It’s springtime in Seattle and the land is engorged with possibility.  You don’t need to go farther than your own neighborhood to make a meal fit for royalty, let me show you.  I cook by feel rather than by rote more often than not, and it’s a good habit to be in if you want to focus on seasonality. Rather than go to the store armed with a nitpicking recipe and a fastidious commitment to detail, loosen up. Go with the flow.  Take a walk. That’s what I did, and two blocks from my house I ran across a patch of stinging nettle ripe for the taking.  There may have been a touch more planning involved as I was armed with gloves, shears and a bag for my bounty- all necessary for harvesting stinging nettle lest you desire prickly pain all day.  In fact if you’re not sure it’s stinging nettle there is one surefire way to check, though I don’t recommend it :)

I brought my nettle home and lightly steamed it to render it harmless, then plucked the leaves from the tougher stems.  Harvest younger, shorter nettle for best flavor and tenderness.  Once I had my nettles ready to go the rest of the meal fell into place readily.  I had a fresh fat duck sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be fabricated (broken down) and cooked sous vide, so I thought I’d make a pasta with the nettles and some kind of saucy meaty accompaniment with the duck. 

I fabricated the duck into four parts and seasoned each quarter with homemade salt, thyme, smoked garlic powder, bay leaves, and oregano.  I packed each quarter into food-safe bags and sous vided the legs and thighs for 15 hours at 180° and the breasts at the same temperature for five hours. Normally you can get by with cooking duck breast at 140°, but since I kept the bone-in I maintained a higher cooking temperature as I was looking for more of a fall-off-the-bone tenderness rather than a firm breast.  Funny, kind of the opposite as you’d want in a human, no? 

Initially I thought of making gnocchi with the nettles, but settled on its ricotta-based cousin called gnudi (which means nude in Italian and is short for gnocchi gnudi- aka gnocchi nude of the pasta itself).  Some folks refer to gnudi as malfatti, which means badly made, but I like gnudi better, plus I take time in forming each gnudo, so they’re not really as roughly made as some malfatti can be.  As I see it, a main difference between malfatti and gnudi (though this varies regionally and is hotly debated) is that malfatti can be made by simply dropping dollops of dough into boiling water (you can even plop them out using a pastry bag) whereas gnudi tends to be formed using spoons or hands.  I thought gnudi rather than gnocchi would bring out the flavor of the nettle as it wouldn’t be competing with potato. I thought correctly- who woulda known? 

Making gnudi is fun. That sentence wasn’t meant to sound sexual, I promise.  First you press out all the liquid from one tub of ricotta and the nettles, then whir them in a food processor with either two duck egg yolks or three chicken yolks.  Plop the goo into a mixing bowl and add salt, smoked garlic powder if you wish, and flour as needed to form a light dough.  A cup and a half of flour should more or less suffice.  (tip- the amount of flour needed in most recipes will vary with your humidity and altitude. Learn to adjust by feel rather than rely on a specific number). 

To form the gnudi roll a teaspoon of dough between your palms into a little oval. Place on a parchment-lined sheetpan and repeat with remaining dough. Cover while waiting for the water to boil and finishing the duck and sauce.  Cook gnudi as you would gnocchi- by dropping into salted boiling water and removing with a slotted spoon once they float to the top.  Keep in warming oven while boiling the remainder. 

Rhubarb became the base for the duck sauce because it is seasonal and growing like mad all around Seattle.  I chopped it into small pieces and reduced it in moscato wine, chicken stock and the juice of one orange. After ten minutes I strained it, tossing the rhubarb chunks.  I poured some duck fat and jus from one of the duck pouches into the saucepan and lightly sautéed a spring onion in it. Then I added the rhubarb sauce and reduced a bit further, adjusting seasoning as needed.  To finish the dish, I crisped up the skin on the duck by deep-frying them for two minutes. Then I plated the gnocchi, a quarter of duck, and drizzled rhubarb reduction over both. 

This dining experience is an example of how relatively simple it is to incorporate local, seasonal elements into cuisine.  Rhubarb and nettles were foraged and duck eggs come from a local farm as does the duck itself.  Herbs all came from my garden, salt I made from Washington waters, garlic powder was made and smoked at home.  While I buy my ricotta from DeLaurenti in Pike Place Market and they make it themselves, I easily could have made it too. It’s one of the quickest cheeses to make; in fact it’s a byproduct of many other cheeses.   I hope this post inspires you to take a walk and cook off the beaten path.  Your diners will thank you for it.

 

                                                                                -TS Eliot

I don’t know what it is about the last stanza of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock that has always made me think of beets.  I mean sure, the word red is in there, and red is eponymous with beets, but I don’t think that’s it.  I think it’s because I get some vision of waiflike sirens with rosy cheeks and garnet lips billowing on fragile seashells on the crest of a wave.  Red lips and cheeks always bring beets to my imagination because I love to paint the faces of everyone in the kitchen with halved beets whenever I’m working with them.  If no one is game, I step it up another notch and take out my 12” chef’s knife, drizzle beet juice all over it and my finger, and commence to bloodcurdlingly scream. That get’s them every time, of course then they really won’t let me paint their faces since they’re so mad at me. 

I was in a TS Eliot kind of mood at the market last week so when I saw how bursting and succulent the beets looked, I had to gather them up.  I got a bunch of red beets and another bunch of Chioggia for color contrast and taste subtleties.  I wore out my texting finger sending out missives to put together a rosy bunch for the party (yes, pun intended) and got down to the business of menu planning while my beets merrily roasted away.  I knew I wanted to carry the beets from beginning to end of the meal but I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t beat people over the head by its obviousness.  Straight away I tackled dessert since that was going to be the hardest part.  I’m a fool for gelato and recently had success with the crazy flavor combination of garlic chocolate, so why not beet gelato?  Genius Jonas had the clever idea to top it with balsamic- fabu! Looks just like strawberry ice cream with chocolate syrup- not obvious at all. 

The main course and salad fell into place easily since I have two old standby recipes I’m always eager to serve involving beets.  The salad starts with a bed of greens- I usually use mache but couldn’t find them this time and butter lettuce is very much in season so that’s what I used.  I fry up rounds of chevre breaded in panko and intermix them with cubed beets and pistachios- it’s pretty dreamy.  This time I served it with some honey balsamic I put together, mainly to tie in the upcoming dessert. 

Probably my favorite beet dish in the universe is beet gnocchi.  Technically since you use beets and ricotta instead of potatoes, it’s actually more of a gnudi than a gnocchi (or ricotta gnocchi as some people call it).  For this one you must plan ahead as the ricotta needs to drain overnight to achieve the correct texture. 

That works just fine if you’re making gelato, though, as it’s ideal to make your custard the night before and let it completely chill in the refrigerator before you freeze it into proper gelato. 

 I serve it with a roasted red pepper red sauce because the contrast of the orange sauce and the pink gnocchi is to die for. 

Beet Gnocchi

• 2 small red beets roasted and grated
• 15 oz whole milk ricotta drained in cheesecloth over a bowl overnight
• 1 duck egg
• 3 oz parmigiano reggiano grated (more for serving)
• Fleur de sel and black pepper
• 1 c all-purpose flour plus more for work surface
• 4-5 tbsp butter

1.  Combine beets, ricotta, egg, cheese, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.  Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.  Add flour and stir into a soft dough.  Cover and let rest in refrigerator for 1-3 hours. 
2. Pull the dough from the refrigerator and break off cup-sized chunks.  Roll in flour into 1” thick tubes.  Cut tubes every inch to form the gnocchi.  You can make a pattern on the top of them using the back of a fork if you choose.  Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover, and let sit a minimum of a half hour and up to three hours.
3. Boil gnocchi a few at a time in salted and oiled water for about one minute.  Transfer to a pan large enough to contain them all and dollop with butter to keep moist.  Keep them warm in a 200° oven until you have cooked all gnocchi and are ready to serve. 
4. Serve in your favorite sauce, I do a roasted red pepper tomato sauce but I wing it every time in terms of ingredients I have on hand, so be creative.  They have so much flavor you could get by with a browned butter sauce, but whatever you choose, pass plenty of parmigiano at the table. 

Beet Gelato

• 2 small red beets roasted and grated using large holes of a box grater
• 1 c raw milk
• 1 c heavy cream
• 2 egg yolks (I prefer duck eggs)
• 1 whole egg
• ½ c sugar

1.  Put the milk, cream and grated beets into a medium saucepan and bring to low boil over medium heat.  Meanwhile, whisk the sugar with the egg and yolks until well blended.  Once a low boil has been reached, temper the eggs by spooning a small amount of cream mixture into eggs and whisking vigorously so they don’t curdle. 
2. Add the tempered eggs to the saucepan, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.  Continue to boil until custard coats the back of the spoon, stirring constantly all the while.  This could take 2-4 minutes, but be attentive, you don’t want your custard to curdle.  Remove from heat and pour through a medium mesh strainer into a bowl.  Allow custard to cool completely (preferably covered in refrigerator overnight) before freezing according to the manufacturer’s instructions on your ice cream maker.  If you do not have an ice cream maker, freeze custard for one hour then remove from freezer and mix with an immersion blender until completely agitated.  Do this three times before a final freeze and you’ll have amazing hand-churned gelato. 

Sweet Balsamic Vinegar Syrup

• ¼ c sugar
• ¼ c water
• ¼ c balsamic vinegar

1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and reduce over medium low heat stirring occasionally until the consistency of honey has been reached.   Cool and spoon over scoops of beet gelato.