Edible Portland Blog

WINTER WHITE SALAD OF SHAVED FENNEL, FRISEE & MOZZARELLA
From Lydia Bugatti, Chef, Bugatti's Ristorante

Serves 4

1/2 of a fresh fennel bulb, thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced on diagonal
1 head frisee or 3 cups mesclun mix (young, mixed greens), cleaned and bite size
2 balls fresh mozzarella (8 oz), sliced into thin matchstick-size slivers
3 Tbsp Agrumoto lemon oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon zest or lemon with micro planer

Toss fennel, celery, frisee, and mozzarella in salad bowl. Drizzle lemon oil over salad, add salt and pepper to taste. Toss gently.

Plate with greens on bottom, fennel and fresh mozzarella on top. Micro plane lemon zest over top.

Written by Anthony and Carol Boutard
Photo by Anthony Boutard
For Winter 2007

WHEN OUR FAMILY LIVED IN PORTLAND, we enjoyed freshly harvested greens most days of the week, even through the winter. We maintained a 10x40 foot plot at Fulton Community Garden all year and foraged for wild greens in the corners of the community gardens and soccer fields.

We had our favorite nettle patches in the Marquam Canyon, pulled blanched dandelions from the rough grass at the fringes of playing fields, and collected chickweed and miner’s lettuce from abandoned garden plots. For some reason, adults roaming around with rusty boning knives and buckets never raised an eyebrow.

When we established Ayers Creek Farm, we continued our foraging habits in our berry fields and orchards and maintained a few rows of cold season greens. Hallie Mittleman, then the manager of Hillsdale Farmers’ Market, upped the ante when she asked whether we would participate in a new winter season market. We agreed and quickly intensified our gardening efforts.

From Cathy Whims, Chef/Owner, Nostrana Restaurant

Serves 4

2 medium-sized chicories (radicchio, catalogna chicory, curly endive, puntarelle or dandelion greens), cored and washed
1 bunch Swiss chard, beet greens or mustard greens, stemmed and washed
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
1 small dried red pepper, crushed
3/4 cup canned tomatoes, with juice, chopped
Salt
1 bay leaf
4 large slices ciabatta bread
4 large slices San Daniele prosciutto
4 eggs
Pecorino cheese

Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet and sauté garlic and red pepper until just golden. Add tomatoes, a pinch of salt, and bay leaf and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add the still-wet greens and cook, tossing over low heat until tender, about 15 minutes.

Sauté prosciutto slices in remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat to crisp. Crumble and keep warm.

Poach eggs. Toast ciabatta bread slices.

Top each ciabatta slice with 1/4 of the cooked greens. Top with poached egg and prosciutto and shave slices of pecorino over dish. Serve immediately.

SORT OF SAAG
From Eamon Molloy, Hillsdale Farmers’ Market

Serves 8-10

1 lb greens mix, washed and coarsely chopped
1 cup onion, finely chopped
6 Tbsp canola or grapeseed oil
2 Tbsp ginger, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
2 tsp salt

Set two quarts of water to boil in a large pot. When water boils, add salt and greens and lower to a simmer. Cook greens uncovered until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of water.

While the greens are cooking, heat the oil over medium heat in a large pan or wok. Add onion, and cook until it begins to soften and become translucent. Add garlic and ginger, stir for a minute, then add spices, stirring constantly.

Add the cooked greens and reserved water to pan. Cook for another 20 minutes, add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Note: Several winter greens have a nice peppery bite to them and you won’t need to add cayenne. But if you like spicier greens, add the cayenne when adding the other spices.

CRAB POT LIMITS HELP KEEP FISHERY HEALTHY: A DIFFERENT KIND OF CRABBING SEASON
Written by Polly Gravely
For Winter 2007

THE GREY DECEMBER SKIES signal Oregon’s crabbing season is underway. The deck of the Delma Ann is awash with cold seawater, and below, in the fish hold, are thousands of large, brown-backed Dungeness crab. Captain Al Pazar steers his vessel through the whitecaps toward a string of buoys. His crew of two haul out a round wiry pot, drop the dozens of crabs into the dump chute, fill the pot with fresh bait, then swing it back overboard to sink down to the dark ocean bottom. Buffeted by the cold wind, the men haul out another, and then another, and when they reach the end of the string, the boat pounds toward the next catch, until over the course of a day—or sleepless night—they’ve emptied several hundred. “It’s gruesome work,” Pazar says.

Pazar, a thick-set man with large hands and a stubble beard, has been fishing these waters since 1975. This season, he counts 500 pots in his gear—many fewer than in the past. The drop is part of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) new limits that go into effect this December in what they tout as a move toward a sustainable fishery. For the first time, crabbers must match the number of pots they use with an official scale, and throw out any surplus. Crabbers who have typically landed the biggest catch are restricted to 500—in some cases, a third of their former supply. Mid-range crabbers, such as Pazar, get the same allocation, while those with historically the smallest catch will be designated a limit of either two or three hundred traps.

These regulations are long overdue, says Ed Backus, Ecotrust’s vice president of Fisheries. As the stocks of salmon and groundfish have declined, fishermen along the West Coast have moved into crab, he says. “They’ve got the big boats and muscle to put out 1,000 pots and they’ve been bringing in tons of crab, causing a glut in the market. The goal of these limits is to reduce the pressure on the fishery and restore some level of social equity,” he says.

From Ellen Jackson

I adapted a fairly traditional recipe for dilled green beans to come up with this recipe. Rather than blanching fresh green beans and processing the jars, pour slightly cooled brine over Truitt Bros. canned green beans and let them sit at least 4 hours. The longer they sit, the better they get. (If you stand the beans up in a pint jar and cover them with the brine, no one will know you didn’t sweat over a canner in the hot summer months.) Store in the refrigerator.

2 lbs. Truitt Bros. organic whole Blue Lake green beans
1 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp salt
2 small garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
2-3 branches fresh tarragon

Put the beans in a non-reactive pan that’s shallow and wide; a 9x13 Pyrex glass pan works well. Put the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf and pepper flakes in a non-reactive saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, add tarragon and remove from heat. Allow brine to sit until slightly cooler. (If you put the beans in when it’s hot, they’ll lose some of their texture.) Pour the brine over the beans and let sit at least 4 hours before serving.

TRUITT BROTHERS: PRESERVING THE BOUNTY IN THE MODERN AGE
Written by Ellen Jackson
Photo by David Loveall
For Winter 2007

AS A COOK, I have an uneasy relationship with canned foods. Other than the small, silver foil-wrapped tins of LeSueur Early Peas, for which I’ll admit a three-year-old’s fondness, not much of what I ate growing up came from cans. At that time, Julia Child had set the stage for the culinary boom in America by teaching us how to cook, and Alice Waters was teaching us about the best ingredients: where to find them, how to use them and how to savor them.

Living in northern California as we did afforded my mother the opportunity to pay homage to both women by preparing elaborate home-cooked meals featuring the region’s staggering abundance. Honestly. This is not an overstatement—we were overwhelmed by it, having moved from a slightly less fertile suburb of Baltimore. Other than the canned tomatoes she put in her spaghetti sauce, food from cans rarely figured into her recipes or our meals.

Current trends in cooking and eating reflect Americans’ renewed passion for sourcing and preparing the freshest, most delicious ingredients. Organics is the fastest growing sector of the food economy—farmers’ markets have more than doubled in the last ten years, and cooking classes at high-end markets and kitchen stores sell out regularly. And Portland is at the forefront of this resurgence.

INSIDE A CULT HEROINE'S FRIDGE: CHINA FORBES OF PINK MARTINI TELLS ALL
Story and Photos by Jen Marlow
For Winter 2007

HEAD’S UP TAO OF TEA: CHINA FORBES wants you in her rider. Forbes, the gorgeous lead singer of the Portland-based retro lounge band Pink Martini, eats what one might expect of a cult heroine. She drinks green tea by the gallon in her dressing room, and in outlandish protest, keeps split peas in her refrigerator’s meat drawer.

Pink Martini has helped put Portland on the map of the international music scene. Fans dig the band’s eclectic flair and its atypical American style. Songs are written in different languages. Rhythms are set to a mélange of Latin and jazz beats. Musical influences sweep the globe from Japan, Croatia, France, Turkey, and Portugal. The band’s whole gestalt is of a hidden America. Its music is romantic, as colorful as a Brazilian street fair, and it rocks.

Forbes’s list of favorite foods shares Pink Martini’s fusion style. “What’s preposterous about me is that everything is my favorite food. Everything is my favorite cuisine. I love Japanese food. I love Middle Eastern Food. And I love Italian food,” she says.