Consider the Shallot

Beautiful shallots, beautifully braided, from Morgan and Ben Tartakoff, whom we met at the Dallas (WI) Farmers Market last summer.


To get right to the point, I think if one wants to understand the delicious mysteries of French--or of Italian, Spanish, or even Chinese--cooking, a really good place to start is to learn more about onions. Or rather, perhaps I should say, we ought to explore the many expressions of the allium family, lilies all, many beautiful, some poisonous if ingested, but many others exquisitely edible.

I've been flipping through some vintage cookbooks recently, and one thing that has struck me (along with that whole canned soup thing), is how timidly flavored many of the recipes are. Now, I'm all for simplicity, but when your palate of flavors goes no further than salt, pepper, and a bit of onion, that seems like a recipe for monotony. Rarely in these sorts of mid-century middle-American dishes will you even see a clove of garlic. A scallion is something rather exotic. Leeks, shallots? Unheard of.



Along with making your own stocks, I think adding more alliums to your cooking is one of the main keys to big, savory flavors in home cooking. And come to mention it, adding more alliums to your stocks--the tough outer layers of leeks, trimming of shallots, bits of scallion greens--makes them that much better, too. It's a synergistic thing....


Now, by no means to I mean to dismiss the contributions of the everyday onion, yellow, red, white, what have you. Those are still the most-used alliums in my kitchen. But when you move into the realm of leeks and shallots, you get layers of flavor, both savory and sweet, and, I'd have to think, wickedly umami, just utterly delicious. A lot of times when we're heading out to our cabin in Wisconsin, I'll nip into our garden in Saint Paul and pull a leek out of the ground, peel off the dirty parts and toss it on top of the groceries tote. In the hour and a half it takes to drive to Bide-A-Wee, the car fills up with such an appetizing aura, it's like being inside a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos--I mean, if those things were actually good, instead of being fake-good.



And shallots are another beautiful onion-family member you ought to get to know. They're becoming more common, though you still won't find them everywhere. They can be pricey in grocery stores, cheaper at Asian markets, usually very reasonable at farmers markets. Used raw in small doses, like in a sauce mignonette to drizzle on a raw oyster, or minced in a vinaigrette, they bring a pungent kick. Sliced and sautéed to serve over a steak or chop, they make for magical bistro deliciousness. Employed more liberally, whole or halved, added towards the end of a long braise, so you can still pick them out in the final dish, they're mellow and toothsome, sweet and savory at once, with still a little vegetable crunch.

And then, cooked a long time, they become a sort of jam, so utterly edible that, once you take a bite, it's hard to stop eating. You could do this same thing with onions. I took half the basic jam this recipe below produces, warmed it up with a quarter-cup of heavy cream, and served it beside warmed smoked herring. I served what seemed an ample portion on the plate with the fish, brought the leftovers to the table in a little bowl. It's all a little fuzzy now, but by the end of the meal I think Mary and I were fighting to lick the last drop from the bowl. I'm pretty sure Mary won....

Then the other half, we served that plain as a condiment on a lovely charcuterie plate, all store-bought, mostly from the excellent Seward Co-op. Oh, brave new world, that has such speck and coppa picante in it!

At lower right. The stuff is not too photogenic, but it's damn good:



Cidered Shallots

8 ounces gray shallots, sliced ¼-inch thick
2 Tbsp butter
½ cup sweet apple cider
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1 large clove garlic, sliced
¼ cup water
3 sprigs thyme
¼ tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Add the shallots and the ¼ tsp salt. Cook gently, stirring frequently, for 6 minutes, until the shallots are much reduced in volume and starting to look and smell a bit caramelized. Stir in the garlic and a few grinds of black pepper. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the cider, vinegar, water and thyme, bring to a simmer; cook at a quick simmer until almost all the liquid is gone. Taste for seasoning.

You can take the recipe to this point several days ahead of time. You can serve this jammy mixture--as is or with the addition of a spoon of grain mustard--alongside charcuterie or a cheese plate, or on a turkey sandwich.

To make the warm sauce to serve with warm smoked fish and steamed fingerling potatoes: Combine half the shallot-cider reduction with ¼ cup heavy cream. Warm gently, stirring. Serve with smoked herring, whitefish, or lake trout, wrapped in foil and warmed in a 400 degree oven.




Text and photos copyright 2010 by Brett Laidlaw

Warm Salad of Wax Beans with Caramelized Shallots, Blackberry Vinaigrette

This one was inspired by our visits to the Dallas, WI Farmers Market over the last couple of weeks. While you won't find the variety at this small-town market that you will at larger markets, everything we've had from the Dallas market has been excellent. The market is held on Friday evening from 4:00 to 8:00 on main street Dallas in Barron County, in front of the Viking Brewing Company (soon to be former Viking Brewing Company; they've got a big name change coming up...).

A couple of weeks back we bought a beautiful braid of shallots from Morgan and Ben Tartakoff. We hung it on the French porte-clef at Bide-A-Wee, and admired it every time we sat down at the table. Next time wewere at the market, we mentioned how much we'd been enjoying the shallot braid as home decor, and Ben said, "The hell you say, decoration? You should eat the damn things." Actually, he didn't say anything like that. He merely implied, with all due politeness, that they were at least as good to eat as they were to look at.

And I agreed, chastened. Along with leeks, I think shallots are one of the secret ingredients in French cooking. They're both related to onions, of course; the flavor of leek is on the mild end of the onion spectrum, while shallots lie toward the more assertive end. Shallots are frequently chopped fine and added raw to salad dressings, or sliced and sautéed to make the base of pan sauces for steaks and chops. These shallots from Morgan and Ben are some of the best I've seen in a long time--plump, firm, very flavorful. Shallots keep well in a root cellar or cool, dry basement. We plan to stock up before season's end.

For this dish I cooked the shallots slowly in a nice amount of oil and butter to concentrate the sugar. That, along with some blackberry jam, gives a sweet and sour character to the dressing.

I didn't have to look far to find what I'd pair with the shallots, just the next table over, where Rhonda Johnson had a pile of lovely yellow wax beans. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, but you don't seem to see wax beans that much anymore. They have really homey connotations for me, the kind of thing my mom used to serve with baked pork chops and acorn squash when I was growing up. I decided to give them the central role in this warm salad. You blanch them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, till they're tender-crisp, and toss them in the pan with the well-cooked shallots (and some garlic), then slick everything down with the blackberry vinaigrette. It's best if it sits for 20 minutes or so, to let all the flavors come together.

The vinaigrette dressing was the Bide-A-Wee element in this salad, flavored with our own blackberry jam and blackberry vinegar. (That and the fact that we first made it out at Bide-A-Wee, on our wood-fired "stove.") You could substitute raspberry jam for the blackberry, and red or white wine vinegar if you don't have berry vinegar. You'll taste the difference using homemade jam instead of store-bought, so do try to find some good local product if you want to try this dish.

We've made this salad twice now, and both times we wound up having it alongside pasta, but I think it would be great with pork chops, grilled chicken, even flavorful fish like salmon or lake trout.

You could also use green beans or flat romano beans in place of the wax beans. I particularly like the colors of the yellow beans, shallots, and blackberry dressing.

Warm Salad of Wax Beans with Caramelized Shallots, Blackberry Vinaigrette
serves two

2 good handfuls of yellow wax beans, 24 to 30, rinsed, stem ends trimmed
2 shallots about the size of small eggs, peeled, sliced 1/4-inch thick (about 2/3 cup)
2 large cloves garlic, slice thin
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
salt

1 Tbsp blackberry jam
1 Tbsp vinegar, preferably blackberry, or, in order of preference: raspberry, red wine, or white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt & freshly ground black pepper

fresh thyme leaves, optional


In a medium sauté pan over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add 1 tablspoon of olive oil. Add the sliced shallots and a good pinch of salt. Cook over medium heat until the shallots start to wilt, then turn the heat down to medium-low and cook gently, stirring often, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the shallots are very soft and are just starting to brown. Add the garlic and continue to cook for 2 minutes more.

Wipe the shallots are cooking, blanch the beans for three minutes in boiling water. Drain and set aside. Mix the jam, vinegar, olive oil, a good pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. (Note that this vinaigrette is light on the oil compared to a usual dressing; that's because it's going to combine with the butter and oil already in the pan.)

After adding the garlic to the shallots, add the beans and sauté for about a minute. Turn off the heat, pour the vinaigrette over beans and shallots, stir it all together, and transfer to a serving dish. Let sit at least 20 minutes before serving, and stir it up again just before serving, and taste for salt. If you like, strip some fresh thyme leaves from the stem and sprinkle over the salad to taste (if all you have is dried thyme, leave it out).

The whole salad can be prepared a day or two ahead, refrigerated, then brought to room temp before serving.




Text and photos copyright 2010 by Brett Laidlaw

In Praise of Country Markets

There's a certain energy to an urban farmers' market, a vibrancy, a buzz. There’s the thrum of traffic, the roar of planes overhead, a clangor of voices, of different languages greeting, laughing, bargaining, all laid against the backdrop of the music coming from the stage, while the sun beats down on the pavement, and buses spew by, a light rail train sings along the tracks.

It can be thrilling, invigorating, inspiring. That was how our summer Saturday mornings were spent during most of the past five years (and our Friday afternoons, for two years before that), peddling our homemade bread sold under the name of Real Bread. Over that time we found that this same tableau can also be…really, really, tiring. Tiring to put it kindly, tiring to the point where, in spite of how much we still loved many aspects of market life--seeing our colleagues, our customers and friends, the look on the face of a new admirer taking in for the first time our baskets of handmade loaves--and with the growing thought, I could be at Bide-A-Wee right now…, becoming more insistent, then one morning, that of July 3, specifically, without warning, or planning, I showed up at the market, set up my tent, made the rounds, and, feeling the parking lot starting to swelter already at 8:30 in the morning, I knew we were done.

The bread business arose from our love of farmers' markets, but ironically (or, maybe, predictably, or both?), over time it came to mean that we could no longer enjoy farmers' markets, at least not in the same way we had before. Also, once you've seen inside the workings of a market's management, be it one run by a growers' association or a neighborhood organization--well, it's a little like what they say about sausage factories and the working of Congress, and I'll just leave it at that.

We’ve gone three Saturdays now without baking for a market, the longest stretch of any summer for the last seven years. I actually miss the baking, a little, the mildly miraculous alchemy of starting the day with flour and water and ending it with a house full of baskets and totes filled with gorgeous, crusty, fragrant loaves. I don’t miss the six hours spent standing in a South Minneapolis parking lot. I particularly don’t miss it when I think about the small and not-so-small Wisconsin markets we’ve been able to visit in the meantime.



We pulled up and parked in the shade along the curb next to a little park adjacent to the Dunn County Fairgrounds in Menomonie a week ago, got out of the car, left the windows halfway down and told the dogs to be good, we’d be right back. As we walked across the grass toward the market, where tents ringed the park the size of a small city block, the first thing that struck me was how quiet it was. But not quiet, exactly, because there was a pleasant sort of murmur of activity, but calm, and calming. I’d been conditioned to believe that a farmers’ market meant noise. More and more, amplified music has come to characterize the city markets of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. I hate it. I mean, I love music, and in it’s proper context, I love amplified music. At a farmers’ market, I hate it.

The calm of the Menomonie market was not just a lack of music, though. It also came from the fact that the market site was off the main drag, on the grass under spreading oaks. The shade, the leafy breeze, the soft, natural surround, all contributed to a feeling of ease that made us want to linger. We were hungry. We went to get breakfast.

In the picnic pavilion a half dozen vendors, all Hmong, were just finishing their set-up and starting to serve. We made the rounds, considering egg rolls, spring rolls, fried rice or stir-fried green beans, even crab Rangoon, and decided on a Hmong sausage and a dish of vegetable pad thai. The sausage, flavored with ginger and lemongrass, had a beautifully handmade, honestly porky flavor and was served with a pile of steamed rice. The pad thai, stir-fried while Mary watched, and while I went back to get a bottle of water from the car, was fresh tasting and flavorful. A hearty breakfast, which actually saw us through lunch, too. The dogs got a bit of the sausage, for being such good dogs.

We made our way around the market, then, chatted with a woodworker, the lamb vendor whose outfit was called “Ewes Rule the Farm,” and a bison producer. We were talking to the meat guys when the baker showed up late. He was the star of the market, the meat guys said. They thought he worked in the kitchen at Macy’s in the Cities, and brought bread to the market as a sideline. He had a line 12, maybe 15 deep from when he arrived until he was sold out of bread, they said. And as they were telling us this, while the baker was still getting set up, the line started to form.

We moved along, passed a woman setting up to play a hammer dulcimer, unplugged, and by the time we got to the other side of the market the bread was moving, the line stretched two-thirds of the way across the market, and I’d say 15-deep was a conservative estimate. Lots of folks were going away with focaccia topped with tomatoes and cheese. There were golden batards and some round rustic grainy-looking loaves. We pardon-me’d our way through the line. This was clearly no time for a baker-to-baker chat--the baker and a helper were doling out loaves as fast as they could--but I’m sure we’ll find a time to talk later in the summer.

We admired slender green beans, fresh white bulbs of garlic, dewy lettuces, adorable little fingerling potatoes. Lots of vendors were selling by the pound, so you could buy as much or as little as you liked. One thing I’ve come to dislike at Midtown and other city markets is a tendency among farmers to sell their vegetables in large, pre-portioned containers. Three dollars might be a good deal for a pound and a half of green beans, but I generally don’t want that much. I appreciate the buy-as-much-as-you-want approach, which seems more considerate and more friendly.

All we wound up buying at Menomonie, other than breakfast, was some garlic. That’s because we had done the bulk of our shopping on Friday afternoon at the little--no, littler than little, tiny--market in Dallas, which I mentioned in a recent post. The Dallas market is just a few weeks old, and no one would call it a destination market--except, I guess, it sort of is, for us. We could shop at any number of markets, but we’ve made a point of visiting the Dallas market. It’s not just the awesome root beer floats (signs on the road into Dallas announce ROOT BEER FLOATS AHEAD!), or the fact that the produce, while not super-abundant, has been utterly top-notch. It’s more the spirit of the whole endeavor, the really, truly grass-roots nature of it, that we find so appealing.



So far there have only been three or four growers at the market, plus an Amish woman with baked goods (as well as hens and chicks, and I don’t mean the plants that go by that name, but real live chickens with a clutch of real live chicks), and those floats made with super-tasty brew produced right there at the Viking Brewing Company run by market organizer Ann Lee and her husband Randy. But it has the feeling of a real community event, of people doing it not because they think they’re going to make a lot of money at it, but because it contributes, it’s fun, and it’s just a good thing to do. It livens up downtown Dallas on a Friday afternoon, and it offers fresh produce to people who might not have easy access to it otherwise.



Who knows where it will go. All new ventures go through tenuous times finding their feet. We wish the Dallas Farmers’ Market and all its vendors the best, and in honor of the Dallas vendors I offer this recipe that we produced out at Bide-A-Wee last Friday night, made almost entirely with produce from the market (only the corn came from a roadside stand in Osceola). It was absolutely delicious (if I say so myself!), and a treat for the eyes, as well.



Dallas Farmers’ Market Confetti Vegetable Sauce on Pasta
serves two amply

I suppose this is a version of the famous past primavera--springtime pasta--invented , so it is said, at Le Cirque restaurant in New York in 1974, but I was inspired simply by the beautiful market produce, not any particular recipe. Don’t fear the cream. It’s just a couple of tablespoons per person, and the rest of your dinner is all beautiful, healthful, delicious vegetables (and, yes, okay, a little cheese--but this dish was conceived in America’s Dairyland; are we going to freak out about a little cream and cheese? I didn‘t think so…). We stop in Connorsville, on highway 64, at Bolen Vale Cheese for excellent Wisconsin fromage and a chat with Rene Bartz. Our cream of choice, I must admit, is a Minnesota product, from--where else?--the Cedar Summit Farm dairy, Dave and Florence Minar, proprietors.

a fistful of beans--green, wax, or purple--remove stem end, slice on diagonal into 1-inch pieces
1 small zucchini or summer squash, cut into 1/2-inch slices, then 1/4-inch strips, then 2-inch pieces
2 sweet banana peppers, halved, seeded, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
1/4 of a small red cabbage, shredded 1/4-inch wide
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 ear corn--cut the kernels off the cob
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chicken or veg stock or water
salt & pepper
1/2 cup grated Wisconsin asiago or other grating cheese
a few leaves basil
1 Tbsp unsalted butter (plus a little extra to finish the sauce, optional)
1 Tbsp olive oil

In a large skillet or saucepan heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the banana peppers and cabbage and a good pinch of salt, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the garlic, zucchini, beans, and corn. Cook for 2 minutes.

Add the stock and 1/4 cup of water, partially cover, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the cream. Taste for salt and add a little more if needed. Cook, uncovered, until the sauce thickens a bit, about a minute. Stir in most of the tomatoes, saving a few pieces for garnish. Tear the basil leaves into rough pieces, and stir them in.

Serve over linguine, spaghetti, or a pasta of your choice. Sprinkle with cheese to taste, and a grind of black pepper.



You can vary the vegetables in this dish depending on what's in season or available. Use snap peas in place of the beans, a small red bell pepper in place of the banana peppers (or use a bit of hot chili, if you like). Go for a nice variety of colors, whatever mix of vegetables you choose.

Leftovers can be chilled and served as a salad alongside a sandwich or bowl of soup.



Text and photos copyright 2010 by Brett Laidlaw