly can be put on other things. You’ll see a few examples of that in the next few days here.

My other love is ramps, which are also called wild garlic, ramsons, bear’s garlic, wild leeks, wild onions, bear’s weed, etc. In German, it is called Bärlauch and is one of those “must eat” things in the Spring (they are only available for a few short weeks). Anyway, given that I have a bunch of ramps, and it is Spring, I decided to add some of these to my latest batch of chimichurri. Huge success.
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18. April 2015