It's What's for Dinner

2010 | Vol. 1 No. 3

In This Issue

Recipe of the Month: A Sexy Beef-and-Salt Tango

The Inn
at Sweet Water Farm
One Prospect Lake Road
Great Barrington
(North Egremont), Massachusetts 01230
(413) 528-2882

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Our inn is an early 19th century post and beam construction where the glow of the wood floors, comfort of the hearth and tranquility of the surrounding country invites you to take a deep breath and enjoy.

Welcome!

I left the inn for most of April (aka mud season) and headed for the Frisco Bay and other places, both near and far.

Read on to learn the secret gaucho ways with beef. I wrangled up these recipes and other cooking ideas just for you while in Argentina and Uruguay ...

Lynda Fisher
Innkeeper
The Inn at Sweet Water Farm

It's What's for Dinner!

Buying, cooking and eating locally was a commitment I was ready to make when we opened the inn. I reset an internal clock. I have grown to appreciate, rather than expect, exotic treats like a juicy, tree-ripened orange from California, or a bucket of just-dug, sweet clams from the Cape.

I decided to use my local carbon footprint collateral to spend twenty days during April's mud season away from the inn. Five destinations: Argentina, Uruguay, the North Shore (that's Boston-speak for coastal towns north of Boston), San Francisco and Sonoma County.

I spent ten days in Argentina and Uruguay where BEEF is most definitely "what's for dinner." True to all I have heard, it was the most delicious beef I have ever eaten.

If you want to celebrate local in the parrillas of Buenos Aires or Uruguay, get your carnivore on. I'm not talking dainty little slices. I'm talking hunk of burning love!

Rib Eye is king, with the melodious name of "Oyo de Bife," sometimes listed as "Baby Beef." It is stunningly marbled. I saw two ways to cook it. Both liberally seasoned with salt rubbed into the meat, and then either throwing it on the parrilla, which is a wood fire and a series of iron grates, or into a smoking-hot, cast-iron skillet.

If for some weird reason you have never tried this liberal-salt thing, it is my public service announcement of the month to tell you to do this immediately. Whether grilled or pan seared, this technique is pure alchemy and sheer bliss! (The specifics are in the recipe section this month.)

Pop the cork of a Malbec, and you are good to go. Andrei and I got into Rosé Malbec; really refreshing and big enough to stand up to the steak. I am over my pink wine phobia. (NOT looking at you, White Zinfandel!) I haven't looked for the rosé version back home yet, but I can tell you the Malbec/beef thing is un tango muy sexy!

Not much else is essential to this perfect dining experience. I'm still working on the Salsa Verde that was ALWAYS present. Some kind of marjoram/oregano-type herb (maybe wild, maybe cultivated) was the main ingredient and most likely has everything to do with how your mother and her mother and her mother made the stuff. It's delicious - a little vinegary, a little spicy, but not crunchy - that's the Salsa Criolla.

In my opinion, the Salsa Criolla is a watered-down version of any tomato based salsa sans the cilantro - happy news for the cilantro haters out there. You know who you are.

Watercress makes a wise appearance at many parrillas. The Argentines however, are not one with the green, fresh, crunchy things. They need you, Farm Girl, for a leafy, green intervention!

One vegetable was memorable, though: Foil-wrapped sweet potato fully cooked, and THEN ... cut open, sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and bruléed!!!

Seeing this done was spectacular, because the guys put a flatiron right in the fire and then laid the iron directly on top of the split potato until its surface was perfectly caramelized. I was staring at them, marveling at the technique, and they were proud to show off. I got street cred for my enthusiasm at the technique.

A good time was had by all.

All Food Has Its Place

At one point, I found myself in temperate San Francisco, delighted to be there during the first week of a strawberry season that runs straight through to November! I sat in the backseat of a car on my first ride through wine country, happily savoring five perfect strawberries. They were the best I ever had!

Later, I picked artichokes and fava beans for dinner one night in my cousin Chris' backyard. The chardonnay Chris bought that day after barrel tasting at Chateau St. Jean fared darn well with the artichokes. A triumph, because artichokes are the Mount Everest of foods to pair with wine.

This was Sonoma County. The land where "local" means "to drink wine, wine and more wine." Slippery, slippery slope, that California!

There is no substitute for the good earth. Pinot Noir in Petaluma. Jersey tomatoes. Florida oranges. Chesapeake Bay crabs. Maine blueberries. Cape Cod cranberries. This is a fun game. Take a minute and go to the place that you remember. See what I mean?

My last night there, Chris and I walked through his vineyard. Chris was pointing out the lower vineyard where the vines tolerated more stress than his upper field vines. He is a Pinot grower, and he's sitting on some pretty special soil.

The harvests from the two distinct vineyards are being aged in separate, clearly marked barrels. They look and taste very different from each other.

This difference is desirable. Chris is hoping to blend them to add complexity to his 2009 Pinot Noir. He was here at the inn this past winter celebrating his first bottling. We loved the 2008.

Like most farmers I know, he is constantly adding to his experience and knowledge, quietly watching the changing seasons and noting the differences in each year's harvest, as he works with the earth beneath his feet.

He knows a little stress once in a while is not always a bad thing.

Waiting for the right thing at the right time? Worth it. A well-placed carbon footprint during mud season? Just what this irreverent locavore needed!

Recipe from the Gentle Stove:
A Sexy Beef-and-Salt Tango

Go for the Rib Eye or the Porterhouse.

Bring the beef to room temp at least two hours ahead of time. Muy importante.

If you are going to grill, get the heat going: wood, charcoal, gas, whatever. You decide; I am not going to get involved in that debate.

Fifteen minutes before grilling, season the steaks on both sides with a teaspoon of kosher salt. (I don't measure, but if I don't write some measurement, I'll hear about it. It's more like a big giant pinch for each side.) Here's the important part: Massage the salt into the meat. Muy, muy importante.

I learned that pepper should go on the meat after it is grilled because it burns, and I believe that. Half the parrillas in Argentina and Uruguay peppered at the same time they salted, and I didn't taste any awfulness, so ... your choice.

Personally, I love the fragrance that the pepper releases when it is ground onto just-off-the-fire food. Black pepper. Freshly ground. Period.

Next, a blisteringly hot, cast-iron skillet ... don't even think about trying this without an exhaust fan. Open a few windows with the exhaust fan blowing out, or I promise your smoke alarms will go off.

Alternatively: grill at the ready - this means hot, glowing coals.

Then, put those babies in the skillet (ungreased and smoking hot) or on the grill (slightly away from the direct heat), and DO NOT TOUCH THEM! No fussing, prodding, poking, or moving of any kind for 7 minutes. You can peek under them after 4 or 5 minutes.

If you're using a skillet, you can adjust the heat to medium-high after the steaks go in the pan. If you've got flames on the grill, that's what spray bottles full of water are for. No moving steaks! If you are obsessed with the hatched-grill-mark thing (I am not), you can give them ONE quarter-turn after 4 minutes. You're going for 7 minutes on the first side.

And then you flip them - ONCE. Keep them on the heat for 7 minutes more for medium rare. If you like your steaks medium-well or well-done, move the meat farther away from the heat so you don't carbonize the thing, and cook it for another 10 minutes.

I'm a resting kind of girl. So, off the fire after 14 minutes and onto a rack to keep those delicious juices inside. If you must, a cutting board isn't the end of the world. Grind that pepper on immediately. (Sniff ... ahhhh!)

I have been known to rub the steaks at this point with garlic, but I don't think that's very South American.

Have a glass of wine while you let your masterpiece rest for about 20 minutes, if you can stand it. Try to hold out for at least ten more minutes, minimum, unless you cooked your beef well-done for a total of 35 minutes. (In that case, you might just want to slow down a bit on the vino.)

Heap some watercress on your plate, put your favorite salsa on the side, and dig in!

A Stab at South American Salsa Verde

This is one big guess:

1 cup fresh marjoram

Half a small yellow onion

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons giant-flavored olive oil

Maybe half a clove of garlic. Maybe not.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Pound it up in a mortar with the pestle, or pulse in a food processor. Remember, it's not a paste. It's meant to be coarse.

My favorite place? Slathered right on top of the hot steak, but it's usually served on the side.

It's Time to Celebrate Spring!

Every May, Berkshire Grown sponsors Farmed and Foraged. This is a weekend-long feeding frenzy of wild and cultivated spring delights. This year the celebration will be held on Friday and Saturday night, May 21 and 22. Everybody is doing something to help. Williamsville Inn will offer their home-made woodruff ice cream. Yum! Oh, yes, I AM going to be there.

We at Sweet Water Farm will offer breakfast on Saturday morning, May 21, in addition to our usual open-to-the-public Sunday morning gig.

Last year, we offered fiddlehead fern frittata, creamed morels on toast with or without a poached backyard egg, and a ramp and Monterey Chevre omelet. This year, a hot spell did in the fiddlehead ferns, but "Fiddle-dee-dee. I'm not going to worry about that now." (Scarlet O'Hara). I've got bigger things to fry. Backyard rabbits! Yep. Pan-fried rabbit. Scrambled eggs. Buttermilk chive biscuits.

Join up and support our local farmers, if the spirit moves you. It's a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done kind of farm-to-table organization. See you there!