Maple Teriyaki Beef with Summer Jean

I ran into a vegetable I’d never seen before at the farmers’ market the other day. Lush and green with little yellow flowers, it looked almost like broccolini. I asked the vendor what it was and he replied, “Summer Jean.”

He said that although you could eat it raw, it’s best cooked in stir-fries. He described it as lemony and peppery, and that the stalk has the same texture as a potato, rather than being stringy like other cooking greens and that the flowers also have a lemony flavor.

Let me tell you. The man’s legit. This may be my favorite green. The leaves have a hearty flavor, without any hint of bitterness. The stems are delicate and not at all woody. The flowers have a mild, pleasant flavor and powdery mouthfeel. Only a light saute/steam and they were perfectly tender, without getting completely wilted.

I decided to make a beef teriyaki to go along with the lightly sauteed Summer Jean. I kept the flowers raw, using them as an edible garnish because I just can’t bring myself to cook a flower. Except zucchini blossoms. They’re asking for it.

The teriyaki sauce packs a salty-sweet punch at first, but finishes with a mellow, maple-ginger flavor. Just the thing to prepare the palate for the beef.

I started off making a batch of my teriyaki sauce. I then used one half of the batch to marinate the beef and the other half to make the sauce.

Yankee Cook’s Maple Teriyaki Sauce – makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/2 C tamari soy sauce
1/2 C mirin
4 T maple syrup
2 T toasted sesame oil
2 T grated ginger

In a small saucepan, whisk together all ingredients until well blended.

If making just the sauce, continue by simmering over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, thickening to desired consistency. Be sure not to burn the ginger.

If making Maple Teriyaki Beef, continue as directed below.

Maple Teriyaki Beef - serves 2 – 4

1 1/2 C Maple Teriyaki Sauce, cooled (see above)
1 – 1 1/2 lb sirloin steak tips
1 t sesame seeds

Spread beef evenly in a marinating dish and cover with 3/4 C of the teriyaki sauce.

Marinate for 1 hour in the refrigerator, turning the meat halfway through.

Remove from marinade, drain well and dry the meat with paper towels. Discard marinade.

In a small saucepan, simmer remaining teriyaki sauce over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, until desired consistency is met. Be sure not to burn the ginger.

Meanwhile, grease the flat side of your trusty cast aluminum griddle with olive oil and heat to medium high. Cook the beef on the griddle, turning occasionally until browned and to desired doneness.

Remove meat from heat and place in a large heat resistant bowl. Toss with 1/2 t sesame seeds.

Plate and drizzle with teriyaki sauce and remaining sesame seeds.

Simple Summer Jean – serves 2 – 4

1 bunch Summer Jean
2 cloves garlic
1 – 2 T olive oil

Remove flowers from Summer Jean, if any. Set aside for garnish.

Rinse Summer Jean. Discard the any browned bottoms and finely slice the Summer Jean from stems up. Peel and slice the garlic.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic to soften 1-2 minutes. Add the Summer Jean. Toss to coat in the oil. Lower heat, cover and let steam for 10 minutes until tender-crisp.

Hum Seals and Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” for the next three days…

makes me feel fine…

jasmine…

sigh.

Ingredient origins: Summer Jean – New Hampshire; Maple syrup – Vermont; Organic garlic, beef – New Jersey; Ginger, sesame seeds – California, Olive oil – Italy; Tamari soy sauce, mirin – Japan.

Late Season Farmers’ Market

Fresh produce in November? In New England? It can’t be done!

Oh, but it can, my friend. It can. After our local farmers’ market shut down for the season at the beginning of October, I was just so bummed. I’ve since been supplementing trips to a local farm to buy what’s left of their dwindling harvest, with runs to the conventional grocery store. While the super market hasn’t been all bad – you can find some things grown locally and/or organically – the produce is just not as fresh. Even if the says that the acorn squash was grown in-state, it’s still been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long, losing moisture, flavor and vitamins.

I was just beginning to accept it until today, when I learned that there is another farmers’ market somewhat nearby that is scheduled to last well into the winter. Hooray! I’d thought there must still be some crops coming out of the ground. It’s not like the vegetables decide to stop growing because farmers’ market organizers say the season is over.

We hopped into the car and sped off (or drove leisurely, obeying stop signs and traffic signals along the way) to our destination. There were only a few stalls, but plenty of fresh, local, sustainable produce. And it was cheap! We got leeks, onions, white potatoes, fingerling potatoes, sweet potatoes, bok choy, red lettuce, summer jean, dill, and tomatoes for $25. Nice. There was even a vendor selling local, naturally raised meats. Yay! I picked up two pork chops and some country ribs. I plan to do something with them this week, so stay tuned.

Besides the obvious benefits of shopping at a farmers’ market – fresher product, better nutritional value, environmental sustainability – there’s also something that is so nice about hanging out where people are just generally happy. The customers are happy because they are buying quality and they feel like they’re doing good by supporting local farmers. They are curious and interested. And the vendors are happy because they are proud of their product and making a living at something they are passionate about. They actually want to be there.

Not to keep driving a point home here, but compare all that to the supermarket experience. I’ve never encountered very much enthusiasm and friendliness at the check-out counter. Furthermore, supermarkets have become so far detached from the real that now even the human element has been taken away in some cases, and replaced with what my husband and I call Betty. Betty is the self-checkout computer voice. She’s friendly enough but, boy does she get snippy when you leave an item on the scanner.

Malaysian-Style Noodle Soup

Back when we used to live in a more urban area, my husband and I liked going to a local Malaysian restaurant for Prawn Mee and Tom Yum soups on rainy Sundays. It’s been a while since we’ve had a nice spicy, fishy noodle soup, so I thought I’d try to make my own at home using the curry paste left over from the tofu curry I made a while ago.

Once again, I’m not claiming this to be in any way authentic. I just threw it together using taste and memory to replicate what we used to order back in the day, and I have to say, it came pretty close. Maybe next time I’ll make it with pork instead of chicken.

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways this soup could be done. Peeling the shrimp and simmering the shells and legs (and heads, if possible) in the stock to extract the shrimp flavor before assembling and simmering the soup would have been a good way to avoid getting your hands all goopy when you’re having the soup. But oh well. That’s what napkins are for.

Malaysian-Style Noodle Soup – serves 8 – 10

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 lb shrimp, deveined, shells and legs left on
2 T canola oil
4 T red curry paste
4 C fish stock
6-8 whole shitake mushrooms, stems trimmed
1/4 C cilantro, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
2/3 C dry white wine
2 carrots, julienned
16 ounces of dry rice noodles, cooked (boil and drain)

Julienne the chicken and toss with 1 tablespoon of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of red curry paste. Place in a non-reactive glass dish and marinate in refrigerator for 2-4 hours. In a bowl, toss the shrimp with 1 tablespoon of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of red curry paste. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 2-4 hours.

In a large stockpot, bring fish stock to a simmer. Add wine, shitakes, cilantro, scallions and chicken to the pot. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes.

Add shrimp and carrots and allow to simmer another 15 minutes until shrimp is cooked.

To serve, place a serving of noodles in the bottom of a bowl and cover with soup (this way the noodles can’t get soggy and over cooked).

Ingredient origins in order of distance: The scallions and cilantro came from plants in my kitchen, which were grown at a local herb farm. I used my homemade fish stock, which is made from local fish and trimmings from mostly local veggies – it lended a lot of flavor to the soup. The wine was made right down the street. The chicken was antibiotic/hormone free, from New Jersey. The Shitakes were from Pennsylvania – not so local, but at least that’s under 500 miles of travel. The shrimp was wild and came from the Gulf of Mexico. The carrots were grown in California, but organic. The canola oil came from “the USA and Canada”. The rice noodles and curry paste came from Thailand.

Panko Fried Hake with Spinach Avocado Salad

Thursday was fish share night and we got a big, headless, gutted hake. There was a lot of meat on this one. My husband once again, kindly filleted it. The fish yielded six large servings. I cut the excess into fillets, oiled them, put them into zip-top bags and stored them in the freezer for later use. I also made a lovely fish stock from the bones, fins and other fish parts and vegetable trimmings we had storing in the freezer.

With the remaining two hake servings, I made lovely panko fried fillets to go with a salad of spinach, avocado and sun-dried tomatoes. It was a luscious little contradiction of a meal. I’m categorizing this under “Regional Cuisine” despite the use of avocado and panko, because fried fish with any type of breading is as ubiquitous as clam chowder on the New England Coastline.

Panko Fried Hake – Serves 2

2 fillets of hake
1 egg
1 T water
1 1/2 C panko crumbs *
1 t salt
oil to cover the bottom of pot, 1 inch deep

Heat oil to 360 degrees in a heavy pot if on stove top. Or, if you’re all fancy-pants and have a fryer, go that route. It’s safer than having a big pot of scalding oil on the stove. I use my trusty cast iron pot because it seems less likely to spontaneously flip off of the stove than a stainless steel stockpot. If you’re using a pot, be sure to use a thermometer and adjust the burner, making sure not to let the temperature get below 300, under which the breading will absorb too much oil.

Beat egg with water in a large bowl.

Mix panko crumbs with salt in a large, deep dish.

Dry the fish pieces with a paper towel. Dip fillet in the egg mixture and allow all excess egg to drip off before dredging in panko crumbs. Here’s my trick with frying breaded things – you want the dry stuff (breading) to soak up the wet stuff (egg, milk or batter) where they meet on the surface of whatever you’re cooking. This helps the breading stick and not peel off as it fries. Press the crumbs into the fish and let it soak in a for about 10 seconds until you feel a little moisture on your hand. Flip it over and do the same. Once it’s breaded, try not to move it around too much. Repeat with the second fillet.

Gently slide the fillets into the hot oil. Keep an eye on the thermometer. Cook on one side for 4 minutes. Using tongs, flip and cook another 4 minutes.

Remove fish from oil and drain on paper towels.

Spinach Avocado Salad - serves 2

2 C baby spinach
1 T olive oil
1 T white wine vinegar
2 T sun-dried tomatoes, diced *
1 avocado, peeled and sliced *

Toss spinach with oil, vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes. Divide in half and plate. Top with avocados.

* A note on ingredient origin: The avocados were obviously not local, but they were organic. So at least it fit some of my criteria. The panko crumbs were purchased in bulk from a local natural food store. Minimally processed (or at least fewer than 5 ingredients), but the label only said that name of the store, and not it’s origin. That bugs me, but what bugs me more is that I didn’t ask. Not a huge deal. The sun-dried tomatoes were also minimally processed and imported from Italy by a local distributor as was the olive oil and the canola oil used for frying supposedly comes from US and Canada. Can’t win ‘em all, but I do try to keep things at least 90% local, organic or minimally processed. Everything else used in this meal (and all posts) are made within 200 miles unless otherwise noted in a gripe section like this one.