Miracle Fruit

 

I am a complete fool for culinary curiosities.  The are  three jars of candied olives, a bottle of truffle oil, two different kinds of black rice, and several packets of instant pho in my kitchen cabinets right now.  For a few months, my friends Kevin and Sara had to avoid coming to dinner because I kept threatening to make chicken with truffles I had bought at TJ Maxx.  (When I finally opened the jar, they were dry, gritty things and I threw them away. I’m a sucker, but a picky one.)  

But Miracle Fruit is by far the strangest and coolest thing I’ve tried in a long time.  It’s a berry that (and this is just such a strange idea) has something called miraculin in it that bonds to your taste buds and temporarily keeps you from tasting the sourness of things.  

I bought my Miracle Fruit in tablet form on Ebay.  So, yes, just to clarify–I bought strange pills from an unknown person and let one dissolve on my tongue.  If you think this is the first time I’ve ever done that, you’re clearly a stranger who has just wandered over here from someplace a little more sheltered.  But anyway…  So, I let the pill dissolve on my tongue and then waited two minutes, as instructed by the few English directions on the box.  After two minutes, I took a giant swig of cranberry juice and almost spit it out because it was so sweet!  There was no bitterness it all.  So I tried orange juice.  Same thing.  Tastes like Sunny-D.  (So, yeah, gross.)  

“Well,” I thought, because I am prone thinking these sorts of things, “so what if it can make orange juice taste like Sunny-D?  Can it make lemon juice taste good?  I bet not!”  And then I liberally squeezed the plastic lemon until I had a good mouthful of juice.  (Maybe proof that all this dissolving-tabs-from-strangers stuff has been less than a great idea.)  And it wasn’t sour at all!  It tasted like those candied lemon wedges that sat on my great-grandmother’s coffee table.  (Again, not really a taste I’d go looking for, but you get the point.)

If you know me, you are probably going to get a box of these for Christmas, and maybe a few grapefruit or kumquats.  And you won’t believe me that it works as well as it does until you squeeze juice from your own plastic lemon onto your tongue

Pawpaw Chutney

The man behind us has a small grove of pawpaw trees, and has given me permission to pick a few off the ground so I can gather the seeds and try to start a few trees of my own.  This will be tricky.  Pawpaws are finicky trees.  The seed will have to be kept in refridgerator for at least 90, but not more than 120, days.  Each seedling will have to start out in a pot, and we don’t have a greenhouse.  But I am set on following through with the directions provided by The Calofornia Rare Fruit Growers.

Because all I need are the seeds, I have a lot of pawpaw flesh left over.  It has a taste somewhere between a banana and a mango, so I’m trying it in a mildly hot chutney made with vinegar, cloves, star anice, tumeric, Indian chilis, and jaggery.  It seems to have come out well, although it’s still cooling.  If it is good enough, I’ll make samosas.  If not, we’ll eat it with kofta curry.  Either way, there is something a little more magical about a meal made with wild foods.

Dinner Times

The homeless man in our basement sneaks upstairs once he’s sure we’ve gone to bed and microwaves a half-dozen Jimmy Dean Griddlecakes Sandwiches for his dinner.  The dogs jump off the bed and scratch at the bedroom door as soon as they hear him in the kitchen and they whine until the stench of cheap microwaved sausage has faded into a sort of damp, mildewy smell and he has gone back downstairs.

Kevin said, “If he lives in your basement then he isnt’ really homeless, is he?”

I think about this for a long time; months.  He is homeless because, if he is not, then my home is also his home and not just a place for him to stay while he goes through the SSI odessy.  And if this is his home, I can never say, “Okay, you got your first SSI check, time for you to move out now.  Good luck.  Take care.”  And I need to know that some day I will be able to say that, or I will come running down the stairs one night, no longer able to take the reek of his Stouffer’s Family Sized Meatloaf that will linger until the smell of the morning coffee overpowers it.

*   *   *

For our dinner tonight, I made a sort of cheap and dirty cassoulet.  White beans in a rich duck broth with ham from Mike and Donna Eisenstat’s farm, potatoes, leeks, and carrots from Reed and Kathy Evans, herbs from my garden and the one next door, and an artisnal sherry that my father gave us last year.  We ate it with a baguette from A New Day Bakery and Bûche Noire from Firefly Farms.  There was more than enough.  I could have, probably should have, invited the homeless man in the basement to join us.  For the first year he lived here, I often did.  But the quality of mercy has grown strain’d. 

It is one thing never to take responsibility for something.  It is something entirely different to put it aside once it becomes burdensome.  I am not generous enough to invite the man in the basement to join us at the dinner table, but I am also not so stingy that I would throw him back onto the streets.  It could take another few years for his SSI to come through.  We all know this now, though none of us did when this arrangement was first conceived. Until then, we are all just trying to hold on to the moral middle ground.  We gave up trying to walk the high road a long time ago.

Nasturtium Kimchi

I planted a huge barrel planter by the front walk full of nasturtiums this spring thinking that it would be nice if we could eat the flowers.  But, although I like their peppery flavor, I find that the texture of the flower becomes clingy when mixed in with salad, particularly after it’s dressed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I am taking a page from Maybelle’s Mom, who has inspired me to think of everything as potential kimchi, and I’ve made a batch of her Pea Shoot Kimchi with a few substitutions.  I have substituted nasturtium flowers and leaves for the pea shoots, replaced half the ground Korean Pepper with paprika (I was afraid the pepper would completely overpower the flavor of the flowers), turnip for daikon (only because I had it on hand) and lime juice for amchur powder (so we’ll have to have bitters in our gin and tonics tonight).  Oh, and I added some toasted sesame seeds.

I have to say, this experiment has not been a huge success.  It has worked, but not so well that I’m planning to plant a bigger crop of nasturtiums next year so that I can make this more often. 

The kimchi flavor itself is wonderful, but the flavor of the flower is completely overwhelmed by the other tastes, and the bright colors did not survive the process so it’s not a particularly pretty condiment. 

So, a lovely and whimsical idea… and I’m glad I tried it… but if you come for lunch next week, you’ll more likely get the flowers as a layer in a creamcheese and pumpernickle sandwich.  That has, so far, been the only really wonderful use I’ve found for them.

Petty Larceny Cobbler

I’m a thief.  There is a mulberry tree in a yard at the end of our block, and for the second time this week, I have helped myself to a good-sized basket full of the sweet purple berries.  The house is rented to college students who I haven’t been able to catch at home, and I only pick berries from the branches that hang over the sidewalk and street… so it’s a very petty larceny, but stealing is stealing.

If they come after me, I’m done for.  The purple has refused to completely come out from under my fingernails for four days, and three of my rice sack dishtowels bear permanent witness.  Over the weekend, there were muffins.  Tonight it is a cobbler for Scotti to take to his “Dinner and Skinner” psychology reading group.

This recipe works well with other berries, even ones that have been legally obtained.

Berry Cobbler

Berries:

1. 3 cups of mulberries
2. 1 tbsp ww pastry flour
3. 1 tbsp sugar

Cobbler Topping

1. 1 cup ww pastry flour
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/3 cup butter or shortening
4. 1 tsp baking powder
5. 1 egg, lightly beaten

For the Filling: Gently rinse mullberries in cold water. Combine ww pastry flour and sugar in medium bowl.  Toss.

For Topping: Combine flour, sugar and baking powder in bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add egg; mix slightly, stirring just to moisten.

Grease 8-inch square baking dish. Fill with berry mixture. Crumble topping over berries. Bake at 350 degrees until just golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes.

 

Sour Cherry and Kumquat Jam

There was a farmer selling a healthy crop of sour cherries at the farmer’s market this morning.  We don’t see them often–the birds and squirrels like them too well. 

When I was a child, my grandfather and his brothers all had gentlemen’s farms (that phrase tickles me) in the part of the state near the Greenbrier Hotel.  I can remember going to the Asbury farm when I was very, very small.  Too small to have many specific memories of those trips at all.  I remember the peacocks, and the caretaker’s son, who told me it was bad luck to bring the feathers inside.  “It brings in the evil eye,” he’d said, and then for years I wouldn’t touch peacock feathers because I thought they caused pink-eye.  I remember pitting cherries in a scratchy, red wool sweater with my mother and my cousin Lynnie.  Those two memories are all I have of those summers. 

So, home from the market, I’ve made two batches of jam this morning.  One, the traditional sour cherry that tastes like pie filling.  The other, an experiment, is made of sour cherries and kumquats.  Sort of half-jam, half-marmalade.

It tastes wonderful coming out of the pot, and so far (an hour into the jars), seems to have set up well.  Here is the recipe for anyone feeling adventurous and lucky enough to have a good supply of sour cherries.

Sour Cherry and Kumquat Jam
Makes 7 half pints

 

• 4 cups sour cherries, pitted, stemmed, and coursely chopped
• 1 cup kumquts, very thinly sliced
• 4 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp butter (to prevent foaming–optional)
• 1 packet Sure-Jell liquid pectin

Process the jelly jars for preserving.

Put fruit, pectin and butter into a non-reactive pot.  Bring mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.

Stir pectin into fruit and add butter, then bring the mixture to a rolling boil. Stir in sugar and return to rolling boil for one minute. Using a canning funnels, ladel into prepared jars.

Preserving Spring: Ramp Pickles, Ramp Kimchi

Ramp season is drawing to a close.  The few I picked this week had yellowing leaves and huge bulbs; by this weekend, the season will be over for another year.  But the basement pantry is well-stocked with jars of pickled ramps and ramp kimchi so that we can savor the stench of spring in the winter, when the taste reminds us that February is always followed by March, and never by another February.

Both recipes this year are new ones.  Here they are:

Ramp Kimchi

Ingredients:  

• 1 long white napa (Chinese) cabbage, about 1 lb 3 oz
  1 cup  coarse or pickling salt
  5 cups (1 liter) water
  1 small long white radish, about 5 oz (160 g), cut in 1 1/2 in (4-cm) julienne strips
  1 cup ramp bulbs
  1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
  1 1/2 cup chili powder (Korean, not the stuff for making chili you buy at Kroger)– Or 3/4 cup chili powder and 3/4   papriki for a kimchi that won’t burn your face off
  1 teaspoon sugar 
  2-3oz pickled shrimp
  3oz salted anchovies
  1 large bowl to hold cabbage while soaking in water
   
  

Remove root end of cabbage without separating the leaves.  Put all the salt  in a large bowl and add 4 cups (1 liter) water.  Stir to dissolve all the salt in bowl and wter.  Fit the cabbage into bowl adding water if necessary so it is covered.  Place several heavy plates as weights on top of the cabbage and let sit at room temperature for 8-12 hours.  Drain the cabbage and rinse under running water, and squeeze dry.

In a seperate bowl, combine all other ingredients and mix well.  The red chili paste should look like the bottom left photo so your ingredient amount can vary slightly regarding the red chili powder.  Slightly separate the cabbage leaves and pack them well with the radish mixture.  Pack well into glass jar and press firmly to remove air bubbles.  Cover jar tightly.   If you decided to cut the cabbage into bite sized pieces before adding chili paste that is fine.  You can cut the cabbage into bite sized pieces before soaking in brine water as well.  Just a matter of personal taste.

Once thoroughly mixed, fill the jars with the Kimchi and seal with lids.  Allow the jar to sit in a dark room temperature area for 2-3 days.  Follwoing this early fermentation process place jar in the refrigerator and return to the fridge after each serving. 

Important: Never use a reactive metal container to store kimchi; use porcelain or stainless steel.  Plastic will be permanently stained by chili. Store kimchi in a cool, dark place – a fridge is best.  

Cloved Ramp Pickles

• Ramps
  1 cup water
  10 cloves
• 1 cup vinegar
  3/4 cup sugar
  1/4 teaspoon alum

1. Clean ramps, keeping bulbs only. Pack tightly in jars.

2. Add 1/4 teaspoon alum to each pint.

3. Bring liquid mixture to boil, pour over ramps.

4. Continue making liquid, enough to cover all ramps to be pickled.

5. Process sealed jars in boiling water bath for 5 minutes to seal lids.