Aout You

Aout You

Aout (pronouned "oo") (It's French, silly) is here, and I've been cooking up an aouray of salads and a chowder too for friends and family, thanks to our fabulous farmers at the Kennedy Plaza Farmers Market in Long Beach. The market is open every Wednesday from 10-7, and the variety and bounty is peaking. Ingredients you can purchase at the market are asterisked*.

What's going on in the kitchen has so much to do with aroma. The scent of basil, parsley, mint, cilantro and fresh fruit .. punctuated by some sugar cookies and wild flowers... how can anyone claim they don't like summer?

Today, I cooked some corn chowder. There are a zillion corn chowder recipes .. all interesting and good. Last week, I published one for roasted corn chowder . But this one, I created in about 15 minutes, and it's really good. You'll need good chicken stock (I make my own, using good quality chicken ... Murray's Chicken - go to the link and check it out. It's a nice piece of chicken.)

Corn Chowder, Blue Heron Kitchen

When corn is peaking, and you’ve bought more corn than you know what to do with, here’s a rapid chowder. Very easy too.

If you don’t have homemade stock, use low sodium organic chicken broth. But the next time it rains, make chicken stock. It takes a couple of hours, and you can freeze it in containers and ice cube trays.

Ingredients:

4 oz. slab bacon

6 ear of corn*, kernels removed (but keep 3 of the cobs to cook in the soup)

½ yellow pepper*, diced

2 medium potatoes* (not baking type), peeled and diced

2 cups homemade chicken stock, or alternatively, good quality low-sodium organic chicken broth

½ cup whole milk (organic is best)

kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

Procedure:

Sauté bacon until browned and remove from soup pot. (Discard the bacon)

Sauté diced potatoes, yellow pepper and potatoes in rendered bacon fat for a few minutes, stirring occasionally until vegetables begin to lose their raw quality and just start to brown.

Add 2 cups of chicken broth and 3 cobs. Simmer, partially covered for 20-30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Cool slightly. Remove and discard the cobs.

Remove 3 cups of mixture and purée in a blender.

Return to the soup pot and add ½ cup of whole milk.

Season with freshly ground white pepper and kosher salt, heating gently. (Don’t boil soups that have milk!)

Yield: approx. 2 quarts

The rice noodle/squid* salad is light and refreshing. You can substitute shrimp* or scallops* or even chicken if squid makes you gag. I like squid.

Rice Noodles with Squid and Herbs

Adapted from Gourmet, August 2009, by Blue Heron Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 lb. cleaned squid*, bodies cut into 1/3” thick rings and tentacles halved

8 oz. dried rice-stick noodles (vermicelli)

6 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

5 Tbsp. Asian fish sauce

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. hot red pepper flakes

6 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp kosher salt (more or less, to taste)

1 small carrot*, peeled and grated

1 Kirby cucumber*, seeded and sliced into thin half-moons

2 scallions*, thinly sliced

1 cup mixed coarsely chopped herbs such as mint*, basil* and cilantro*

Procedure:

Whisk together lime juisce, fish sauce, sugar, hot red pepper flakes and vegetable oil. Add salt, to taste. Add grated carrot. Set aside or this dressing may be made several hours in advance and refrigerated.

Cook squid in a 5-qt. pot of well-salted boiling water, stirring once, until just opaque, about 1 minute.

Transfer with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to stop cooking, reserving boiling water in pot.

Boil noodles in same water until just tender, about 3 minutes.

When squid is cool, gently lift from the ice bath with your hands, gently squeezing water from the squid and transfer to the serving dish.

Drain noodles, then transfer to ice bath to stop cooking. Drain well, then snip with kitchen shears 2 or 3 times.

Mix together drained and snipped noodles and squid. Add sliced Kirby cucumber, sliced scallions and chopped herbs. Pour dressing and toss.

I make bulghur wheat salad by soaking Bob's Red Mill brand whole grain bulghur (Fairway carries a huge amount of their line, but local markets like Bob's Natural and Associated also carry some Bob's Red Mill stuff. Or you can order Bob's Red Mill products , which, by the way, are of the finest - check out the site! - online), chopping up massive quantities of mint*, parsley* and cilantro*, throw in diced white and tender part of scallions*, lots of lemon juice and excellent quality olive oil. Toss in whole cherry tomatoes* and diced Kirby cucumbers* (but take out the seeds first). When you think you've added enough lemon juice, add more. This salad is always a crowd pleaser. It keeps well and it travels well too.

For your pesto, toast (and cool) your nuts first. I combine walnuts and pine nuts. Use the best quality pasta you can find and DON'T overcook it. NEVER rinse it with cold water. That washes away the starch and the starch is why stuff sticks to the pasta. Make a big batch of pesto, but DON'T grate in the cheese. You can freeze it in small batches without the cheese. Add pesto to whatever you'd like .. pasta, fish, meat, legumes, veggies, smear it on baguette and broil it. But grate the cheese to taste, after you've added the pesto base ... to taste. Always use the best quality cheese. Always. And you don't have to always add cheese.

Peel and grate a raw beet* on the large side of the grater (or if you're chicken, do it in the food processor). Toss in feta, chopped mint*, some lemon juice and muscat vinegar (or add a little orange juice if you don't have a sweet--ish vingegar), some extra virgin olive oil, chopped parsley* and/or cilantro*. For fun, you can add some chopped toasted walnuts and some golden raisins. This is tart/sweet/crunchy/refreshing and it's almost confusing. And it's gorgeous!

peace and love,

jane