Tag Archives: pasta

We got a lamb

Tad in a Hat

Farmer Tad

Farmer Tad from Featherbrook Farm in Raynham, MA brought us a lamb.  It’s our first lamb in a long while, unfortunately our long-time supplier of local lamb bought-the-farm and we had been looking for a new supplier.

feather brook logo

 

Tad, who already brings us chickens, rabbits and eggs mentioned to me that he was growing a few lamb and wanted to know if we were interested in one of them.  I jumped right on it, telling him we would happily take one of them off his hands.

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Tad’s lamb awaiting processing

We have a long history of serving locally produced lamb.  I have been butchering and cooking them since long before we opened EVOO.  I became quite proficient at it; I would time myself to see how long it would take to butcher the lamb into the desired pieces for roasting and braising.  I can easily break-down a lamb in less than 7 minutes; my record is 2 lambs in 11 minutes.  Keep in mind butchering is my least favorite job to do in the kitchen, I’m a closest wanna-be vegetarian and I just want to get it done as quickly as I can.  The below video of me breaking-down a lamb is a couple of years old.

 

 

We have already started serving the chops with some braised meat:

Herb Marinated Grilled Lamb Chops and Braised Lamb with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Crushed Olives, Pickled Cauliflower, Parsley, Marcona Almonds, Goat’s Milk Feta and Mint Salsa Verde

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Being just one lamb there are not a lot of chops, even paired with braised lamb meat we will only have 7 orders before we switch the chops out with roasted loin which will only make an additional 5-6 orders. Later this week or perhaps the beginning of next we will have a roasted lamb leg sandwich on the lunch menu and a braised lamb dish, possibly a pasta dish. Then it will be gone…

 

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loins to be sous vide

 

 

 

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legs waiting to be marinated, roasted and sliced for sandwiches

 

 

It’s Not Spring Yet!

not spring

From 4 days ago.

I know the calendar tells us spring has sprung, however, local ingredients are still telling us it’s late winter.  Right now, April 5, locally it’s still all about cellared root vegetables, cabbage and greenhouse greens.

Don’t let those restaurant menus filled with fiddlehead ferns, asparagus, ramps and peas fool you, none of it is local.  With the big snowfall last week and still chilly temperatures, it seems as though spring will be running a bit late this year.  Fiddleheads and ramps are still weeks away, asparagus a month maybe more, and peas closer to two months.   Every year is different and as soon as the real local spring ingredients are available our what-are-we-going-to-make-with-this-root-this-time anxiety is lifted, and the real local spring ingredients are plastered on our menu.

The first signs of spring are happening in our rooftop garden, the chives are about an inch out of the ground.  That’s it, the weeds haven’t even started yet.

making agnolotti

Making Agnolotti

The first food harbinger of spring is usually spring-dug parsnips, this root, wintered in  frozen soil, turning the starches into sugars.  What you end up with is an amazingly sweet full-flavored parsnip.  We received our first batch this week from Hutchin’s Farm, an organic farm located in Concord, MA.  We currently have them on our menu stuffed inside agnolotti pasta, fried chips at we are serving on a beef heart dish, and in a cake as a dessert served with smoked maple ice cream.  They are also roasted or pureed and make a great sweet or savory custard.

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Spring-dug Parsnip Cake with Smoked Maple Ice Cream

The recipe I am including for parsnip cake is really just an adaption of a traditional carrot cake, substituting parsnips for carrots.  I came up with this recipe when a writer from the Boston Globe asked me for an original recipe using parsnips.  At the time I had know idea how this would come out, knowing I just wanted to have a recipe included in her article.  I can’t say I was surprised with the results, they’re great, especially when using super sweet spring-dug parsnips.  As with carrot cake the better the carrot / parsnip tastes the better the cake will be.

Click Parsnip Cake for a link to the recipe.