summer fling

I am so madly in love.... with my CSA. Seriously. I check the pretty new website all the time just to say hello. All I can think about at work is the stash of vegetables in my crisper drawer. I pine for my thursday pick-up all week long and fantasize about the late summer shares of FRESH corn, ripe plums, and tomatoes. Oh, god, the tomatoes. It's early yet, but I think I may have found the One.

I am so, so happy that I joined. There is nothing greater to me than being handed several pounds of organic vegetables grown less than 100 miles away. "HERE," says Farmer Ted. "You hardly ever buy radishes, turnips, or swiss chard from the Food Coop, but by god, you're going to learn to love all of them. And here's some live purple basil and dill that you can plant in old coffee cups and enjoy for years. It's all yours, girl." Fantastic.

Last night I feasted on local cherries and my new favorite, an impossibly simple radish salad. Tonight: a fritata of swiss chard, plum tomatoes (not from the CSA just yet), shallots (ditto), and parmesan cheese. Tomorrow: a stir fry of bok choy, tempeh, and garlic scapes tossed with sesame oil and soy sauce.

Want to come for dinner?

rose-colored dinner

I am such a pushover for foods that are naturally colored in unexpected ways. I always need to get the multi-colored carrots the Coop stocks on occasion. Variegated lemons are irresistible to me. And I find that half the appeal of the Coop's heirloom tomato selection is the amazing variety of colors I can toss into my lunchtime salad. So of course I had to try a package of rosy-red Bhutanese rice.

This rice is only grown in Bhutan, a tiny country in the Himalayas bordered by India and China. Farmers use sustainable, self-sufficient practices out of necessity, as it is difficult to import chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or farm machinery in this mountainous, land-locked nation. Even if this were not the case, red rice grows well without fertilizers and tolerates most common pests, so it is largely unnecessary for farmers to use chemicals on their rice crops.*

Red rice is lightly milled, so it retains much of the fiber-rich hull but cooks as quickly as white rice. According to the distributor's packaging, it is "irrigated with 1,000 year old glacier water rich in trace minerals," a fact that leads some to claim that Bhutanese rice is even more nutritious than brown rice because the plants are able to absorb these 1,000 year old minerals as they grow. I was unable to find specific information about the nutritional content of red rice, but comparable whole grains like brown rice are high in many minerals, amino acids, B vitamins, protein, and both soluble and insoluble fiber.*

I was so excited to try this rice that I decided to make two dishes with it: Ema Datshi, a traditional Bhutanese chili and cheese stew, and a Red Rice Risotto served with a strawberry-plum compote and ginger ice cream.

Everything was outrageously delicious. The stew was simple but well-composed and tasty, even on a hot day. Real Bhutanese Ema Datshi is made with cubes of chewy yak's milk cheese, an ingredient that is unavailable in the U.S., so we substituted feta cheese instead. The stew is also supposed to be unbearably spicy, but being rather delicate-tongued ourselves, we chose to de-seed our jalapenos before adding them to the stew.

And the risotto... oh, the risotto. The ginger, vanilla, tangy fruit, and warm, nutty, creamy rice were perfect compliments and truly sang together in this dessert. If you try any of the recipes featured in this series, make it this one!

Ema Datshi

Ingredients:

1/2 lb jalapeno chilies, each sliced into four strips
2 yellow onions, chopped
3 1/2 cup of water
4 tbsp. vegetable oil
4 tomatoes, chopped
8 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb Danish feta cheese, cubed
6 sprigs cilantro

Combine chilies, onion, water, and oil in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and garlic and simmer for 3 more minutes. Add the cheese, mix and simmer for 3 more minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the cilantro, then cover and let stand for a few more minutes before serving over cooked Bhutanese red rice.

Serves 6

Adapted from Margarita's International Recipes

Red Rice Risotto

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked Bhutanese Red Rice
2 cups half & half
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 vanilla beans, split and seeds scraped out with a spoon
6 tablespoons candied ginger, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
4 tablespoons butter
strawberry-plum compote
2 pints ginger ice cream (or vanilla if you would prefer)

Strawberry-Plum Compote

2 pints strawberries, halved
5 - 6 plums, sliced
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons water

Red Rice Risotto:
Combine the cream, milk, sugar, vanilla seeds, and ginger in a large saucepan over low heat. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for 2 - 3 minutes. Slowly stir in the rice and return to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Warm the compote in a saucepan and reserve. When the mixture is creamy, not thick, add the butter to the rice, and stir to incorporate. Place the rice into bowls, add a spoonful or two of the compote, and top with a scoop of ice cream.

Strawberry-Plum Compote:
Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and place over low heat, bring to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes, check the sweetness adding more sugar if necessary. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Serves 8

Adapted from WorldPantry.com

Bhutanese Rice Elsewhere on the web:

The rice harvest in Bhutan

Bhutanese food in Outlook Traveler Magazine

Fun with Root Vegetables

It’s not that I’ve never tried any of the more exotic offerings of the Food Coop’s produce aisle. I snatch up cherimoyas and gai lan whenever they’re available, and have sampled crazy things like black sapotes and monster fruits many times. But somehow I failed to pick up a daikon once in my four years of coop membership—until now.

Daikon is a radish with Chinese origins and is an important part of many Asian cuisines. Outside of the Coop you’ve probably seen it grated and served as a garnish, mixed in tempura sauce, or pickled. It is also often made into kimchi along with cabbage, or as a substitute for it.

Serious daikon aficionados (they exist, surely?) might visit Tano, Japan, the world capital of daikon pickling. Following each harvest, hundreds of daikon drying racks (each one as long as 150 feet) spring up across the town to prepare the radishes for processing. Daikon are typically dried in the open air for 10 days, as the withered roots tend to produce a sweeter pickle. Sadly, Tano does not seem to host its own daikon festival, but such festivals do occur in Tokyo and Honolulu.

If you purchase daikon from the Coop, you should not accept the check-out worker’s polite request to remove the green leafy top, as I did, even if this makes it easier to get the radishes on the scale. Not only are these leaves apparently edible and delicious, but they are also chock full of vitamin C, calcium and iron.* The root itself contains 34% of your RDA supply of vitamin C, enzymes thought to aid in digestion, and only 18 calories per three ounce serving.*

Because this was my first daikon cooking experience, I chose a simple recipe that would allow its flavor to shine through—a salad with watercress, bell pepper, and a white wine vinaigrette.


This cruciferous voyage of discovery led me to an important realization: I do not like watercress. At all. I can appreciate bitter greens, but the powerful astringency of those tender little leaves proved to be way too much for me. If you’re not a watercress fan either, you could make this salad with arugula or baby spinach instead and it would taste just dandy.



Watercress, Bell Pepper, and Daikon Radish Salad

Ingredients:

2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/8 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium daikon radish (about 1/4 lb), peeled and sliced into julienne strips
1 bunch watercress, rinsed, coarse stems removed
1 red bell pepper, sliced into julienne strips

Whisk together the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste in a large bowl. Drizzle in the oil, whisking, until the dressing has emulsified. Add the remaining ingredients and toss well.

Note: Daikon has a natural bitterness. If you wish to reduce its pungency, you can soak the sliced daikon in cold water for up to 30 minutes before tossing it into the salad.

Serves 4

Adapted from Epicurious.com

Daikon elsewhere on the web:

Cuddly anthropomorphic daikon
Great photo of daikon drying racks in Tano
Daikon pickle recipe