Rhubarb Mostarda

I picked up some rhubarb at the farmers' market a couple weeks ago, because I like to buy rhubarb. I never know what to do with it once I have it though. I never buy enough for pie, and even if I did, never remember to buy strawberries. Sometimes I just boil the rhurbarb with sugar for a while and call it a jam. This time I wanted to be different and try something savory. I saw something called rhubarb mostarda on a restaurant menu; a google search brought up a recipe from a blog called the Joy of Cooking. That recipe claimed to be more of a chutney than a true mostarda, and I wanted something more similar to the pear mostarda I had eaten at Momofuku Ssam Bar. That is, something that tasted very much of the source fruit, but also very much like mustard. I basically just eliminated the golden raisins called for by the recipe and changed the other proportions a bit. I also used brown mustard seeds because that's all I could find in the pantry, despite swearing that I recently bought a fairly large quantity of yellow mustard seeds for another project. (I'll probably find them when I don't need them and then misplace them again.)

What did I serve the mostarda with? Braised pork belly. I had some sliced pork belly languishing in the freezer and figured it was best to just use it up. There's really no recipe here, just guidelines: brown the pork belly on all sides. Add enough chicken stock to cover and then season it as you wish. I added a tablespoon of brown sugar, a couple glugs of soy sauce, a half-teaspoonful of grains of paradise (you can use regular peppercorns), a bay leaf, a clove of garlic, a bit of fresh thyme, some onion powder, and some smoked paprika. Cover and cook at a low simmer  until very tender, 3-4 hours. Remove the meat from the pot and reduce the sauce until it's thick and syrupy. Add the pork back to the sauce and turn to coat.

I also made some simple polenta as a base, and cooked some frozen peas (what? you think I'm going to shell peas? if I could even find them now), added a knob of butter, and lots of fresh chopped herbs from our newly-planted garden (mint, basil, chives, thyme flowers).

Personally, I think this turned out great. I should do the pork belly thing more often. It's dead simple, just throw stuff in a pot and cook it, and it comes out restaurant-quality. The fat was juicy, the meat was moist, completely yummy. And the tangy mostarda was a perfect foil.

Just a really nice dinner all around, and despite the fancy looks, not a lot of effort. I even got Mr Minx to trim and chop the rhubarb for me.

Rhubarb Mostarda (adapted from Joy of Cooking)

1 pounds rhubarb, trimmed and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3/4 teaspoon powdered mustard
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons water

Put all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to a simmer and cook until rhubarb is soft and the liquid has mostly evaporated. Stir regularly to prevent rhubarb from sticking (mine didn't, but YMMV.)

Store in a covered jar in the fridge. Makes about 1/2 - 3/4 cup.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb

Spring has sprung, which means it's rhubarb season. And in the Casa de Minxeats, we do make a valiant attempt to eat as many fresh fruits and veggies as we can. Personally, I have no problem eating something completely vegetarian (or even vegan) for dinner, like a whole steamed cauliflower topped with nothing but salt, pepper, and butter, but you know Mr Minx likes to eat more substantially. Even if we're not doing our typical meat-and-potatoes meal, we're eating something closer to veggies and potatoes, or more likely, veggies and pasta (but I do like to sneak in some quinoa now and then). Sometimes I'll throw together a seasonal vegetarian appetizer, like roasted asparagus, as a starter for our meal, rather than eating veggies as merely a side dish.

I found this recipe for a lovely soup made with rhubarb and strawberries on the Eating Well web site. It's super simple to make, very slightly savory with the salt, basil, and pepper, and completely refreshing. While it's very spring-like, it would be a perfect summer recipe, too, especially as one can find frozen rhubarb these days (and some supermarkets carry it at the oddest times of year).

Speaking of rhubarb, the title of this post may remind those of you of a certain age about a particular Jan Brady rant ("It's always..."Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!'"), but it has another, very different, showbiz connotation. Because the word "rhubarb" doesn't have any recognizable phonemes, it was often used as crowd scene "conversation" in old films. Overlapping layers of the sounds of "rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb," sounds more like actual chatter than having people just say something like, "blah, blah, blah," and certainly is a lot less effort than coming up with actual conversation.

Sometimes I wish I could do that in real life.

Chilled Strawberry Rhubarb Soup

4 cups 1/2-inch pieces rhubarb, fresh or frozen (about 8 stalks, if fresh)
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups sliced strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil or mint, plus more for garnish
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Bring rhubarb and 3 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Cook until the rhubarb is very soft and broken down, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl. Put a couple inches of ice water in a large bowl and set the bowl with the rhubarb in it to help cool it quickly. (If you aren’t in a hurry, you can skip the ice-water bath.) Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until cool, at least 20 minutes.

Transfer the rhubarb to a blender. Add strawberries, sugar and salt; blend until smooth. Return to the bowl and stir in 1/3 cup basil (or mint). Serve sprinkled with more herbs and a generous grinding of pepper.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cinghiale

Did you know that if you use Open Table to make reservations, you can earn free food? Yes, if you make (and keep!) enough reservations and save up the points earned, eventually you can cash them in for a "dining cheque." So, armed with a cheque for one hundred smackaroos, Mr Minx and I went to Cinghiale, the Italian-flavored restaurant in the multi-ethnic restaurant empire belonging to Baltimore restaurateurs Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman.

I made the earliest reservation possible, 5:30pm, because I get off work at 4 and am downtown anyway. Yes, I sacrificed myself by staying for an additional hour just to be able to eat at Cinghiale. It may or may not have been worth it.

We arrived at the restaurant about four minutes early and were asked to wait in the bar. Soon enough we were whisked to a table in the front corner of the empty restaurant. Another couple waiting with us got seated at the very next, so close it was practically adjacent, table. Huge empty restaurant, and they put the two couples eating early right next to each other. The woman at that other table was so loud, hell, they might as well have given us a four-top.

Anyhoo, lets ignore them for a few minutes, as if that's possible.

A bit of advice. If your server asks if you've eaten at Cinghiale before, say yes, otherwise he or she will start a seemingly endless spiel about how the menu works. There are two prix fixe options, a rustic 3-course with limited choices and a larger and fancier 4-course version, both of which are spelled out very clearly (and in different colors) on the menu. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at our server's pronunciation, which was only made worse by her Valley Girl-esque delivery. Eventually, she left us alone with the menu. As we perused it, another server brought over a basket of bread and poured puddles of olive oil onto our bread plates. I think a single saucer of oil for the table would have been a better idea. The oil was so raw and bitter, we rejected it after one taste and had to balance our bread on the rim of our plates to avoid the stuff. As it turns out, the bread itself--a rustic Italian and another with bacon and dried cherries--was delicious on its own. Come on--bacon bread. What's not to love?

After we ordered and before we received our first course, we learned that the couple sitting at the next table were vegetarians who fancied themselves as wine snobs. (They may not have appreciated the bacon bread.) She nattered on about trivial things for much of the duration of our meal. He didn't say much at all, and when he did, it was in much quieter tones than hers. I figured they were probably on their second or third date.

After what seemed like an endless wait, although it was probably five minutes, we received our first courses. I had chosen the grilled calamari with crispy carrots. The plate smelled offputtingly fishy when it was set in front of me, but the calamari tasted fine. It was very tender, and the broth was lightly spicy. The carrots were a nice idea, but had an off flavor, either from having been cooked in old oil, or too far in advance.

Mr Minx ordered the speck, a cured and cold-smoked ham from the northeast of Italy. The thinly sliced porky goodness was served with a tiny bit of delicious fennel mostarda. More mostarda, please.

We had opted for the fancy four-course "prezzo fisso" option, so our second course was pasta. I ordered the tagliolini neri with Virginia clams, aglio i olio, and pepperoncini. Black pasta can be pretty sexy stuff, with its faint taste of the sea, and doesn't need to be sauced heavily. The little black dress of pasta. Mine was in a light broth flavored with finely diced pepper and teeny tiny clams. The pasta was perfectly cooked, with a pronounced egg flavor that overwhelmed any briny squid-inkiness, but the clams were lovely. Optimally, the dish would have a pinch more seasoning, but alas, the kitchen knows the diner's palate better than the diner and does not provide salt and pepper on the table.

Mr Minx's simple spaghetti alla chitarra with Umbrian summer truffles was amply seasoned and tasted of expensive butter. However, the truffles were wan and flavorless and not worth the $6 supplement (which worked out to about $1.20 per whisper-thin slice).

Meanwhile, the woman at the next table liked the vinaigrette on her asparagus A LOT. And whee...look! Her red wine is a different color than his red wine! And if she can't see Andrea Bocelli in Tuscany, she'll settle for seeing him at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Life's hard like that sometimes. (Heaven forbid that she be forced to see him at the Verizon Center.)

After that brief interlude of inanity, our entrées arrived. I had the pan-roasted halibut, which was served simply with local asparagus and a saffron hollandaise, which I requested on the side. Why bother to put a nice sear on a piece of fish if you're only going to drown it in a heavy sauce? I detected no saffron, but the fish was so moist and perfectly cooked, it didn't need the sauce at all.

Mr Minx's grilled magret of duck was cooked medium rare, which necessitated the use of a steak knife. I feel that most restaurants are so obsessed with the internal temperature of duck that they ignore the elephant in the room - the fat. So while the center was pink from edge to edge, there was still an ample ring of fat. At least the skin seemed a bit crisp, and it was very well seasoned. The rhubarb marmellata on the side was a nice idea, but the vinegar and fruit didn't marry particularly well.

At this point in our meal, we find out that our female dining companion the loud and increasingly drunk chick at the next table really enjoys watching Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen. OOh! And their red wines are the same color this time! Thanks for the update.

Finally, dessert. I chose the pistachio torta with white chocolate and cherry. The torta was very dense and rich and I would have loved more of the tart-ish cherry, which got lost in all the butterfat. In fact, a quenelle of cherry sorbet might have been a better accompaniment than the white chocolate gelato, which brought back unpleasant memories of a cheap white chocolate Easter bunny I received in my youth. (I never did forgive that aunt.)

Mr Minx's mascarpone cheesecake with amaretti crust and local blueberries was near perfect, however. Sweet, dense, and smooth, it, too, could have benefitted from more tartness in the berries, but was otherwise pretty terrific.

By this point in the evening, Mrs Wine Snob (turns out they were celebrating a wedding anniversary) was completely blotto and practically yelling about how much she enjoyed the meal. What started out as amusing had finally taken me past the point of being annoyed, and I was eager to pay the tab and hit the road. I was especially pleased that the tab was so low, thanks to that Open Table cheque.

Cinghiale
822 Lancaster St
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 547-8282
http://www.cgeno.com/





Posted on Minxeats.com.

RhubarbBQ

On a recent weekend, when the humidity was so suffocatingly high that going outside felt like having a hot, wet, blanket thrown over one's head, I had the brilliant idea to make baby back ribs. In the oven.

We always use Alton Brown's method, in which the racks of ribs are marinated overnight in a dry rub, then braised in a slow oven for a few hours. The result is always succulent, fall-off-the-bone, finger-lickin', lip-smackin' deliciousness, so why try anything new? But I did. Oh, not in the cooking method, but rather in the flavoring.

My brother, who is currently low-carbing it, was coming over to partake of the porcine delight, so I wanted to use as little sweetener as possible on these ribs. As luck would have it, Mary Sue Milliken won the penultimate challenge of the season in that week's episode of Top Chef Masters and she did it by making baby back ribs with a modicum of sweetener. Following her example, I constructed my dry rub sans the usual brown sugar. Her sauce, in which she used only a scant three tablespoons of maple syrup, became the inspiration for my sauce, made with fresh rhubarb. I figured rhubarb was at least as tangy as her tomatillos; however I did not take into account that while tomatillos contain a high percentage of water, rhubarb instead is very fibrous. So my sauce was a bit thick and dense - not to mention quite a bit less-sweet than we're used to - but it was still rather good - bright and tangy in a mustard sauce kinda way.

RhubarbBQ-glazed baby backs served over hominy stewed with onions and garlic.

RhubarbBQ Sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
pinch salt
5 cloves garlic, crushed
6 stalks rhubarb, stringy bits removed with a vegetable peeler, roughly chopped
1 jalapeno, minced or 1 tablespoon jalapeno powder
1 teaspoon finely minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon paprika
salt and pepper to taste

In a saute pan, heat the olive oil and add the onions and pinch of salt. Sweat the onions until they are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, rhubarb, jalapeno, ginger, and water. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to medium. Cover pan and cook until rhubarb is completely cooked down, about 10-15 minutes.

Remove pan from the heat and, using a blender or immersion blender, purée the rhubarb mixture. Add maple syrup and paprika. Cook on medium low heat for another 20 minutes until mixture has been reduced to a thick sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.
-----------------------------------------------

When I tried to cut the racks of ribs into smaller portions, I wished I hadn't followed the technique to the letter. With a bit less cooking, the ribs would have been easier to cut, and thus neater to photograph. But who cares - the flavor is what matters, right?

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Afternoon Snack

One slice of Struan bread +
One teaspoon of bacon jam +
One teaspoon of ricotta cheese +
One teaspoon of rhubarb apple chutney
= yum.

Dave's Rhubarb Apple Chutney

2 cups diced rhubarb (about 3/4 pound untrimmed)
1 tart apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy nonaluminum sauce pan. Bring slowly to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the rhubarb and apple are very soft but still hold their shape. Do not allow them to turn into mush. Taste and adjust seasonings. Cool and chill before serving.

Rhubarb

So my friend Dave sends me an e-mail with rhubarb recipes a couple of weeks back. I figure he had a batch of it in his CSA basket, but no, he just wanted to share. One recipe was for a sweet pudding dish, but two were of the savory variety. I thought the Rhubarb salsa verde sounded interesting. And I had capers and cornichons on hand already. Plus, one stand at the farmer's market at UMB had scallions, green garlic, and rhubarb, so it seemed I was fated to make the stuff.

I prepped the salsa one evening after work. I used more rhubarb and less onion/garlic than called for (actually, I reduced the whole recipe significantly); the result was decidedly not green. More barf-colored, actually. And the flavor, after cooking, was sour, sour, and more sour. Oh, and a little salty. I added some honey to cut the sour and set the batch to cool in the fridge, where it remained for a few days.

One evening, Mr Minx whipped up some flank steak, mashed potatoes,and sauteed Brussels sprouts to go with the salsa verde/rosa.

I know...the salsa looks grotesque.

After hanging around in the fridge for a few days, the salsa tasted far less salty and more fruity than it did immediately post-cooking. It actually did nothing for the meat, sad to say.

A few days later, we had the leftover flank steak in sandwiches, for which I made a rhubarb salsa mayo. Now, that worked. The tart/creamy thing went nicely with the garlicky meat. I dare say it would make an interesting addition to chicken salad, as well.

Green Garlic and Rhubarb Salsa Verde

2 bunches green garlic or scallions (white parts only), finely chopped
4 ribs freshly picked rhubarb, greens removed, finely chopped
3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 teaspoons roughly chopped capers (with about 1/4 teaspoon liquid)
1/2 cup roughly chopped cornichons (with about 1 teaspoon juice)
1-1/2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a medium sauté pan over medium-high heat, cook garlic and rhubarb in olive oil until tender, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat and add capers and liquid, cornichons and juice, parsley, onion, and lemon juice, scraping the pan to release any browned bits. Add stock and simmer about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rhubarb Salsa "Verde" Mayo

Add a couple of spoons of salsa to a couple of spoons of mayo. Stir. Slather on something. Eat.