Pickled Peaches

/in /by

These past few days there has been a slight crispness in the air and the fruits are hanging heavy on the trees. We went on a neighborhood walk today and picked plums, peaches, apples and buckeyes (not good for eating but good for putting in slingshots). Even though all the pickles from the Esoteric kitchen are live, raw ferments- at home, I still feel the autumn pull to put a few things up for winter. I have never tried savory peaches before, but these pickled peaches are damn good and made my Polish mother in law proud.

Sweet-and-Sour Peaches
adapted from Epicurious
  • 1 t lemon juice
  • 6 1/2 cups cold water
  • 24 firm-ripe small peaches (6 to 7 lb)
  • 1 cup sugar ( and I added about a 1/4 cup honey)
  • 1 1/4 cups distilled white vinegar
  • 4 teaspoons pickling spice
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • Special equipment: 6 (1-pt) canning jars with lids and screw bands; a boiling-water canner, or a deep 10- to 12-qt pot plus a flat metal rack; an instant-read thermometer

Prepare peaches:
Dissolve lemon juice in 6 cups water in a large bowl (to acidulate water).

Cut a shallow X in bottom of each peach with a sharp paring knife and blanch in 4 batches in a 5- to 6-quart pot of boiling water 10 to 15 seconds. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl of ice and cold water and let stand until cool enough to handle. Peel peaches, then halve lengthwise and pit. Add peaches to acidulated water and let stand 10 minutes, then drain well in a colander.

Toss peaches with sugar in a 6-quart wide heavy pot and chill, covered, at least 8 and up to 12 hours.

Sterilize jars and lids: I used Weck jars this year, but Ball jars are an old standby.
Wash jars, lids, and screw bands in hot soapy water, then rinse well. Dry screw bands. Put jars on rack in canner and add enough water to cover jars by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, covered, then boil 10 minutes. Cover lids with water in a small saucepan and heat until thermometer registers 180°F (do not let boil). Keep jars and lids submerged in hot water, covered, until ready to use.

Cook and can peaches:
Add vinegar, spice, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup water to peaches (sugar will have dissolved and will have drawn out peach juices) and bring to a boil over moderate heat, skimming off foam. Reduce heat and simmer until peaches are barely tender, about 3 minutes.

Remove jars and lids from water, reserving water in canner, and transfer to a clean kitchen towel, then divide peaches among jars using a slotted spoon. Return peach-cooking liquid to a boil, then pour into jars, leaving 1/4 inch of space at top. Run a thin knife between peaches and sides of jars to eliminate air bubbles.

Seal and process jars:
Wipe off rims of filled jars with a dampened kitchen towel, then firmly screw on lids with screw bands. Put sealed jars on rack in canner and, if necessary, add enough hot water to cover jars by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, covered. Boil jars 20 minutes, then transfer with tongs to a towel-lined surface to cool. Jars will seal as they cool (if you hear a ping, that signals that the vacuum formed at the top of the jar has made the lid concave).

After jars have cooled 12 to 24 hours, press center of each lid to check that it’s concave, then remove screw band and try to lift off lid with your fingertips. If you can’t, the lid has a good seal. Store in a cool dry place up to 6 months. Promptly put any jars that haven’t sealed in the refrigerator and use them first.

 

Pickled Beets Et Al Sushi

/1 Comment/in , /by

Woo Hoo: Another guest blog from Michelle Auerbach photo by Zoe Auerbach

There is nothing like not cooking.  When it’s 90 degrees in the kitchen at ten a.m. on a Saturday morning, turning on the oven or even the stove can seem like diving into lava.  But, even in the winter, a meal using no pots and no pans is a gift to whoever cleans your kitchen after you cook.  Sushi should be one of those meals, but never is.  However, this recipe allows sushi lovers to get creamy, salty, crunchy, and tangy – along with seaweedy – without making rice or messing up more than a bowl, plate, and cutting board.

Pickled Beets Et Al Sushi

1 Tablespoon white miso

1 teaspoon raw honey

3 Tablespoons tahini

Avocado

Carrot

Cucumber

Romaine lettuce

Zuke Beets, Hijiki, and Kale

Sushi Nori

Mix the miso, honey, and tahini in a bowl.  If it is not smoothing out to a nice paste add a teaspoon of hot water.Slice the avocado into strips.  Use a vegetable grater to make long strips of the carrot and cucumber.  Wash the romaine lettuce and break into sushi nori length strips.Take one sheet of nori, spread a little it of the mixed miso paste on the edge of it.  Then, line up the vegetables in palate pleasing proportions.  Finish with a couple dollops of the Beets, Hijiki, and Kale.  Roll up into a long nori roll and place on a plate seam side down. You can either make a few at once, or just bring all the ingredients to the table and let people roll their own to taste.

 

Fat Chance… Easy Homemade Mayonnaise

/4 Comments/in , , /by

I had an epiphany last week.  It was a rich moment quite a few weeks in the making and has left me with a conviction that I feel from deep within my heart all the way down to the soles of my sandals.  I will never again buy another jar of mayonnaise.  The fact that it took me so long to come to this seems ridiculous to me now however let me polish off my rear view mirror and explain.

Mayonnaise is extremely easy to make.  All you need is a bowl, a whisk, an egg and some oil.  I used to make it five minutes before service banging together my last minute mis-en-place not because I was late for work that day and didn’t do my prep… but because I knew how little time it would take me and how glorious and glistening it would be freshly whipped from the robot coupe, slid into the top of a refrigerated pantry station in a clean stainless steel nine pan nestled next to cut herbs, edible flowers, fresh fruits and other delightful touches with which to finish the perfect plate.

I’ve been reading labels at the grocery store. I know, occupational hazard right?  Well I’m not just looking at the art although food packaging is a stimulating form of media for my family and between myself and my dear husband we could work through an entire grocery isle and endorse or eschew hundreds of items by their visual representation alone. No, I am interested in what things are made of.  Our own company’s preparation for organic certification as well as the recent article in the Times about Eden Foods and the peril slash pitfall world of U.S.D.A. Certified Organic versus truly health giving versus healthy for a robust corporate bottom line – absurdly complex sentences aside this got me thinking constantly about why things are made the way that they are made.

NYT – Organic Food Purists Worry About Big Companies Influence

I’ve been in the food business for a long time and I’ve received plenty of deliveries off the backs of trucks that deal specifically in large packages of food for industrial use.  Industrial Mayonnaise is very disgusting stuff.  It comes in a 5 gallon bucket which is lined with a bag.  At one restaurant where we used to go through obscene amounts of the stuff the bag would get hefted out and inevitably abused. Raucous games of slap and squeeze, toss and wiggle would ensue to giggles and guffaws.  I would feel sick in the pit of my stomach watching that sad sack of plastic encased oil emulsion passed from one set of disrespecting hands to the next.  Sadder still I knew little about nutrition at the time however somehow I instinctively knew that there was very little goodness in that bag.  Even more incredulous to think that one might be able to buy the same bag of “Extra Fancy” mayo of a “low fat” sensibility.  Egads!  If there’s no fat in that schloop what on earth truly is? Have a quick look at these ingredient lists…Mayonnaise

REAL MAYONNAISE
Soybean oil, water, whole eggs and egg yolks, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, natural flavors, calcium disodium EDTA (used to protect quality).

LIGHT MAYONNAISE
Water, soybean oil, vinegar, modified corn starch**, whole eggs and egg yolks, sugar, salt, xanthan gum**, lemon and lime peel fibers** (thickeners), (sorbic acid**, calcium disodium EDTA) used to protect quality, lemon juice concentrate, phosphoric acid**, DL alpha tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), natural flavors, beta carotene**. **Ingredient not in mayonnaise

As with many low fat foods notice the addition of sugar as well as in this case loads of chemical thickener.  Note the calcium disodium EDTA keeps your egg based product stable at room temperature… it’s also in certain face creams that will stop your face from going bad at room temperature too. Of course the organic versions of the above listed must be better for you right?  Wrong.  Although there are fewer scary additives I generally find that the organic mayos all use predominantly soy oil, canola oil and palm oil all of which I have been taught for various reasons to avoid.  Soy is a known adaptogen, shown to bind itself to estrogen receptors it confuses our hormonal balance.  There is no such thing as a Canola plant.  Rapeseed is a kind mustard seed.  Rapeseed Oil is known to produce a high amount of a toxin called erucic acid.  This fact was generally known by the early 20th Century public – the Mustard Gas that was manufactured from the plant I guess was a dead giveaway. The Rapeseed plant was re-engineered (bred in a laboratory) to have low toxicity at which point they re-branded it changing the name to CANOLA (Canadian Oil Low Acid).  Canola Oil is generally “refined” which is a nice way of saying it’s been heated up already, and as we are learning now we want to keep to expeller pressed oils as preheated oils are more unstable and quite likely they are poised to oxidize or are already oxidized and ready to release free radicals that cause illness, rapid aging and general stress on our bodies and our guts.  Palm Oil, well it’s in 50% of everything you see in a typical grocery store, and happens to be the cause for massive equatorial rain-forest destruction.

So for now…  in my home I am happy with the following fat choices.  Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Butter and Ghee, Coconut Oil, Chicken, Pork or Duck fat and the occasional nut or seed pressed oil (kept refrigerated).  Since there is no acceptable mayonnaise available (don’t even get me started on the travesty that is veganaise) I will make my own.  It keeps up to two weeks in the fridge and I get to make sure that the oil used is up to my personal standard.  Here’s a recipe…  you don’t really need one.  A great rule of thumb or ratio to remember is that 1 egg yolk will only support up to 1 cup of oil in emulsion…  if you break your emulsion, never fear…  start again with a new egg yolk and add your broken mixture to the new yolk.

Best hand whipped mayonnaise

2 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons zuké Just Juniper brine (can substitute water)
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
Pinch of cayenne (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup olive oil

Preparation:
If you are worried about eating raw egg yolks heat the egg yolks, lemon juice and zuké brine in a small skillet over very low heat, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan constantly with a spatula. At the first sign of thickening, remove the pan from the heat but continue stirring. Dip the pan bottom in a large pan of cold water to stop cooking. Scrape into a round bottomed bowl, whisk for a second or so, then let stand uncovered at least 5 minutes to cool.

If you are not afraid of raw eggs you can skip this and just whisk the above ingredients together in your round bottomed bowl until they start to pale a little and thicken a little. Add the mustard, seasoning, and cayenne if using.

Drizzle the oil in very slowly at first, down the center hole into the egg mixture whisk like a pro – facial expressions indicating concentration will only increase the excellent texture of your emulsion.  You will see the oil start to emulsify, each time your emulsion stabilizes you can add more oil. Transfer mayonnaise to a clean container and chill immediately. This will keep for at least 7 days refrigerated.

Do the above in a food processor or a blender if you are in a hurry or are wrist / whisk challenged.  Switch up oils…  I’ve had great success mixing nut oils with olive oil or adding flax seed oil to my mayo.  Add more brine or favorite vinegar to thin for a creamy salad dressing, add dill and sour cream for ranch, add worcestershire, garlic, anchovies and parmesan for Caesar, add fresh ground garlic for aioli.  Put a dash of your bomb diggidy on just about everything. 🙂

 

Fermented food make a comeback!

/in /by
Fermented food makes a big bubble on DIY scene, store shelves
Posted:   07/14/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

By Douglas Brown
The Denver Post

Still life with fermented food, like ruby kraut , and simple sauerkraut and pickles as Willow King and Mara King business partners for Esoteric Food Company in Boulder demo a couple of their kraut recipes at Willow King’s home on Friday, June 1, 2012. Fermented foods are gaining popularity. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post (THE DENVER POST | Cyrus McCrimmon)

What will Denver bed-and-breakfast owner Milan Doshi do with the 1,500 pounds of Thai peppers growing in the garden across from his old house? The rows of oregano? The purple carrots?

He will force them to funk.

He will clean and cut the vegetables, stick them in drums, add salt. He will prod them toward a certain helpful decay by simply waiting until it’s time to pack them in jars. He’ll slap Five Points Fermentation Co. labels on them, and put the food — kimchi and curtido

Blog: Colorado Table

Denver Post reporters and editors offer news, analysis and commentary on the latest food, drink and restaurant trends in Colorado.

(an El Salvadoran kraut) — up for sale.

Doshi, a self-described fermentation freak, is not alone. In locations from Denver home kitchens to farmhouse barns to industrial warehouses, people are taking cucumbers, watermelon, milk, wheat, tea, pork shoulders — and a whole lot of other foodstuffs — and letting bacteria do their thing to them.

Bacteria have gotten a bad rap for years, because this group of living things includes nasties like e.coli and listeria, things that kill people. But bacteria is also key for food digestion. And it nurtures a unique flavor — yes, a funk — that just doesn’t come from a mere sprinkling of herbs or a splash of lemon.

“Lactic acid is a gift from God,” said Doshi. “We need to embrace it. When we use bacteria to help us, that’s when we are at our healthiest.”

Who’s got your fizz?

Doshi is so taken with the process he plans to open a fermentation cafe in the Five Points neighborhood, a space for classes on the topic and fermentation-celebration feasts. At his family’s business, the Queen Anne Bed and Breakfast in Denver, he uses fermented batter for the

Willow King, right, packs chopped red cabbage into its juice in a Mason jar as she and Esoteric Food Co. partner Mara King demonstrate a couple of their kraut recipes at King’s home in Boulder. They made ruby kraut with red cabbage, salt and leeks and a simple sauerkraut with green cabbage and salt. The cabbage will ferment for a few days in the jars. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

crepes and rye pancakes, serves his company’s krauts and even piles plates with uttapams, traditional Indian pancakes made from fermented beans and rice. He is expanding his line of krauts, and in the fall will start making tempeh — a fermented bean product often used in lieu of meat — from Western Slope pinto beans.

He began experimenting with fermentation about a decade ago, inspired in part by his grandmother’s kitchen in India, with its wall of leftover farm vegetables turned into a cornucopia of pickles: mangos, limes, tomatoes, okra. He also studied under Sandor Katz, the author of the just-published “The Art of Fermentation,” as well as the classic “Wild Fermentation.” Katz is recognized as a national leader on the topic.

“I think our connection to fermentation is innate,” said Doshi. “It’s the second-oldest human tradition. After we built tools, we cured food.”

Without fermentation, Colorado’s ocean of beer wouldn’t make a single wave. No Haystack Mountain goat cheese. No High Country Kombucha, Il Mondo Vecchio beef bresaola, Infinite Monkey Theorem syrah, Trompeau Bakery baguettes, or Zuke dill, caraway and cabbage sauerkraut. And none of the unheralded home-made goodness happening all over the state.

That goodness is so important that Colorado State University this fall, for the first time, is offering a for-credit class on the topic, called “The Science of Food Fermentation,” with sections on meat, dairy, soy, vegetables and grains, which covers bread and beer.

But the university is in the planning stages for an entire major: Fermentation Science and Technology.

“We have created nine new classes, all starting over the next couple of years,” said Laura Bauer, a Ph.D. student in the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Bauer will co-teach this fall’s fermentation class. She said the department introduced a brewing science course a few years ago that has been extremely successful. That course’s triumph, combined with the pop-culture trend toward fermented foods, persuaded CSU officials to begin delving more deeply into the age-old craft.

The craft can be exquisitely simple — classic sauerkraut is just shredded cabbage submerged in a brine — and somewhat tricky. Fermented dairy, for example, demands exacting temperatures.

Either way, fermentation is the art of using good bacteria to eat carbohydrates and create lactic acid, which keeps away pathogenic bacteria. The good bacteria can be said to do some of the digestion-work for the eater before the food plummets into the stomach. Once there, those helpful bacteria keep up the good work.

“When you can something, you heat it up and kill everything, and the one bug that can survive is botulism,” said Mara King, one of the owners of Boulder kraut maker Esoteric Food Company. “But with pickling (fermentation), you invite everybody in and create an environment where the good bugs beat the bad bugs. It’s a different approach.”

But how does it taste?

Those nice bugs taste yummy.

A kraut of seaweed, beets and kale? You betcha. Esoteric Food Company’s is ambrosial on eggs.

Taste helps explain why the Boulder restaurant Shine relies so heavily on fermentation. Even the restaurant’s salsa is fermented. But health is key, too.

“To me, the foundation of nutrition is fermentation and probiotics,” said Jessica Emich, head chef and one of the triplets who launched the restaurant last year. “If your body can’t digest food, it doesn’t matter. We like to nurture people from the inside.”

The restaurant even relies on an “alchemist” to create Shine’s fermented beverages. Beer? Sure. But the menu also includes a variety of “tonics” and “elixirs,” fermented beverages similar to kombucha but using honey, herbs, and flowers.

Kombucha — a fermented blend of tea and sugar — has taken off along the Front Range, with bottles of the stuff for sale everywhere from Sprouts markets to Whole Foods (which now has kombucha on tap).

For Edward Rothbauer, the president and chief executive officer of High Country Kombucha in Eagle, kombucha is a livelihood. He started making his own after a fall paralyzed him. All that sitting in a wheelchair upended his digestion. He said that soon after he started drinking kombucha, his digestion improved dramatically.

Now he walks with a cane. He doesn’t credit a fermented drink with his recovery, but he believes it helped.

“People drink it, and get a little education,” he said. “It might be a shock to their taste buds, but in 15 minutes they might say how good they feel.”

Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com

Read more: Fermented food makes a big bubble on DIY scene, store shelves – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/athome/ci_21072238/fermented-food-makes-big-bubble-diy-scene-store#ixzz22h1p2ajr
Read The Denver Post’s Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse