When milk separates, it does so into two distinct parts, the whey which is the liquid and the curd which is the solid. This separation is most easily accomplished by raising the acidity of the milk, in this case with lemon juice and vinegar. Separating the curds from the whey is the first step in any cheese-making process. So this is the most simple type of cheese, if you can even call it cheese, that one can make. This stuff is delicious, and we eat it on just about everything. Its great for breakfast with fruit and granola, for dinner with pasta, or as you see here as a simple salad.

Making the curd is a fairly simple process, all you really need is a little time and patience. You pour 6 cups of milk and 2 cups of cream into a pot and gently heat it to 185 degrees. At this point it is seasoned with salt and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice and/or vinegar is added and stirred in. Bring the liquid up to 195 and hold it there for 20 to 30 minutes until the curd separates. Strain the curd through a cheese cloth the separate the whey. The curd can be used immediately, or left to strain overnight in the refrigerator for a thicker firmer texture.

After the curd was strained, in this case for 2 hours, I placed a mound of it on the plate and made an indent with a spoon. I filled the hole with honey. I poached some asparagus tips and ran some whole stalks through a mandolin. The asparagus was then simply seasoned and tossed in lemon juice and olive oil. And as you can see I simply built the salad by places the ingredients in and around the mound of curd.


Product-
Raw Jersey Cow's Milk Curd - Hillacres Pride
Organic Green and Purple Asparagus - Culton Organics
Organic Lilac Blossoms - Queen's Farm
Organic Flowering Broccoli Rabe - Blooming Glenn Farm
Organic Pea Tendrils - Queen's Farm
Organic Mint - My Garden
Organic Annis Hysopp - My Garden
Organic Local Honey - Beechwood Orchards

Scorzonera, more commonly known as salsify, is a root vegetable known for it's oyster-like flavor. In fact, it is often called the "oyster plant". In it's just picked state salsify resembles a non-tapered carrot. Peeling it reveals a white, slightly fibrous flesh. Most people familiar with salsify probably think of it as a fall or winter vegetable. The farmer who grew this particular salsify, however, finds it to be at it's peak right after winter when it is at it's sweetest. I agree 100% with this line of thinking. And biologically speaking it makes perfect sense. Vegetables such as salsify, when faced with extremely cold temperatures turn some of their starches into sugar as a defense mechanism. The sugars don't freeze as easily and thus protect the plant from the cold and greatly benefit anyone that eats it.

The salsify is really easy to prepare in the manner I'm about to explain. First, I peeled the black outer layer off. Then I trimmed the salsify and placed it in a pot with chicken stock and a bunch of chopped spring garlic. I cooked the salsify at a gentle simmer til soft throughout, about 30 minutes. I removed the salsify and set it aside. I strained the liquid, placed it in a sauce pot and reduced it to a thick glaze. I warmed the salsify in the glaze coating it evenly. I adhered the greens to the pieces of salsify as well as the wheat crumbs.

I added a little water to thin the glaze into a jus and spooned some of it onto the plate. I finished the dish off with some drops of ramp oil.

Product-
Organic Scorzonera Salsify - Culton Organics
Organic Heritage Red Fife Wheat - North Star Orchards
Organic Spring Garlic - Culton Organics
Organic Nasturtium - My Garden
Organic Lemon Thyme - My Garden
Wild Wood Sorrel - My Garden
Organic Annis Hyssop - My Garden
Wild Ramps - David Sill's Wild Edibles

This is just a really simple dish, that has breakfast written all over it, utilizing some really amazing ingredients. Sometimes it's necessary to manipulate ingredients as little as possible to allow them to shine on their own. I did very little to this dish, basically just a little heat, some salt and butter. 

I began by cutting off the woody bottom section of the asparagus spears and the trimming them to equal lengths. Using a pairing knife I scraped the outer layer of the spears just below the florets. I poached the spears in boiling salted water for about a minute and then shocked them in an ice bath. I warmed them in a pan of melting butter and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

I placed some whole red fife wheat grains in a spice mill and ground them to a coarse flour. Red fife is a heritage, or heirloom, variety of wheat that has an amazingly intense wheaty flavor. I whipped some butter with a fork, added the wheat flour and some salt and worked it into a rough dough. I flattened the dough and chilled it before baking it until lightly browned and cooked through. Once cooled I broke the dough into crumbs.

The pheasant egg, which tastes just like a well-raised chicken's egg with a much larger yolk to white ratio, was simply fried sunny-side-up in butter and seasoned with salt. And I finished the plate off with some sprigs of water cress.

Product-
Organic Asparagus - Culton Organics
Organic Pheasant Egg - Culton Organics
Organic Watercress - Culton Organics
Organic Heritage Red Fife Wheat - North Star Orchard

This dessert was born out of a necessity to use up some things left over from previous dishes. I had a dozen egg yolks as the bi-product of making some butter cream frosting along with a pint of beet and lavender puree left over from a duck dish. I really don't like to throw things away so I hit the internet to do a little research. I came across a recipe for a sponge cake that just so happened to use 12 yolks. It did not include the pint of beet puree but I adjusted a few things and it ending up working out in the end.

After the cake was baked and cooled, I sliced it into inch thick pieces and cut them into circles with a ring mold. Using a smaller ring mold I punched out circles in the cake rounds and filled them with a lavender whipped cream. This was made by first combining sugar and lavender in my spice grinder to make a lavender sugar. The sugar was then simply whipped with heavy cream.

I made the beet candies by slicing the beets very thinly and slow-poaching them in simple syrup. I dried them on paper towels and then tossed them in some of the lavender sugar that I had set aside.

I further reduced the syrup, that was now died bright red by the beets, until it was the consistency of honey.  I then channeled Jackson Pollock and threw the syrup onto the plate with a spoon.

I arranged the basil and hyssop leaves around the cream filled cake center and finished the dish of with some pansy petals. 

The process of cooking a duck breast is much different than that of most other cuts of meat. Typical meat cookery involves high intense heat to achieve a well seared exterior followed by some combination of oven roasting, basting and lower heat. But duck breast is different. It has a thick layer of fat, that should absolutely never be cut off, that needs to be rendered for the best result. This is achieved with low heat initially, which heats up the fat and liquifies it. Once a good deal of the fat is extracted, the breast is rested a bit before being placed back in the pan, this time with high heat to sear it and make it nice and crispy. It can now be basted with its own fat and further cooked in a hot oven if necessary.

Prior to undertaking the steps above I cured the breasts overnight in salt and Chinese five-spice powder. I rinsed them off and dried them with paper towels. I cooked them using the method I just explained to medium rare, allowing them to rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

I made the purees as I do most other purees. The turmeric with sweet potato and honey. And the beet with lavender. The turmeric puree actually consisted of mostly sweet potato. Turmeric has a very strong flavor so I needed to cut it's intensity.

I made the sauerkraut myself, slicing, salting and fermenting some fantastic late winter cabbage for about 6 weeks. As a person of German dissent who grew up in a PA Dutch family sauerkraut is in my blood. And up until now I had failed many times at making it. So this is the crowning achievement of this dish for me. I just simply sauteed it with some apple cider vinegar to warm it a bit.

I cut out rounds of the baby chard and used them raw. And I blanched and sauteed the rest with some shallot, butter and duck stock. I used a pickled ramp bulb from last year to add another component of acid, and to simply use up some of last years ramps that I found in the back of my fridge.

The jus was a heavily reduced duck stock, spiced with pepper and star anise that was first strained to remove fat and solids.

Product:
Turmeric - Brogue Hydroponics
Beets - Landisdale Farms
Baby Swiss Chard - Livingood Produce
Duck - Jurgielewicz & Son