IDEAS IN FOOD

My New Favorite...

This butter is from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. As a NECI grad I'm often accused of being partial to ingredients from Vermont. All I can say is that I was partial to Vermont long before I ever went to school there. I's still one of my favorite states.  Actually, now that I think on it, I haven't been to Vermont in years. Not since the last New Year's Eve that Alex and I celebrated, cooking with Ann and Alex at the Fox Creek Inn in Chittenden, VT.  Alex had gone to school with their son Alex, and when they took over what was formerly the Tulip Tree Inn and transformed into the Fox Creek, they invited us to be their guest chefs for New Year's Eve. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful place to spend the holiday.

I had long been a fan of the  Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. We used their fromage blanc and mascarpone extensively for our old catering business. When we got out to Colorado it became difficult to get their products. Of course we also had access to Diane's amazing VT butter. Our daily kitchen butter became Strauss Butter and their yogurts also earned a permanent home in our kitchen. Oddly, here in Montana, the quality of the Strauss butter that we received is not quite up to what we were able to get in Colorado. I have no idea why and although we still happily receive the yogurts, we've made a change in the butter department. Even though we are now farther from VT than we were in Colorado, we are able to get the Vermont Butter and Cheese Butter.  We stick to the logs of sweet butter to ensure that we're getting the freshest product available and to control the salt content ourselves. It comes in logs, wrapped in plastic to protect it from picking up unwanted odors. Truthfully, it's a little harder to deal with the logs than it is to cook with sticks or pounds. It's worth the extra bit of trouble. This butter is rich and creamy, with a slight tang and we love it. It just makes things taste better. It's dense in a way that supermarket butters rarely are. It's density seems to allow it to come to room temperature more quickly and it spreads like silk across your palate. It's a beautiful thing and I just thought I'd share it with all of you.

American-Style Mozzarella

Sometimes fresh mozzarella just won't do. I love the soft, delicate texture and creamy mouth-feel of fresh buffalo mozzarella and the surprising sweetness and bounciness of fresh cow's milk mozzarella.  They are permanent staples in our kitchen. Artisanal versions of these cheeses abound and our cheese purveyors have strong feelings and differing selections of fresh mozzarellas to tempt and seduce us with. Burrata is no problem and even smoked scamorza can be had with a quick phone call. Unfortunately when I say that I'm looking for a more traditional American style mozzarella for melting and baking and stretchy, stringy, chewy goodness with a clean milky flavor, the silence is deafening. No one seems to carry it or sell it or understand why I might want to purchase it. With all of the great cheesemakers out there, someone must have a great riff on the traditional mozzarella. After all, it's the cheese we all grew up on, dripping from pizzas, blanketing lasagnas, oozing out of calzones, hell they even made a snack out it called string cheese.  Which by the way I've never understood, who wants to eat unmelted mozzarella? Where's the fun in that? But I digress.  If anyone out there has any suggestions or can point me in a promising direction for finding this elusive cheese that I know exists, the help would be greatly appreciated!

Agave Syrup

A few weeks ago Dan wrote me an email asking about agave syrup. He had noticed it showing up more and more often in our writing and was wondering why we were so enamored of it. My initial response was what's there not to love about agave syrup?

Agave juice was known to native Mexicans as "honey water".  Agave syrup is made mainly from the juices extracted from the core of the agave plant. The juices are either used as they are to create a dark agave syrup, or they are filtered to produce lighter agave syrups. As with any refining process, the filtered juices lose some of their nutritional content and flavor in their metamorphosis to a more neutral flavor. The darker syrups have a deeper, richer flavor with notes of minerals and vanilla.  The lighter syrups can be considered more versatile, especially when used in delicately flavored recipes. After the juices are extracted, they are heated to break down the carbohydrates.  The main carbohydrate in agave juice is comprised of a complex form of fructose. Once the juice has broken down it is reduced to a syrupy consistency.  As with maple syrup, you can find a wide range of agave syrups on the market ranging from a dark, almost molasses like product to a light syrup like the one pictured above.

Since agave syrup is approximately 90% fructose it has a sweeter flavor than granulated sugar. Because it tastes sweeter you do need to add as much to a recipe to obtain the same level of sweetness. This makes it an ideal product for people who are sugar sensitive or watching calories but do not want to resort to artificial sweeteners to satisfy their sugar cravings. Most agave syrups available in the United States are organic, vegan and kosher making them appropriate for almost every one.

Aside from the health benefits, which to be honest are not why we use agave syrup, it has a light viscosity and a high level of solubility. This means that it is easily incorporated into other ingredients regardless of temperature. It is perfect for bar applications as it can be stirred into cold drinks and homogenizes easily. It's shelf stable and does not need to be refrigerated after opening. It can be used as a substitute for corn syrup, maple or molasses in any old fashioned recipes and as an inverted sugar for modern applications. The light syrup provides a clean sweet flavor that is useful for balancing recipes in both sweet and savory applications. The darker syrups lend their own intense flavors to dishes and can be seen as chord of their own. If you do a bit of exploring on the Internet you can find a variety of different agave syrups. We like Madhava for their lighter syrups and we're still experimenting with the darker ones. But if you're looking for an alternative sweetener to play with you should definitely pick up some agave. We love it and hopefully so will you.

Inexpensive Lens Cleaning

Most of the photos on our website were taken with our Canon Digital Rebel. It's a great camera and although there is a newer version on the market we are still very happy with the  original. It's taken several months but we've finally found a lens cleaning system that really works for us. The best part about it is that it cost less than $10. We recently purchased the Nikon Lens Pen Cleaning System. It has a retractable brush on one end and a soft lens cleaning sponge (for lack of a better description) at the other end. It's about the size of a marker which makes it light, portable and efficient. We love that.

Condiments

The final touch: condiments which accent a cuisine

Situational Substitution: the use of store bought condiments to highlight a meal

Condiments: Homemade and Store bought there uses, alterations, inspirations and necessity for simplified cuisine. Many store bought condiments are great flavor platforms or accents for our cooking. From these initial bases we can then add our own influences or allow their flavors to influence what we are preparing.

New Raisins

We have recently added sweet and salty raisins to our pantry. What are they? We basically tripped over them. We had recieved excess samples of tomolives (small green tomatoes cured like olives) and needed to condense them down, our storage space is small. Invariably the dehydrator came to the rescue. In went the tomolives, twenty four hours later out came salty raisins...really salty. Now what?

Soak them in water to draw out the salt, why not add some golden raisins as well? The two "raisins" shared flavors as they plumped, and one they were drained we had green and yellow sweet and salty raisins. These raisins now act as a flavor base in our pantry...so far used as a condiment with smoked foie gras and part of a salad with sweetbreads.

To further develop this condiment, I plan to soak dried bluberries in our homemade port vinegar and thus add a bright acidity and more color.

Indian spices and chutnies will be explored as compliments or accents.

From the Store

Tamari Soy Sauce
Heinz Ketchup
Balsamic Vinegar
Unfiltered Honey
Yuzu Juice
Tabasco: original, habanero, chipoltle
Fleur de sel
Lampong Peppercorns
Olive oil--the varieties are many, worthy of their own discussion
Pickled Ginger
Ginger Marmelade
Maple Syrup
Crystal Hot Sauce
Key Lime Juice
Matouks Hot Sauce
Toasted Sesame oil
Lyles Golden Syrup
Cane Syrup
Rice vinegar

Alex&Aki