Bocuse d'Or USA finals

Hi! Check out the post I wrote for SeriousEats.com on the Bocuse d'Or USA finals:

Snapshots from Bocuse d'Or USA Finals

Richard Rosendale, executive chef of The Greenbrier in West Virginia, won the competition. He will represent the United States in the Bocuse d'Or World Competition in Lyon, France in 2013. The Bocuse d'Or is one of the most prestigious culinary contests in the world.

Just a Note

Hi!

I know I've been away for quite a while. Two weeks ago, I started working as a line cook at The Mark Restaurant by Jean-Georges. It's my first real restaurant job. I'll be on hiatus, while I focus on my job.

- Jenny

La Crosse County Farmers Market, WI

Baby bok choy

Back home visiting my parents in Wisconsin, I get restless a lot. Last Saturday, I headed to the La Crosse County Farmers Market, curious about what I'd find. I hadn't visited the market since I was a teenager.


There were a lot of vendors. In New York City, I've gotten so used to seeing vendors crammed into one space. But here in the Midwest, plenty of farmers set up a tent in a large parking lot.


I browsed a booth that had embroidered purses and decorations made by Hmong-Americans. Most of the farmers at the market were Hmong. La Crosse is home to many Hmong residents. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Hmong refugees from Laos who had helped U.S. troops during the Vietnam War came to the United States. Many of them resettled in Wisconsin, Minnesota and California.


Strangely enough, each farmer had the same produce. I walked past green beans, radishes, beets, spring onions, rhubarb and peas only to see the same produce arranged at another booth.


I had never seen amaranth before at a farmers market. A girl at the booth explained most customers use it like lettuce.


I saw a woman stuff a garbage bag full of squash vines.


Rhubarb was everywhere.


I love shiitake mushrooms. Normally, I'll just saute them and season them with salt and pepper.


I got a bouquet for my mother.


I can never have enough garlic.

La Crosse County Farmers' Market
When: Saturdays 6 am to 1 pm, June through October
Where: Downtown La Crosse in County parking lot between 3rd and 4th streets and Vine and State streets (map)

Pickled Sour Cherries

Ever since I bought a cherry pitter, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction watching pits ping into a bowl. A few weeks back, I bought a bunch of sour cherries from Samascott Orchards, of Kinderhook, N.Y., at my neighborhood greenmarket. I wanted to pickle the cherries just to see what they tasted like.

I pickled the cherries with white vinegar, sugar, black peppercorns and bay leaves. The cherries weren't overly sour, but had a pleasant undertone of sweetness. I saved the pits, boiling them later with a cup of water to make juice. (I use the juice to flavor smoothies.) You don't necessarily have to can them since the cherries last for a year if refrigerated. But I don't have a lot of room in my refrigerator so I sealed them in jars. I used the pickled cherries in a salad with Boston lettuce and toasted walnuts, seasoning the salad with white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Pickled Sour Cherries

Adapted from David Lebovitz who adapted it from Chez Loulou

Makes about 2 pints

1 pound sour cherries, rinsed, stemmed and pitted
1 cup white vinegar
2/3 cup water
8 oz. sugar
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
4 bay leaves

If canning, sterilize 2 pint jars by putting them on a plate or rack inside an 8-quart or 12-quart pot and filling the pot with cold water to cover the jars. Bring to a boil and heat the jars for at least 10 minutes. Leave them in the water bath until ready to use. Put the metal lids and rings in a bowl and set aside.

Bring vinegar, water, sugar, peppercorns and bay leaves to a boil. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Shut off heat and add the cherries. Ladle cherries and pickling liquid into the 2 jars.

If not canning the cherries, let the jars come to room temperature and store in the refrigerator. The cherries will keep for at least a year.

Otherwise, ladle water from the hot water bath over the lids to soften the rubber seals on them. Ladle the cherries and pickling liquid into the sterilized jars. Wipe the rims with a wet paper towel. Screw the lids on finger-tight and place the jars in the water bath for at least 10 minutes. Pull out the jars, putting them on a towel or trivet. You will hear the lids pop after several minutes, indicating the jars have sealed. Let the jars cool. After the first hour, if the center of the jars can be pushed up and down, then the jars have not sealed and they need to be refrigerated.

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Adventures in canning: Strawberries

Strawberry preserves

When strawberries flooded the farmers' markets, I was determined to make them last as long as I could. I diced up strawberries to make jam, and left the fruit whole to make preserves. Since I live so close to a weekly farmers' market, I wanted to preserve the seasons, taking advantage of all the beautiful produce I saw. Come winter, when I crave strawberries (not the bland jumbo strawberries from the store), I can open a jar of homemade jam.

For a few weekends in a row, I went on a jamming spree, buying a lot of strawberries and rhubarb. Not from a family who made jam, I used recipes from Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff. But after tasting my preserves, someone mentioned to me how "watery" the preserves were. I searched the Internet for other jam recipes until I read about Eugenia Bone who writes the Well-Preserved blog for The Denver Post.

I figured out why my first few jams were so thin: 1) I needed more sugar and 2) I needed to bring the fruit and sugar to a hard boil.

Krissoff's recipes have a low-sugar content and call for simmering the fruit until it's supposed to thicken. That doesn't work. You really need to boil the fruit and sugar together until a candy thermometer reads 220 degrees F and the jam will gel. (If you live at a different altitude than sea level, the National Center for Home Food Preservation has more information about what temperature you need to boil your jam to.)

Now that I knew how to fix the problem, I made strawberry jam with much better results.




Strawberry Jam

Makes about 3 half-pints

2 pounds strawberries, washed, hulled and diced
3 cups sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

If canning, sterilize jars by putting them on a plate or rack inside an 8-quart or 12-quart pot and filling the pot with cold water to cover the jars. Bring to a boil and heat the jars for at least 10 minutes. Leave them in the water bath until ready to use. Put the lids and rings in a bowl and set aside. Place a small plate in the freezer to test the consistency of the jam later.

Heat strawberries and sugar over low heat in a 5 to 6-quart enameled pot. Stir occasionally until the sugar has melted and the fruit is swimming in its own juice, about 15 minutes. Add zest and juice of 1 lemon. Bring mixture to a hard boil, stirring occasionally. Cook until the berries and their juice have thickened and the temperature on a candy thermometer reads 220 degrees F*, about 30-40 minutes. Skim off any foam. To test the consistency of the jam after 30 minutes, take out the plate from the freezer and place a teaspoon of jam on it. If the jam gels after a minute, it's done. If not, keep cooking the jam until it gels.

If not canning the jam, let the jam come to room temperature, about 4-6 hours, and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Otherwise, ladle water from the hot water bath over the lids to soften the rubber seals on them. Ladle the jam into the sterilized jars. Screw the lids on finger-tight and place the jars in the water bath for at least 10 minutes. Pull out the jars, putting them on a towel or trivet. You will hear the lids pop after several minutes, indicating the jars have sealed. (However, if the center of the lids can be pushed up and down, the jars have not sealed and need to be refrigerated.) Once sealed, let the jars come to room temperature and store.

*Note: For every 1,000 feet of altitude above sea level, subtract 2 degrees F from 220 degrees F.

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Happy 4th of July!

Lee family circa 1977, a few years before I was born. My mother, father, 2 older brothers and grandmother.

Happy 4th of July! 

Saveur BBQ Nation June/July 2011 issue

I flip through Saveur's BBQ Nation issue and I remember every recipe I tested. I added more coals to smoke the Barbecued Beef Brisket. I took the internal temperature of the Smoked Prime Rib With Peach-Chipotle Sauce. I poured barbecue sauce over the Burnt Ends and watched how that sauce became thicker and stickier as an hour went by. But mostly, I remember eating those juicy, fatty smoked meats.

I was really excited to test a recipe for Bibimbap, a Korean dish that happened to be the "Classic" feature for this issue. My mother made Bibimbap for me when I was a kid, arranging seasoned vegetables over a bed of rice and topping everything with an egg.  The best part was breaking that beautiful arrangement and mixing in a spicy sauce with gochujang, or Korean red pepper paste.

My internship at Saveur ended last Monday. While I tested recipes for later issues, the June/July issue is the one I'm most proud of. Under the guidance of Saveur Kitchen Director Kellie Evans, I actually barbecued for the first time. I'm not talking about hamburgers on gas grills; I'm talking about smoke.

Be sure to pick up a copy!