Cooking With This Week's Box:
Sweet Yellow Onions: Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo with Linguine;
Cream of Tomato Soup;
Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Missouri Garlic: Cream of Tomato Soup;
Pesto Stir-Fried Carrots, Cauliflower & Cherry (Grape) Tomatoes
Leeks: Chile & Leek Stir-Fry with Ginger
(see below); Alice Water’s Classic Potato Leek Soup
Orange & Purple
Carrots: Cream of Tomato Soup;
Pesto Stir-Fried Carrots, Cauliflower & Cherry (Grape) Tomatoes
Korean Peppers: Salt-Cured Chiles and HVF Fresh Korean
Chili-Garlic Sauce (see below); Chile & Leek Stir-Fry with Ginger
(see below)
Variety of Tomatoes: Cream of Tomato Soup
Edamame: Wasabi-Roasted Edamame
Green Top Red Beets: Roasted Beet & Avocado Salad
Orange Italian Frying Peppers
& Red Bell Peppers: Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo with Linguine
Golden or Red Grape
Tomatoes: Pesto Stir-Fried Carrots,Cauliflower & Cherry (Grape) Tomatoes
Purple Viking Potatoes: Alice Water’s Classic Potato Leek Soup
It’s been an eventful week to say the least! While the rain fell Monday night, I
distracted myself by experimenting with the Korean chiles in my kitchen! I hope you’ll take the time to read this
week’s article about Korean peppers and consider trying the recipes for Salt-Cured Chiles and HVF Fresh Korean
Chili-Garlic Sauce (see below).
These are great condiments to have in your refrigerator and I offer
several resources in the article for finding recipes and ideas for how to use
them. You can also use this chile in the
recipe for Chile & Leek Stir-Fry
with Ginger (see below). It seems
like gentle, delicate leeks and hot chiles are on different ends of the
spectrum, but they actually complement each other quite nicely in this
dish. This recipe calls for tofu, but
you could make it with chicken if you prefer.
If you don’t use the leeks to make the stir-fry, then you
might want to use them to make Alice Water’s Classic Potato Leek Soup. Her recipe calls for yellow potatoes, but I
specifically included the Purple Viking potatoes in this week’s box because I
think they’re one of the best varieties for this soup!
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| Roasted Beet & Avocado Salad, photo from Food & Wine |
This week we are fortunate to have avocados in the fruit
share. Avocados and beets pair together
very nicely in dishes such as this Roasted Beet & Avocado Salad. Don’t throw away the green tops! Wilt them with in olive oil and use them as
the base for serving this salad.
I have been craving roasted red peppers and this is the week
to make this recipe for Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo with Linguine. While the recipe calls for roasted peppers
from a jar, please do yourself a favor and roast your orange Italian frying
peppers and/or red bell peppers for this recipe! This recipe also includes onions as the base
and this week’s sweet yellow onions will really enhance this dish.
I shared some edamame with a friend last week who had never
had them before. As I was telling her
how to cook them I mentioned how when you roast them you can add different
seasonings. In my early days at the
farm, I created this recipe for Wasabi-Roasted Edamame to honor Richard’s love of wasabi. This
makes a nice little snack in the afternoon.
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| Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich Photo from Land of Noms |
It’s supposed to be a cool week, so this is the week to make
Cream of Tomato Soup with fresh tomatoes! Serve a bowl of
this tasty soup along with a Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich and you’re set for a light lunch or dinner.
Hopefully you still have a little fresh basil remaining in
your herb garden. If so, pick a little
and use it to make this recipe for Pesto Stir-Fried Carrots, Cauliflower & Cherry (Grape) Tomatoes. This dish makes use of some of your carrots
as well as cauliflower (or substitute broccoli Romanesco) and the grape
tomatoes in this week’s box. Serve this dish as a vegetable side to go along
with grilled chicken or fish.
I hope you enjoy this week’s cooking adventures. Lets cross our fingers that we’ll be able to
harvest peppers and tomatoes for a few more weeks, but it’s also time to start
preparing your plans for some of our favorite fall vegetables! Spaghetti squash, sweet potatoes, Kabocha
squash, celeriac and more still coming your way!—Chef Andrea
Exploring a new ingredient, HVF Korean Peppers
By Chef Andrea
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| Dang Jo Cheong Yang pepper photo from the Osborne Seed catalog. |
This week your CSA boxes include a
beautiful bright red Korean Pepper called Dang
Jo Cheong Yang. Every year we look
for some new, interesting vegetables to grow.
Last winter, as we were pouring over seed catalogs, this pepper caught my
eye. The picture in the Osborne Seed catalog
showed a long, dark purple pepper that looked to be pretty prolific. They described it as “a unique Asian pepper that is similar in pungency and
appearance to a serrano. The fruit are purple in color and ripen to a deep dark
red color. They are easy to harvest and uniform. Outstanding yield and good
ripening ability in the Pacific Northwest make this a nice addition to a hot
pepper program.” We thought it would be
fun to try something new and we don’t have any purple peppers so why not give
it a try! We have found that the plants
are very prolific producers and just as the picture shows, they set on quite a
lot of dark purple peppers. Our next
mission was to decide when to harvest them.
Since we’ve never experienced this pepper before we are basically doing
our best to assess the qualities of the pepper at different stages and make our
best judgements as to when it’s at its peak of ripeness. I started trialing this pepper when it was
just purple and found that it really didn’t have much flavor. It tasted like a very green hot pepper. Nothing really remarkable about it. So we decided to let it ripen more and see
what happened. Now that they are fully
red, the flavor has really changed and it not only has heat, but a much more
complex flavor than when it was green.
As with every new vegetable we
grow, we not only have to figure out how to grow it and when to harvest it, but
we also have to figure out how to best put it to use in the kitchen. Before we go any further, I should offer the
disclaimer that I am very much a novice when it comes to the cuisine of most countries
in Asia. Yes, I had “Cuisines of Asia”
in culinary school and I have a handful of Japanese, Thai and Chinese
cookbooks, but I have to admit that I’m not very familiar with many of the
cooking techniques and ingredients that are used in these cultures. I’m also not familiar with the languages of
this part of the world, so I just assumed this was probably some sort of a
pepper from China. I started researching
more about this pepper, starting with the seed company. Unfortunately they didn’t have much to offer
beyond the description in their catalog.
When I looked up the name of the pepper, it actually pointed me in the
direction of Korean cuisine. So, based
on my research I have concluded that this is likely a pepper variety coming to
us from Korea. Aside from knowing a few
people from Korea and eating kim chi, I am not very familiar with the cuisine
of Korea. Thus began another culinary
food adventure! So for those of you who
are in the same boat as I am and don’t know much about Korean cooking and
ingredients, I’m going to do my best to share some of the information I learned
from my research. If you have more
experience with Korean food and have additional information to share with me,
I’d welcome your input, recipes and culinary expertise.
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| Gouchujang I brought home from Minneapolis last winter. |
One basic thing I learned about
Korean cuisine is that it includes quite a lot of fermented foods as well as
spicy hot foods. Korean cuisine and its
influence on food and cooking in the United States has been growing over the
past few years as we see Korean influences crossing over into dishes from other
origins, such as Korean tacos and pizza.
I suspect Chef Roy Choi holds some responsibility for this influence
based on the success of his food truck business in Los Angeles, California that
started with a Korean short rib taco and has now grown to include multiple food
trucks as well as a catering business, restaurant and many features in cooking
magazines and other media outlets. Chefs
and home cooks are taking some basic Korean ingredients and cooking techniques
and applying them to other preparations.
One of these ingredients is called gochujang. Gochujang is a savory, sweet, spicy
condiment used in Korean cuisine. It is
considered a backbone ingredient to Korean cooking and one source I read likened
it to sriracha mixed with miso, but with a more complex flavor. Traditional gochujang takes quite a while to
make because the complexity of its flavor comes from a fermenting process. It’s made with glutinous rice, fermented
soybeans, salt and the traditional dried Korean peppers. If you’re interested in learning more about
how this is made, you can find more description and pictures on this blog written by a Korean woman who is a simple home cook sharing the cuisine of her country. Gochujang is used as a condiment in sauces,
soups, dipping sauces, marinades and with roasted meats. I am seeing this ingredient more in some of my
cooking magazines, although I have limited experience using it and have not
seen it in any of our local stores. Last
winter when I was in Minneapolis for sales meetings I found a jar of gochujang
at one of the food co-ops. It wasn’t
organic, but it was made with non-GMO soybeans so I picked up a jar so I could
see what it was like. I have only used
it once, but am glad I have a jar of it now that I’m learning more about what
it actually is!
So back to the little bag of
peppers in your box this week. First of
all, I want to make sure everyone understands that this is a hot pepper, with
the heat level similar to a serrano pepper.
You can use this pepper anywhere you might need a fresh hot chile and I
have been using it in recipes that call for jalapenos as well as fresh Thai
chiles. They have added a nice
background heat to fresh salsas, scrambled eggs, Thai curry dishes and fried
rice. If you prefer less heat, just use
a portion of the pepper or remove the seeds and white pith. As with all hot chile peppers, handle them
carefully and don’t rub your eyes with your hands for awhile after handling
them!
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| Chile Ristra, photo from heb.com |
In Korea, this pepper is often
used as a dried chile. This makes sense
because it has a thinner wall which means it dries very easily. I’ve actually dried some that have just been
hanging out on my countertop, but you could also intentionally dry them in a
dehydrator or low heat oven. You could
also use them to make a beautiful dried chile ristra. Checkout this website for a step-by step guide for how to make a chile ristra. You can string up the fresh chiles and hang
them in your kitchen to dry naturally.
Once they are dried you can use them as a dried chile pepper including
grinding them with a spice grinder to make hot chile flakes. If you aren’t into hot peppers, you could
also enjoy your dried chile ristra just as a decoration in your kitchen or use
it as a Christmas gift for someone who does like a spicy culinary adventure!
This week we’re featuring two
different recipes that use these Korean peppers in their fresh form. The first recipe is for Salt-Cured
Chiles. I’ve made these before using a
fresh Thai chile that is actually very similar to these Korean chiles. This is a quick, easy way to preserve your
chiles and I like it for several reasons.
First, all you need are the chiles and salt. Second, if you use a food processor this
recipe will take you maybe 10 minutes to make, including clean up. Third, these chiles will keep in your
refrigerator for months and retain that fresh chile flavor. You don’t need much to add heat to dishes, so
a little jar can last quite a long time.
You can use them to add heat to stir-fries, marinades, sauces or use
them to make your own homemade hot sauce.
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| Korean Tacos photo from KIMCHIMARI |
The second recipe is for a preparation I’m calling HVF
Fresh Korean Chili-Garlic Sauce. It’s
based off of a recipe that is a quick version of gochujang that anyone can
make at home. This is another quick and
easy recipe to make. I think it only
took me about 10-15 minutes to make it and clean up. This sauce will keep for a couple weeks in
the refrigerator or you can portion it into smaller containers and freeze
it. Traditional gochujang is a thick
paste, but this sauce made with fresh chiles is more of a sauce and less of a
paste. The flavor of traditionally
fermented gochujang is more complex, so I don’t want to misrepresent this
recipe as the way to make traditional gochujang. I do think this is a really tasty chili-garlic
sauce and it can be used in any recipe that calls for gochujang. It is pretty spicy, so when you use it in
recipes, adjust the quantity to the amount that fits your tastes. If you’re interested in learning more about
how this condiment can be used, I’d encourage you to check out the blog I
mentioned earlier that includes recipes such as Korean Tacos. There is also
a nice article entitled “10 Fresh Ways to Use Korean Gochujang.”
I had a lot of fun learning more
about this pepper and a little more about Korean cooking. I hope you have fun experimenting with this
pepper in your own kitchens. I invite
you to share your experiences in our Facebook group so we can all learn a
little more about this pepper as well as experiment with different recipes and
ways to use our own homemade Salt-Cured Chiles and HVF Fresh Korean
Chili-Garlic Sauce! Have fun and thanks
for trying something new!
Salt-Cured Chiles
Yield: ½ cup
4 oz fresh Korean peppers
1 Tbsp kosher salt
- Thinly slice peppers with a knife or roughly chop them and then use a food processor to chop the peppers into smaller pieces. If you use a food processor, process just enough to coarsely chop the peppers. You do not want to make pepper paste or puree.
- Put the peppers in a small bowl and add the salt. Mix very well with a spoon. Cover the bowl with a plate or a clean kitchen towel and leave out at room temperature for 24 hours.
- After 24 hours, move the bowl to the refrigerator and mix the peppers once a day for 5 days, or until the salt has dissolved and the now softened chiles are completely covered in liquid.
- Transfer to a glass jar with a lid, tamping the chiles down so that they remain well below the level of the liquid. These will keep for several months in the refrigerator.
This recipe was adapted from Andrea Reusing’s book, Cooking
in the Moment, although she credit’s Fuchsia Dunlop (author of Land
of Plenty) with this simple method for preserving chiles for use long
into the winter months. Reusing suggests
pureeing some of the salted chiles along with cider vinegar, garlic, and a
little sugar to make your own hot sauce.
Of course you can use these chiles anywhere you need a little heat. Add
them to soups, stews, marinades, stir-fry, dipping sauces, vinaigrettes, etc.
HVF Fresh Korean Chili-Garlic Sauce
Yield: 1 cup
4 oz fresh Korean peppers
4 cloves garlic
⅓ cup miso
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup tamari or soy sauce
- Remove the stem and roughly chop Korean peppers into one inch pieces. Put the peppers in a food processor or blender along with the garlic cloves and roughly chop them until they are a fine, yet chunky paste.
- Add the miso, maple syrup, and tamari. Blend together until smooth.
- Taste and adjust the flavor as needed to your liking. Add tamari for more depth of flavor, maple syrup for more sweetness, garlic to get more “zing” or salt if it just needs a little enhancement to wake up all the other flavors.
- Put the sauce in a glass jar and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Alternatively, you can freeze it in smaller portions as a means of preserving it for later use.
Note: You may use
this in place of the Korean fermented chili paste called gochujang. It’s pretty hot, so a little bit will go a
long way!
Recipe adapted from minimalistbaker.com
Chile & Leek Stir-Fry with Ginger
Yield: 4 servings
8 oz firm tofu (drained)*
3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp sherry or dry vermouth
2 tsp honey
⅔ cup vegetable stock
2 tsp cornstarch
3 Tbsp sunflower oil
3-4 leeks, thinly sliced
1 red Korean pepper, sliced thinly
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and shredded
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Cut tofu into cubes. Combine the soy sauce and sherry or vermouth in a medium bowl. Add the tofu and stir to make sure the tofu is well coated. Leave to marinate for about 30 minutes.
- Strain the tofu from the marinade and reserve the marinade and juices in a measuring cup. Mix the marinade with the honey, stock, and cornstarch to make a paste.
- Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan and when hot, stir-fry the tofu until crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Reheat the oil and add the chili, ginger and leeks. Stir-fry over high heat for about 2 minutes, moving the vegetables frequently to keep them from burning. Stir-fry just until the leeks have softened.
- Return the tofu to the pan together with the marinade and stir well. Continue to simmer the mixture, while stirring frequently, until the liquid is thick and glossy. Serve hot over rice or egg noodles.
*Note: You may
also substitute chicken breast meat for tofu.
This recipe was adapted from Christine Ingram’s book, Vegetarian
and Vegetable Cooking: The definitive
encyclopedia of healthy vegetarian food.
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