Kitchen Chick

Happy Easter!

Brach's Bunny Basket Eggs

Proper celebration of Easter requires an Easter Basket filled with candy. Today there is a plethora of bad inexpensive chocolates of various sorts, but when picking out chocolates for our godson's basket I went for the candies of my youth. Classic chocolate eggs, caramel filled eggs, a hollow bunny with perky ears just waiting to be bitten into, and... Brach's Bunny Basket Eggs.

I didn't know these were called "Brach's Bunny Basket Eggs." I had, in fact, never even seen them in their store packaging until this year when I went to buy them. They were always just those sugar-coated marshmallow-like candies that I always found lurking at the bottom of my basket, beneath the faux plastic grass. I didn't really like them much as a kid, and now I've bought them for our godson. What was I thinking??? Nostalgia and bright pretty colors won, so into the basket they went.

So, I am undecided on whether I should feel completely awful or merely wicked for inflicting these sugar bombs on our godson's parents. (He'll be fine, but they're the ones who will have to survive his sugar buzz.) They are the kind of candy that you only need one bite of and then you are set for the entire year. Eat an entire one, and you'll have consumed a week's worth of sugar. Eat the entire bag, and you'll be sick. No, I don't know this from personal experience, but based on how I felt after eating one it's a pretty good hypothesis.

What is your favorite (or least favorite) Easter candy?

Amazing Zucchini with honey and mint!

Last year I planted mint, against all advice, around my house. Previously I had a mint container garden, which I dragged inside every year, but the mint got root-bound and scraggly and no longer grew luscious thick leaves. I needed fresh mint, and my mint needed a bigger happier place to grow. I have some areas bordered by cement walkways that have never had much in the way good plantings and they seemed the perfect contained place for mint, and I have a friend with excess mint in her yard, and she was delighted to donate a few plants.

So this year I have beautiful mint. Kentucky Colonel and Spearmint. I don't use a ton of mint, but I like to have it handy and I can't stand to pay so much money in the grocery store for a tiny package of an herb that grows so well in Michigan.

Anyway...

Gliding and Blueberry Muffins

View looking over the left wing of the glider at around 2,600 feet.

Last weekend I went up in a glider. It was so exciting that I just had to share, even though it has nothing to do with food. Well, that's not completely true. My friends shared their amazing sandwiches (I must get the recipe) and I shared some blueberry muffins (recipe at end of post). See? I did make it food related.

Kitchen Chick's Great Gliding Adventure
The plane is very small, with absurdly long thin wings. We used a small tractor to tow it down to the end of the grassy runway. At least one person has the "walk the wing" to keep it moving straight. The runway is a former strip of farm land embedded in the middle of a working farm.

You do multiple checks of the plane. A complete inside and outside visual check over when you take the plane out of the hanger, and more checks when you ready the plane for take-off. The belt is a four-point harness. A two-seater glider has identical controls for both seats. I just had to keep my hands off of them. (And keep my knee from knocking the canopy release, too.)

Everything was going fine until we closed the hatch, and it hit me this was real. I was going to go up in the air with just a thin shell around me and those long delicate wings keeping us aloft. Then the tow pilot got the go signal. The grass goes rushing a scant foot below your butt as the tow plane drags you down the grass runway...

Chef Alex Young: From Field to Plate

A tale of tomatoes, a chef who loves to get his hands dirty, and a sauce 28 years in the making...

Alex Young, Head Chef and Managing Partner at Zingerman's Roadhouse, has led a nomadic life — in many ways, the kind of life everyone thinks that chefs lead. Born to English parents who moved to Albequerque when he was 2 and then to Northern California, he left home at 17 for New York to seek his fortune in the restaurant business. With no formal culinary education, he started out bussing tables and worked his way up, in a journey that included restaurants all over the United States and London. He promised his wife Kelly, a Dexter native, that they would move to the Ann Arbor area — and then wound up moving her and their children 12 times in nine years. The break that "got him out of the poorhouse" was the success of the Pittsburgh Fish Market, but he's a man who keeps his promises, and he and his family eventually made their way back here.

Now he lives on the outskirts of Dexter in a large house originally built for a pastor by his enthusiastic but not professionally-skilled congregation ("good enough for who it's built for," says his father in law), with his wife, three children, and an organic vegetable garden complete with greenhouse. We visited him at his garden, and then followed up with an interview at the Roadhouse to discover how Zingerman’s Roadhouse came to be and to ask about his amazing vegetable garden.

The History

Alex met Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig, co-founders of Zingerman's Deli, through a mutual connection. He went to them with a restaurant business plan in hand. From that point, it was a three-year process putting together the concept that would become the Zingerman's Roadhouse. Alex moved to Cleveland to be closer to Ann Arbor and spent the next two years driving up for meetings. Then, in what he terms "a leap of faith," he left his job and worked at the Deli for a year before they finally opened the restaurant.

The plan he originally brought the Zingerman's partners was for an "American brasserie," doing more cutting-edge cooking, similar to what he had been doing before. Ari, however, has long been passionate about traditional American foods, so it was a natural evolution to end up with a restaurant serving high-quality versions of traditional cooking.

The Garden

The first sight of Alex Young's garden is enough to make any home gardener stop and stare with green-eyed envy. A deer fence encompasses a garden that is almost too large to handle by hand. (And with plans to expand it even larger next year, Alex talks of buying a tractor.) A significant portion of the space is devoted to his 40-some varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and another section is thick with the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash all growing together. Though it's an excellent method for preserving the soil's nutrients, there's a reason nobody does it any more; Alex has to crawl through the corn and squash and beans to harvest it. There are peppers, potatoes, leeks, onions, melons, and just about every kind of vegetable that grows in Michigan... and a few that usually don't, such as artichokes. They don't do well with a harsh winter, as they can't handle the freeze and won't fruit until their second year. Alex tried to trick the artichokes into thinking they had lived through two seasons but, as he said as he gestured at his fruitless plants, "the artichokes are smarter than me."

So what inspired his garden? “Tomatoes, actually.” Alex had a vegetable garden as a child in California, so gardening wasn’t new to him, and with the growing interest in heirloom tomato varieties he knew he had a use for them at the Roadhouse. Heirloom tomatoes don't always taste better than modern varieties, but Alex's really do (though some, like the tiny golden pear tomatoes, are more ornamental).

Creamy Maple Polenta

When I was a child, my mother would dredge slices of cornmeal mush in flour and pan-fry them until they were crispy, and we'd eat it slathered with butter and maple syrup. I thought this was a perfectly ordinary dish well into adulthood until my friends expressed surprise. "A Depression-era dish", some called it.

Well, I don't know if it was specifically a Depression Era dish. It was common in the southern and mid-Atlantic States, but not so much in Michigan. It was also apparently common among Italian immigrants. After all, what is fried cornmeal mush but a kind of polenta? And because it was cheap, it was probably common during the Depression Era, too. All I knew, as a kid, was that this fried cornmeal stuff was fabulously tasty, and I always treated it as a special meal.

In any event, I have very fond memories of cornmeal mush, so when I saw this creamy maple-flavored polenta recipe in Bon Appétit those old memories of cornmeal and maple sryup quickly had my mouth watering and I knew I had to try it. Right Then and There. And since I had a big bowl of blueberries in my fridge, I knew just how I was going dress it up.

It was a good call. The blueberries were divine in the polenta. So divine, that I added another big handful of blueberries after taking the above photo. (Imagine if you will, little explosions of cool blueberry flavor mixing with warm creamy polenta with a hint of maple syrup. Mmmm...)

Diana Morrison's Creamy Maple Polenta
Bon Appétit August 2006

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup water
3 cups whole milk
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup (I actually added a bit more)
2 Tbsp butter (1/4 a stick)

Whisk cornmeal and water in medium bowl to blend. 

Bring milk and salt to a simmer in a heavy, large saucepan over medium-high heat. (A large saucepan with high sides is a plus.)

Gradually add cornmeal mixture, whisking constantly until polenta comes to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer until polenta is very thick, stirring occasionally. About 10 minutes.

Mix in maple syrup and butter.

Season to taste with pepper.

Serve immediately if you want a mushier polenta, or you can let it stand to set a bit.

Diana recommends it as a side-dish or for breakfast. In spite of the maple syrup, this is not an especially sweet dish. If serving for breakfast, I would add a bit of extra maple syrup to sweeten it up. Blueberries were perfect in this dish, both for the flavor and the beautiful gold and blue combination it made with the polenta (hey, I went to Michigan...). Joe added slices of browned Italian sausage to his, for more protein and a tasty savory combination.

Grilled Salmon and Corn w/ Lime Butter Sauce

These days I'm frequently looking for recipes that make use of the vegetables I receive from Tantre Farms, and right now we've an abundance of corn. So this Grilled Corn recipe from epicurious.com was a perfect fit.

The corn is grilled in its own husks and cut off the cob and mixed with herbs and this amazing Lime Butter Sauce (another perfect fit for me as I had a lime sitting at home that needed using). I used sage, chives, basil, and French tarragon as my herb mix.  I especially enjoyed the sage. I think if I were do this again I would try a sample with sage and chives, and another small sample with tarragon to see which herb I liked better.

But the star of this meal was the Grilled Salmon, grilled and slightly charred with lime zest and lime butter sauce drizzled over the top.

I'm no expert at grilling. My usual mistake is to misjudge the heat of the grill and overcook the hamburgers. Joe and I both like our hamburgers medium rare, and medium is really just too done for our tastes but that's often what we end up eating. I figure fish should be easier to check. I season it with Portuguese sea salt and black pepper and it's ready to go. Of course, the first thing I do -- I'm in a hurry -- is misread the recipe, and I put the salmon skin down on the grill.  (It's supposed to go flesh side down.) By the time I notice this, the salmon skin has glued itself to the grill — so I leave it be.

Four minutes later I try to turn the fish. The fish separates from its skin, but I manage to turn each piece over without them falling apart. We're not huge fans of the skin, so I figure it's not too big of a loss. While the salmon is grilling, I start cutting the corn off the cob, and the next thing I know those fatty skins are all on fire and so is my fish. Argh! I cover the grill to suffocate the flames and then scrape at the skins stuck on the grill, trying to get them off. Eventually the grill is under control, but my salmon (while perfect on the outside) is still rather raw on the inside, so I cover the grill for a minute or two (even though the recipe says not to do it) to concentrate the heat, and at last my fish is done. I actually manage to transfer it to a serving plate without destroying the pieces, and dress it up with some lime zest and lime butter. (And, yes, fish filets are easier to check for doneness.)

All I can say is that in spite of, or perhaps because of, my grilling mishaps this salmon was stellar. Joe couldn't stop raving. The slightly charred surface with speckles of sea salt was incredibly flavorful, and the salmon only required a very small amount of the lime butter to dress it up. Per Everyday Wines' recommendation, I paired it with 2005 Seigneurs de Bergerac, Bergerac Sec, a dry French white with a delicate nose and a almost fruity finish with a touch of spice.

The whole meal isn't difficult to prepare... if you pay attention to what you're doing. The corn takes the longest to grill, but that provides a perfect window to make the lime butter and prep salmon for grilling and even do some early clean-up. And while the salmon is grilling the corn can be cut off the cob. I traded cleaning up for also preparing balsamic blueberries and peaches, which are delicious enough to deserve their own post....

Louisiana Creole — Detroit

In the mood for something different, Joe and I headed to Detroit one day to spend the morning at the Eastern Market. You can easily spend a happy day wandering through this sprawling market of some five sheds plus the surrounding blocks of produce distributors, meat packers, spice, nut stores and still not see it all. After spending several hours, we retired to the Louisiana Creole to enjoy some of the best New Orleans style food you'll find up here in Detroit.

We had to ask for directions. (Take time to print out the map from the Eastern Market website, and you'll save yourself a lot of effort.) When we told the woman we wanted to find Louisiana Creole, she gave us a knowing nod of approval. It's a bit of a walk from the market, but manageable. You can also drive it. There is free street parking — as long as you don't park too close to the fire hydrants.

This bare-bones restaurant primarily offers everything as carryout, with two fast-food style tables for those out-of-towners like us who have no place to carry it out to. One wall holds the numerous restaurant reviews and awards Louisiana Creole has gathered during their 30+ years. I told the woman ahead of us that it was our first time here. "Oh, you're in for a treat," she said. When I asked her what was her favorite dish, she paused for a moment then said the red beans and rice, warning me that they came a bit sweet. And the cornbread. Make sure to get some cornbread.

You place your order at the single window, then step aside so the next person can order, and the cooks quickly assemble your meal. We put together a menu to sample as many things as possible. I picked out the "Hungryman's Platter" and Joe ordered the Saturday special "Creole Trio". We threw in an order of collard greens, candied yams, and corn bread.  The staff laughed and assured us we would not go hungry. Boy, were they right...

Corn Smut — aka Huitlacoche

Gustad Mody of Iron Stomach asks what is corn smut. Corn smut is a fungus that infects corn. (Hey, it's "corn mushrooms"!) Wikipedia has a detailed entry about corn smut describing its physical characterists and culinary uses and history.

Corn smut isn't pretty -- though it is tasty -- but if you want to see some, take a peek...

Roasted Cauliflower

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that I avoided for most of my life.  My main memory is of largely tasteless florets in salads.  As a kid, I thought of it as defective broccoli.

Then last a year a friend wrote about how she didn't like cauliflower until she had it roasted with olive oil and salt.  I had to try it.  And I loved it.  Now I actually crave cauliflower.  Joe thinks I've gone crazy.  I've always thought it a very pretty vegetable to start with, and it has a gorgeous texture that I think makes it fun to handle.  The slices make lovely, whimsical trees.  And now, I get to enjoy eating it too.

Roasted Cauliflower
Heat oven to -- oh, say somewhere between 350 F and 400 F.  Slice cauliflower about 1/8th to 1/4 inch thick.  Uniformity in thickness is good, as that means an even cooking time.  Toss with some olive oil and sea salt and, if you like, some freshly-ground black pepper.  Roast on a cookie sheet and bake.  At some point, flip the slices.  I find on my thin metal sheet that the cauliflower browns on the bottom side, so beware; looks can be deceiving.  Roast until it reaches the desired browness.

I have no idea how long it takes to cook.  I've never timed it.  I just check after 10-15 minutes to see if it needs flipping.  The hotter your oven, the faster it will cook.  I like a mix of crispy pieces and succulent pieces.

Grilled Shrimp and Country Bread

When I came home with a bag of fresh shrimp I had in mind a lovely shrimp casserole with mushrooms cooked in white wine, but I forgot the mushrooms.  Darn it.  So a quick look through our cookbooks turned up this recipe comes from a 1993 Food & Wine collection.  I skipped the skewers and spread the shrimp and bread on a tray and broiled them in the oven.  Joe called it "odd but very tasty."  I have to agree, and I think the bread choice will affect the flavor combination quite a bit.  I used Zingerman's Roadhouse Bread, which is a full-flavored bread with a neat slightly sweet flavor with a touch of sour. Grilled Shrimp and Country Bread 40 lg shrimp, shelled and deveined 40 cubes of country bread, cut into 1.5 inch cubes 40 sage leaves 3/4 C extra-virgin olive oil 1 Tbs finely chopped fresh rosemary 4 garlic cloves, minced Juice of 1 -2 lemons If you use skewers... soak your skewers in water for about 15 minutes then thread 1 shrimp, 1 bread cube, and 1 sage leaf per skewer.  (This recipe was intended as an appetizer, thus the one shrimp/skewer directions.)  Arrange skewers in shallow baking dish.  Or just mix the bread cube, shrimp, and sage in a shallow bowl. In a small bowl, whisk to combine the olive oil, rosemarry, and garlic.  Pour over the shrimp and bread and marinate at room temperature for at least 1 hour or refrigerated for up to 1 day. Light grill or preheat broiler.  Grill/broil skewers for 3-4 minutes until the shrimp are just warm and the bread lightly toasted.  If you don't use skewers, spread the shrimp and bread mixture on a tray and broil as directed -- make sure to turn them over to cook both sides.  Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve.