Author: Diegolandia

The Spring Pantry

Spring vegetables are coming.  You need just the right ingredients to highlight their bright, verdant qualities without covering up their beautiful flavor.  We humbly submit the following pantry items for your consideration.  All of these items have a story behind them, all are crafted by artisans.  Our promise is that each one is actually worth your time and attention.  Pick one, or a few, to add to your pantry this season, and discover something new to love.
You think you’ve had orange blossom water, but you haven’t really, not until you’ve tried this one.  That’s because these are one of the few traditional producers of orange blossom water in the world.  This is made by collecting the distillate from freshly picked orange blossoms distilled in spring water.  The aroma is incredible.  Most commercial product is simply artificially flavored water.  Not this.
Everything Bagel Spice!  Yep, a spice jar that includes toasted onion and garlic flakes, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and caraway.  Really good on salmon, beets and rye.
There is little that a perfect green spring vegetable needs other than a nice drizzle of good olive oil, salt and pepper.  However, this agrumato, which is made from olives crushed with tangerine peels, is a worthy departure.  The warm aromatic orange oils highlight fava beans especially well.
If you’re not using Okinawa Black Sugar yet, you’re in for a treat.  This soft, chunky molasses-y at the core sugar has true terrior, and deserve to be showcased.  Japanese women are reputed to consider this a health food and snack on the sugar pieces straight up.  Butterscotch is essentially brown sugar and butter: perhaps it’s time for an upgrade.  Or maybe a butter pecan ice cream.  Or a salted shortbread situation.
Look at me.  Any guesses?  Okay, stay with me.  I realize this sounds forward, but, you need purple sweet potato vinegar with honey in your life.  Who?  Essentially a sweet potato sake that’s been turned into vinegar and sweetened with honey.  A bit like a concentrated shrub, flavor-wise.

Once you taste this, you’ll find a way to incorporate it.  If you’re planning on using spring and summer fruits in a savory way, like strawberries or stone fruits, this would be an excellent way to enhance them.  It would make an excellent spring or summer-weight vinaigrette.  Truly special.
Want to add a hit of spice and citrus to your crudo, asparagus, scallops, or oh yeah–fried soft shell crabs?  This.  Togarashi with yuzu peel.  Hot and bright, balanced and nuanced.  Sansho makes it tingle.  Get.
Wadaman Sesame: three products, three ways.  You know how there are almonds, and then Marcona almonds?  Pistachios, and Sicilian pistachios?  There are also sesame seeds–and then sesame seeds from Wadaman.  We have their roasted sesame seeds, sesame pastes, and sesame oils.

The seeds: single-source, roasted by a master sesame roaster who has been at it 6 days a week for 45 years.  They taste different than seeds you roast in your oven: these are deeply crispy, have a nutty popcorn-like crunch to them, and each one is perfect.  Salty Black, Roasted White, and Roasted Gold.

The oils: all of the oils are light-roast, and the oil itself is pale, clear, and closer to a nut oil than a toasted sesame oil in flavor.  White, Black, and Gold Sesame Oils.  This is the perfect item to lightly dress asparagus, peas, and favas with if you want to enhance without overwhelming their delicate spring flavors.  They also make a Toasted Sesame Oil for when you want something more robust.

The pastes: as many of you now know, we have their Black Sesame Paste as well as Gold Sesame Paste.  These are made from fully roasted seeds and are ground whole and unhulled, as opposed to tahini, which is typically hulled.  That means these have a very robust, full flavor profile.
By Diegolandia

Spring Begins

Market Updates: First of the season Knoll Farm Green Garlic and Stinging Nettles arrive Saturday.  Greengage plums are over.  Cool new things: Baby Red Mizuna from Lakeville.  On the pod, super fresh, quarter-sized leaves.  Baby (ish) Pink Treviso– about half the size of regular red treviso, same oblong shape, beautiful half-pink, half-pale green leaves.  Speaking of chicories, we continue to have the excellent Radicchio di Castelfranco, and we are also doing our own house mix of Heirloom Chicories, and it’s a jewel box of cool things like tardivo, pink radicchio, red endive, Castelfranco and more.  Muscat Grapes are here.  Heirloom citrus continues, but the lineup has changed, see below.


pink treviso

From the Pantry: Yuzu Togarashi is the jam.  Think single-source, mixed by the grower in Japan, with a yuzu-peel dominant profile.   Outstanding partner to some of the new spring veg coming in.

New

Baby Red Mizuna
Baby Pink Treviso
Japanese Negi (ltd)

Knoll Organic Farm

Brentwood, CA

Stinging Nettles
Green Garlic
Cardoons
Wild Rapini

 

 

Rising C Ranch

Reedley, CA

Cara-Cara Oranges

Moro Blood Oranges

Seville Sour Oranges

Meyer Lemons

Page Mandarins

Oroblancos

Bergamot

Green Sunshine Farm

Hodgdon, ME

Russian Banana Fingerlings

Bintje Potatoes

 

Ripley Farm

Dover-Foxcroft, ME

Organic Rainbow Carrots 

Yellow Sun Carrots

Purple Haze Carrots

 

Sparrow Arc Farm

Copake, NY

Watermelon Radish

Black Radish

Purple Boar Radish

Green Daikon

 

County Line Harvest

Petaluma, CA

Spigarello Kale

 

Equinox Farm

Sheffield, MA

Native Mesclun Greens

In Season:

Pink Muscat Grapes
Fresh Red Currants
CA Kumquats
Pummelos
Radicchio di Castelfranco
SFB Mixed Chicories
California Red Walnuts
Arrowhead Cabbage
Romanesco Cauliflower
Orange/Purple/Green Cauliflower
Fioretti Cauliflower
Red & Green Gem Lettuces
Red & Green Watercress

Fresh Oregon Yellowfoot Mushrooms
Fresh Oregon Hedgehog Mushrooms
Fresh Oregon Black Trumpet Mushrooms

By Diegolandia

Winter Citrus, Knoll Farm Rapini & Cardoons
 

Market Updates:

Citrus Update: we have satsuma mandarins, Meyer lemons, blood oranges, and cara-cara pink navels.  We also have kumquats and finger limes.

Knoll Farm rapini and cardoon have started. Red Gem lettuce is one of the loveliest things we’ve added to our mix this winter: deep red, green at the center baby romaine-like heads.  Speaking of red greens, we have baby red Russian kale, too.

In the Larder: If you missed it last week, all these awesome new Japanese products.  And the Silan–aka date molasses–that we carry from the good folks at Soom got a mention in the New York Times last week.  If you haven’t tried it and want to, please ask for a sample and we’ll make it happen.  New, from Acetoria vinegar, an incredible dark pear balsamic, made from straight pears–no grapes.

New!

  • Arrowhead Cabbage
  • Knoll Organic Farm- Brentwood, CA
  • Wild Rapini
    Cardoons
  • County Line Farm- Petaluma, CA
  • Mixed Heirloom Baby Chicories
  • Rising C Ranch- Reedly, CA
  • Blood Oranges
    Satsuma Mandarins
    Cara Cara Pink Navels
    Meyer Lemons

Now in season:

  • Baby Red Russian Kale
    Red Gem & Little Gem Lettuce
    Endive & Red Endive
    Escarole
    Frisee
    Trevisano
    Radicchio
    Cut Baby Watercress
    Red Watercress
    Shanghai Baby Bok Choi

  • Oregon Hedgehog Mushrooms
    Oregon Yellowfoot Mushrooms
    Trumpet Royale Mushrooms
    Baby Brussels Sprouts
    Baby Purple Brussels SproutsPousse Pied
    Salsify
    Celery Root
    Fresh Red Currants (ltd)
    Finger Limes
    Kumquats
    French Breakfast Radishes
    Easter Egg Radishes

    Caulilini, aka Japanese Cauliflower, aka Fioretti Cauliflower
    Orange, Green and Purple Cauliflower
    Romanesco Cauliflower

 Local Produce

  • Heirloom Cranberries
    Gilfeather Turnips
  • Baby Turnips
    Maine Chantenay Carrots
    Maine Yellow Kimbe Carrots
    Maine Organic Rainbow Carrots
    Native Green Daikon Radish
    Native Purple Daikon Radish
    Watermelon Radish
    Black Radish
    Maine Bintje Potatoes
    Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes

Charcuterie & Seafood Updates-

We are pleased to introduce New England Charcuterie “Caccitorini”–a rustic hunter-style salume with a hint of black pepper and garlic.  We are also carrying their excellent Njuda–a spreadable salami that is well-seasoned with spicy Calabrian Chiles.  We received a fresh shipment ofLa Quercia Proscuitto Americano.  Made from heritage-breed Berkshire pork, raised on an antibiotic-free, vegetarian diet.  These pigs are humanely raised on family farms in the Midwest.  The prosciutto contains no nitrates or nitrites.

This week we will have a limited quantity of local Maine “Cadillac” oysters, so named after the Cadillac mountain in Acadia National Park.  Grown in floating cages, where the food source is plentiful and the waves help produce a deep cup.  They have a bright brine flavor with notes of flint and a sweet kelp finish. We are offering these at $89 for a 100-ct bag.

Cadillac Oyster, Trenton, Maine
By Diegolandia

The Japanese Pantry II

The Japanese Pantry Part II: New Products 

New Year, new awesome products.  New items below, link to the full lineup at the bottom of the page.

From master vinegar maker, Iio Jozo, comes Purple Sweet Potato Vinegar with Honey.  If it sounds like it has a lot going on, that’s because it does.  First, they make a sake from purple sweet potatoes.  Then, they turn it into vinegar.  Finally, they finish it with honey.  The process takes two years.  Tasting almost like an expertly crafted shrub, but more intense, the uses of this vary from the bar to the pastry station, to Momofuku’s vegetable cookbook, page 178, in a recipe for Nishi Sweet Potatoes.  Also, it’s amazing. 500 ml bottle.  Note: we will have a non-sweetened version (no honey) available as well, if you’d like that please be very specific on your order-thanks!

Okinawa Brown Sugar, also known as Okinawan black sugar.  This treat from Hateruma island is sugar, with terroir.  This almost-savory, almost salty dark brown sugar tastes a lot like molasses, because it’s essentially boiled sugar cane, barely refined.  High in iron and potassium, it’s sometimes touted as a health food.  But for our purposes, the thing to know is that it’s complex, delicious and perfect for those who like their sweets to lean a little savory.  Any recipe utilizing this sugar should be showcasing it, not covering it up.  500 gram pouch.

Roasted Golden Sesame Paste, from Wadaman, is made from unhulled, roasted sesame seeds.  There are three types of sesame seeds in the world- white, gold, and black.  The golden seeds, from Turkey, are roasted by master sesame roaster Wadaman before being ground to a rich paste.  Rich and full-bodied with a strong mid-palate presence.    One kilo pouch.

Smoked Soy Sauce, from Yubeta.  This sauce, squeezed out by the drop from the bottle, is beautifully smoked over cherry wood, and while the smoke is front and present, the care and nuance put into this will impress you.  Anywhere you’d want to add a few drops of smoke and umami.  210 ml bottle.

Yuzu Shichimi Togarashi.  This very special togarashi is yuzu-dominant, thanks to the dried yuzu peel.  The blend itself is expertly made.  Speaking from personal experience, this was pretty amazing on Nantucket bay scallops and would complement other fish as well.  With its citrus and chili aspects, it’s a natural for ceviches and crudos.  10-gram pouch.

Sansho Pepper.  A member of the prickly ash family, sansho is similar to Sichuan peppercorn and green in color.  This is actually a blend of three different sansho peppers, and its effect is direct and precise.  The balance is spot-on, and the numbing presence is there but not overwhelming. If Sichuan peppercorns are a machete, this is a scalpel.  15-gram pouch.


White Tamari.  Made from only wheat, Japanese sea salt, koji, and mountain spring water.  This differs from dark tamari in a few ways: it has no soy, it is gluten-FULL, and it is great to use when you want the umami-richness of soy without the dark notes.  The nose is malty and distinctly evocative of white miso.  This is a great pantry staple to have on hand for all kinds of purposes, especially raw fish, more delicate mushrooms, finishing sauces or soups, or anywhere you might think of sneaking in a little white miso. From Nitto Jozo, who has been making this since 1938.


Liquid Shio Koji.  Perhaps it’s cliche to call this umami in a bottle, so maybe we should call it a cousin to msg you can feel good about.  But that doesn’t quite cover it either.  It can be your salt, your msg, your brine, your secret pantry staple you use to build layers of flavor, the thing you add to your mayo to finish it, the thing you brine your fish in before you smoke it, the thing you marinate your chicken in before you grill it, the thing you add to your soup to season it….guys liquid shio koji is like six bucks a bottle and it’s the bomb, just grab one.  Basically, it’s shio koji (which is usually thick and porridge-like) pushed through a sake press, so that it’s ready to use.


Salty Black Sesame Seeds.  From Wadaman, the sesame roaster you’ve read so much about here.  In this case, they take premium black sesame seeds sourced from Bolivia and brine them before roasting them, resulting in crisp nutty seeds with a salty pop that is great for finishing legumes and dips, as a fleur de sel alternative, or frankly just snacking on. Also in house: regular (non-salty) roasted white and gold sesame seeds from Wadaman.

Click here for More Japanese Pantry

By Diegolandia

NYE 2018

These gorgeous County Line Mixed Chicories belong on every winter menu. It’s like a tiny chicory jewel box offering a juicy, slightly bitter counterpoint to sweet things like dried fruits, sour things like heirloom citrus, and salty things like pecorino or ricotta salata. First of the season Knoll Rapini and Cardoons expected ***Saturday***.  Crosnes are here.  Also known as Chinese Artichoke, Knotweed, and perhaps coolest of all, Artichoke Betony, these have the winning nuttiness of a sunchoke, textural pop like a water chestnut, and taste really good with other white winter root veg, or prepared in the style of carbonara.  Last of the season fresh Yuzu in house.  Rising C Ranch Blood Oranges are in.   Red currants are gapping and should return next week, though not necessarily in time for nye .   Heirloom winter squashes are basically done, and only the commercial varieties, plus a little delicata and sugar pumpkin, are all that’s left to be had.  Wild mushrooms now include Hedgehog and Yellowfoot.  This is the last week for Chanterelles.  Black Trumpets are limited.

First of the Season

French Crosnes
Knoll Farm Cardoons (SATURDAY)
Knoll Farm Rapini (SATURDAY)

Rising C Ranch- Reedly, CA

Buddha Hands
Satsuma Tangerines
Cara Cara Pink Navels
Meyer Lemons
Fresh Yuzu last of the season
Blood Oranges

Frog Hollow Farm- Brentwood, CA

Warren Pears
Pink Lady Apples

Scott Farm Apple Orchard- Dummerston, VT

Winesaps
Rhode Island Greening
Hudson Golden Gems

County Line Harvest- Petaluma, CA

Baby Mixed Heirloom Chicories

Green Sunshine Farm- Hodgdon, ME

Yellow Sun Carrots
Purple Haze Carrots
Russian Banana Fingerlings
Bintje Potatoes

Sparrow Arc Farm- Copake, NY

Watermelon Radish
Purple Boar Radish
Green Daikon
Black Radish

Sugar Hill Farm- Columbia, ME

Maine Heirloom Cranberries

Also In Season

Israeli Fuyu Persimmons (Sharon Fruit)
Sunchokes
Gilfeather Turnips
Baby Purple Brussels Sprouts
Baby Brussels Sprouts
Celery Snowflake
Fioretti Cauliflower
Romanesco Cauliflower
Red/Green Little Gem Lettuce
Red Watercress
Red Baby Kale
Trevisano

Finger Limes
California Kumquats
Fresh American Chestnuts
Cold Hollow Vermont Apple Cider
Black Trumpet Mushrooms (ltd)
Fresh Oregon Yellowfoot Mushrooms
Fresh Oregon Hedgehog Mushrooms
Comice Pears
Sekel Pears
California Quince
Honeycrisp Apples
Pomegranates

Cured Meats

benton’s aged country ham
iberico hams
serrano ham: redondo, fermin
guanciale & lardo
prosciutto & speck, la quercia
mortadella, fra mani
salami toscano, nostrano & salametto, fra mani
hot sopresatta, ndjua, finochiona, new england charcuterie

Finishing Touches

nut oils: almond, argan, hazelnut, pistachio, pumpkin seed, walnut
finishing oils: bergamot agrumato, smoked olive oil, real white truffle oil
jacobsen flake sea salt & smoked salt
black lava salt from hawaii
chestnut, agrumi and acacia honey from mario bianco
yuzu shichimi togarashi
sansho pepper
aged Japanese tamari
piment d’espelette
urfa & marash chili
grains of paradise
indonesian long pepper
soom tahini and date molasses
Japanese black and gold sesame pastes
salty black sesame seeds
cold-pressed white sesame oil

By Diegolandia