Curried Peas and Potatoes with Mint Raita

This week's recipe is a version of a classic Indian recipe called Aloo Mutter, or curried peas and potatoes. It uses several of the wonderful vegetables in today's CSA box - potatoes, peas, and the beautiful fresh mint from Silver Lake Farms for the raita, or yogurt sauce.

There are many ways to make curry. I enjoy mixing and toasting whole spices to make my own aromatic curry powder. Then I grind them with a mortar and pestle. However, for today's recipe, I'm using a fabulous curry blend made at the Spice Station called Vadouvan.

If you haven't been to the Spice Station yet, this recipe is a great reason to check it out. They have an amazing array of spices from all over the world as well as their own wonderful spice blends made on the premises. And if you'd prefer to mix up your own curry powder, you can get everything you need at the Spice Station.

Spice Station owner and CSA shareholder, Brownwen, says their Vadouvan contains domestically-grown curry leaves. She gets them from a grower at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. Imported curry leaves are currently banned by the FDA in an attempt to stop the spread of the Asian Citrus Psyllid, so they're apparently quite hard to come by.

I like to use ghee, which is clarified butter, in this curry. Making clarified butter is easy. Slowly melt a stick of butter and remove all of the milk solids that rise to the top. Clarified butter has a higher burning point. It also keeps for quite a while in the fridge. Just pour it into a covered jar or crock. If you don't want to make clarified butter, you can buy it at most Indian markets and some full-service grocery stores. If you prefer, you can substitute olive oil for the ghee.

Curried Peas and Potatoes

4 T ghee
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
2-3 T Vadouvan
2 T tomato paste
2 # potatoes, cubed, with or without peels
1 # sugar snap peas, shell the peas and compost the pods
2 C vegetable stock or water
1 t sugar (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large skillet with a cover, heat the ghee over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the garlic and saute until the garlic is slightly golden.

2. Stir in the Vadouvan and the tomato paste. Add the cubed potatoes and the shelled peas. Stir to coat with the spices.

3. Stir in the stock or water. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat. Cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes. Check once or twice while simmering. and add a little more liquid, if necessary.

4. When potatoes are tender, check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. You can also adjust the seasoning by adding 1 t sugar. If you'd prefer a thicker sauce, you can add 1-2 T cream or you can take 1 t corn starch or arrowroot powder in a small cup and stir in 2-3 T of the sauce until smooth, then add this mixture to the curry and re-heat, stirring, until the sauce thickens.

5. Serve the curry over basmati rice with raita (recipe below) on the side.

By the way, it's best not to use the Texas Sweet Onions in this dish. Sweet onions in general are best eaten raw. They tend to get mushy when cooked and the qualities that make them sweet and delicious raw work against them when exposed to heat.

Mint Raita

2 C thick yogurt
1 T toasted cumin seed
1 bunch fresh mint, finely chopped
1-2 t fresh lime juice
1-2 green onions, finely chopped (optional)

Stir all the ingredients together in a medium bowl and chill until ready to serve. It's nice to make the raita ahead of time to allow the flavors to blend.

Today's bounty included:

From Underwood Family Farms: rainbow chard, fennel, sugar snap peas, mizuna, yellow carrots, Texas sweet onions, red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, asparagus, spinach, and Navel oranges.

From Rancho Santa Cecilia: pumello, Golden Nugget tangerines, and avocados.

From Weiser Family Farms: Russian Banana and French Baker potatoes.

And from Silver Lake Farms: mint and mustard and radish microgreens.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Green Chile Pork Stew

I picked up my CSA box yesterday along with my pork package from Silver Lake Farms' pig share program. This week's box had just about everything I needed to make a fabulous green chile pork stew!

I cut my stewing pork (about 3 lbs) into about 1-inch chunks and browned them in a little olive oil. While they were browning, I chopped some onion, carrots, parsnips, celery, and 1 clove of garlic. I sauteed the veggies and garlic in a big stew pot, using a little more oil. Then I added the browned pork, a large can of green chile sauce, a can of water, a bay leaf, a little salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. I simmered this stew on very low heat, covered for the first hour and partially covered for the second hour.

When the meat was barely tender, I added big chunks of potatoes and finished cooking until the meat was completely tender (another 30-45 minutes). I'm taking this stew to a holiday pot-luck this evening.

I like to make my own green chile sauce from scratch, fire-roasting green anaheim chiles (plus 1-2 serranos for heat), then peeling, pureeing, and cooking the anaheims with the serranos, garlic, cumin, bay leaf, oregano, salt and pepper. Sometimes I add a little epazote, too. This sauce freezes well. But I didn't have any home-made sauce, so I used a can. Either way, it's a hearty and delicious meal.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Salade Nicoise

What a bountiful week!

Here's what Farmer John had for us in Silver Lake this week:

Navel oranges
Avocados
Daikon radish
Red radishes
Red & golden beets
Curly green kale (pictured below)
Green chard
Tat soi
Arugula
Romaine lettuce
Dandelion greens
Tomatoes
Squash blossoms
Mixed herbs

And here's what Tara and Danielle brought down from McGrath Family Farm, certified organic growers in Camarillo:

Carrots
Forono beets
Black kale
Red chard
Spring onions (that's what Danielle is holding below)
Sweet corn
Baby arugula
Mixed greens
Green string beans
Strawberries

When I saw the beautiful strings beans at the CSA pick-up this week, I thought Salade Nicoise. I learned to make Salade Nicoise in 1977 in a class on the regional foods and wines of France. In that class, our Salade Nicoise was built on a base of blanched string beans, boiled potatoes, and butter lettuce. It also had oil-packed, canned tuna, anchovies, olives, red onion, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and fresh parsley all in a Dijon mustard vinaigrette.

Since then, I've enhanced my recipe with the addition of capers, fresh basil, and lemon juice; and I've embraced the California version using fresh, seared Ahi tuna, at least some of the time.

Over the years, I've eaten many Nicoise salads and I've seen other ingredients included such as fresh or roasted red peppers; mixed greens, especially arugula, instead of or in addition to butter lettuce; and balsamic vinegar dressings.

Here's a nice blueprint for this lovely composed salad. Don't sweat it if you don't have (or don't like) all the ingredients, it's a wonderful full-meal salad however you make it.

Salade Nicoise

Serves 2

2 C loosely packed butter lettuce or mixed greens
1/4 lb small or thin string beans, blanched and cooled
4 smallish new potatoes, boiled until just tender and cooled
1 can oil-packed tuna
1 medium tomato,sliced lengthwise into 6-8 sections
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
1-2 T thinly sliced red onion
8-10 black Nicoise olives, or more to taste
4 canned anchovy fillets, or more to taste
1 T capers, or more to taste
1 T chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 T chopped fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

For the Dressing:
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T wine or cider vinegar
1 T fresh-squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste
1-2 t prepared Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

1. Briskly mix together all the ingredients for the dressing until emulsified. Set aside.

2. Wash and dry the lettuces and/or greens. Break into bite-sized pieces. Toss with 1-2 T of the dressing. Arrange dressed greens on 2 plates.

3. Toss the blanched string beans with 1 t of the dressing and arrange half the beans in a small stack on each plate.

4. Slice the potatoes and fan out half the slices on each plate. Drizzle with a few drops of dressing.

5. Drain and flake the tuna. Divide among the 2 plates.

6. Arrange half the tomato sections and one quartered hard-boiled egg on each of the 2 plates.

7. Scatter the finely sliced onion, olives, and capers among the 2 plates. Drape 2 anchovy fillets on each plate. Sprinkle with the chopped herbs, salt and pepper to taste, and drizzle with the remaining dressing.

If you don't have Nicoise olives, you can substitute Kalamata olives or dried black olives. If you like your salads more heavily dressed, double the dressing recipe.

Enjoy!

Shelley