Welcome to the Hearth, Heavy Table’s monthly newsletter focused on home cooking, original recipes, and seasonal entertaining.
CITRUS MANIA
By James Norton
I shelled out about $30 on oranges and lemons today, and I know that it was money well-spent. As we dive into the true dog days of summer, my family is drinking our house brand of Arnie Palmers at a frightening clip - roughly a pitcher a day. Two pitchers a day, when we have company.
I’ve written about this stuff before, but there’s no harm in trotting the method out again - this is one of the most refreshing, crowd-pleasing, downright beautiful summer beverages that you can make and drink. On ice, after mowing a lawn, it’s pretty much heaven on earth.
The method looks like this:
Norton-Palmer
Juice 4 lemons and 2 oranges, and strain the juice to remove pulp and seeds. Add five cups water to the juice.
Brew loose leaf orange pekoe tea in a small pot (about 3 cups) and pour it hot over 1 cup of sugar - stir to dissolve.
Cool tea, combine tea and citrus water in a big pitcher.
Optional: Try a Jasmine Palmer! Brew it with jasmine tea, it’s also delicious - lighter and more floral. [1]
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TRUE NORTH COMFORT
The potato salad from the True North Cabin Cookbook has family history and a light, bright flavor.
By Stephanie Hansen
This story and recipe hail from the True North Cabin Cookbook by Stephanie Hansen. You can read more from the author on her Substack.
There is one recipe that guests at True North Island request most often, and it is Janice's Potato Salad. This Potato salad usually starts appearing on the Island menu after Memorial Day when we start entertaining larger groups. Janice is my mother-in-law Dolores’s sister. Janice's potato salad is legendary. It is traditional in its taste, but it presents better than the eggy gooey yellow mayonnaise mess that sometimes passes for potato salad. Janice's potato salad is creamy and light with flecks of both fresh and dried dill. This potato salad is made with fluffy and creamy red potatoes. This potato salad's flavor is bright, not heavy, and pairs well with all those ends of summer meals like beer-can chicken, BBQ ribs, or fried fish.
We usually have this potato salad three-four times a Summer, then we don't have it again until the following season. If you can get to the farmers market or coop and get your hands on some of the delicious little red potatoes that start to appear in July, you will have ideal potato salad potatoes.
Janice’s Potato Salad
From The True North Cabin Cookbook
2 lbs red potatoes boiled in their skins and left at room temperature overnight or refrigerated for 4 hours
2 green onions sliced
½ cup diced red onion
2 garlic cloves minced
1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 tsp lime juice
1 tablespoon dry dill or if using fresh 3 tablespoons chopped
Boil potatoes, leaving skins on, until fork tender. Leave them on the counter overnight to cool or refrigerate for 4 hours.
Slice green onion and red onion and mince garlic.
Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl
Toss potato into bowl and lightly mix with dressing to coat
AN EQUAL EGGSCHANGE
Cured duck eggs are a surprising and charming stand-in for aged Parmesan cheese.
By Amy Rea
In the scheme of all the things plaguing people in the world today, having a non-life-threatening food allergy is, without question, pretty low on the list. Nevertheless, my inner martyr has grown to a monstrous size since I realized a year ago that what had been a minor case of lactose intolerance had burgeoned into a full-fledged dairy allergy. No longer could I gaze with greed at all the delicious cheeses in the cheese case while trying to determine which one(s) could come home with me this time. Now any cheese at all (or butter, or yogurt, or ice cream, or sour cream–you get the picture) won't make its way home with me from the grocery trips.
Yes, there are various plant-based substitutes out there. I'm grateful to everyone out there working on solving the riddle of nondairy cheese that tastes and melts like the real thing. But that state of nirvana hasn't yet been reached.
Which is why, when I ran across an online discussion of using grated cured duck egg yolks as a fill-in for Parmesan, the last little bits of hope in my beaten-down system rallied. I was familiar with cured eggs; variations of them have been around for centuries, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino food. There are myriad recipes online for cured egg yolks using additional ingredients like soy sauce, mirin, dried kelp, or bonito flakes.
But those advocating for cured yolks (specifically duck egg yolks, and Eastside carries duck eggs from Utopihen) as a compromise for Parmesan suggest going simple: Kosher salt and sugar. There are some recipes that call only for salt, but many of the recipes I found called for both. Some called for them in equal portions, while others recommended a slightly larger amount of salt than sugar. I opted to go with the higher salt content on the recommendation of the person who first suggested the idea to me.
Then it was a matter of determining the best approach for curing. While the recipes I looked at had largely the same approach–bury the egg yolks in the sugar-salt mixture, put them in the fridge, then dry them out a bit more in an oven or dehydrator–there were differences of opinion as to how long to cure the eggs. Sometimes the discussion went into how jammy you want your yolks to be, or even downright runny. Runny egg yolks didn't strike me as particularly Parmesan-like, so working for a firmer texture that could be grated was what I should do.
Curing egg yolks isn't at all difficult, but it does require time. The vast majority of the time is hands-off. My biggest fear during the refrigeration time was that someone would inadvertently dump something else into the pan and break up the egg yolks before they set. Some well-placed signs helped avert that disaster.
I had a dozen duck eggs to work with when I started and set to work separating the yolks from the whites. Right off the bat, I managed to break two yolks while cracking open the shells and breaking through the membrane (both of which are tougher than chicken egg shells and membranes). I dumped the broken yolks with their whites into a separate bowl and scrambled them the next morning, which turned out to be a delicious accident.
Once I got to six egg yolks that I managed to separate without breakage, I combined slightly more than two cups of kosher salt with slightly less than two cups of sugar. Using a square 8x8” baking pan, I poured about half of the sugar-salt mixture into the bottom of the pan, then used the back of a spoon to create indentations for the yolks. Once each yolk was carefully placed in its spot, I poured the rest of the sugar-salt gently over the lot, careful to make sure each yolk was thoroughly covered.
After covering the pan with plastic wrap, into the fridge it went. I'd read curing suggestions of anywhere from four to eight days in the fridge, with the majority on the lower end. On the fifth day, I gently poked at the yolks and found they had set nicely.
The next step would have been easier if I'd had either a dehydrator or an oven I could set to as low as 150F. Alas, having neither, the curing time for my yolks ended up being a couple of days longer than it would have been with better equipment (oddly, my apartment's management doesn't seem interested in investing in an oven that can go to that low of temperature to make it easier for me to cure yolks).
Instead, I took the egg yolks out of the salt-sugar mixture, carefully (and very gently) rinsed them in cool water and patted them dry. I set a rack inside a baking sheet, sprayed it with cooking spray, and placed each yolk on the rack, giving each one as much space in between as possible. The pan went into the cold oven, the oven door shut, a note placed on the oven sternly warning anyone of the dire consequences of even thinking of using the oven without my permission, and the yolks rested for two days, during which time the oven door was never opened.
The result was a firm egg yolk that grated beautifully, not unlike an aged cheese. Out of curiosity, when I pulled them from the oven, I took a small bite of one and recoiled. Even after rinsing them before the oven step, the bite was incredibly salty (and I like salt). But when I grated some over pasta with a simple tomato/garlic/oregano sauce, the flavor changed. I picked up a hint of richness and a bit of nuttiness–but the salt had disappeared, so much so that I needed to add some to the tomato sauce. Did it taste exactly like Parmesan? No, but it was reminiscent enough that for once, I didn't feel deprived.
I tried grating some onto a salad and a toasted bagel, and both times, the same result: the excess saltiness disappeared when combined with another food, and both times it was a welcome addition. Would I make them again? Absolutely. Very little labor to end up with something that feels like a small luxury.
THE BIGGER THE BETTER
Goose eggs from Graise Farm of Faribault offer a unique, mega-sized charm.
By Amy Rea
It started with a newsletter sent to Heavy Table's proprietor touting goose eggs (which Graise sells for $3/egg) as potentially being the next superfood trend. We don't closely follow superfood trends, but a bit of quick research found that goose eggs have a good amount of protein, iron, and Omega-3 fats, along with vitamins A, B, and D, and even a bit of calcium.
That's nice. But the important question is: How do they rate for cooking/tasting compared to the more commonly found chicken egg?
Graise Farm's proprietors, Tiffany Tripp and Andy Olson, agreed to let a Heavy Table team come for a visit and buy some eggs to test them out. The two were congenial hosts and saved up some special moments for us: Notably, the moment when they opened up the goose and duck barn to let the birds out to graze for the day. It's quite a scene, geese and ducks honking and quacking and scurrying out, waving their wings, hungry to get to the ground cover and airborne insects they love to eat. They remain free to roam all day and return to the barn at night to keep them safe from predators.
FROM GUARDS TO PEST CONTROL TO FOOD PRODUCTION
There were even a couple of guinea fowl, which Tripp noted aren't there for egg production. They were initially brought onto the farm to help with warning the farm about predators. As it turned out, though, the guinea fowl had an unexpected benefit: They eat ticks, which at one time plagued the birds. No more. The guinea fowls have that under control.
The first goose brought onto the farm was meant to be a guard goose for the ducks. But now much of the guarding is done by a trio of dogs, including two Great Pyrenees mixes, one of which ambles amiably among the fowl while they feed. The idea of raising goose eggs took hold.
Currently Tripp and Olson have about 17 geese and would like more, but would need more farmland to have enough space for the fowl to graze. The current farmland can handle 300 ducks and 500 chickens, but that leaves only enough room for 17 geese. "We'd need about 200 acres to expand the goose population," Tripp said. Currently, they have 27 acres, eight of which are tillable fields used to grow hay, grass, and alfalfa to feed the farm's goats (they also raise pastured pigs).
With a larger number of chickens and ducks, Graise Farm is able to sell those through food co-ops and specialty stores around the Midwest as well as in the Hy-Vees in Faribault and Owatonna. While ducks and chickens produce eggs on a regular basis, the geese are somewhat more seasonal. They do lay eggs all year, but like their wild counterparts (including pheasants and turkeys), their most productive laying season comes between April and June. However, people interested in acquiring goose eggs can order them year-round directly from the farm here. You can also order stewing hens and pork.
COOKING GOOSE EGGS
The first thing to know about goose eggs is that not only is the shell thicker than chicken or duck eggs, the membrane inside is tougher. Rapping them against the edge of a bowl or skillet won't get you anywhere. When asked for advice, Tripp said, "I just smash them onto the countertop. It's much faster."
So that's what we did, fearing we'd end up with a mess of broken egg yolk and shell, but no. We compared it to cracking an egg on a skillet and found Tripp was right; the countertop was the foil needed to break through the shell and membrane.
One goose egg is equivalent to three large chicken eggs and can be used in baking or cooking by applying that math. We went basic for the first round, simply scrambling them in a bit of butter with salt and pepper. The result was a light, fluffy scramble, not as rich or dense as we'd expected from the heft of the egg, but with a bright yellow color and smooth yolky flavor.
Then we tried a goose egg carbonara. While some carbonara recipes add cream for thickness and richness, here the goose egg easily handled that. The key was to stir the egg into the bacon and pasta as quickly as possible to prevent it from scrambling. The result was not an egg-forward flavor, but a rich, creamy pasta in which the bacon stood out for its salty smokiness. The goose egg tied everything together and made it a decadent meal.
Would we buy goose eggs again? Yes, especially if cooking for a crowd. Just imagine the deviled eggs that could be made from these behemoths.
Graise Farm, 16914 Dixon Trail #7981, Faribault, Minn., 507.491.8188
FOOTNOTES
[1] EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re not shopping at a Russian market for your orange pekoe, you could consider going to an Indian market at getting loose leaf Lipton - it’s also quite lovely, and quite affordable. For Russian markets, I recommend SMAK or Minsk. For Indian, Fresh India.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This newsletter and the entire Heavy Table magazine presence is made possible by you and everyone else who subscribes to our enterprise, plus the enthusiastic support of Eastside Food Co-op.