Dim Sum Sunday - How Does Your Garden Grow

Glean -
verb (used with object)
1. to gather slowly and laboriously, bit by bit.
2. to gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers.
3. to learn, discover, or find out, usually little by little or slowly.
verb (used without object)
4. to collect or gather anything little by little or slowly.
5. to gather what is left by reapers.

Free for the taking. The email popped up in my mailbox the morning after a night of heavy persistent rain. A farm market 30 miles west not only got the rain but had also been hit by hail. Their asparagus fields had survived but the hail had made the remaining stalks unsuitable for sale. However. If you didn't mind a little pocked marked asparagus, you could have as much as you could pick up. I quickly did the math. $2.99 a pound for grocery store asparagus or as much as I could pick for the price of a short road trip? I slapped on my mudders and pointed my little car west.The fields were at their end of their season. John, the cheerful man shuttling folks back and forth to the fields explained that we could take whatever we found, stalks lying on the ground, small tips just starting to emerge, take it all because it was just going to be plowed under the next day. Armed with my little green grocery basket I went to work. I thought more people would be out gathering the bounty but I toiled alone in my field while this man worked the field next to me. No matter, it was a beautiful day and the birds were chattering to one another in their secret bird language songs. It was better than any Ipod music I could jammed into my ears.Picking the stalks was not as easy as one would imagine. You're searching for green stalks in a green field. Nor is it a physically easy. The stalks are low to the ground and you've got to bend to get to them. I got into a rhythm once I did spot the stalks, stoop, snap, rise, crouch, snap and rise again. Slowly my basket started to fill.Happily not everything was crushed by hail. This was one of the many lady bugs I saw as I picked. A good sign of a nice healthy field. Stoop, snap, rise, stoop, snap, rise.My knees and back starting speaking to me as I continued my gleaning. "Don't you think it's time to stop?" they urged, "You have plenty of asparagus." The cheapskate side of my brain shouted them down. "FREE, it's FREE, just keep picking." I tried to distract myself with all the things I would do with my bounty. A majority of it would be blanched and vacuumed sealed to go into the freezer. The tender little tips I had made sure to also pick were destined to become pickles. The best and most tender stalks would go into my Dim Sum Sunday dish.With my basket finally full, I walked back up to the market store to say thanks for the gift and perhaps see what else might make the trip back home.While there was no sign saying how much they were, I'm betting they were as free as the asparagus.Did I mention we got a lot of rain? I drove home happy. My body ached, my nails had a fine line of soil beneath them and my jeans were tatooed with that wonderful black soil.
I hadn't planned to use asparagus for my Dim Sum dinner. I had a totally different dished planned. Even now there's a beautiful pork loin in the fridge still waiting for me. But this was just too good to pass up. I decided to blanch and stir fry my green treasure in Sambal Sauce. I only made half the amount and instead of shrimp paste I used anchovies crushed into a paste. I added a couple of Panko fried Soft Shell crabs to complete my Spring to the Extreme dish.The asparagus couldn't have been more tender and fresh. The spicy sweet peanut sauce danced through both the salty brine of the crab and the distinctive flavor of the asparagus. It was a beautiful marriage of flavors that made all the hard work and pain very much worth the effort. And while I was very sorry for the farmer's loss I was very thankful for his generosity that allowed me such a wealth of goodness.

Dim Sum Sunday - Spring Vegetables

For my spring vegetable dishes I chose to use Asparagus and Artichokes, both of which are in plentiful supply. I turned to Alice Water's Chez Panisse Vegetables for my Artichoke recipe.

Artichokes Baked with Anchovy Stuffing
4 large artichokes
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 onions
6 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 sprigs thyme
1/4 to 1/2 cup white wine
Salt and pepper
3/4 cup pitted niçoise olives
Stuffing:
Zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 salt-packed anchovies
1-1/3 cups toasted bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
Splash of white wine
Extra-virgin olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
A few sprigs thyme
Parsley
Pare the artichokes down to their hearts and scoop out the chokes with a spoon. Drop the hearts into water acidulated with lemon juice (or rub them with a little olive oil) to prevent them from discoloring. Set aside.
Peel the onions and garlic and slice very thin. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan, add the onions, garlic, and sprigs of thyme, and cook slowly for 10 minutes, until the onions have softened. Add about 1/4 cup of the white wine and cook 2 minutes more. Season to taste. Reserve about 1/4 cup of this onion mixture and set aside. Spread the rest of the onion mixture in a small, nonreactive baking dish large enough to hold the artichokes. Scatter the olives over the onions. Preheat the oven to 375° F.
To make the stuffing, grate the zest from the lemon; chop the parsley; and rinse, fillet, and chop the anchovies. Mix together with the reserved onion mixture and the bread crumbs.
Stuff each artichoke with one quarter of this mixture and place the artichokes stuffed side down on the bed of onions and olives in the baking dish. Season generously with salt and pepper. Splash a little white wine over them and drizzle with olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Strew with a few sprigs of thyme, cover the artichokes with parchment paper, and cover the baking dish tightly with foil. Bake for 60 to 90 minutes, until the artichokes can be easily pierced with a knife.
Serves 4. I added a little pancetta to the top but frankly this recipe did not make me want to repeat this effort. The stuffing seemed uninspiring and the artichoke itself was bland.The Asparagus, on the other hand, was much more successful. This month's Cook's Country, sister magazine to Cook's Illustrated, has a recipe for Broiled Asparagus with Mustard Vinaigrette that I highly recommend. Nothing could be easier than broiling asparagus.The last component to my Sunday dinner was Ina Garten's Roasted Shrimp Salad. Ina is one of the few chefs on the Food Network I enjoy and it's recipes like this make me want to tune into her show. The freshness of the orange zest really pops with the roasted shrimp. Pairing the zesty asparagus with the creaminess of the shrimp salad was a nice contrast. Two winners out of three's not bad.

DimSum Sunday ~ Spring Vegetables

Java's Sunday Supper

This is a simple pasta dish made with fresh asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, olives, basil, pignoli and shaved Pecorino Romano cheese. It's dressed with a fruity extra virgin olive oil to allow all of the fresh flavors of Spring to shine.

Next week's theme: Build A Better Burger (don't forget the sides)!!