where the wild things are. no. 20. pick a peck of pickled milkweed.

I have gone a little mad for milkweed this summer! You could have knocked me over when I first learned that it was edible. I have always known that Monarchs are dependent on milkweed for survival but I was dubious about eating it but no more, I am now a total convert. I have made milkweed frittata, a tempura of the blossoms and buds and now i have come to the pickled milkweed pods! They taste a bit like pickled ochre  and have a caperberry like texture. Do not worry, you will not end up like Sylvester with a mouthful of fluff! The tiny pods get pickled when they are between one to two inches long and the fluff inside the pod is not really fully fluff yet. I have tried these out on friends and family and the consensus seems to be that they are surprisingly good.

So grab some milkweed pods before they get too big and get pickling.

 Pickled Milk Weed Pods

4 cups of milkweed buds (between 1-2 inches in size) 

5 cups raw apple cider vinegar

1/4-cup sugar in the raw

2 sprigs of fresh dill flower

1-tablespoon whole juniper berries

1/2 teaspoon crushed juniper berries (crush them with a mortar and pestle)

1 tablespoon of black pepper corns

3 tablespoons grey sea salt

 To Make The Brine:

Add the spices and sugar to the 5 cups of vinegar

Heat to a boil in a non-reactive pot

Turn off and allow steeping for 20 minutes for the spices to infuse

In the mean time, clean and wash and de-stem the milkweed pods 

Blanch the milkweed pods for 30 seconds and then plunge them into an ice bath

Place the blanched milkweed pods in two 4-cup sterilized mason or Weck jars.

After the brine has infused for 20 minutes or so, return it to the heat and bring it to a quick boil and turn off.

Remove the brine from the heat and slowly pour it over the milkweed pods.

The pickled milkweed pods will last a couple of weeks in your refrigerator.

stone fruit. purslane. and korean watercress salad. lunch for one.

The other day as I walked around the green market I had a stone fruit story churning in my head. I wasn't sure what I was going to do but I knew I wanted to make a salad of plums or peaches. So, with that in mind I started to pick up beautiful bits of this and that and slowly a salad began to form.

Two plums or one peach and one plum

A handful of purselane

A handful of Korean watercress

Mexican gherkins

Fresh dill flower

1 garlic scape

Sea salt

Extra virgin olive oil

Juice half a lime

1 teaspoon of rose syrup

Or maple syrup

The main ingredient in this salad is plum; everything else is just there to add a little bit of flavor and to play off the flavor of the plums.

Nothing here is that exotic, I found it all easily at the farmer’s market here in NYC. You can substitute and play around if you can’t find these exact ingredients. Embrace a little whimsy!

Stone fruit. Purslane. and Korean Watercress Salad.

Cut three medium size plums into small slices. Discard the pit. Use any kind. I used Elephant Heart and Santa Rosa plums.

Arrange the plums loosely on a plate.

Add a few sprigs of purselane ( a lemony tasting wild green )

Add a few sprigs of Korean watercress, which looks nothing like regular watercress. You can substitute celery leaf or parsley if you can’t find the watercress.

Cut in half a handful of Mexican Gherkins and sprinkle on top of the plums, again if you can’t find these use some other tender early cuke.

Add a few sprigs of dill flower, substitute dill if you can’t find dill flower

Thinly slice about an inch of garlic scape, use a finely chopped shallot or chive if you can’t find scape.

Sprinkle with a pinch of good crunchy seas salt

Squeeze the juice of half a lime over the salad

Drizzle with a good extra virgin olive oil

Finish with a teaspoon of rose syrup (I made my own from rose petals) If you can’t find a rose syrup then add a teaspoon of maple syrup!

It is all about improvising and throwing together whatever is in season.

Have fun! Let me know if you come up with any interesting summer salads!

Enjoy!

This salad is just about being inspired at the green market and then tossing it all together! Don’t be scared of combinations just be inspired by them. What is the worst thing that can happen?

More stone fruit recipes to come!!

 

heirloom tomato and celery salad.

The first of  summer's tomatoes have arrived at the markets. Green Market stalls are  filled with piles of gorgeous and unusually shaped heirlooms in purples, stripes, blacks, whites, deep reds, orange and yellows. I love the wabi sabi-ness of heirloom tomatoes. I particularly like the ones that look as though they have been carelessly stitched and scratched like a beautiful Lousie Bourgeois sculpture. 

Tomatoes are one of those foods that are in my blood. If I were on a deserted island I  could get by if I had stockpiles of my great grandmothers marinara sauce.  When I think about the things I love to eat most... they almost always involve this diverse fruit! Foccacia with cherry tomatoes sunk deep into little wells of crunchy bread and pools of olive oil...marinara with a punch of garlic and hint of basil, Panzanella a delicious bread salad, a BLT with a  thick chunky slice of  a fresh garden tomato, tomato soup and grilled cheese, the ultimate in comfort food or a very simple summer salad of tomato and basil, olive oil and a little sea salt or in this case some crisp shaved celery. Just give me a piece of crusty Italian bread to soak up that juice and I will be in heaven!

More tomato love to come 

 Heirloom Tomato and Celery Salad (for two)

This is sort of a non-recipe. It is just an inspiration! As with most summer salads they just kind of get thrown together!

4 large heirloom tomatoes

1 stalk of celery with leaves

A handful of fresh basil

Really good olive oil

Sea salt

Cut the tomatoes into pieces and put in a large bowl

Shave the celery stalk into ultra thin slices with a mandolin and scatter on top of the tomatoes

Tear the celery leaf and basil into small pieces and add to the salad

Add a pinch of really good crunchy sea salt

Douse with an extra virgin olive oil 

Toss and Devour!

As simple as that and DO NOT forget some crusty bread lest you waste that amazing tomato juice!

summer daze.

 I woke up this morning with a start, wondering what I am late for and realized that I actually have today off! Summer has been flying by this year. I have no idea where the days have gone... one seems to tumble into the next until weeks have passed. I am looking forward to a few days off in August spent upstate and in the company of good friends. I have had no time for blogging this past month, life and work have been busy and the heat wave somewhat unbearable in our non air-conditioned loft. While busy is a good... I have reached the point of a much-needed break. I have had to reconcile that I am not going to be able to get to all the ideas, shoots and recipes I have had in mind for the summer season. I will do what I can and put some things off to next year. Sometimes you just have to take a moment.

Jam, however, is definitely on the agenda. It looks as though the blackberries upstate are about to burst, hundreds of them dripping from tangled thorny bramble. They, unlike me, seemed to have thrived in this heat! The black raspberries and blueberries in the photos below came from Flying Fox at The New Amsterdam Market. When I am in town on a Sunday it is my very favorite place to go.

Have a great weekend friends! 

x

bellocq. tempura edible flowers. chinese tea eggs and tea salt.

We always plant a bed of edible flowers in our garden upstate to add to salads or to eat straight from the garden. So, I was super inspired when we shot our favorite tea atelier, Bellocq, for the most recent issue of Kinfolk. Heidi Johannsen Stewart of Bellocq came up with this brilliant idea to tempura edible flowers and to serve them with tea salt! They were so good and so beautiful! We ate and drank a lot of tea inspired foods that day. We also made Chinese tea eggs and paired it with the same tea salt. I will share them soon! Have a great weekend!

 If you are going to try this make sure you have done your research as to what flowers are edible! Never use anything that has been sprayed!

Tea salt can add an interesting flavor to just about anything you are cooking.

Tea Salt/Lapsang Souchong Salt

1/3 cup tea

We used a smokey tea for this one! (no. 19 Lapsang Souchong) Organic black tea scented with pinewood smoke.  Plucked at high elevations in the Wuyi Mountains, this tea has a distinctive earthy flavor, with strong notes of honey and a rich red liquor.  You can order this tea online from Bellocq. 

1/4 cup of sea salt

Mortar and pestle until they are somewhat combined

Store in an airtight jar

Tea Eggs

Chinese Tea eggs are a populaur street food in China. I never ate them while I was there because I kind of avoid street food whle working. They were super beautiful however and stayed in my mind long after the trip.

Most recipies for Chinese Tea Eggs call for the eggs to be steeped in a combination of  black tea, star anise, cinnamon, soy sauce and black pepper  but you can get creative and add bits of citrus or ginger.

We served these with another fragant tea salt. We used Kiykuya from Bellocq.

 To Make The Tea Eggs:

One dozen Arucuana eggs

1/2 cup loose black tea.

We used Keemun Panda from Bellocq. A Organic full bodied black tea, prized for it's sweet earthy flavor and floral notes with a touch of smokiness. You can use any black tea.

6 star anice

4 large cinnamon sticks

4 tsp. cracked black pepper

1/2-cup soy sauce 

To Make;

Combine your eggs, spices and soy sauce in a large non-reactive pot with enough water to cover the eggs. Simmer your eggs for an hour. Remove the eggs from the liquid and set them aside to cool. Reserve the liquid and spices. (you will later add the eggs to the cooled liquid.)  When the eggs are cool enough to handle, gently crack the hard-boiled eggs with the back of a spoon all over the surface of the egg but not hard enough to remove the shell.

 Gently place the cracked hard-boiled eggs in the cooled spices and liquid in a big lidded jar and refrigerate for three days.

The liquid will steep in through the cracks and flavor and stain the white of the egg. The outside will become a beautiful brown.

I used Aracauna eggs so that when I cracked them, the shell on the inside would be blue. The outside of the egg took on the most perfect Wedgewood brown. I couldn't help but think that Martha just might fall in love with that color. Heidi and Michael saved the pieces of the egg shell and added them to their famously beautiful Bellocq tableaus.

Prop Styled by the ever talented Shane Powers! thank you Shane!xx