Halibut with Lemon Herb Salt
Where is your sacred place where you can calm your mind, relax, be alone, disconnect the noise, think through daily happenings, or seek solace? For me, it is my garden. I may crawl under a fruit tree or hide behind a lush growth of raised beds in order to find a peaceful space now and then.
A few years ago, I got a little ahead of myself and had too many gardens to look after (thanks to my friends who trusted me and offered me their piece of land). This caused me to have to divide my attention amongst each garden. It goes without saying that I did not have time to truly appreciate any of them, but instead felt constant frustration and pressure to catch up with the growth of the vegetation.
After dropping all the other gardens in order to concentrate exclusively on my own garden at home, I began to truly re-appreciate the reality of having a garden. I spend more time there now, especially when I need to calm my mind. Stroking the leaves of herbs, feeling the grass on the back of my feet, thinning spinach seedlings, eating, weeding unwanted plants and picking slugs (oh, so satisfying!), listening to birds, feeling the warmth of light, smelling the air… I cannot list all that I experience in this space. It is sacred. It is a natural medicine. I hope everyone out there can have access to such a place or find their own place to call sacred where they can be themselves…alone.
Lemon Herb Salt
Herb salt is so easy to make yet so useful, and makes a great homemade gift for your foodie friends. You can use any herb of your choice, aside from those mentioned below, as long as it has a solid texture (eg. rosemary, oregano, lavender and even lovage). I use herbs that have begun to spill onto a garden pathway, out of control! Use for any recipes that call for salt, but if you perform this substitution you might want to omit garlic and lemon.
Makes a small jar
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sprouts discarded
2 tablespoons Kosher salt
½ to 2/3 cup mixture of marjoram, sage and thyme
Lemon zest from 1 organic lemon
Wash the lemon and herbs well and pat dry. Strip leaves from the herbs and discard or compost hard stalks.
Roughly chop garlic on a large cutting board. Add the salt and continue to mince garlic until it becomes fine textured. This will transfer the aroma of garlic to salt.
Grate lemon over the mixture, add herbs, and continue to mince.
Spread the salt mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dry until garlic and herbs are crisp. I place weights on the corners of the paper so that I prevent the salt mixture from being blown away by accident, especially when I dry it outside.
Store in an airtight container.
Halibut with Lemon Herb Salt
Serves 2
2 pieces halibut, washed and patted dry
Freshly ground black pepper
Lemon Herb Salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
Sprinkle black pepper and lemon herb salt both sides of the halibut pieces.
Warm up a well-seasoned or non-stick pan over medium high heat, and add the butter and oil.
When the butter is hot, fry one side of the fish until it turns golden, pressing gently down on the pan in order to encourage the herb salt to stay intact.
Flip and repeat until the centre of the fish becomes opaque and flakey.
Serve with green salad.
Caramelized Onion and Beet Soup
I don’t know where you live in the world, but as a West Coast resident, for me soup is by far the most essential culinary staple. I turn anything in my garden into soup, especially when I have bits of this and that on hand. Recently, I’ve found lonely beets stored in the root cellar (in my case, a container filled with peat moss) that already sprouted from the top. These are very reliable when we urban gardeners don’t have much else to turn to during garden transition times. I transform my beets into fresh juice in the morning and hearty soup later in the day. My mizuna is too tiny, radishes are too skinny, peas were dug up by birds—over time I have come to the realization that when everything is just starting to grow, it is good to have stored food.
Caramelized Onion and Beet Soup
I strongly recommend that you wear dark clothing, or at least wear an apron to prevent your clothes from being stained with all that brightly coloured juice! For the topping, I happened to have basil sprouts handy in my kitchen but if you can’t find them, almost any other type of sprout works. I prefer basil because it provides a special flavour punch when you first sip this soup, which is also topped with delicious almonds and sour cream.
Serves 4
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 large onion, sliced thinly
2 heaped cups beets, peeled and cut in chunks
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1/3 cup parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
Topping
Sour cream
Sliced almonds, lightly toasted
Basil sprouts (or any sprouts available)
Place the oil and butter in a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat.
Sauté the onion, constantly turning until it caramelizes and gives off a sweet aroma.
Add the beets and sauté until well coated with oil, for about 5 minutes.
Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium low, cover with a lid and cook until beets are tender. Skim off the foam that appears on the surface occasionally.
Let the soup cool a little bit and then transfer to a blender and proceed until pureed. Place the soup back in the pot and add the Parmesan cheese. This is also the time to adjust the consistency of the soup by adding more water if you like. Bring to a simmer and adjust with salt and pepper.
Serve hot and top with the sour cream, toasted almonds and basil sprouts.
Rhubarb Custard Ice Cream
I realized that there was no better time to create this recipe than when my neighbour’s daughter, who lives on a farm, handed me two and a half dozen colourful eggs that she had just gathered. Immediately I thought about turning them into omelettes with chunks of goat cheese and chives, adding them to pancakes, making a pudding… oh, yes, there seemed to be too many possibilities.
However, last year, when I wrote the rhubarb tart recipe, I already had a special ice cream recipe in mind to introduce when my rhubarb returned. So today, I finally made a custard ice cream mixture and combined it with my long awaited seasonal treat: rhubarb. As I had been itching for the rhubarb stalks to become tall enough, it was the perfect timing. There is something irresistible about this combination, which features just the right tartness combined with a sweet, creamy egginess. This ice cream will make a special dessert to share with my friend who recently invited us to her dinner party, as she is quite passionate about rhubarb!
Rhubarb Custard Ice Cream
This recipe involves creating three elements: the rhubarb stew, the custard ice cream mixture, and the honey ginger cookies.. Churn the ice cream a few hours before serving time and freeze to achieve the best texture—this will allow each component to stand on its own instead of being totally absorbed together. It may sound like a lot to accomplish, but it’s really not. All you must do is organize your time wisely and then it’s as easy as pie!
Makes about 1 quart
Rhubarb Stew
3 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1 inch pieces
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon cane sugar
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Place the rhubarb and sugar in a small saucepan and cook over medium high heat until no shape is visible. You can agitate the rhubarb pieces here and there to help dissolve. Add the lemon juice and stir.
Cool, transfer to a container and refrigerate overnight.
Custard Ice Cream Mixture
2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped
6 large egg yolks
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon cane sugar
1 cup whipping cream (Avalon’s organic one is my favourite)
Bring the milk and vanilla pod with pulp to a gentle boil in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes to infuse the milk.
While waiting, prepare a large bowl filled with ice cubes that can hold the finished custard mixture in a small bowl. This will speed up the cooling process. Set aside a small bowl.
Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl and add sugar; continue to whisk until well combined. Whilst whisking, gently add a quarter of the hot milk into the yolks. Continue to whisk, and add the rest of the milk in a steady stream. Discard the pod. Return the egg yolk mixture to the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a gentle boil over medium heat and whisk continuously until thickened, for about 5 minutes. Do not over boil. Strain the mixture through a sieve into the prepared small bowl. Set the bowl on the ice cubes. Add some water to the ice bath. Stir constantly until cool.
Add the whipping cream and stir to combine, then refrigerate overnight.
Honey Ginger Cookies
1/3 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon ginger juice extracted from a piece of grated ginger
2/3 cup rolled oats, milled finely in a food processor
1 cup cake flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside. Cream the butter in a large bowl with a beater. Add the sugar and stir well until fluffy. While beating, add the egg, honey, and ginger juice and combine well.
Switch to a spatula, add the oat and flour mixture and combine until flour is not visible. The mixture will be very soft, but no worries. Try to form it into a ball and store in a Ziploc bag; flatten to make a disk shape and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 320F. Flour the work surface and roll the dough with a rolling pin to 1/3 inch thickness, trying to form a square shape. Using a knife, cut into 2 inch squares. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden, for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Cool and store in an airtight container.
Next day, place the rhubarb container in the freezer while you churn the custard mixture according to the manufacturer’s instructions. By individually freezing custard and rhubarb before layering, it will be easy to achieve the separation between the two.
Transfer half the custard ice cream to the bottom of a large container, and dot with the half portion of semi-frozen rhubarb. You can reserve some cookies to serve on the side of the finished ice cream. Break the rest of the cookies into 1 inch pieces and stud half of them between the rhubarb and into the custard. Repeat another layer on top. Flatten the surface and freeze for a few hours before serving.