Saturday, April 20, 2013

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Spring has sprung...sort of...

The weather continues to be mostly miserable on the weekends here on the East End, but we have started our weekly forays to the farm stands.  This week's trip was to Sang Lee Farms in Peconic.  We picked up: one bunch mixed radishes; one bunch scallions; fresh, still steaming shredded carrot spring rolls and a jar of pickled peppers.  Executed and/or future plans for the booty are as follows:

- The radishes are headed for mixed green salad,
- The scallions will be snipped to finish a bowl of the remaining Yankee gumbo in the fridge or thinly julienned and tossed with sesame oil, cayenne and a bit of salt as banchan with the roasted chicken planned for tomorrow,*
- The spring rolls were gone 15 minutes after we got home, check out the silly easy East End Duck Sauce  recipe below,
- The pickled peppers are drop dead HOT with a nice vinegar finish.  They proved the perfect spicy accent between bites of my soon to be famous Nearly Lyle's Mixed Cheap Meat Hoagy aka 70s submarine sandwich.  A half hour after we finished our hoagies Agnes quipped, "Damn!  My lips are still tingling."  Indeed!  Hats off to the fine folks at Sang Lee for this hot accent:


East End Duck Sauce:

2 TBS        blackberry jam/jelly/fruit preserve, use whatever fruit preserve you have, I intended to use raspberry, but the jar we had in the fridge was well past its desired consumption period.  Fermented raspberry jam anyone?  Yikes!
1-2 TBS     chili pepper jelly, variable based on the heat of preserves/your taste
1-2 TBS     Siracha sauce, variable based on the heat of the above ingredient/your taste
splash         rice wine vinegar

* julienned scallion banchan recipe was pinched from Cecelia Hae-Jin Lee's book, Eating Korean.  A great resource on Korean basics if you're on the look out .  You can check out the blog here: http://eatingkorean.com/blog/

Sunday, January 27, 2013

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Sunday Chili...

There's nothing better on a frigid winter day than a big bowl of spicy chili with great cheese and wine riding shotgun:




 The chili is my own recipe incorporating whatever happened to be leftover in the fridge (a carton of shriveling grape tomatoes, one half beefsteak tomato leftover from Taco Night, onion of unknown origin, possibly leftover from last Saturday's 70s Submarine Sandwich afternoon) and the pantry (can of diced jalapenos, can whole tomatoes, one can crushed, two cans of white beans) along with my soon to be no longer secrets: coarse ground brisket, maple syrup and a full day on the stove in our new dutch oven, "Big Dutch."

Yes...there is a "Little Dutch," and I don't mean the kid with his finger in the dike.  Ha!

A serious pox upon me and my house for discounting the efficacy and versatility of the dutch oven, what a revelation!  It's taken my gumbos, soups and one pot meals to a whole new and better place.

O I nearly forgot, the cheese is Tumbleweed from 5 Spoke Creamery in Goshen, NY purchased at The Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, NY and the wine is Silver Oak 2007 Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon of anonymous provenance.  We recommend both if the opportunity to nosh or quaff presents itself.