Market Watch - Fall '09

Seasons in Los Angeles are marked more by the network television schedule than by any changes in the weather or the foliage. Pilot season brings us ramps, English peas and tender asparagus. By the time reruns and reality shows hit the airwaves a few months later, our markets are overflowing with sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes and stone fruit. And just when you feel like the heat is never going to break, cool breezes push down from Alaska and bring with them the Fall television season, apples, grapes, persimmons, pomegranates and butternut squash.

Seeing as how it is officially Fall sweeps in Nielson land, I figured it was a perfect time to head out to the Hollywood Farmer's Market for a look at the season's bounty. I try to get out to the HFM at least once a month, especially now that John Wilson and his rock crabs and spiny lobsters are making more regular appearances. This morning's trip was no disappointment.

What follows is a photo blog post of some of the best fall has to offer. Hopefully you will be motivated to get out to your local farmers market before the season shifts again.

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Apples are everywhere at the market, including Jonalicious, Galas, and Pink Ladies. Sure these varietals haven't been cross bred to last weeks in a refrigerated truck and they may have a few sunburns from tree ripening, but these apples are light years ahead of those you can buy at the grocery store.


It may not be peak strawberry season, but the folks at Harry's Berries aren't missing a beat with their beans. The berries have made "Harry" famous, but their beans are consistently young, sweet, tender, and juicy. While not technically a Fall ingredient, these Blue Lake green beans should be around for another few weeks, until the first real cold weather closes out their year.


Harry's yellow Romano beans are a perfect accompaniment to those heartier Fall stews and roasts you are starting to crave. They have a rich, slightly nutty bean flavor and are fantastic when oven roasted.


Buddha's Hand has hit the market and can be found at three or four different stalls. The ancient fruit is powerfully aromatic and able perfume a room for weeks. Its primary use is ornamental, as the fruit is all pith with no juicy pulp or seeds. Nevertheless, Buddha's Hand zest is wonderful when sliced into fish marinades, turned into jam or candied for desserts.


A few different stalls were selling fresh jujubes, but the ones being sold at the Burkart Farms stand at the North end of the market are at their absolute peak. The last tinges of the fruit's younger yellow-green hue have given way to a beautiful mahogany color. Even more impressive is the fact that, despite their mahogany color, the Burkart jujubes haven't yet started to wrinkle like others are the market. At this point, the flesh is crisp and sweet, reminiscent of a tart apple.

Traditionally, people to turn then into a confection, in much the same way as dates. I picked up a few to candy by simmering them in simple syrup. I think they will be the perfect garnish on a new cocktail I am trying to nail down. And, if you are looking for something new to try this Thanksgiving, jujubes are a wonderful and unexpected addition to your family's recipe for stuffing.



Along with the usual display of potatoes, garlic and sweet onions Weiser Family Farms was rocking some beautiful white satin carrots.


Of course, you can't go wrong with the more traditional orange ones. These beauties, just a few stalls down from the Weiser stand, were going fast at $2.50 per bunch.


Having been around for five generations, McGrath Family Farm knows how to put out a spread at the HFM. Among their offerings this week were beautiful, organic Delicata squash and equally photogenic Caliope eggplants.

Next time you are driving down the 101 on the way home from Santa Barbara, make sure you stop by McGrath's new "Farm Center" stand in Camarillo. It is open seven days a week.


Mountain Meadow Mushrooms had some good looking maitakes and portobellos for sale. But it was the box of baby shitakes that really caught my eye. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't really do these beauties justice because you can't judge the scale. Just take it from me, the largest mushroom in the box was no bigger than a quarter.


Last, but not least, persimmons are everywhere, and rightly so. A number of stands were selling both Hachiyas, the more tannic of the two, and Fuyus. Even more exciting is the fact that I saw at least one vendor selling “Chocolate” persimmons. In addition to being very sweet, LA Times writer David Karp notes that a Chocolate persimmon offers an appealing, spicy complexity.


Since they started showing up at LA-area farmers markets a few years ago, Karp writes, “they have acquired a devoted following among chefs like D.J. Olsen of Lou Wine Bar, who prepares a version of sticky toffee pudding with Chocolate persimmons instead of dates.”

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Whisky Live Los Angeles 2009 - Ticket Giveaway!

I am excited to announce that I have a pair of VIP tickets ($258 value) to give away to Whisky Live LA, taking place next Tuesday night at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. If you follow the rules (see below), you will have a chance to win two tickets to the event. AND, even if you don’t win the tickets, I will still email all those who participate a 20%-off discount code you can use to buy tickets for yourself.

Before I get to the giveaway, I want to give little info on the event itself, because I think you all should go. Whisky Live is a series of whisky tasting and sampling events taking place all over the world; from London to Tokyo, Paris to Glasgow.

For the first time ever, Whisky Live is hosting an event right here in the LA area.


For the uninitiated, Whisky Live gives you the unique opportunity to sample the greatest whiskies in the world AND the chance to meet and learn from the producers and distillers themselves. For those of you who have always wanted to learn more about whisky this is your opportunity.

For those that already have their favorite styles/brands, you have the opportunity to sample rare and sought after whiskies and meet the stars of the industry.

VIP tickets are $129 ($149 at the door) and General Admission tickets are $99 ($119 at the door). If you are planning on going to the event, spend the extra money on the VIP tickets. You will get both extra and exclusive tastings, as well as access to the show for an extra hour at the beginning of the event. During the first hour of the show there will be a magnificent selection of superior whiskies available to taste as well as a nice range of hors d’oeuvres.

Partial List of Distillers Offering Tastings:
Anchor Brewing; Bulleit Bourbon; Bunnahabhain; Bushmills;
Cooley; Dalmore; Deanston; Dewars; Duncan Taylor Bottlings;
Four Roses Bourbon; Glenfiddich; Highland Park;
Isle of Arran Whisky; Isle of Jura; Johnnie Walker; Kings Crest;
Makers Mark; Phillips Distilling Co.; Speyside; The Balvenie
The Famous Grouse; The Glenlivet; The Macallan; Yamazaki

There will also be a series of “Masterclasses” along side the tastings. These master classes will provide a taster of the unique intricacies of the whisky world and are tutored by renowned experts in the field.

Two noteworthy classes are the Highland Park class, taught by Highland Park's Brand Ambassador Martin Daraz, and the Makers Mark 101 class, taught by Maker’s Mark Master Distiller Kevin Smith.

I had to pleasure of meeting Highland Park’s Martin Daraz at a Kentucky Derby Party earlier this year. He is an amazing storyteller with a rapier wit, which means I think his class is a can’t-miss opportunity. But even if you could care less about meeting Martin - he was just named the “Brand Ambassador of the Year” by The Whisky Life Magazine - stop by the class to sample the entire line of Highland Park single malts (from 12 years old to 30). How often do you get to taste the “Best Spirit in The World” (F. Paul Pacult, Spirits Journal).

In the Maker’s Mark class, Master Distiller Kevin Smith will take you on a guided tour through Maker’s Mark at different ages of maturity (including new distillate, which you’ll have a chance to experience first hand). Think of this as your personal Bourbon crash course. Also during this presentation, Kevin will share with you the history of Maker’s Mark, the difference between Whisky and Bourbon, and why he believes Maker’s Mark stands apart from other bourbons.

The full list of classes is available on the Whisky Live website.

Details/Rules of the Giveaway:

1. Add a comment to this blog post with a) your name, b) your email and c) your @twitter address (if you have one).
2. (Optional) I will give you a second entry in the drawing if you post this message using your Twitter account: "Win a pair of VIP tickets to Tuesday's Whisky Live LA from @HobsonsChoiceLA. Rules and event details at: http://bit.ly/2kaSgo"
3. On Sunday morning, I will be conducting a random drawing from those who entered. If you win, all you have to do is respond to my email within 24 hours to acknowledge your win so I can get your info and get you on the Will Call list. If you don’t respond in time, I will conduct another random drawing for a new winner.

Keep in mind, even if you don't win, I will be emailing everybody a discount code that will get you 20% off the ticket prices (making the VIP tickets $103.20 and the GA tickets $78.20). Some of the whiskys you will be tasting cost more than $25 per glass, so you can see the value in this event.

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The Plum Buck

A few months back, in a special to the San Francisco Chronicle, Camper English wrote about an early type of cocktail called the Buck. Take any based spirit and mix it with ginger beer and a squeeze of lemon or lime and you have yourself a Buck. I have been drinking Bucks for a while now. I just didn't know it. In the summer, I like to drink both Moscow Mules - vodka, lime juice and ginger beer - and Dark n' Stormys - Goslings rum, ginger beer and squeeze of lime. Both, assuming you do squeeze your lime in the Dark n' Stormy, are Bucks (Yes, Mules are Bucks and Bucks are Mules).

In San Francisco, Erik Adkins, Jen Colliau and the rest of the team running the wonderful cocktail program at Charles Phan's growing empire are skilled Buck practitioners. At Heaven's Dog, they have earned deserved praise for their take on the Shanghai Buck, which they make with Pampero Aniversario rum, fresh pressed ginger juice, lime and simple syrup.

Closer to home, at The Varnish in Downtown LA, star bartenders Marcos Tello and Eric Alperin are pouring the Gin Gin Mule. A sophisticated twist on the vodka classic, this cocktail is made with gin and fresh made ginger syrup, mint and lime juice.

Further west, Damion Windsor is serving up the Spiced Mule at the Roger Room on La Cienega. A creative take on a Rum Buck, the Spice Mule is made with Sailor Jerry rum, fresh ginger juice, lime juice and a spice-infused simple syrup of nutmeg, vanilla and cinnamon.

As for the Plum Buck, Camper English's article was fresh on my mind when I canned that batch of pluot jam I wrote about at the end of the Summer. I knew, almost immediately, that the jam's herbal, acidic complexity would make a great addition to a proper Buck-style cocktail. It was just luck that I happened to have a bottle of Clear Creek Distillery's Blue Plum Brandy (Slivovitz) in the house and I sent about experimenting.


I tried about a dozen different iterations of the drink - lime or lemon, simple syrup or not, bitters or not - to come up with the final recipe. As a final flourish, I broke out my stash of Li Hing Mui powder that I brought back from my last trip to Hawaii to use on the rim of the cocktail. Li Hing Mui, coloquially known as crack seed, is salty dried plum. The dried plums are ground down and mixed with salt and sweetener to make the powder. You can generally find it in Asian markets and Hawaiian markets. It has a strong, distinctive flavor combination of sweet, sour, salty and tangy and the bright pink color of the powder matches perfectly with the mixed drink.

Traditionally, Bucks are served in a Collins or highball glass (as the recipe indicates), but I have these double old-fashioned glasses that I thought went perfectly with this drink. I think you will like the results.
























RECIPE:
Makes 1 cocktail

Ingredients:

2 oz. Clear Creek Blue Plum Brandy
3/4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp. Hobson's Pluot Jam (you can substitute store bought jam)
1/2 oz. 1:1 simple syrup
1 dash Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters
Ginger beer to top
Li Hing Mui powder

1. Add the first five ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake, vigorously, for at least 10 seconds.

2. Wet the rim of a highball glass and dip it in the Li Hing Mui powder as you would to salt a margarita glass. Pack the highlass glass with ice and strain the cocktail over the ice. Top off with a generous pour of ginger beer and garnish with lemon wheel.

NOTE: There are a number of different ginger beers on the market that range from mild to spicy in terms of their gingery heat. I don't suggest a brand for this recipe because I know availability varies widely. For the uninitiated, you might try Bundaberg, which has a nice mild flavor that is still much more complex than the average ginger ale. We here in LA are spoiled because we have access to Galco's Soda Pop Stop, which sells my favorite Jamaica's Finest, along with Fever Tree, Fentiman's and many others.

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Hatch Green Chile Stew

So the friends whom I convinced to buy box after box of Hatch chiles a few weeks back are now hounding me for recipe ideas. I guess I deserve it. They were 35 pound boxes after all. And now their freezers are overflowing and the chill of Fall is rolling through Los Angeles. They want chiles and they want them now.

When Hatch chiles first come out of the roasters, the skin is a pale, almost glistening green covered in blackened blisters. The skin is left on after roasting to protect the flesh until just before you are ready to cook with them. This includes chiles that are frozen. A quick defrost and the peel pulls off easy as ever. When you’re ready to eat a freshly roasted chile, in the words of Ari Weinzweig - co-founder of Zingerman's Deli in Michigan - says, "just grasp the thick, stem end of the pepper and gently slide the charred skin off with your other hand. Right out of the roaster they’re slippery, warm, and a little wet, almost the consistency of a raw oyster."


The flavor of roasted green chile is invariably complex. The first taste that hits your receptors is that of the green bell pepper. But your brain immediately registers something far more complex. The green bell pepper flavor fades into a rich smokiness. From there, you start to feel a hint of warmth. Then, as Weinzweig notes, "like the sun coming over the mountains, you start to feel the heat. The flavor melts slowly away in your mouth like a piece of hard candy, lingering sweetly and spicily long after you’ve swallowed the pepper."

It isn't often that a spice or an aromatic can be considered a main course. From the description above, you can tell that the fire-roasted Hatch green chile is your normal aromatic. In this dish, the green chiles form more than a rich, smoky base for fork tender pork and melt in your mouth potatoes, they are the dish. There is just no other way to describe it.


RECIPE:
Serves 8

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
Salt and pepper
4 lbs. pork loin, cut into 1 1/2 cubes
18 spicy Hatch green chiles, fire roasted and peeled
1 large yellow onion, small dice
1 tbls. ground coriander
1 tbls. ground cumin
1 tbls. fresh oregano, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 large russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 1/2-inch chunks
4 cups chicken stock
1 bunch cilantro, leaves chopped and stems reserved
1/2 cup canola oil
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Heat a large dutch oven over high heat. Add the grapeseed oil. Salt and pepper the cubed pork. In batches, brown the pork on all sides. Do not rush this step. The caramelization process adds a great depth of flavor to the dish. Once all of the meat is browned set aside for later.


2. Coarsely chop the green chiles. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the onions to the same pan used to brown the port and cook, stirring frequently, for four minutes. While the onions are cooking, use a wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Add the chiles, coriander, cumin, oregano and garlic to the pan with the onions. Cook for four more minutes. Add the chicken stock and the browned pork to the pan. Bring the stew to a boil, cover the pot and place it in the oven. Allow the stew to simmer in the over for one hours. At the end of the hour, remove the pot, carefully add the potatoes to the stew, stirring to incorporate and return the pot to the oven for another hour.


3. When the stew has about twenty minutes left in the oven, puree the cilantro stems in a blender with two cups of water. Blend until smooth. At the same time, heat the canola oil in a heavy bottom sauce pan over medium high heat. (Do not allow the oil to reach its smoke point.) Add the flour and stir to incorporate. Continue stirring and cooking, cooking and stirring this roux until it reaches a rich blonde color.

4. Remove the stew from the oven. Using a spider or other similar strainer, gently remove the pork and potatoes from the broth and set aside. Once the roux reaches the desired color, CAREFULLY add the cilantro puree to the pan with the roux, whisking while you pour. Next, add the strained stew liquid to the roux mixture. Continue to stir with the wire whisk until completely incorporated. Add the thickened broth, the pork and potatoes back into the original dutch oven. Bring back to a simmer. If the stew is too thick, add water to reach the desired consistency. Carefully fold in the chopped cilantro leaves. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

5. Serve in large shallow bowls; top with a sprig of fresh oregano or fresh cilantro.
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Gourmet Mini S'mores

If I had known it was this easy to make s'mores in the comfort of my own home (without a fireplace), I would have been doing it years ago. Just buy your favorite graham crackers, make a dark chocolate ganache and pick up a package of vanilla marshmallows. I supposed you could bake your own graham crackers or whip up your own marshmallows, but when you have people like Little Flower Candy Co's Christine Moore making such fresh product using top notch ingredients, you will have that much more time to hone your blowtorch skills.

As a side note, if you really, really want to make your own marshmallows, LA Weekly's Squid Ink food blog published Moore's marshmallow recipe here. You are on your own for a graham cracker recipe.


RECIPE:
Makes 24 2-bite S'mores

Ingredients:

2 "1/4 lb." Little Flower Candy Co. Vanilla Marshmallow packages
1 box Trader Joe's Old Fashioned Cinnamon Grahams
1 16 oz. bag bittersweet chocolate chips (See Note)
2 cups heavy whipping cream

1. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Watch the cream carefully as it can boil over quickly. When the cream comes to a boil, immediately remove it from the heat and add the chocolate chips to the pan. Wait 30 seconds for the residual heat from the cream to gently soften the chips. Gently stir the mixture with a wire whisk. When all of the chocolate has softened, stir the mixture vigorously until completely smooth and incorporated. Pour the mixture into an air tight storage container and place in the refrigerator until completely hardened (at least an hour).

2. Lay out a 12x16 inch piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. Carefully slice each marshmallow, lengthwise, into three even pieces. Space out the marshmallow slices on the parchment paper to keep them from sticking. Break the grahams into pieces that match the size of the cut marshmallows.


3. To assemble, top each graham with a generous spoonful of the ganache and then cover with a marshmallow. Using a blowtorch, carefully brown the marshmallow to your desired level of caramelization. You can also use the flame to take the chill off of the ganache. If you don't have a blowtorch, lay the parchment paper with the marshmallows on a cookie sheet and place under a pre-heated broiler until browned. Use a nonstick spatula to transfer the marshmallows to complete the s'more.


Note: Surfas in Culver City has a great variety of bittersweet chocolates. I always purchase brands/types that have a cacao percentage between 60% and 75%. The truth is, any good chocolate will work for this recipe. If you already have a favorite brand, go ahead and use that.

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