I kept myself very busy cooking the first half of this week, as you will see over the next handful of posts. The source of this activity was the opening of The Headhouse Farmer's Market on Sunday. This is where I buy the majority of my food from May through December. I also pick up my CSA there every week from Tom who runs Culton Organics in Lancaster. Hitting the farmer's market is often the highlight of my week, I'm obsessed. I'm like a 15 year old girl shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch with her parent's AMEX. I get a huge rush of adrenalin, my eyes glaze over and I've been known to lose control of my salivary glands.
I have many of the farms I buy from listed on this website under the "sausage links" tab. I think it is really important to honor the people that grow our food. Cooking is actually the easy part, growing a carrot or an apple that tastes amazing is a feat not easily accomplished by mortals. So I've decided to add the provenance of specific ingredients used in my posts that were purchased from farms. Just another shout-out to some of my heros. They'll appear at the end of each post.
The chicken liver terrine was made by pureeing raw livers with garlic, shallot, egg, cream, pork fat, stale bread, cinnamon, salt, pepper and nutmeg. This mixture was poured into a terrine mold set in a water bath and baked at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes. It was chilled thoroughly to set it before being sliced and served.
I sliced the rhubarb into 2-inch pieces, vac-packed it with sugar and rhubarb simple syrup and cooked it sous vide for 20 minutes in a 150 degree water bath. Rhubarb needs to be cooked if eaten in whole pieces to break down the stringy fibers. Cooking it sous vide accomplishes this while maintaining the shape and integrity of the rhubarb. After cooking, the rhubarb is chilled and then sliced on a bias.
I pickled the celery in cane vinegar with coriander seeds. I decided to pickle the celery to add a textural balance to the rhubarb. The acidity in both of these elements cut through the richness of the liver. I made the celery and rhubarb ribbons with a vegetable peeler.
The ground cherry jam is from last season and added a sweet element to the plate. Liver always works well with sugar. I added the Allium blossoms because they look nice but also because of there flavor. They have a bright slightly sweet flavor with just a tiny hint of onion to them, kind of like a sweet chive. The liver is topped with maldon salt, diced allium stem and a thin black pepper crostini.
Product:
Chicken Livers - Hormone-Free Pastured from Meadow Run Farm
Rhubarb - Organic from Culton Organics
Allium Flowers - Longview Flowers
Ground Cherries - Organic from Root Mass Farm
I have many of the farms I buy from listed on this website under the "sausage links" tab. I think it is really important to honor the people that grow our food. Cooking is actually the easy part, growing a carrot or an apple that tastes amazing is a feat not easily accomplished by mortals. So I've decided to add the provenance of specific ingredients used in my posts that were purchased from farms. Just another shout-out to some of my heros. They'll appear at the end of each post.
The chicken liver terrine was made by pureeing raw livers with garlic, shallot, egg, cream, pork fat, stale bread, cinnamon, salt, pepper and nutmeg. This mixture was poured into a terrine mold set in a water bath and baked at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes. It was chilled thoroughly to set it before being sliced and served.
I sliced the rhubarb into 2-inch pieces, vac-packed it with sugar and rhubarb simple syrup and cooked it sous vide for 20 minutes in a 150 degree water bath. Rhubarb needs to be cooked if eaten in whole pieces to break down the stringy fibers. Cooking it sous vide accomplishes this while maintaining the shape and integrity of the rhubarb. After cooking, the rhubarb is chilled and then sliced on a bias.
I pickled the celery in cane vinegar with coriander seeds. I decided to pickle the celery to add a textural balance to the rhubarb. The acidity in both of these elements cut through the richness of the liver. I made the celery and rhubarb ribbons with a vegetable peeler.
The ground cherry jam is from last season and added a sweet element to the plate. Liver always works well with sugar. I added the Allium blossoms because they look nice but also because of there flavor. They have a bright slightly sweet flavor with just a tiny hint of onion to them, kind of like a sweet chive. The liver is topped with maldon salt, diced allium stem and a thin black pepper crostini.
Product:
Chicken Livers - Hormone-Free Pastured from Meadow Run Farm
Rhubarb - Organic from Culton Organics
Allium Flowers - Longview Flowers
Ground Cherries - Organic from Root Mass Farm