Cooking With This Week's Box
Korean Chili Peppers:
HVF Korean Chili Garlic Sauce (See Below)
15-Minute Hot Sauce (See Below)
Baby Arugula:
Italian Garlic:
Leeks:
Edamame:
Sweet Peppers:
Variety of
Tomatoes:
Broccoli
Romanesco, Cauliflower, and/ OR Broccoli:
Peter Wilcox
Potatoes:
Orange Carrots:
Green Top
Celeriac:
Green Savoy
Cabbage OR Red Cabbage:
Red or Golden Grape
Tomatoes:
Rainbow Chard:
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| Spicy-Korean Style Gochujang Meatballs |
Summer and Fall
have officially collided! This past week
we started harvesting burdock root, sunchokes, parsnips and even included
celeriac in your box this week! We also
started winter squash harvest and the greenhouse is nearly full with bins and
bins of squash! Many of you are anxious
to get these in your box……hold tight, we’ll start sending them your way in the
next week or two. While we still have
some warm days ahead of us, it’s been nice to have a little chill wash over in
the evening. It prepares me for the
transition into fall/winter cooking complete with pots of soup, braised meat,
etc.
This week we’re
heating things up a bit with our featured vegetable of Korean and Guajillo
Peppers! Our featured recipes this week
are simple, 15 Minute Hot Sauce (See Below) and HVF Korean Chili
Garlic Sauce (See Below). These are
basic recipes that you can use to make a whole host of recipes such as Spicy-Korean Style Gochujang Meatballs or Sweet and Spicy Gochujang Butter Popcorn. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage
you to take a moment to read this week’s Vegetable Feature article to learn a
little more about both of these varieties.
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| Pear and Leek Galette with Goat cheese and Walnuts (photo from coleycooks.com) |
There is a wide
variety of recipes in this week’s list of suggestions, ranging from soup to
stir-fry, salads, tacos and more! If you
have been following along in our Facebook group, you’ll know that galettes have
been a favorite item in many kitchens over the past week! If you haven’t tried the Pear and Leek Galette with Goat Cheese and Walnuts recipe yet, I encourage you to do so this week.
This will be our final week of leeks.
I hope everyone has a great week and I encourage you to post the recipes you’re making in the Facebook Group! It’s really fun to see what everyone’s doing with their vegetables and who knows, your creativity may be sparked as well!
Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Korean & Guajillo Chili Peppers
By: Chef Andrea Yoder
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| Dried Guajillo Chili Peppers |
While the majority of the peppers we grow are sweet ones, we do reserve a little space in our growing plan for some hot varieties too. We understand some of you are more into hot peppers than others, but we’re hoping the selections we include in your boxes are ones everyone can enjoy. If you are not a fan of spicy food and hot peppers, I encourage you to read on and learn more about our Korean and Guajillo Chili peppers as these are two selections you can learn to use in small quantities to enhance the flavor of your food without burning your mouth!
This week we’re featuring both Korean and Guajillo peppers. You will receive one of these selections in your box this week. They are just starting to ripen and the supply of each is a bit more limited, but we will be sending them again within the next few weeks so you’ll have an opportunity to try both. While most of the information I’m going to share with you is relevant to both peppers, there are a few distinct differences so we’ll start with a little description about each.
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| Fresh Korean Chili Peppers |
Korean chili peppers are a smaller, skinny, long red pepper often described as having a medium level of heat. Personally, I think this is a pretty hot pepper that is at least equal to if not hotter than a jalapeño. We’ve only been growing this pepper for several years and have come to appreciate it for its complexity which goes beyond being just hot, but also is flavorful with some sweetness when you let them ripen to fully red. The “real” name for this pepper is Dang Jo Cheong Yang and it is one of the most consumed vegetables in Korea! Guajillo chili peppers are a little larger in size both in length as well as width. They are more mild than Korean and jalapeño peppers, but slightly hotter than poblano peppers. They are ripe when they turn fully red. We save seed for both of these pepper varieties and continue to refine the seed from year to year as we select peppers with the most desirable characteristics as the ones we save seeds from. We still have some work to do on uniformity, so you may see some variability in the size and shape of the peppers you receive.
Both Korean and guajillo peppers are typically used in their dried form. Dried Korean peppers are used extensively in Korean food (eg kim chi, barbecue, gochujang sauce, etc.) and often in the form of a dry powder or dried flakes. Guajillo peppers are used extensively in Mexican mole and sauces where the dried peppers are usually toasted in a hot cast iron skillet or on a griddle before they are rehydrated. This helps to intensify the depth of flavor.
Now that we’ve laid out some of the basics, it’s time to figure out what to do with these beauties! While both peppers are most often used in the dried form, you can also eat them fresh. In their fresh form you can use them in any recipe where you need/want the fresh chili flavor and heat. Add them to salsas, sauces, soups, stir-fry, etc. If you prefer to stick to tradition and/or you want to preserve them for use later, you can also dry them. This can be accomplished using a low heat oven, dehydrator or just by air drying (see links below for more information).
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| Fizzeology's Fermented Chili Sauce |
I would also like to recommend three other recipe ideas for things you can make with the fresh peppers. You can use either guajillo or Korean peppers to make any of these recipes. If you use guajillos the preparation will be more mild than if you use the Korean peppers. The three preparations include HVF Fresh Korean Chili Garlic Sauce (See Below), Salt-Cured Chilies and 15 Minute Hot Sauce (See Below). We have featured the first two recipes in previous years (recipes available on our website & blog), but they are the recipes I keep coming back to year after year. For your convenience, we've included the recipe for the Chili Garlic Sauce in this post. Fresh Korean Chili Garlic Sauce can be used in any recipe that calls for gochujang. Gochujang is a traditional fermented chili paste that takes months to prepare properly and is typically made with dried peppers. While this recipe does not fully match the traditional fermented chili paste, it is still very flavorful, can be kept in the refrigerator for several months, and once it’s made you can use it in any number of recipes. The second preparation is for Salt-Cured Chiles. This is super easy to make and I keep a jar of these in my refrigerator all year long. It’s a great way to preserve the fresh chili flavor and you can use a little whenever you need to add a little heat to a recipe. The third suggestion is to make your own hot sauce! I’ve included one recipe in the newsletter this week, with some references below for where you can find more information about making hot sauce, including fermented hot sauce. For the past few years we’ve worked with Fizzeology in Viroqua to turn our Korean chili peppers into a tasty fermented hot sauce. The fermenting process enhances the flavor of the peppers, lasts a long time, and tastes great! We are planning to make another batch this year and will offer it for purchase likely in December.
I hope you enjoy experimenting with these peppers and find uses for them this week as well as in the future if you preserve them!
- 2020 Korean Chili Vegetable Feature Including Links to Eight Recipes Using Gochujang
- 3 Ways to Dry Peppers for Food Storage
- How To String Peppers For Drying
- How To Dehydrate Chile Peppers and Make Chili Powder
- Easy Homemade Hot Sauce (Fermented)
- Chili Pepper Madness—A Website That Covers Nearly Every Topic Related to Hot Peppers!
15 Minute Hot Sauce
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| photo from dontwastethecrumbs.com |
Yield: 1 cup
5 oz hot peppers (Korean, guajillo or jalapeño)
¾ cup white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
¼ tsp salt, plus more to taste
2 tsp minced fresh garlic
5 oz hot peppers (Korean, guajillo or jalapeño)
¾ cup white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
¼ tsp salt, plus more to taste
2 tsp minced fresh garlic
- Put on gloves and wash the peppers.
- Cut the tops off of your peppers and slice in half lengthwise.
- Pour the vinegar into a saucepan/pot, add peppers, salt, and garlic. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a low boil until peppers are soft (about 10 minutes).
- Remove from heat and cool slightly. Pour everything into a blender and blend until liquefied (seeds and all!).
- Taste the sauce. If it is not hot enough, blend in additional fresh hot peppers.
- Store in the refrigerator for about one week, or freeze it for later use.
Recipe adapted from dontwastethecrumbs.com.
HVF Fresh Korean Chili-Garlic Sauce--Updated
Yield: 1 cup
4 oz fresh Korean chili peppers
4 cloves garlic
⅓ cup miso
2 Tbsp honey
3 Tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
- Remove the stem and roughly chop Korean chili peppers (seeds included) 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, honey, tamari and rice vinegar. Blend together until smooth.
- Taste and adjust the flavor as needed to your liking. Add tamari for more depth of flavor, honey 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 2-4 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 originally adapted from minimalistbaker.com.
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