The Whole Dish: Southern Oregon Food Blog

Food and agricultural author and speaker Mark Winne will headline a daylong event open to the public next week in Rogue River.

The Rogue Valley Food Summit is the culmination of a year of collaborative workshops throughout Jackson and Josephine counties held with the goal of improving the local food system. Presented as a conference, the March 8 summit will provide information on planning and implementing the priorities identified by more than 400 of the region’s residents in about a dozen meetings since last March. Known as FEASTs and Community Foods Conversations, both covered in previous posts, the most recent was earlier this month in the Illinois Valley.

Emerging from the meetings as top regional concerns were: cooking-skills education, healthy-food access, local-food infrastructure and marketing, community gardening, mapping food-system resources and measuring local-food consumption. These topics will be covered from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in lectures and breakout sessions at New Beginnings Church, 270 W. Evans Creek Road, Rogue River.

A lunch made from fresh, local ingredients is included in the $15 registration fee, if paid by Tuesday, March 5. A limited numbers of spaces will be available at the door for $20. Register online or call 541-618-4019.

Goals of the summit include sharing the outcomes of the Rogue Valley food system-planning process, fostering collaboration and leadership and engaging the community in making positive changes across the food system. The event is hosted by ACCESS, Thrive and the Food System Steering Committee with funding from Ashland Food Co-op, Meyer Memorial Trust and Jackson County Health & Human Services.

Winne is one of several “expert panelists” participating in the summit. He is the author of “Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty” and “Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners and Smart Cookin’ Mamas.” He also has co-founded a number of food and agriculture policy groups.

Read more about recent local projects initiated from the Oregon Food Bank’s FEAST process and upcoming efforts to make a difference in next week’s A la Carte.

An appetizer to Sunday’s Academy Awards will be served Saturday at Harry & David Country Village in Medford.

Locally produced Homemade Confections English toffee will be paired with RoxyAnn Winery’s cabernet sauvignon and Griffin Creek cabernet franc between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday at the store. Homemade Confections toffee also will be offered Sunday in Hollywood to 40 Oscars presenters and nominees, says confectioner Judith Galindo.

“Whether they actually ate it or gave it to their assistant … ” wonders Galindo of the gold-trimmed goodies sent to high-rollers’ hotel suites. Either way, soon after the red carpet’s rolled up, she gets a list of celebrity names confirming candy deliveries.

This is Homemade Confections’ fifth time on the awards-show circuit. The toffee that Galindo manufacturers from her Medford home debuted at the 2010 Tony Awards, followed by that year’s Emmy Awards, then Screen Actors Guild and MTV Movie awards in 2011. Now, Homemade Confections has landed the granddaddy of glitterati events.

“I’m pretty stoked,” says Galindo, adding that she isn’t aware of any other local companies represented alongside hers this weekend.

Although Galindo pays not insignificant fees to place her products in starbound swag bags, she says the opportunity isn’t open to just anyone. Galindo was contacted by industry insiders after taking home her own awards for best marriage of chocolate and candy in 2009 and 2010 from the Oregon Chocolate Festival in Ashland. Hollywood Baskets is one of Galindo’s primary promoters during awards season.

It’s hard to determine how the exposure affects her business bottom line, Galindo says. But the publicity, she says, does lead to candy orders from all over the country for Oscars-themed parties.

Homemade Confections toffee / Mail Tribune file photo

Pick up some Homemade Confections for your own Oscars party or guilty pleasure in front of the tube this weekend. The toffee and peanut brittle are priced at $8 per half-pound portion on Galindo’s website.

Prices may vary at local retailers, which include: Harry & David, Market of Choice in Ashland, The Jacksonville Inn wine shop, Prospect Historic Hotel, The GoodBean cafes in Jacksonville and Medford, Cartwright’s Valley Meat Co., Gooseberries and The Kitchen Co. in Grants Pass and All About Oregon in the Rogue Valley Mall. Or call, email or message Galindo on Facebook to order directly. She’ll deliver free of charge to local customers.

Look for Homemade Confections again at next month’s Chocolate Festival and Oregon Cheese Festival in Central Point.

Short, simple recipes for leeks that ran with this month’s Season to Taste column hopefully inspired cooks — both acquainted and unfamiliar with this allium.

Cooking techniques featured in the Joy magazine piece ranged from braising to roasting to frying, showing this ingredient’s versatility. Leeks also have been mentioned in this blog about 35 times over nearly six years, starting with some of my first posts about pad thai and quiche in April 2007.

While I have a love-hate relationship with onions (love them cooked until soft, usually hate them raw), leeks are easily embraced. They never emit foul, sulfurous fumes when sliced or diced. Their flavor and texture are more mellow than most allium relatives, both attaining their full potential when cooked. And leeks’ very stature and multilayered structure brings elegance and intrigue into the kitchen.

So it’s no wonder that many recipes for leeks allow them to stand on their own, without onions competing for the attention. In fact, it’s not unusual for leeks to co-star with shallots, another delicate ingredient underutilized in mainstream American meals. When you want a soft undertone of allium flavor, turn to the leek-shallot combination instead of the typical onion-garlic, which takes more cooking to coax into the backdrop of a dish.

This recipe for broccoli soup does just that, quickly cooking the vegetables for a lighter, fresher-tasting soup that portends spring. Puree it in a blender until silky-smooth, go halfway with an immersion blender stuck right in the soup pot or leave more texture by running it through a food mill.

If you want even more savoriness, the McClatchy News Service writer who originated the recipe, suggests a dash of fish sauce or — strangely enough — monosodium glutamate. I would recommend some nutritional yeast, particularly if substituting vegetable stock to make this soup vegetarian.

MCT photo

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 tablespoons butter

1 large leek, white and light-green part only, chopped and rinsed

1 large shallot, peeled and chopped

1 teaspoon dried thyme

6 cups chicken broth

2 broccoli crowns, chopped

1 large white or russet potato, peeled and chopped

2 bay leaves

1⁄3 cup cream, sour cream or Mexican or Honduran crema to finish (optional)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Melt the butter over medium-low heat in a 5-quart pot. Add the leek, shallot and thyme and cook, stirring often, until vegetables are wilted, very fragrant and just starting to color, for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken broth, broccoli and potato, turn up heat and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, add the bay leaves and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes, until vegetables are mush.

Remove bay leaves and blend soup in pot with an immersion blender until smooth. (Alternatively, transfer ingredients to standing blender, blend, then return to pot.) Add the optional cream or sour cream and season to taste with the salt and pepper. Bring just to a boil, check seasoning and serve.

Makes 8 servings.

This blog previously cited “vegan” as one of the most prevalent buzzwords in the food world. And this week, A la Carte covered two, new, locally produced vegan cookbooks.

It’s for good reason — not the least of which is chronic-disease prevention — that a diet of plant foods keeps gaining in popularity. Some medical experts even are endorsing the elimination of animal-derived foods.

Plant-based diets also seem to go hand in hand with advocating for organic foods. So it was only a matter of time before someone coined a new buzzword: “veganic.”

My first exposure to this term was while reading through press materials from One Degree Organic Foods, a new Canadian manufacturer of sprouted breads, flours and seeds. The company’s credo is transparency, and it goes to great lengths to provide consumers with detailed information about not just products, but all the ingredients they contain. Every item is marked with a Quick Response (QR) code that accesses a “detailed life story” and video of each ingredient.

The term veganic, itself, denotes the practice of using only organic, vegetable matter in crop cultivation. It’s important to make the distinction, according to One Degree’s website, because organic certification still permits farmers to use animal waste, including blood meal and bone meal, to fertilize fields. Some organic farms purchase these byproducts from slaughterhouses and other handlers of animals raised on antibiotics and hormones and exposed to pesticides and other chemicals.

One Degree pledges that it visits each farm and supplier — located throughout North America, sourcing elsewhere when necessary — to ensure that each upholds its high standards. Most of the farms profiled on One Degree’s website are in Canada, but there are farmers and suppliers highlighted from California, Utah, Mexico, Germany and Indonesia.

Of course all of this information and the peace of mind it should bring does not come cheap. One Degree’s suggested retail price is $5.49 per loaf of bread. The four flavors are lentil-grain, ancient whole wheat, flax and spelt and sesame-sunflower.

The whole wheat constituting just five ingredients and the sesame-sunflower eight, this is very pure-tasting and healthful bread, judging from samples I received late last year. But because there are no preservatives, consumers shouldn’t expect this bread to keep as long at room temperature as more mainstream loaves.

It’s available at Ashland Shop’n Kart.

Valentine’s Day stories ran in A la Carte with almost a week to spare, meaning there’s no excuse for letting the occasion pass without some little token from the kitchen.

The recipes for salad and steak that accompanied last week’s story would be simple to prepare, and the Dark-Chocolate Mousse Cake would be just a little more difficult.

If you want to punch up the flavor of chocolate quickly and easily — but elegantly — consider using some high-end liqueurs, such as Chambord or Cointreau, two of my personal favorites.

Made in the fertile and rich Loire Valley, Chambord is a black-raspberry liqueur infused with red raspberries, blackberries, and currants and finished with notes of vanilla, honey and ginger. It’s delicious in cocktails but almost more so in dark- and bittersweet-chocolate baked goods. Splashing some into a raspberry sauce is a no-brainer move that intensifies the flavor of berries, particularly frozen or off-season ones.

By contrast, it’s still prime season for citrus, which can be heightened with Cointreau, a high-end triple sec covered in a previous post. I have a personal affection for Cointreau after visiting the distillery as a student in Angers, France, also in the Loire Valley. It’s not quite as strong as Grand Marnier, an orange peel-based cognac often used in chocolate desserts, particularly mousse.

Either Chambord or Cointreau could be used in the following recipes, the first so basic that it almost doesn’t count as baking. And I can attest that making chocolate mousse is way easier than it sounds.

Of course, if you didn’t want to spring for these spirits, try substituting orange and raspberry extracts, just not in the same amounts. I’ve been experimenting with some McCormick pure extracts in my kitchen and find some flavors, like orange, almost overpowering, while coffee — also nice  in baked goods — can be used more liberally. For more delicate flavors, which should be backed by fine chocolate, try orange-blossom or rosewaters.  

MCT photo

Chambord Black-Raspberry Brownies

1 box devil’s-food cake mix

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1⁄2 cup oil

1⁄4 cup Chambord

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1⁄4 cup powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with foil. Combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, Chambord and 1⁄4 cup water. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour into prepared baking pan and smooth. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool to room temperature before cutting. Dust with the powdered sugar, if desired, and slice brownies into 3-inch squares. Top with ice cream and 3 to 4 ounces of Chambord.

Makes approximately 12 servings.

Chocolate-Chambord Mousse

3 large egg yolks

1⁄2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons Chambord

2 cups heavy cream, divided

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Place the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Combine the sugar and 2 tablespoons water and bring to a boil for 1 minute on stovetop. Pour sugar mixture over egg yolks and mix well. Add the Chambord and mix. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whip 1 cup of the heavy cream to medium peaks. Using a mixer, whisk egg-Chambord mixture until thin and pale, about 2 to 3 minutes. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time. Remove bowl from heat and let cool until tepid.

Fold egg mixture and whipped cream into chocolate mixture until just combined. Spoon into favorite stemware or a serving bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

May be made a day ahead. Before serving, whip remaining heavy cream with the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Garnish mousse with whipped cream and fresh mint sprigs.

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That red varietal is among the most well-suited to our area, as more and more grape growers and wine drinkers are realizing. An Applegate estate’s even earned a recent nod from the Los Angeles Times as its Wine of the Week.

Cowhorn Vineyard & Garden is one of the more unique operations locally, owing to its status as certified Biodynamic. It also grows lots of asparagus in spring and some stone fruits in summer. I’ve visited Bill and Barbara Steele’s property for several stories, including a 2007 piece that delved into the business of “green” and “sustainable” wines. My professional headshot coincidentally was taken at Cowhorn.

The only drawback to Cowhorn wines is that releases have been somewhat exclusive. But production has steadily grown, making it more accessible to locals.

And here’s a tip for Times columnist S. Irene Virbila: If you don’t know how different the Rogue Valley is from the Willamette, plan a visit. Similarities between France’s Rhone region and Southern Oregon have been examined by other wine writers.

Here are more ideas for Valentine’s Day wines from the Minneapolis Star Tribune based not on food but relationship status:

Six months or less: Think pink. And bubbles. The bloom is still on your relationship, big-time, and the beverage of choice should reflect that. If money is little or no object, shell out for the real deal from Champagne, $75-plus for Billecart-Salmon or Pol Roger or maybe half that for Nicolas Feuillatte or Piper-Heidsieck.

One to five years: The bloom might be off the rose, but you’re still sweet on each other, so celebrate with one of those lush, nectarlike wines. Two sweet ones well worth a $70 splurge are the Baumard Quarts de Chaume, a chenin blanc from France’s Loire region, or Inniskillin Vidal Ice Wine from Ontario. But more affordable options abound, from chocolate-infused reds (Trentadue Chocolate Amore or Rosenblum Desiree) to the wonderful Washington riesling Chateau Ste. Michelle’s “Eroica.”

Five to 10 years: There’s a good chance your relationship is as much about looking ahead as looking back. People who enjoy fermented grape juice almost invariably love to travel, especially to vine-laden lands. So begin exploring the bounty of the Old World, New World and Down Under: Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany (Casanova di Neri Tenuta, Banfi), pinot noir from Oregon (Ken Wright, Le Cadeau) and the underrecognized whites from Australia (Yalumba Vermentino, Brokenwood Semillon).

More than 10 years: Plenty of options here, starting with a vintage bottle from the year of your first date or wedding (if you have a hard time finding one, get a 20-year-old Tawny Port from Dow or Taylor Fladgate and call it a day). Or have the same wine you savored together on a cherished trip, or at a wonderful wedding or on your best date of late.

Readers of this blog have no doubt gathered that I’m not big on baking, nor have I prepared many of the recipes that run in the newspaper’s weekly food section.

Baking, to be blunt, is too much of a bother for someone with my general apathy for sweets. And recipes rarely warrant the fuss on a daily basis. Simply put, I cook from experience, not a set of written instructions.

But this weekend, I made a concession to both recipes and sweets by tackling the Homemade Marshmallows that ran in the most recent edition of A la Carte. Gourmet marshmallows (read, not from a package) are a confection I happen to love, particularly if they’re flavored in interesting ways.

I have been the recipient of some McCormick extracts over the past year (one of the perks of being a food editor) and wanted to employ those to best effect in my kitchen. I ended up using orange and vanilla extracts in my first batch and coffee extract in my second, cocoa-dusted batch.

photo by Sarah Lemon

You could skip directly to the album I posted on my Facebook page of the marshmallows, but in this case, a picture isn’t worth a thousand words.

Marshmallows aren’t much to look at. Their beauty is all in their texture, which is heavenly when homemade and rubbery when extruded in a factory and packaged. Before setting up, homemade marshmallow has the texture of commercially made marshmallow fluff that comes in a jar and can be spooned, smeared or licked to your heart’s desire.

I’m more enamored of marshmallows than before because they really are easy. The stove and the mixer do all the work, there’s minimal measuring and manipulating of ingredients and the end result seems pretty impressive. Yes, the marshmallow is sticky right out of the mixing bowl, but the messiest part of the whole operation is dusting them with cornstarch and powdered sugar. But since when is simply opening a package of powdered sugar not messy?

However, pans and bowls used to make marshmallow clean up almost effortlessly under hot, running water, quicker than cooks could scrub off cake batter or cookie dough. And you don’t even have to turn on your oven or monitor the marshmallow once it’s spread out. Just let it sit overnight, dump it out of the pan the next day and use a pizza cutter to divide the mass into bite-sized squares.

Because I was overly ambitious and wanted to make football-shaped marshmallows for Super Bowl, I compromised my marshmallows a bit by trying to shape them without the right tools. Foolishly believing I simply could use a sharp knife to cut football shapes free-hand, I ended up using kitchen shears to snip away at them. Marshmallows really should be shaped with a well-greased cookie-cutter, or they end up looking ragged.

And, of course, I was reminded that drizzling designs with melted chocolate is harder than it sounds. If I was planning to decorate marshmallows in the future, I would use melted chocolate to affix sprinkles or other candies.

My next opportunity will be for a Valentine’s Day batch of raspberry-flavored, pink-tinted marshmallows adorned with some cinnamon candies. I also was planning to use peppermint extract (one of my personal favorites) in a green-tinted marshmallow for St. Patrick’s Day, possibly accented with some green sprinkles left over from baking Christmas cookies.

Provided they materialize, I’ll add those to the Facebook album.

The last post to this blog advocated seafood for Sunday’s big game in lieu of the ubiquitous platter of poultry parts.

I realize my suggestions, though, would never deter those die-hard chicken-wings fans from getting their fix. In fact, I’m pretty sure wings are in my future, if not Sunday then sometime soon, since my husband asked if we could buy some on our latest grocery-shopping trip.

To clarify, I’m not anti-wing, but I just prefer cuts of meat with a bit more substance, the drummettes in this case, rather than wings, which always seem like strips of fat covering bone. So when I make “wings,” I usually default to drummettes only.

You could certainly do the same with this recipe adapted by the Chicago Tribune, fittingly, from “New Orleans Chef’s Table.” It puts me in mind of Asian-style, sweet-hot wings that I prepared for my husband two Super Bowls ago. And this one would be a great way to use one of those oddball condiments he craves — pepper jelly.

Asian fare in any form could be the taste for San Francisco fans, as several food writers have pointed out. And don’t forget the fortune cookies, which supposedly originated there.

In addition to blue crabs and Old Bay, Baltimore is known for pit beef, a barbecued beef marinated with a dry rub and cooked slowly over the grill, as well as Berger Cookies, a soft, shortbread-style cookie dipped in fudge on the flat side.

Desserts, in general, tend to be overlooked at sports parties. If I was on the hook for providing this course, I definitely would consider the fun but relative ease of Baked S’mores, a recipe that ran in this week’s food section.

Or set up a sundae bar. Toppings could include Ghirardelli Chocolate and Jelly Bellies, both icons of the San Francisco Bay Area.

MCT photo

‘KFC’ Korean Fried-Chicken Wings

2 lemon grass stalks

5 garlic cloves

1 cup soy sauce

1 (3-inch-long) piece fresh ginger, sliced

Juice of 1 lime

1⁄2 cup salt

18 jumbo chicken wings, tips removed, cut into 2 sections

2 cups non-glutinous rice flour

Peanut oil for deep frying

3⁄4 cup (6 ounces) jarred pepper jelly, melted in a saucepan over low heat (may substitute sweet Thai chili sauce)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

1 tablespoon fresh, chopped chives, for garnish

Heat a large stockpot of water to boil over high heat. Add the lemon grass, garlic, soy sauce, ginger, lime juice and salt. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, then reduce to a simmer. Add the chicken wings to pot and blanch for 3 minutes only. (This will release some fat from skin and make skin tighter for frying.) Remove wings with a slotted spoon and shock in ice water; blot dry with paper towels.

Toss wings in the rice flour to coat well. Submerge wings, in batches, in hot oil at 350 F; fry until fully cooked inside, about 7 minutes. (Alternatively, place wings on a baking sheet and roast in a 375-degree oven, rotating pan halfway through, 15 to 20 minutes.)\

Place hot wings in a bowl; add melted pepper jelly or chili sauce. Stir to coat wings. Arrange wings on a serving platter; sprinkle with the sesame seeds and chives.

Makes 36 pieces.

Food writers around the country are dubbing this the “seafood Super Bowl.” Specifically, it’s a smackdown between West Coast Dungeness crab and East Coast blue crab. With Dungeness in high season, as covered in my latest column for Joy magazine, that’s reason enough to celebrate San Francisco, if I wasn’t already so inclined.

And the crab concept is a nice departure from the typical Super Bowl party menu of chicken wings and chili. If you’re going to do Dungeness, it’s best to buy them whole, put them on ice and let guests crack their own. They’ll eat a bit less, saving you some cash, if they have to work a bit for those morsels of meat.

Or enjoy the lion’s share yourself, then give your Super Bowl guests a hearty stew with a hint of crab the next day. Cioppino, of course, is the iconic San Francisco seafood dish, particularly served with big hunks of sourdough. This recipe for bouillabaisse is a close relative of tomato-based cioppino, essentially born the same way as the latter from whatever fishermen had left over from the day’s catch. Plus, bouillabaisse’s French origins also plays off the big game’s host city of New Orleans.

The classic blue-crab preparation, of course, is crabcakes with a sauce of mayonnaise and mustard and seasoned with Baltimore’s mainstay Old Bay Seasoning, covered in a previous post. The following recipe omits Old Bay, but you could add that to taste.

Crabcakes on the grill / MCT photo

Or hedge your bets on the game’s outcome and serve a crowd-pleasing crab dip. Find a recipe in one of the recent posts to this blog.

While beer will be Sunday’s beverage of choice, it’s not the best pairing with crab. So consider offering a glass of wine that complements the crustacean.

McClatchy New Service’s wine columnist suggested a crisp rose with seafood stew. I like Del Rio’s Rose Jolee and Troon’s Jeanie in the Bottle. For crabcakes, go with a more delicate albarino. Abacela in Roseburg generally is recognized as the best for that varietal in this region. And check out this Wednesday’s Wine of the Week on our wine-tasting page for another bottle to serve with crab.

Here’s how to kick off your crab feast:

Buy four cooked Dungeness crabs and reserve their shells and body meat for bouillabaisse. If using live crabs, bring a pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Place live crabs into water for 8 minutes. Remove and place into an ice bath to cool for about 10 minutes.

Separate the claws and legs and put them on ice. When cool, extract the meat and serve on a platter with some dipping sauces and cut lemon. Separate crab heads from bodies and extract meat from body cavities, reserving for stew. Crack crab shells and reserve for stew, too. Keep all crab meat on ice when working with it, refrigerated when not. If not making stew immediately, store shells in refrigerator, too.

Dungeness Bouillabaisse

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 shallots, peeled and sliced

3 carrots, peeled and diced

1 garlic clove, unpeeled

1 apple, sliced

1 head fennel, sliced

1 cup white wine

1⁄4 cup Pernod (anise liqueur)

6 cups fish stock

2 tablespoons fennel seeds

1 tablespoon coriander seed

2 fresh bay leaves

1 tablespoons saffron (optional)

Salt, to taste

1 cup cream

Reserved meat from crab bodies (see above)

1⁄2 pound sable fillet (or any white fish)

1 pound mussels, cleaned and cooked

Heat the olive oil over moderate heat in a large saucepan. Add crab shells, raise heat and cook for 7 to 10 minutes. Next, add the shallots, carrots, sliced apple and fennel and cook until they release their liquid, about 6 minutes. Deglaze with the white wine and Pernod and burn off alcohol.

Add the fish stock, spices and salt and cook at a simmer for 4 minutes. Strain in mixture through a colander, pressing solids to extract maximum amount of liquid without forcing too hard. (You want a clean flavor.)

Return stock to a clean saucepan, add the cream and reduce to desired consistency. Then bring to a gentle simmer and add back the crab body meat, as well as the fish and shellfish of choice. Adjust seasonings.

Ladle soup into hot bowls and serve with crusty bread.

Crabcakes and Spicy Mustard Sauce

1⁄3 cup chopped red bell pepper

4 tablespoons canola mayonnaise, divided

1⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt

1⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 green onions, root ends trimmed and discarded, white and most of green portions chopped

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 1⁄3 cups panko (Japanese breadcrumbs), divided

1 pound lump crabmeat, drained and shell pieces removed

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream

2 teaspoons chopped, fresh parsley

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon white-wine vinegar

1⁄8 teaspoon ground red pepper

Combine the bell pepper, 2 tablespoons of the mayonnaise, the salt, pepper, onions, egg and egg yolk. Add 1⁄3 cup of the panko and the crab; toss gently. Divide crab mixture into 8 equal portions; shape each into a 3⁄4-inch-thick patty. Place remaining panko in shallow dish. Gently dredge patties in panko.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil to pan. Add 4 crabcakes; cook for 4 minutes on each side. Remove from pan and keep warm. Repeat procedure with remaining oil and crabcakes. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and remaining ingredients; serve with crabcakes.

Makes 4 servings.

Citrus has been available in stores for a couple of months, as covered in December’s Season to Taste column. But citrus season really picked up speed within the past couple of weeks.

I wondered if some of the first fruits actually were new-crop, judging from their lack of aroma and slightly deflated shape. But the most recent specimens of grapefruits, tangelos and lemons that I’ve encountered are plump, smooth and emit a floral, astringent perfume — perfect for snacking or myriad uses in the kitchen.

When a food is this fresh, it can inspire the meal, most recently a simple salad that I tossed together with sliced savoy cabbage, tangelo sections, chunks of avocado and sesame seeds. Some grilled or poached poultry or seafood makes this a main dish.

The dressing couldn’t have been easier: a couple of tablespoons of red miso paste whisked with a tablespoon each of water, rice-wine vinegar and brown sugar, along with some fresh ginger and lemon-grass paste. Instead of vinegar, I could have used more citrus juice.

Of course, after I had written this week’s food-section story on oranges, our wire service came through with a new batch of tips and recipes. So here’s a supplement to the latest spread in A la Carte, plus another couple of salad recipes, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. Each is ready in less than 30 minutes.

For the first, I find that segmenting grapefruits at least with a knife is unnecessary. I simply peel the fruit while still cold from the refrigerator, break it into sections and then strip away the membranes by hand. The pulp, still in segments, just slides out from the membranes. I haven’t tried this with all citrus varieties, which may have membranes that are too thin for this work.

Here are more techniques for preparing citrus from the Free Press.

Juicing: Get more juice out of limes (or lemons) by microwaving them for 20 seconds or by rolling them around under your palm on the countertop. As you press down, the segments break down, releasing more juice. Or use a fork to poke the segments. Freeze any leftover juice in ice-cube trays. Once frozen, place the cubes in a freezer bag.

Zesting: This means to remove pieces of the outer rind of the fruit, which has aromatic oils that enhance and flavor foods. The white, pithy part under the peel is bitter.

If a recipe calls for the “zest of one lemon,” that means to remove strips of rind from the whole lemon. If the recipe calls for grated lemon zest, grate the rind on a box grater, zester or rasp-style grater and then measure the quantity needed.

Store thin or wide strips of lemon zest and grated lemon zest in a freezer-safe container or plastic, resealable bag. It will keep for several months.

Several kitchen tools easily remove citrus zest to avoid the pith. Here are a few:

Rasp-style zesters and graters. Most cooks prefer Microplane-style graters, which have sharp teeth that remove the zest in a snap and in feathery bits that incorporate easily with other ingredients. Graters come in several sizes, colors and styles, producing fine to coarse grates.

Citrus zesters. These typically have five tiny but sharp holes in their tips. When you pull the zester across the fruit, little strips of peel come off.

Vegetable peelers. Use one that is not super sharp so it doesn’t dig too deep into the fruit and remove the white pith. If this happens, use a paring knife to scrape away any pith.

Segmenting: Here’s an easy way to cut oranges and grapefruits into segments. Use a serrated knife to cut a slice off each end of the fruit, revealing some of the flesh. Stand the fruit on one cut end. Starting at the top of the fruit and cutting to the bottom, slice off pieces of peel along with the pith (you will get some of the flesh), following the curve of the fruit.

Once you’ve removed the peel all around, cut off any remaining pith. To cut into segments, hold the fruit in your hand over a bowl to catch the juices. Cut on each side of the membrane all the way to the core to cut out the segment. Once you have cut out all the segments, squeeze what you have left to release more juice. 

MCT photo

Ruby Red Grapefruit, Hearts of Palm and Shrimp Salad

4 red or pink grapefruit, segmented (see tip above)

8 ounces peeled and cooked, small shrimp

1 (14-ounce) can hearts of palm, drained and sliced

1⁄2 cup chopped, fresh cilantro

1⁄3 cup chopped red onion

1⁄4 cup sliced green olives

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

After segmenting the grapefruit, squeeze juice from membrane into a medium bowl. Add the shrimp, hearts of palm, cilantro, onion, olives and salt; stir to combine. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Makes 4 servings.

— Recipe From Eating Well magazine’s January/February 2013 issue.

MCT photo

Citrus Salad With Dates and Walnuts

1⁄2 cup chopped dates

4 tablespoons blood-orange or clementine juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon white-wine vinegar

1⁄8 teaspoon ground cumin, optional

Salt, to taste

1⁄4 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1 cup clementine, blood-orange or ruby red-grapefruit segments

5 cups salad greens

1⁄2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

In a heatproof bowl, cover the dates with boiling water; let stand for 5 minutes. Strain, reserving 1 teaspoon liquid. Place reserved liquid in a bowl and add the juice, olive oil, vinegar, cumin and salt to taste. Add dates, the onion and citrus segments; toss with the greens and nuts and serve. Makes 4 servings.

— Recipe adapted from Everyday With Rachael Ray magazine’s December 2012 issue.