Jamón, Jamón! And other European food adventures

It's hard to boil down an amazing experience into just a few words. And that's one of the reasons I haven't written anything about our two week vacation to Spain and Portugal this past summer. But if I have to sum it up, I'd have two words for you: Jamón Ibérico. I had heard a lot about this cured ham, made from Black Iberian pigs that are fed natural diets of acorns and grass, but I hadn't ever actually tried it before going to Spain. That's for two reasons. First of all, I'm still pretty squeamish about eating meat, especially when it comes from *cute* animals. And even though I do have a sometimes weakness for bacon, I consider pigs to be super cute. And second, Jamón Ibérico only recently came to be available in the US (it was illegal until 2007) and even so, if you want it, be ready to shell out upwards of $200/pound.

I really wanted to enjoy the experience of Spanish and Portuguese cuisine; and in Spain, jámon is basically part of every meal. So before we left, I made a decision to embrace that and eat what was recommended wherever we went. And lo and behold, one of the first things that appeared in front of me when we landed in Spain were some super-thin, smoky slices of Jamón Ibérico. And I loved every melt-in-your-mouth, salty bite. Jamón Ibérico works well on its own, but is also very tasty with some slices of Manchego and a nice crusty bread. Pair it with a red wine or sherry and you've got a great little lunch. I wouldn't recommend running out and spending $200 on your jamón and cheese sandwich, but there are lots of related cured ham alternatives, like Jamón Serrano, which is cheaper and very similar in flavor.

Other highlights of our trip. As soon as we touched down in Madrid, we headed to a local cafe for a breakfast of tortilla española, a simple, but rich Spanish omelette, made with cream and potatoes. In Sevilla, every restaurant was guaranteed to have a juicer handy so you could order fresh-squeezed orange juice made from those famous Seville oranges.



I especially liked all the bright colors of Sevilla, and these candied limes really captured it for me. I didn't get to try them, but they were gorgeous in the café window.



In Jerez de la Frontera, where sherry is made, we headed to a sherry house to learn about sherry-making (and tasting!). In Cadiz, we tried fried seafood, which is a specialty of the region - check out the gorgeous shrimp cakes.



Portugal had its own list of delicacies, ranging from the famous egg custards made in the Belém neighborhood of Lisbon (seen below). And of course grilled sardines, a Portuguese specialty.



You certainly don't need to run all the way to Europe anymore to get many of these little delicacies. In the Boston area, there's a lovely little Spanish market called Las Ventas, which has everything you need to make your own Spanish tapas at home; or you can get a bocadillo (traditional Spanish sandwich) to go. Formaggio Kitchen also has many of the ingredients you'll need to bring a little bit of Spain and Portugal home. I for one can't wait to go back.

Savoring the end of summer

Hi everyone!
I know it's been a while since I've posted anything - I've got a backlog of travel posts a mile long. More on that to come. But in the meantime, I know I've written about peaches before, but I can't seem to get enough. We've been getting some small but super fragrant peaches in our CSA and I was supposed to be saving them for brandied peaches, which I've written about before. But earlier this week, they were sitting right next to the berries staring longingly at me, begging to be turned into a cobbler. Some of you out there have had this cobbler recipe in one form or another before. I just can't seem to stop making it, and it's been a tried and true recipe for a few years. You can throw just about any summer fruit into this recipe and it's super tasty. I've made it with just one type berry or a mix. You might need to play around with the sugar proportions a bit, depending on whether you're using sour or sweet fruit. But the basic recipe, with touches of fresh lemon zest, cornmeal, and buttermilk, still works well. Serve with ice cream or fresh whipped cream for a summer dessert you'll want on hand all year long.

PEACH-BLUEBERRY-RASPBERRY COBBLER

For the filling (make and cook filling first):

1/2 c. sugar
1 T. corn starch
a dash of cinnamon
a pinch of salt
6 c. of fruit (if you're using peaches, you'll want to slice into bite-size pieces and remove the skins)
1 1/2 t. minced lemon zest
1 T. fresh lemon juice

To make the filling:
Heat oven to 375 degrees with rack in the lower middle position. Mix dry ingredients of the filling. Then stir in fruit and lemon juice. Bake in a 9x9 baking dish for about 25 minutes.

For the biscuits (make while filling is baking):

1 c. flour
2 T. cornmeal
1/4 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
3 T. melted butter
1/3 c. buttermilk
1/2 t. vanilla

To make the biscuits:
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a second bowl. Just before the filling comes out of the oven, fold wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Form dough into eight equal-sized portions.

For topping (make while filling is baking):
1/8 t. cinnamon
2 t. sugar

To make the topping:
Mix 2 tsp. sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

For final assembly (after berries come out of oven):
Take berries out of the oven. Reset oven to 425 degrees. Put eight dough portions of dough on top of hot berries. Sprinkle each round with cinnamon sugar. Bake until biscuits are golden brown, about 15 minutes.

A failed experiment, a sweet finish

I'm not much of a dessert person - I often find sweet things a bit too cloying. Sweet drinks, sweet foods - if there's too much sugar, I start longing for fries. But there are times when a dessert knocks it out of the park for me. For instance, I love desserts with berries and biscuits and cream.


My personal favorite tends towards the strawberry-rhubarb combo, since it's somehow tart and sweet at the same time. I also love different textures in my desserts and when I'm out at a restaurant, I usually want to try something I don't know how to make at home. That's why I've always been intrigued by panna cotta. It's light-tasting and not too sweet. It's super-smooth and it seems like you can do anything with it. Lavender panna cotta? Sure! Why not? Espresso? Sage? Basil? Go for it! And it always seemed so hard to make. But when I recently saw a panna cotta recipe from a favorite blogger La Tartine Gourmande, it looked gorgeous and so darn easy. It only had about 8 ingredients and a few easy steps, so I thought what the heck, I'll try it. Well, I have to say that it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The flavor was actually pretty good, but the texture was off. I don't think it set quite right and even though on top, it looked like it had, when you dug in, it was a little grainy. So I guess I'll have to keep trying. In the meantime, though, the topping we made to go with it was actually really good, so here's the recipe. It would go well on ice cream or yogurt and, in theory, panna cotta. So if you've got a good recipe or tips on how to make a successful panna cotta, I'm all ears. In the meantime, I'll be sticking to ordering it at restaurants.

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB COMPOTE

4-5 stalks rhubarb, chopped into 1/4 in. pieces
1 1/2 quarts strawberries
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon corn starch
crystallized ginger

Simmer first four ingredients together on the stove until fruit is tender. Let sit on stove to cool and thicken. Spoon compote onto ice cream or yogurt and top with crystallized ginger to taste.

A tropical treat

I've recently been obsessed with hibiscus flowers as a really versatile base for some refreshing summertime drinks. Inspired by Jamaica Agua Fresca, which is a Mexican cooler made with hibiscus, I went on a city-wide search to make my own at home. You'd think that with all the natural foods/organics stores out here, this wouldn't be such a hard task. But after lots of searching, I was only able to find a couple of places that carried whole hibiscus flowers, which are the main ingredient in my summer thirst quenchers. If you're local, I was able to find these little gems at Christina's Spice and Specialty in Cambridge. I happen to love Christina's, mostly because they carry an extremely well-edited and yet somehow varied collection of hard-to-find spices. Oh, and their ice cream at the shop next door is to-die-for. But the goods are not cheap. So beware going into the store with a long list - you'll come out with a much lighter wallet!

This leads me to the other find. I was bemoaning my failure to find an affordable spice store that carries everything I want to some friends. And lo and behold, they introduced me to Atlantic Spice Company, which I visited on a recent trip to the Cape and it was heaven! Just about every spice, herb, grain, essential oil, and tea you can imagine. They sell wholesale so prices are low. And you can buy these online - spices brought straight to your doorstep. Though a visit to the store would also be well worth your while. We bought a pound of hibiscus flowers and went to town.

JAMAICA AGUA FRESCA

2 cups dried hibiscus flowers
8 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
Juice of 4 limes

Bring flowers, water, and sugar to a boil and simmer in a saucepan for about 15 minutes. Let cool on the stove. Strain and reserve flowers in a separate bowl. Transfer tea to a pitcher, add lime and refrigerate.



For a little bonus, here's a recipe for a delicious simple syrup with the reserved flowers (or use new ones if you like). Use it to make a fun little champagne cocktail or a Hibiscus-Lime Margarita.

HIBISCUS SIMPLE SYRUP

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 handfuls of hibiscus flowers

Bring water to a simmer, add sugar and let dissolve. Add hibiscus flowers and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain flowers and refrigerate.

Spring has sprung!

There are a lot of reasons to love spring - the warmer weather, stuff starting to bloom. As you could probably guess, we especially like the early fresh crops of greens that spring produces. Our garden plot is small, but super productive. This year, we planted a few early crops of greens - two kinds of kales, green leaf lettuce, arugula, broccoli, and peas. Most of these were planted as seeds in March, so by now they're ready to pick. What's amazing about these early crops is that they grow so dang fast! The other day, we went out there and found that our lettuce and arugula had exploded, so we decided to harvest some of it. This little box of vegetables yielded enough salad greens for the whole week!


We usually do our garden shopping at Allandale Farm - a great little local place and Boston's only working local farm. Allandale not only has great starter plants - we bought about 15 different varieties of tomato plants - they also have a small, but gorgeous produce section featuring fruits and vegetables from their own land. We saw fiddleheads and asparagus and just had to have them.


What I love about these beauties is that they don't need much to shine. Here's a quick recipe for a simple, healthy, fresh-tasting meal we recently made.

SAUTEED SPRING GREENS WITH FRESH PASTA AND SHAVED PARMESAN

1/2 lb of fiddleheads
1 bunch of asparagus
1 lb of fresh pasta
1-2 tablespoons of high quality olive oil
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
2-3 cloves of garlic
1-2 links of cooked chicken sausage (optional)
1/4 cup of high quality shaved parmesan

Thoroughly wash and scrub fiddleheads and snip off their ends. Chop ends of asparagus and cut into bite-sized pieces. Sautee asparagus and fiddleheads with garlic and olive oil for 5-7 minutes. Toss with fresh pasta, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and shaved parmesan. Drizzle with olive oil to taste.

A Maine Getaway

bakerbiker and I recently took a long weekend trip to Maine, to celebrate various fun happenings in our lives. We've been to Maine many times, which in some ways is good since we know we love it. This time, we made some of our usual stops (i.e., Portland), but ventured a bit farther north to the sleepy town of Camden. For those of you who have been to Maine during the high season, Camden is the opposite of sleepy. But April in Maine is definitely not high season, so we had the town practically to ourselves as tourists. Though the weather was a bit chilly (it snowed one of the nights we were there), we made sure to get a room with a fireplace to stay cozy and still were able to enjoy some nice walks outside along the gorgeous coast in the stormy New England weather. The highlights of our trip, you're probably not surprised, were about the food.

Our first stop was Portland, where we hit Hugo's for dinner. Last year, Hugo's chef Rob Evans, won the James Beard Best Chef Northeast award. We've been there before and ordered a few small plates, but we'd never gone all out with the recommended six-course tasting. Now that I've had it, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to go back. We started with an amuse bouche of mussel with red pepper and lemon foam. A single bite of heaven. Second course was asparagus salad with marinated mushroom, a poached farm egg, and fried ricotta. It was very fresh and "spring" and the asparagus was the most tender that I've ever had. The third (and my favorite) course was a porcini mushroom consomme with truffle-pea agnolotti, parmesan, and scallion. Some of you know about my obsession with mushrooms and this dish really proved it even further. I just can't get over how earthy, meaty, yummy they are! The next two courses were fish dishes - a cod and a salmon - both excellent and featuring more spring ingredients. The fifth dish was very unusual - an almond milk mouse with licorice stick, tapioca, and cocoa crumble. This sounds like dessert, but it was in fact just a touch sweet and was described to us as a "palate cleanser." It was very light, surprising, and super-interesting...definitely not something I could make at home. And finally, a sweet and fresh end to our amazing meal - a sort of deconstructed pineapple upside down cake with lime curd, coconut sorbet, and molasses. LOVED the tart, sweet, juicy, milky combo.


Did that whet your appetite? There's more! For lunch the next day, we hit the famed Duck Fat. As you might be able to guess, the theme here is duck fat and everything is cooked in it. Now I'm not a big fan of foods that are super high in fat, but let me tell you, duck fat fries are just amazing. And that's exactly what we had - duck fat fries with truffle ketchup, a simple but super-tasty smoked turkey panini, and a fruit and nut salad (hey - had to have something sort of healthy, right?). I know it sounds simple, but if you're ever in Portland, GO. It's seriously worth the trip.

Next we hit Camden, ME for a couple of nights. Camden is a very beautiful seaside town that is just mobbed in the summer, but fairly quiet during the other months. We walked around the coast and checked out some of the local food spots. The highlight for us was Francine Bistro. I have heard Francine compared to a Manhattan restaurant and I have to agree. Very upscale, European bistro style with a local flair. And lastly, we tried Natalie's, housed in a four-star B&B owned by a Dutch couple, it has a very modern decor and a gorgeous view of Camden Harbor. The dishes were classic but with an experimental twist and the wait staff was very friendly and personable (we even got treated to a little local dessert wine to go with our dessert). All in all a great trip and we can't wait to go again!

A sight for sore eyes

Hi everyone,
Quick update here. We're happy to announce that our place has been featured in the Boston Globe for a story about Bostonians using color. It was a treat to see some fun colors while it's still gray and gloomy out. For a little pick-me-up, check out the slide show here. All photos are by the Boston Globe. Enjoy!