AEB classics #38: Crab Roll w/ Pickled Corn

It's that time of year again: M. Bertrand's crab from Gaspé. If you don't believe me, pay a visit to one of Montreal's better restaurants (everywhere from Au Pied de Cochon to Laloux to Reservoir) over the next couple of weeks and keep your eyes open for crab on the menu. You won't be disappointed.

Now, if you can actually get your hands on fresh crabmeat from Gaspésie or you're lucky enough to live in another part of the world where both fresh crabmeat and corn are available at this time of year (the Chesapeake region, say), well, this is a pretty fine way to combine them.

AEB Spicy Crab Roll

250 ml crab meat
1-2 tbsp quality mayonnaise
1/2-1 tsp chipotle purée
1 tbsp red onion, minced
1 tbsp medium-hot pepper (like a Hungarian banana pepper), minced
1 tbsp cilantro, minced
1-2 tbsp pickled corn (recipe below)
salt
freshly ground black pepper

butter
split-top New England/Quebec-style hot dog buns
iceberg lettuce, chopped

Mix the first seven ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Melt a bit of butter in a skillet and toast you hot dog buns on each side. When your hot dog buns are nice and toasté, add some iceberg lettuce, and then spoon in a generous amount of the crab mixture. Garnish with a little extra pickled corn. Serve and enjoy immediately.

Makes about 6-8 overstuffed crab rolls.

Among the many, many amazing Southern-style condiment recipes in The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, Pickled Corn has become one of our absolute favorites. It's just so versatile. And the corn flavor is so bright and crisp. Once you have a taste, you'll want to have it with virtually everything: hot dogs and hamburgers, huevos rancheros, black beans, tuna salad, and crab rolls/crab guédilles.

Pickled Corn

4 cups fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 cups distilled white vinegar
2/3 cup water
2 tbsp plus 1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground mace
1 whole clove

Sterilize 2 pint-sized, wide-mouth jars and accompanying lids. Set aside.

In a large bowl, toss the corn with the salt. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside.

In a 3-quart pot, combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and spices. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and continue to simmer for 20 minutes, uncovered. The vinegar will be fragrant, it will be infused with the spices, and it'll have a bright yellow tint to it because of the turmeric.

Add the corn. Bring to a low boil over medium-high heat and boil for 5 minutes. The corn will soften slightly but should still be crisp and will have absorbed some of the flavor of the vinegar brine.

With a slotted spoon, transfer the corn into your sterilized jars. Carefully pour the hot liquid over the corn (using a funnel, if necessary) until it is 1/2 inch from the rim. Place the lids on the jars and seal. Allow them to cool, then store in the refrigerator. The corn and spice flavors will meld nicely after about 24 hours and will continue to steep and take on flavor for the next week. Pickled corn keeps for about 4 weeks in the refrigerator. Good luck keeping it that long.

[recipe from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

aj

AEB Classics #47: Pickled Hot Peppers, or How to pickle a peck of freshly picked peppers

fig. a: three bushels of tomatoes from Jean-Talon

The days around Labour Day are pretty much the peak of our canning season. They're the days when our Tomato Canning Division in particular is in overdrive, producing the next year's supply of tomato sauce. Of course, those of you who've been reading us for a while know all about this, but we can't emphasize it enough: homemade tomato sauce made with summer's ripest tomatoes and a healthy does of the freshest local hardneck garlic is always something to behold. In Montreal, come January-February, it's an absolute godsend. Forget about your flu shots and your supplements and all that other malarkey, homemade tomato sauce is all you really need.

This year our Jean-Talon tomatoes came in chop suey boxes (?), but with days and days of straight sunshine leading up to the time we bought them, they were among the sweetest we'd gotten from the market over the last few years. Obviously this means that they result in a better tasting sauce, but it also means that they're easier to process, which is always a good thing. Not that it would have mattered much this year because a) we were very eager the produce our 2007 batch and b), just as we were about to roll up our sleeves to start cranking our trusty, rusty spremipomodori velocissima (hence the newsprint-covered table you see in the photo below), our doorbell rang and we received a care package

fig. b: mysterious Australian care package

(?) all the way from Australia (?!?) that really gave us a lift. [More on the contents of this fantastic parcel from Down Under later. TY, Z.!]

Anyway, in addition to canning tomatoes, we've also been taking advantage of Jean-Talon Market's absurd variety of peppers to do a little pepper pickling this year. You can use any one of a number of peppers (from sweet to hot) for this recipe, but the classics are cherry peppers and Hungarian banana peppers (I'm particularly fond of the latter, both yellow and red).

fig. c: pickled Hungarian banana peppers

Here's the method we followed:

Pickled Peppers

1 1/2 lbs banana peppers or cherry peppers
3 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
3 cloves garlic, crushed
6 scallions, white parts only, cut into 1 1/2 - 2" lengths

Wash the peppers. If you're using cherry peppers, leave them whole; if you're using banana peppers, chop them in half. Pierce the peppers 2-3 times with a fork.

Combine the vinegar, water, and garlic in a large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Can as you would normally (you can find some basic instructions here), using either the dry or wet method, packing each jar full of peppers/pepper pieces and making sure to add a few pieces of the scallions too, then adding the hot pickling liquid + garlic pieces.

Yield: about 4 x 500 ml jars

[adapted from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving]

aj

Ramps 'R' Us

fig. a: Nino's ramps

It hasn't been the most prolific year for ramps in this area in large part because the government of Quebec decided to crack down on the sale of ramps again (for more on this phenomenon, see last year's ramps post). We went by Chez Nino (at Jean-Talon Market) early in the season and he had the first of the ramps on offer, but they weren't the nicest we'd seen, so we held off, thinking we'd come back in a week to see what the next batch looked like. When we did, we found out that Nino had been raided, their sale of ramps brought to a halt. Surely their ramps weren't from Quebec and surely they had the paperwork to show that they'd actually come from Ontario or upstate New York or someplace else--whatever the case, they sure didn't have any ramps and they weren't sure if they were going to be able to have any before season's end. That's when Michelle decided to take things into her own hands. She got on the horn and and left a message with "Raoul". She knew that if anyone in town had ramps for sale, it'd be Raoul, a contact from her days at Les Chèvres, and she was positive they'd be beautiful. The very next day we came home to find a message waiting for us from Raoul in his inimitable gravelly voice--our very own Deepthroat. He was going to be getting ramps later in the week, the message said; he'd give us a call when he did. Three days later, not only had Raoul managed to score his Ontario ramps, but he was delivering them to our door. He didn't bother ringing the doorbell, he just called from the street on his cell phone and Michelle dashed out to exchange unmarked bills for her precious bundles of ramps. I looked out the window to see if I could get a glimpse of the shadowy Raoul, but the windows on his truck were tinted and, anyway, at over 200 paces, the distance was too great to get a good view. When Michelle reemerged, she looked like this:

fig. b: "Raoul's" ramps

Might not look like much, but that's something in the neighborhood of $70 worth of this highly coveted commodity. Plus, not all of them were for us. Michelle had gotten the word out to some of her ramps-loving friends, so a few bunches were already accounted for. In any case, having already succeeded in making the world's most expensive marmalade earlier this year, Michelle decided it was time that she proceeded to make the world's most expensive pickles too. The double whammy. We trimmed the tentacles from the bottoms of the ramps, but otherwise nothing went to waste. The white parts of the ramps mostly went into Michelle's terribly exclusive pickled ramps; the greens we ate raw, as-is, we added them to salads, we sauteed them,

fig. c: NY strip steak, mushrooms, fiddleheads and ramps greens sauté

and I even made a couple of risottos with them. They've got a whole lot of flavor, so a little goes a long way.

Want to make your own jar (or two) of the world's most expensive pickles?** Michelle made two recipes this year, including this one. [Note: this recipe doubles as a Pickled Scallions recipe for those who can't get their hands on ramps or who'd like to make something a little less exclusive]

Lee Bros.' Pickled Scallions

2 pounds ramps or scallions
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp kosher salt
1 quart plus 1 cup water, room temperature
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 dried hot chiles, such as Thai or Arbol
2 cups distilled vinegar
2 tsp sugar

2 pint-sized mason jars, with rims and lids

With a small paring knife, trim the roots from the ramps (or scallions) plus any outer leaves that look tired or wilted. Cut them crosswise 4 inches from the root end and reserve the greens for another use.

In a 2-quart bowl, dissolve 1/4 cup salt in 1 quart water. Add the ramps (or scallions), garlic, and chiles, and weigh them down with a small, clean plate to keep them submerged, if necessary. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator overnight.

Fill a 3-quart pot 3/4 full of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Using tongs or a jar lifter, carefull set the jars on their sides, along with their lids, in the boiling water to sterilize. Boil for 15 minutes, then remove the jars from the water with tongs or a jar lifter and set aside.

Pour the vinegar and 1 cup water into a 1-quart saucepan. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons salt and the sugar and bring to a boil.

Drain the ramps (or scallions), garlic, and chiles. Dip the tongs into the boiling vinegar brine for a few minutes, then use them to transfer the ramps or scallions, garlic, and chiles to your sterilized mason jars. If the bulb ends of the ramps (or scallions) are stout, pack half of them into each jar with their root ends facing down, and the remaining half with their root ends facing up, to maximize the space in each jar. Pour the brine into the jars and tap them to release any air bubbles. Place the lids on the jars, seal, and set aside to cool. Allow the ramps (or scallions) to steep in the refrigerator for 2 days before serving. Pickled scallions will keep for about 4 weeks in the refrigerator.

[recipe from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook]

Anyway, had we only managed to get our hands on Raoul's backdoor ramps, I think we would have refrained from posting about it. But just this week we stopped by Nino again, and, out of the blue, ramps were back. Act fast, because just like fiddleheads,

fig. d: fiddleheads

this is in all certainty the last week they're going to be available. Sure they're a little pricey, but isn't that the case with everything that's similarly rare, similarly fleeting, similarly singular?

aj

*This name has been changed to protect "Raoul's" identity.

**Of course, if you foraged your ramps, like you're supposed to, they'd cost next to nothing and wouldn't be very exclusive at all.

In A Pickle

This week I have been caught off guard thinking it was still summer. Which, of course, it is and will be for another three weeks or so, but around here you can't take these things for granted. Doing so can be a dangerous mistake, since in the blink of an eye, depending on the year, the cucumbers can disappear. Same with the tomatoes. "But I'm not ready yet," does nothing to change the inevitable, Sweetie.

In my mind, summer's not summer without making some dill pickles. They're so satisfying, and so much tastier than your supermarket-issue brands, and they're really very easy to prepare. So go ahead and whip up a batch of dill pickles before it's too late. You can deal with the sweet pickles tomorrow, tomatoes on the weekend.

I bought my cucumbers in a moment of panic last weekend at the market ("It's already the end of August?") and was ready to pickle them when I realised I was missing a key ingredient: pickling spice. I thought about running to the store and buying some but then it occurred to me I could whip up my own batch using Phillipe de Vienne's amazing spices. What I concocted was leagues better than the usual bland pickling spice which has been sitting on the shelf for God knows how long, but boy, was it strong. I will let you know how it turns out in a few weeks.

The following is the basic dill pickles recipe I've been using for the last few years. I give it my personal touch by making some extra spicy, with the addition of some hot chiles, some extra garlicky.

Dill Pickles

pickling cucumbers *
head of dill, divided into small bunches
garlic cloves, peeled
pickling spice
pickling salt
5 % vinegar mixed with an equal part water
1 liter canning jars with lids

* I washed my cucumbers and placed them on ice for a few hours, having heard that this produces crunchier pickles.

Sterilise the canning jars and place the snap lids in a small pot of hot water. Bring the vinegar mixture to a boil and keep it simmering while you load up the jars. Take the jars, one at a time, and add the following to each: 1 bunch dill, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp. pickling spice, 1 Tbsp. pickling salt, enough cucumbers to fill the jar, and vinegar mixture to cover cucumbers. Close the jars and either hot water process them 15 min. or let them sit on the counter overnight. Check the seals and store any unsealed jars in the fridge. Keep at least 3 weeks before opening or the pickles will be too vinegary.

Pickling Spice

mustard seeds
coriander seeds
cinnamon stick
cloves
mace
allspice
juniper berries
dill seeds
black peppercorns
bay leaves
dried chiles

It goes without saying that there are countless variations: more garlic and/or hot peppers, as mentioned above, different spices, ginger, half-sour... If anyone out there has a prize-winning dill pickle recipe that they wouldn't mind sharing, please let me know.

m