12 minute read
Simple Stir-fried Pea Tips
SIMPLE STIR-FRIED PEA TIPS
Courtesy Andrea Nguyen, Santa Cruz resident, author of e Pho Cookbook and publisher of Viet World Kitchen
Serves 4
is is written for pea tips, but it’s great with amaranth leaves or yam leaves. Just swap out the greens.
Swirl of canola oil 1 or 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (optional) 11⁄3 pounds pea tips, tendrils removed and stiff pieces discarded (net 1 pound) Kosher salt Sesame oil
Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Swirl in the oil, add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add the pea tips and a sprinkling of kosher salt. Stir-fry for several minutes, until wilted. If things seem dry, splash in water to facilitate cooking.
e pea tips are done when they’re about a third of their original volume. Dish out to a serving plate. Drizzle on some sesame oil. ally refers to the traditional breakfast dish in Jamaica, where amaranth greens are cooked with chile peppers, onions and spices like cumin. Amaranth tastes similar to spinach and can be used in place of any tender green, while young leaves are best eaten raw and can be added to a salad or used as a microgreen. Compared with kale, amaranth greens have more vitamin K, calcium, folate, iron, zinc, magnesium and potassium—making them a star substitute in green juices and smoothies. e next time you find yourself at the farmers’ market, think about expanding your horizons and choose an Asian green you have never used before. Be inspired, not intimidated, and ask the market vendors how to prepare their harvest, as the farmers know best how to eat the food they grow. Challenge yourself to try a few. All you need is a few ingredients like sesame oil and garlic to make these vegetables taste delicious. A whole new world awaits!
Jamie Collins is owner of Serendipity Farms, which grows organic row crops in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties and distributes them through a CSA, U-picks and farmers’ markets and a virtual farm stand which can be found on Serendipity’s Facebook page.
RECIPES: See left and p. 29 for Santa Cruz cookbook author Andrea Nguyen’s recipes for Simple Stir-Fried Pea Tips and Pea Tips Stir-Fried With Garlic (Qing Chao Dou Miao).
Benito Valley Farm
Hollister • 831.902.6589 • lindachu3333@gmail.com
LOCAL FOODS IN SEASON
June, July and August
Fruits: *Apples • **** Apricots • Avocados Blackberries • ****Blueberries • *Boysenberries Cactus Pears • **Cherries • Figs • ***Grapes Lemons **Loquats • ***Melons • Nectarines Olallieberries • Oranges • Peaches • ***Pears • Plums Raspberries • Strawberries • Tayberries
Vegetables: **Artichokes • Arugula • **Asparagus Basil • Beets • Bok Choy • Broccoli Cabbage Cardoons • Carrots • Cauliflower • Celeriac • Celery Chard • Chicory • Collards • Corn • Cress Cucumber • Dandelion • Eggplant • Endive • Fava Beans • Fennel • Garlic • Green Beans • Kale • Leeks Lettuces • Mushrooms • Mustard Greens • Onions Pea greens • Peas • ***Peppers, Bell • Potatoes Radishes • Spinach • Summer Squash • Tomatoes Turnips
Seafood: Abalone • Crab, Dungeness • Halibut, California • Lingcod • Rock Cod (aka Snapper, Rockfish) • Sablefish (aka Black Cod) • Salmon, Chinook/King • Seabass, White • Squid, Market Sole (Dover, Petrale) • Spot Prawns • Tuna (Albacore)
*comes into season in June **ends in June ***comes into season in July ****comes into season in August *****goes out of season in July
Notes: No notation on fruits and vegetables means the crop is available the duration of June, July and August. All fish listed are rated “Best Choice” or “Good Alternative” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program and are found in abundance in local waters. See www.seafoodwatch.org for more information.
Research assistance provided by Real Good Fish and Serendipity Farms
EDIBLE ARTISANS BACKYARD BAKER
Crusty wood-fired loaves made by Evan Lohr inspire a cult following
BY LILY STOICHEFF PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHELLE MAGDALENA
e first time I walked down the small lane off 26th Avenue in Santa Cruz where Evan Lohr lives and bakes, I wasn’t sure I was in the right place—until I rounded a bamboo-lined fence and saw a friendly face dusted with flour.
Tall and tan, with a surfer’s physique and oceanic blue-green eyes, Lohr wasn’t exactly the baker I thought I’d encounter. He greeted me with a rough hand and told me to pick any loaf I wanted from the baker’s rack. Heat radiated from the clay oven nearby as I chose a wide, crusty loaf scored with a fern. I couldn’t resist giving it a sniff, and a warm, heady bouquet spiked with the soft tang of fermentation filled my nostrils and made its way down my throat. My mouth watered. Without really thinking about it, I tore a chunk off with my hands. I’ve been back almost every week since.
Lohr has been baking bread for his family since he was a kid, and was selling at his local farmers’ market in Shasta County before he was old enough to drive. A few years ago, he found himself baking almost every day for his household and the occasional friend or neighbor, and he needed a larger oven. A natural
craftsman, Lohr built the earthen, wood-fired structure partly because he thought it would be a fun project and partly because he wanted to put it to good use. “One reason kind of chased another,” he says. “I wanted to see what the process was. And if you do something like that, shouldn’t you do something with it?” He began sending a text out to his friends and neighbors every week letting them know when he would be firing the oven, and then baked to order a few days later.
A couple months in, word started to get around. Lohr was baking small batches of eight to 11 loaves twice a week when his list of emails and phone numbers started to grow, with a few new people being added every week. Soon, it expanded beyond his immediate community to include friends of friends, then people he had just met. His unofficial bakery, 26th Ave Bread, was born. is is about the point in the story when I first met Lohr, whom I still refer to as “my bread guy.” Visiting his East Side home might be more out of the way than stopping by the closest grocery store, but I look forward to these visits far more. Just as purchasing produce from the local farmers’ market builds communal bonds, knowing my baker gives me the same slow food satisfaction. e popularity of his renegade bakery, which charges $5–$6 per loaf, has yet to influence Lohr’s low-key demeanor—more likely, his welcoming, friendly vibe has contributed to its success. e number of people on Lohr’s list has swelled to more than 400,
“I’ve got about a dozen people in the early stages of bread baking,” he says. “Some of them are extremely hands on with me and want to touch and do and feel. Others have an understanding, but are having problems. It’s a whole eclectic mix of people who want to learn more about bread and are excited to come over and find out more about their own process.”
Although he won’t take credit for inspiring these amateur bakers, he admits that seeing his operation helps them see how easy home bread baking can be. “ere’s so many small bakeries popping up with their lines out the door because people want a product like this. When people come over and see what I’m doing, it makes it seem much more accessible,” says Lohr. “It doesn’t really take more than the ingredients that are easily available, your hands and time.”
but he takes it in stride. “It’s not that I’m not surprised because I think that I’m doing something that’s so great, but I mean, I would buy bread from me,” he says nonchalantly.
Limited by its size, available counter space and how much flour and ash he’s willing to subject his girlfriend to, Lohr has exceeded the capacity of what he can produce out of his home. So by the end of this summer, 26th Ave Bread will move a few doors down to the new Two Six Market at 400 26th Ave. (previously Kong’s Market). Lohr and his business partner Dave Anderson plan on updating the market to provide a small grocery and sell bread, baked goods and wood-fired pizzas out of a larger oven Lohr plans to build. It’s a sustainable shift for Lohr, who is pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable within California’s cottage food law. Moving to a commercial space would give him peace of mind.
For Lohr, the expansion of his circle has been the most rewarding result of this project. “I’ve developed this amazing community of people, I guess you could call them like minded, but just doing fun things,” he says. “I thought I had a pretty neat social sphere, but now it’s expanded to include all these people who aren’t the same age or have the same interests, who aren’t people who would normally fall into your circle.”
Lohr has also become a mentor to other bread enthusiasts, whom he affably refers to as “the bread interns.”
Lily Stoicheff is an eater and writer living in Santa Cruz with a soft spot for points of historical interest and a pickling passion that threatens to take over her fridge.
26th Ave Bread
Santa Cruz 831.406.7089 www.instagram.com/26th_ave_bread/
Two Six Market
400 26th Ave., Santa Cruz
OUT TO SEA COOKING WITH OCEAN WATER
Beyond surfing and foraging, local chefs find new ways to play with the Pacific
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN COX AND MICHELLE MAGDALENA
Why don’t we cook with seawater? Chefs and food lovers adore the briny taste of a fresh-shucked oyster and don’t think twice about sprinkling food generously with flaky sea salt, but many seem shocked by the idea of cooking with ocean water.
While cooking with seawater may not be common here in California, it is more accepted in kitchens around the world. In fact, companies in both Greece and Scotland have recently introduced filtered and sanitized seawater for cooking. In Maine, corn and lobsters are frequently boiled in seawater. e Japanese reduce seawater down to collect nigari, the coagulant used in making tofu. Olives originated in the Greek Islands where they were leached of their tannins through submersion in the sea—a practice still common in some parts of Greece. Many bakers swear by seawater as a primary ingredient in bread; cheesemakers in New Zealand are using seawater to curdle their milk. Koreans used to store wilted vegetables in seawater, a precursor to kimchi.
In the Canary Islands, cooks simmer small potatoes in seawater and then dry them in the oven until the outsides shrivel and the sea salt blooms into a white crust. is local delicacy, called papas arrugadas or “wrinkled potatoes,” is served with a mojo sauce or salsa verde. e traditional dish has spread around the world, including to the Orkney and Shetland Islands. e Ancient Romans prepared a dish called “Quarter of Wild Boar à la ébaine,” which called for cooking the meat in seawater flavored with bay leaves. When very tender, it was served with salt, mustard and vinegar. be brought to a boil and then passed through a coffee filter before use.
Since seawater is not as salty as you might expect, when used as a brine for meats or pickles it is often necessary to add additional salt to reach the desired salinity. While seawater’s average of 3.5% salinity is a good base level for brines and pickles, that doesn’t account for any additional ingredients like sugar or vinegar that will ultimately reduce a recipe’s salinity.
I was curious to see what some of Monterey’s most creative chefs would do with seawater, so I went to the Monterey Abalone Co. and got a few gallons of filtered water to share with my friends. Here are the recipes they came up with along with some thoughts along the way.
Of course we can’t forget the iconic American East Coast treat, salt water taffy! Actually, despite its name, salt water taffy does not contain seawater. In fact, it usually doesn’t even contain salt. Urban legend speculates that a candy shop in New Jersey was flooded, and the owner made the most out of the situation with some clever marketing.
Potential reasons why using seawater in cooking has not taken off here in America include health concerns, the foremost being excessive sodium consumption. Doctors have argued that adding seawater to dishes is reckless and promotes an unhealthy diet. However, seawater actually averages around 3.5% salinity, making it less concentrated in salt than many brines and pickles, which often range from 5–7%.
Although seawater may not seem like much more than salty water, it has a depth and complexity that is hard to describe, and which can only be attributed to the various minerals and trace elements found in a particular location. To understand this concept you can put each of two peeled potatoes in a separate pot. In one pot put 1,000 grams of seawater, and in the other put 965 grams of water and 35 grams of kosher salt. You will likely find that the potato cooked in the seawater tastes like it is better seasoned even though the amount of sodium is the same. Of course, just like sea salt, ocean water can vary in its intensity and flavor. In addition to mineral nuances, seawater has a savory-umami quality.
It is always best to source seawater far from shore and avoid collecting water after a heavy rainfall. e water you collect should
e former executive chef at Post Ranch Inn’s Sierra Mar, John Cox is now pursuing a number of projects, including serving as a partner and consulting chef at Cultura–comida y bebida in Carmel and chef-partner at e Bear and Star at the Fess Parker Wine Country Inn in Los Olivos. For more, go to www.cheohncox.com or follow him on Instagram and Facebook.
