North East Kingdom Farmhouse Cooking

Cooking and eating is an important ritual while living and working on a dairy farm. Here, at the Andersonville Dairy Farm, when "breakfast is ready" is called - I leapt downstairs from my room to the kitchen upon hearing the announcement - farm fresh scrambled eggs, hash browns, and buttered honey wheat bread is served with warm coffee and raw milk.

Early morning baking, and full-day slow roasting is part of cooking and living home economics on the farm.

To be continued ..

Roscón de Reyes: Three Kings Cake

Growing up at my house, one of our favorite family traditions was celebrating Three Kings Day. And while it meant the official end of Christmas, taking down the tree and packing away the decorations, it also meant eating a scrumptious treat — a ring-shaped loaf of sweet bread decorated to look like a crown and baked with a special prize inside.

Three Kings Day, an important Christmas holiday in Spain and several Latin America countries, is the 12th day of Christmas, and commemorates the visit of the Three Wise Men to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem bearing gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh.

In Colombia, where my mother is from, Jan. 6 is a national holiday known as the Día de los Reyes Magos, or the Epiphany. As in Mexico, the day is a gift-giving holiday and a time for family and friends to be together.

You can imagine the surprise when as children our Abuelita Rosita would recount to my brother, sister and I how our mother and her siblings would leave their shoes out the night before filled with food for the kings’ camels along with a note. By the morning of the next day, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar had replaced the hay with gifts.

While traditions vary from country to country and community to community, one commonality of the celebration is a type of slightly sweet bread called roscón de reyes, served garnished with “jewels” of candied fruit and nuts.

A small object made of clay or porcelain, representing the baby Jesus, is baked inside. At our house, the finder of the figurine is crowned and becomes king or queen for the day.

A more traditional custom is that whoever finds the figurine must host a dinner party on Candlemas, Feb. 2. Another belief is that luck is granted to the person who finds it. In any case, half the pleasure of eating roscón de reyes is finding out who gets the prize.

Obviously, it’s important to avoid biting into or swallowing the prize, especially if you’re serving the roscón de reyes to children. But usually, everyone is so eager to win the prize that each piece of bread is thoroughly searched before anyone takes a bite.

Roscón de Reyes

from King Arthur Flour Cookbook

Dough ingredients
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons instant yeast
3.25 cups all-purpose flour

Filling ingredients
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts
3/4 cup dried mixed fruits
1 tablespoon lemon, orange, or lime zest

Garnish ingredients
candied red cherries and/or orange peel
toasted sliced almonds, pecans, cashews or walnuts

Glaze: Combine 1 tablespoon sugar with 2 teaspoons water and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Stir to combine, then drizzle over the bread for the last 20 minutes of the baking time.

Dough: Heat the milk to a simmer in a small saucepan. Pour the hot milk over the butter, sugar and salt, and stir occasionally until the butter melts. Cool the mixture to lukewarm.In a mixing bowl combine the milk mixture, eggs and yeast. Add the flour one cup at a time, and mix until a soft, smooth dough forms.Place the dough in a greased container, cover it, and set it in a draft-free place to rise until doubled (about 60 to 90 minutes).After the first rise, deflate the dough, cover and let it rest for 10 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface; roll into a 20-by-12-inch rectangle.

Filling: Brush the surface of the dough with melted butter, leaving a half-inch strip bare along one of the long edges. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add the nuts, mixed fruits and zest, and stir to coat. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the buttered section of the dough.

Assembly: Starting with the garnished long edge, roll the dough up jelly-roll style, working toward the edge with no butter on it. Pinch the seam together to seal it firmly, and then bring the ends together to form a ring. To keep the bread round, grease the outside of a small bowl and put it on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Place the ring, seam-side down, around the bowl and tuck one end inside the other, pinching it together to seal it.

Flatten the ring slightly and, using a pair of scissors, make cuts in the dough at 1.5-inch intervals around the outside edge. Insert a figurine into the dough. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until nearly doubled (about 30 to 40 minutes).

Baking: Once the dough is shaped and is rising for the second time, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the dough has risen, remove the plastic wrap and brush the top with beaten egg. Place the candied cherries (cut in half) in the spaces between the slits in the dough and decorate with nuts as desired. Combine the glaze ingredients and drizzle over the top.

Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, covering the loaf loosely with foil after the first 15 minutes, as it will brown quickly. Remove the bread from the oven when the inner parts of the slits look cooked and the interior measures 190 degrees when measured with an instant-read thermometer. Cool the bread on a rack.

Serve, celebrate & enjoy!
 

A Special Thanksgiving Memory

By Francis Moran

“What is tetrazzini?” I remember asking chef/instructor Jim Birmingham at the Feast for Floodies event in May of last year. I was with a crew of other New England Culinary Institute students volunteering at the Crossett Brook Middle School to prepare and serve a special community dinner for those affected by the flood caused by Hurricane Irene.

Chef Jim, himself a village floodie, teamed-up with Andrea McManus, a Waterbury Center resident and NECI faculty member who had helped with previous flood dinners, to create a menu and recruit students to cook the big dinner.

The event was organized by Carrie Dessureau and her dedicated committee, who within a few short weeks managed to solicit a tremendous amount of donated food from area businesses and many generous people from the area, to help keep the spirit of community alive with a social gathering and meal.

We had enough food to feed an army; including cakes, cookies and pies of all descriptions for dessert, lettuce greens for salad, plus pasta, frozen mixed vegetables, cheese, ham, and I don’t know how many cooked turkeys for the main course.

It seemed a little chaotic in the kitchen at first, but Chef Jim quickly got us organized and gave us each a task. I was assigned to get a big pot of water on the stove and cook spaghetti.

“After that, start pulling all this meat off the bones,” he commanded, pointing to the large object still cooling in a roasting pan beneath a blanket of aluminum foil.

“What are we making?” I asked. “A kind of tetrazzini,” he replied.  I had never heard of such a thing. “What is that?” I wondered out loud, as I ripped a turkey leg from its socket and shredded the meat into small pieces. “It’s a fancy Italian word for casserole,” Chef Jim answered. 

That sounded plausible, I thought to myself; but I couldn’t see his facial expression, and quietly went back to work. I would have to wait until I got home to look it up.

In fact, tetrazzini is named for famed Italian opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini. But whatever it's origins, it makes for a delicious day-after Thanksgiving dish to serve using leftover turkey and vegetables.

And for, after that inspiring meal for flood victims, tetrazzini will always be connected to the spirit of "thanksgiving."

Autumn Soup Revisited: Potato-Leek Soup

For the home-gardener and cook, making potato-leek soup this time of year is ideal when you don’t know if the temperature is going to be chilly or warm, and rewarding to prepare with ingredients fresh from the garden.

When I first started vegetable gardening it was more for fun than anything else. Along with raising the usual variety of garden plants, herbs and companion flowers, I planted potatoes as a way to connect with my Irish roots.

As it turns out, potato-leek soup is a traditional Irish comfort food, typically served warm during the winter months with buttered, brown soda bread – which makes for a delicious treat on a chilly winter’s day.

But it was my first taste of the velvety chilled version of the soup, known as vichyssoise, with its smooth creamy finish, on a hot summer day that inspired me to grow leeks with this specific dish in mind the following season.

Leeks are easy to grow and frost hardy in our northern climate. The seedlings, started indoors in March and transplanted in April, reach full maturity by autumn, and are harvestable into late fall or early winter, under a thick blanket of mulch.

I learned the technique of “bleaching” the stems, which sweetens them, by starting the seedlings in a trench half-filled with seasoned compost and hilling the soil around the base as the plants grew; keeping the upper stem from which the leaves grow above soil level.

And now, with a bountiful garden harvest in the midst of a typical transitional Vermont autumn of warm days and chilly nights, I’m revisiting the warm version of potato-leek soup called Potage Parmentier, named after the French agronomist who actively promoted the potato for human consumption in France in the late 18^th century.

But hot or cold, I love the comforting potato taste; the subtle sweetness of the leeks and for the way the luscious creamy texture is undercut by the savory flavor of the chicken stock.

And that’s why I love potato-leek soup in autumn: because it’s a versatile and flexible recipe easily adaptable to a variety of substitutions or additional ingredients that can be enjoyed chilled for lunch on a warm day or heated up on a chilly night.

Some hints on technique:

Don’t over-cook the potatoes or the starches will break down and the finished soup will be grainy. For a velvety, smooth finish, make sure that all the ingredients are soft and purée well; then press the soup through a fine-sieve. When re-heating: check for consistency and add cream or stock accordingly. For more color use Yukon Gold potatoes. Note: chilling dulls the flavor, so taste before serving and add salt & pepper as needed.

Creamed Potato-Leek Soup

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 medium-sized leeks: trimmed, washed & sliced; white and pale green parts only.

3 or 4 medium-sized, firm-fleshed Russet potatoes; peeled and diced

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 quart chicken stock

Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper

The basic procedure:

1. In a large stock pot melt butter over low heat. Add leeks, coat in butter and cover, and cook over medium-low heat about 15-20 minutes, or until soft. Stir occasionally, not allowing butter or leeks to brown.
2. Add potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partially covered until potatoes are soft. Remove from heat.
3. Purée soup with an immersion blender, or food processor in small batches, and let cool.

Slowly whisk in cream. If serving this soup warm, reheat the soup slowly so that the cream does not separate and change consistency. If serving chilled; refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Blue Moon Grilled Dinner

A late-summer grilled dinner with roasted rosemary potatoes, lemon-buttered grilled chicken breast and grilled corn on the comb. The second-full moon in a month is called a blue moon, however on this night, Friday, August 31, the moon was harvest moon-colored.

I paired this bistro-inspired meal with a Heady Topper, (an 8% abv double-hopped IPA) and served it for a private party of four. The "native" butter and sugar corn, purchased from a neighboring farmstand, was first soaked in water for twenty minutes, then brushed with  lemon-herb flavored melted butter, re-wrapped in its husk, wrapped in foil and grilled until done.

Blackberry Dessert

Blackberry "Tiramisu" by Nicole Maddox, Crop Bistro

Rich in flavor and light in texture, this summer-time dessert of layered vanilla bean ladyfingers, creamy sweet ricotta and blackberry brandy was created when pastry chef Nicole Maddox was inspired to make a summery dessert using house-made ricotta cheese - which is traditionally used in denser Italtian desserts - and lightened by whipping sugar and cream into it.

Culinary Treats: by Baking & Pastry students from New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont.

Battle of the Champions

Here are a few photos from the February 20th beer-wine pairing dinner at NECI on Main in Montpelier, Vt.

The so-called "Battle of the Champions" was the experience of a good-natured, course-by-course, beer versus wine-pairing competition between specially selected craft-beer libations from the Three Penny Taproom by co-owner Scott Kerner, and wines from the NECI reserve cellar chosen by Jeff Roberts, paired with a unique menu.

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Scott has devoted his life to sharing great beer; and Roberts has a long-standing romance with wine, and both are passionate about which elixir pairs better with food — and, late 2012 both decided they were willing to  prove it

Kerner and Roberts have collaborated on beer-and-cheese pairings previously, but for this event they collaborated with NECI to host the event and  invited friends and colleagues to dinner and serve as judges.

Chef Instructors from New England Culinary Institute helped prepare
the seven-course feast which started with "Oysters and Pearls paired
with Oatmeal Stout from Quebec and a champagne from Taittinger.

Guests and judges conversed and compared notes with the
beer/wine expert competitors and the chefs.

Gracious hospitality was proved by service class students
from NECI.


For a nice article about the event check out the story in 7days:
http://www.7dvt.com/2012beer-wine-food-pairing

Menus Inspired by Chef-authored Cookbooks - part 1

Ever felt the excitement to discover, or for the first time become aware of, something of significance, in a new field of personal interest, and then realize the entire world already knows about it? Welcome to Culinary Education.

Someplace in California there's a wonderful restaurant named the French Laundry whose chef, Thomas Keller, is well-known and well regarded in the culinary world. Keller is considered a celebrity-chef, like it or not, a term that has become very in vogue in the past few years. He also has an other restaurant, the namesake of his beautiful cookbook; entitled 'Ad Hoc at Home.'

Some folks are not enthralled by the entire celebrity-chef trend, fad, business or what have you. But I should think anyone interested in the culinary world can learn from, and become inspired by, exploring chef-authored cookbooks and by reading the biographies of successful chefs.

Recently, the chefs of cuisine at New England Culinary Institute, inspired by Thomas Keller's cookbook 'Ad Hoc at Home,' introduced a new celebrity chef-inspired menu series at the school's casual fine-dinning outlet, NECI on Main, serving contemporary New World Farm-to-Table fare. Professionally staffed, the restaurant also serves as a production class for the students working in the kitchen under the direction of instructor/chefs.

The photograph above illustrates the February 2012 Thomas Keller celebrity chef cookbook inspired menu, served at NECI on Main and prepared by instructor/chef Jeffrey Andre and his students in the Farm-to-Table class. The menu of slow roasted pork loin and cream of celery soup was selected by NECI chef Paul Sorgule.

Books courtesy of Rivendell Books in Montpelier, Vt.

A Culinary New Year's Eve

How else would a culinary school ring in the new year but with an exceptional dinner; and at New England Culinary School in Montpelier, Vt., the faculty, staff and students did just that by hosting a memorable 10-course dinner featuring unique wine and beer pairings.

The evening's featured wines were placed on display in the dining room of NECI on Main

Students worked side-by-side with senior faculty to prepare and plate the dishes.

Like surgeons in an operating room, the team of chefs worked with precision to efficiently plate the dishes for over 40 dinner guests.

The kitchen crew work closely with the service staff to coordinate the timing of each course.

Student and Teacher

First Course: White Truffle Oil Custard topped with Ostera Caviar baked in an organic eggshell

Third Course: Sicilian-style Yellowfin Tuna with Honey Miso Mustard 

Sixth Course: Butter Poached Lamb Lion and Pan Seared Foie Gras with Grilled Polenta Cake  

Seventh Course: Veal Shank, Flageolet Beans, Chanterelles, and Pearl Onions

 Eighth Couse: Apple, Frisee, Endive and Cucumber Salad with Fresh Herbs, Pitachio Oil and Lime Vinaigrette 

 yummy dessert treats 

Chef Adrian and Chef Dan place the finishing touch on the dessert dishes.

The finale!

A group photo at the end of the night to celebrate teamwork and a job well done.

Winter Root Crops and Kimchi

When you live in a snowy and mountainous climate (such as Vermont) for much of the year, eating fresh, locally grown vegetables doesn't have to be a challenge if you plan ahead and borrow ideas from other cultures who live in a similar environment, such as Korea.

While New Englanders are proud of their ingenuity (some will call it stubbornness) other cultures are equally proud of their heritage and certainly traditional food is part of that equation. Koreans have an obsession with a type of spicy fermented cabbage they call kimchi. Traditionally made with Napa cabbage, kimchi was historically produced in autumn and preserved in clay pots buried for winter consumption.

It might be said the key to food sustainability is storage; the proper storage of root crops is vital if you wish to survive a long cold winter eating fresh vegetables that haven't been trucked hundreds of miles across the country.  In Vermont, a new generation of farmer is using specially designed greenhouses and root cellars to produce and preserve fresh vegetables, even when the ground is covered in snow.  I recently took a trip to Cabot, Vermont to visit just such a place, the Blackwell Roots Farm owned by Lee Blackwell, and his wife Ruth.

The Blackwell Roots Farm, located on 4-acre hillside farmstead originally settled in the 1800s, specializes in certified organic winter storage vegetables and produce sauerkraut and kimchi. They primarily sell wholesale to regional co-ops and organic food stores, but can be found at the Montpelier Winter Farmers Market on the first and third Saturdays of the month, December through April.

Produce for sale at the Montpelier Winter Farmer's Market.

Their largest crops are carrots and various cabbage and beets which are harvested in October through mid-November, as well as squash, potato, parsnip, turnips, onions, leeks, radish, daikon, garlic, ginger, pepper and celeriac, which is celery root.

The farm comprises an insulated multipurpose barn structure built into the side of hill, three greenhouses, plus a chicken coop. The barn includes a hay loft and machinery storage on the top floor plus a small livestock stable which leads out to an upper pasture.

The ground floor of the barn houses the produce tumbler and packaging area, a large refrigerated walk-in storage room for carrots, beets and celeriac, several smaller cooler rooms for potatoes, cabbage, rutabaga and a fermentation room. In a separate room, the sauerkraut and kimchi are produced using a lacto fermentation process.

Spicy tasting and funky smelling, it takes approximately 13 days to produce kimchi; the national dish of Korea. And I promise, with just one spoonful, you'll get hooked on what some have called "the crack" of cabbage.                                      Photo: Francis Moran

Squash and garlic are stored together in separate room kept at a temperature in the mid-50s and at 50% humidity. Carrots, parsnips, beets, celeriac, daikon, rutabaga and cabbage are kept refrigerated very cold and very moist at between 32-38 degrees and 90-98% humidity.

Potatoes are kept cold and very moist at 40 degrees and 90 – 98% humidity in complete darkness, while onions are kept dry but even colder at between 32-38 degrees and not over 75% humidity, and also in darkness. All that refrigeration requires power but the farm currently generates 30% of their electricity from solar panels.

Lee also showed me the winter greens in grows in one of the greenhouses; Mache and Claytoni from France which have more vitamins than spinach. He explained how winter spinach is sweeter than summer spinach because of the higher sugar content in the leaves as a result of the diminished daylight hours.

International Flavors with Chef John Barton

The following images are from a unique event I was fortunate enough to be invited to document. Culinary guru Chef John Barton, an amazing instructor at New England Culinary Institute, brought his class of high school students enrolled in the culinary arts program at Northwest Technical Center in St. Albans to visit NECI's Montpelier campus and interact with his B.A. Mod 6 students as they prepared final projects for their Asian Foods class.

Chef John Barton is an intensely articulate and dearly loved instructor with a fountain of knowledge that he passionately shares with his students.

At first the high school students were a bit shy, but with some mild prompting and introductions they felt more at ease and began to ask the B.A. students questions and a natural interaction followed.

I have to admit, it was a joy to witness the high school students come out of their shells and begin to develop a rapport with the BA students, get involved in the preparation, and experience a meaningful field-trip.

The high school students were able to get a glimpse of various steps in Asian food preparation and also meet some of NECI's international students.

The visiting high school students had a first hand opportunity to experience NECI's mantra "where you learn by living it" in action.

A collage of some of the various dishes prepared as final projects in Chef Barton's Mod 6 Asian Foods class.

 Shrimp Rolls: the Chef's Choice winner by Stefan

A duo of shrimp: the People's Choice winner, by Kimberly

At the end of the day, Chef Barton observed: "In the heat of the moment the students don't often see the quality of their work or the progress they have made. Nine weeks ago they knew next to nothing about Asian cuisine, now they are integrating specific cuisines into their cooking."

"The photos look great," he said. "Thanks for your involvement and expertise it brings these types of student events to a new level and allows the students to reflect on what a great job they did."

You're very welcome Chef, thank you for the opportunity to document the event..

Brunch

Bunch at NECI on Main is a wonderful treat, if not an indulgence. Besides custome-made omlettes, there's a hot-carved meat table, a bountiful selection of pastries, sweets and breads, plus a variety of savory items such as sushi!

Testing out my new pair of 500 watt strobes and softboxes, I managed this image of dishes prepared by Chef Doug's catering class:

 

 Guess what dish items we have here

Food Photography

At a food photography workshop I conducted recently, I explained the importance of understanding light and different techniques to create photographic exposures to make the subject look appealing and delicious.

After a slide show of my explorations in food photography with examples from my recent portfolio, we used a sheet of ice to experiment with creative lighting using colored gels, a simple work lamp and an off-camera flash unit.

Here are some example images of our improvisation.

Pumpkin Rising

Autumn season again, and that means many things; bountiful harvests, fresh apples and pumpkin pie!

Seen at brunch!

This is the Heady-Topper 4-pack!

To the great delight of beer enthusiasts in Central Vermont, the owners of the Alchemist Pub & Brewery in Waterbury have opened a 15 barrel, small production brewery specializing in fresh, unfiltered India Pale Ale.

John and Jennifer Kimmich built a state-of-the-art canning line to package in 16-ounce cans their flagship Double IPA - Heady Topper. Canning allows to package, preserve and protect the beer against the impact of UV light and oxygen.

Eight years after opening the Alchemist, which became a big success, and ushered in a renaissance in the dining & nightlight scene in downtown Waterbury, the region was hit by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene on August 28 which caused tremendous flooding and lots of property damage in the Northeast.


Many homes and businesses along parts of Rt 100 and Rt 2 in Waterbury suffered severe flooding, which left behind a coating of mud and debris. Plans call for the Pub & Brewery to re-open sometime in the next 5 or 6 months, or more - who knows. But, in the meantime, we've got the Heady Topper in a can!

 

Be sure to read the instructions first, ("Drink this beer in a can"), or be adventurous and enjoy from a glass!