Friday Food Finds
22: With special guest, Susan Reid, chef, gardener and otherwise all things food pro.
Welcome to this special edition of Friday Food Finds featuring my incredibly talented friend and former King Arthur colleague, Susan Reid. Many of you know Susan already from her helpful Instagram tutorials (if not, you can find her at @chefsusaninvt), but you can find more of her writing and recipes here on the King Arthur website or at her own website, The Well Plated Kitchen.
This week Susan is guiding us through making efficient use of this bountiful harvest season. I hope you glean as many useful takeaways as I have, and I’ll be back next week for our regularly scheduled programming.
The glory of summer produce is intense and all too brief. As a chef I feel obligated to capture as much of it as I can, to revisit and enjoy when the daylight is miserly, the snow is blowing sideways and temperatures are wearing minus signs for days on end.
Herb Butters and Oils
My herb garden just outside the front door is an endless source of satisfaction; I love heading out with my sharp knife or scissors to gather edible flowers or herbs that would cost me a fortune at the store. This makes the first hard frost pretty traumatic, and this year I’m working hard at putting all those calendula petals, parsley, thyme, and chives into suspended animation with colorful herb butters. There are step by step instructions for this on my Instagram feed in Stories, as well as ideas of what to do with the butters you create. Don’t waste the stems, either. Turn them into flavored oils, especially the basil stems after you’ve made your pile of pesto. Nothing better on your focaccia or to make a salad dressing.
Smoking, Confit or Dry Curing
I’m fortunate to live in a place where my neighbors are raising meat. I have access to pork, lamb, beef, and chickens that roamed the land within 15 miles of my front yard: a chef’s dream come true, to be sure. I adore barbecue, to the point where I didn’t hesitate to buy this bad boy from Texas years ago. It’s stood me in good stead ever since: I spent 12 hours sitting in the slush of my driveway last March smoking fresh hams and pork bellies from the pig I bought from my neighbors at Heartland Farms. I love wandering through a good barbecue book, and Steve Raichlen is a handy guy to know if you’re looking to get into smoked food heaven. Some other cherished resources:
The Forgotten Skills of Cooking, Darina Allen (Kyle Books, 2009) Darina runs the famous Ballymaloe Cooking School in Ireland, and her voice is one of experience and practicality.
Dry-Curing Pork, Hector Kent (Countryman, 2014) If you were unafraid to drill a hole in a fridge for your keg in college, this one is right up your alley. A deep dive into the methods of curing and fermenting meats, this is a fascinating trip through some of the techniques that make whole-animal butchery a brilliant thing.
Canning and Pickling
The waves of goodness begin with rhubarb and strawberries; I pick as many as I can for as long as my knees can take from Edgewater Farm’s fields, and combine it with rhubarb from my garden to make chutney that’s excellent on everything from grilled chicken to my favorite meatloaf. After that I stalk the first blueberries, peaches, and plums for more jams and preserves. One of my Instagram followers pointed me to this recipe for pickled blueberries, which is on the list to try. I can see pairing them with fresh goat cheese the next time I’m doing a charcuterie board.
Further inspiration here:
The Pleasures of Preserving and Pickling Jeanne Lesem (Knopf,1975) also available at Abebooks and other used booksellers. Tomato marmalade, pickled cantaloupe, mustard pickles; the Jamaican banana jam blew my mind when I made it.
Saving the Season, Kevin West (Knopf, 2013) All the classics with some nice modern touches, like pickled asparagus with tarragon and green garlic, and Asian pears in ginger-lemongrass water.
Freezing/Drying
For berries, beans, and local sweet corn at its peak, I budget precious freezer space. When the local corn comes in, I buy great armloads of it, blanch, cut, freeze, then vacuum pack. I don’t stop there, though. The cobs, silk, and inner leaves go back into the pot to make corn stock, which turns into a heavenly corn chowder after snow shoveling in January. This keeps me plenty busy while I wait for my tomato plants to bear fruit. When the cherry tomato plants decide to hand their ripe marbles to me all at once, I’ll slice them in half, lightly salt them, and put them in my convection oven at its lowest temp to dry them. Once they’re halfway to leathery I’ll freeze them for winter pastas. Astonishingly, possibly the only food preparation toy I don’t own is a dehydrator.
I hope I’ve given you some ideas/resources for making the most of our fleeting but glorious growing season. For my last bit, two more books that hit the sweet spot between education and entertainment.
If you love prowling the cookbook section of used bookstores, we should be friends. Here are some of the treasures I’ve come across for putting food by that provide inspiration, instruction, and time travel between their covers:
Farm Journal’s Freezing & Canning Cookbook (Doubleday, 1973) Once you get past the pink pastry (yeah, food coloring was big when the first edition arrived in 1963), you can rub your hands together over the rhubarb butter, pear mincemeat, and apricot/black raspberry jam.
The Great American Meat Book Merle Ellis, (Knopf/Doubleday, 1996) I first got to know Mr. Ellis through his syndicated column in the stellar 1980s Chicago Tribune food section. A lot like hanging out with your great uncle (if he happened to be a storytelling butcher). If you’re not sure what cut of meat is good for which type of cooking, Merle’s your man.
Many thanks to my dear friend and former colleague Charlotte for letting me stop by at Balanced Diet.
Susan Reid
Aka @chefsusaninvt
Please come visit on Instagram!