Spicy-Tart Pickled Ramp Recipe

This past weekend friends who live near us upstate, on an area overrun with ramps, graciously invited us over for our second annual swap of all-we-can-pick ramps for a pick-up truck full of our “like gold” sheep manure for their garden. (So very cutting-edge-hipster-locavore.   Then again, poop for weeds…)

After a very muddy morning, we brought home two substantial garbage bags of ramps with their roots and soil intact, to transplant to our woods, and a very generous shopping bag of loose ramps to cook and eat.   I got to work on a big batch of these slightly hot, slightly sweet, bright and tangy pickled ramps that night.  I am now addicted, and looking forward to ice cold pickled ramp martinis later this summer.  Oh, and picked ramps also go brilliantly with fish and roasted meats, on sandwiches, or alongside cheeses and charcuterie.

SPICY-TART PICKLED RAMPS

by Catie

2 large bunches of cleaned ramps, stalks only, trimmed of greens (about 2-3 cups, loosely packed) (Save greens for scrambled eggs.)

Kosher salt
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp black mustard seed
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp peppercorns, white, green, or black, or combination
2 1/2″ piece of ginger root, cut in 1/2″ pieces
1 dried thai chili, about 2″ long, seeds removed for less spice
1 bay leaf

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Have a bowl of ice water ready nearby. Blanch ramps in salted water for about 30 seconds, and then shock in ice water to stop the cooking. This will preserve some of the ramps’ color. Dry and transfer to a quart sized jar.

In a non-reactive pot, combine vinegar, sugar, water, ginger, chili, bay leaf, and spices. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and pour over blanched ramps.

Cool, cover and refrigerate. Ramps will be sufficiently pickled in about 3 days, and will keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks. If you’d like to preserve them longer, process in a canning water bath to seal jar.

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Table to Farm.

You may have seen the photos. Long elegant, serpentine tables, winding through idyllic rural farm landscapes. Plus gorgeous, vibrant local food, prepared by a super star chef. Yes, it is Outstanding in the Field, and yes, the tickets go on sale today.

Outstanding in the Field is an 11 year old organization, founded by chef and artist Jim Denevan, that arranges elegant communal food events in beautiful farm environments around the county. Each dinner features a highly regarded chef from the area, and serves food grown or raised a few feet from where you are sitting. Though not inexpensive at $200 a pop, the ticket price includes several hours of a many course meal and wine, a farm tour, a brilliant chef, supporting the local farm and farmer, and probably the most spectacular dining room I’ll ever eat in.

Here is a short piece CBS Sunday Morning did on Jim a couple of years back.

Since learning of OITF a couple of years ago, I have had conflicts each year, and finally this season will have a chance to experience it myself. So exciting to see on the schedule a dinner with my most favorite chef Bill Telepan, that is also a benefit for my beloved Wellness in the Schools, and one almost in my backyard in rural Sullivan County, cooked by Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery and no-knead bread fame. Lovely choices.

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Bonus round!

Last fall was complete chaos in our home.  I was in the final weeks of getting my culinary degree, worrying more about my impending final exam than I had about anything else in my life to date, and was growing very weary of my year-long commute to the city, away from home and husband, for 5 nights a week.  Every other detail seemed to go out with the compost.

So it didn’t surprise us much when a few months later, after a few good snowfalls, we both looked at each other and realized we had never harvested our second planting of our famed and favorite heirloom beets.  While not a huge amount, there was about a bed and a half of beets still in the garden, now frozen solid to the ground.  We treasure them, and were disappointed, and felt stupid and wasteful.

Fast forward to yesterday’s magnificent first kiss of spring weather.  All I wanted to do was be outside, digging in something.  I walked through one of our gardens, with the ground now visible for the first time in many months—and low and behold, there were tiny sprouts of beet greens peeking up from a variety of leafy debris.  Further investigation, and a few dirty fingernails later, I discovered beets!  A lot of beets!

Our small second crop of golden, bull’s blood, detroit dark red, and chioggia beets had successfully overwintered.  Protected enough somehow by the mulch on top of the beds, and apparently benefiting from some very extended root systems, these beauties made it though, and managed to do so well enough that they now had the energy to start sprouting leaves again.  Remarkable.  And fresh beets for dinner in March.

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Spring’s ahead.

Upstate New York, March 14, 2010.

Oregano returns.

First chives of the season.

Thawed sheep pen. (We're definitely not in Brooklyn anymore.)

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Rick Bishop

Farmers are my heros.  As a chef and food fanatic, they are the mamas and papas, surrogates and midwives of my most precious ingredients.  As an upstate resident, they are the fierce protectors of our land, farming heritage, and heirloom varieties of animals and vegetables.  And since moving upstate, I have had the great pleasure of getting to know many of these amazing neighbors–and then getting to visit them at the market in Union Square.

Rick Bishop of Mountain Sweet Berry Farm is one of the rockstars of the Greenmarket, and a friend of ours.  He is adored by the most brilliant of chefs and grows the most magnificent strawberries (Tristar) and heirloom fingerling potatoes, among many other treasures.  Keep an eye out for his table overflowing with ramps in the early spring.

Seriouseats.com did a great short film about Rick  a little while back.  Definitely worth a few minutes of your time, particularly in the doldrums of winter.

I love Alexandra Guarnaschelli’s comment about Rick in the video:

“When I buy your potatoes, and I bring them back to the restaurant, and I put them in the oven, I can smell your soil, baking, in the oven…I love your dirt, and he said “It’s not dirt, it’s soil, and it’s a living, breathing thing.”

Yes.

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babes in the woods.

So in anticipation of more snowmageddon (we’re expecting close to 2′ upstate today…oh my, just started a blog and already reduced to talking about the weather. Moving on…) I came down to the city a day earlier so as to not risk not being able to make it in for my Food Blogging class with Steven Shaw at the International Culinary Center.

Before taking off I snapped a few photos to take with me of my total sweetheart pet sheep. They came to us from, and are of the much larger flock of, Eugene Wyatt of Catskill Merino sheep farm. My husband got the first ones 12+ years ago.

Eugene is at the Union Square Greenmarket each Saturday, with gorgeous naturally dyed merino wool yarn (our very small flock’s wool is mixed in there somewhere) and pasture raised lamb, including amazingly delicious lamb bacon.

Blanche & Stella

"Stellaaaaaa."

"The Ram"

Mimi.

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Farmers, Farmers everywhere…

Four and a half years ago, after living in New York City for close to nine years, I moved just about 2 hours north to Sullivan County, NY.  We managed to keep a place, and one foot, in the city (and still do), but the move brought lots of new opportunities for space, health, quiet, 7 sheep as pets, and also finally co-habitating with my soon-to-be fiance.  Though not so many opportunities for new food experiences and getting to walk everywhere, both of which I probably treasure most about living in NYC.

However, I soon discovered that I was in the middle of an area incredibly rich in vegetable and dairy farmers, cheesemakers, and livestock that live and eat better than I did most days in my hells kitchen apartment.  This move brought the chance to start living on some really whole food.  I could just feel my expected lifespan increasing.

I read two articles last week on the same day that seemed to speak to each other, and speak to health in relation to living or not living in an urban area.

First, my local paper reported that of the 62 counties in New York State, our picturesque county in the Catskills is one of the 16 unhealthiest.  We rank higher in premature deaths than the Bronx.

Report: Sullivan One of the Most Unhealthy Counties in State

The other, a blog post from DailyYonder.com, reports on the new Food Environment Atlas.  A fascinating set of maps relating health to food to location–Number of Fast Food Restaurants per 1,000, for example.  Gallons of soft drink consumed per person, Number of adults who are exercising enough…

Most Fast Food Per Person and Other Food Facts

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