Never underestimate the power of the impulse buy — especially when shopping at the local farmers market. Many of us have been there: you pick up one perfectly compact head of young garlic or sniff one ambrosial leaf of purple basil, and the sensory overload compels you to make choices with your money that are perhaps out of character.
What begins as a leisurely trip for a loaf of bread and some flowering kale turns into two-hour excursion followed by a mad dash for home refrigeration and fertilized earth, where your unplanned shopping spree can either be grown, eaten, stored temporarily — or left to rot in what I like to call "the backyard compost pile of wasteful shame."
Once a week, I stuff my eco-friendly shopping bags with enough farmers market produce and protein to choke a sustainability-trumpeting competitive eater. By the time I get home, the panic starts to set in, and I wonder how all of this carefully cultivated food is going to get consumed before it expires.
Somehow, though, it always manages to disappear. Whether it's radishes with sweet butter and baguette for breakfast; bison burgers for lunch; a goat-cheese-feta omelette for snack time; or a midnight munch of crisp sugar snap peas with mint, olive oil and sea salt, I eat it knowing that a person who helped produce it took the time to shake my hand and put memories to ingredients that are too often taken for granted.
I recently visited the Saturday Santa Fe Farmers Market in search of sturdy starters of purple basil and curly parsley to round out my home herb garden. I found what I was looking for, but as always, I also brought home some extras: two bulbs of young garlic — stalks attached — from Gonzales Farm ($1 each); a pound of sugar snap peas from Orozco Farms ($6); and a pound of ground beef ($6) culled from Scottish Highlander and Highlander hybrid cattle breeds — supplied at the market by Pecos Valley Grassfed Beef, Ribera, N.M.
Having tired of the burger-with-fries-and-a-salad combination eons ago, I wanted to make creative use of my new food finds. I immediately turned to the pantry, the herb garden and cookbooks for inspiration. Fueled by the knowledge that I had just paid $6 for a pound of hormone- and antibiotic-free ground beef, I looked for a dish that would help me stretch the meat without mucking up its unique flavor (to learn more about grassfed beef, visit www.eatwild.com/basics.html).
I settled on a personal adaptation of the Persian kabab koobideh, a grilled kebab of ground meat typically seasoned with parsley and minced onions. I had plenty of parsley on hand, all of it grown at home from starters purchased at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. I replaced the minced onions with some of Gonzales Farm's young garlic, roasted whole with olive oil and fresh rosemary — another farmers market score. Served with roasted new red potatoes and garlic; barely steamed room-temperature sugar snap peas with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt; and honeyed plain Greek yogurt with lemon and fresh mint, the koobideh became the hearty centerpiece of an incredible meal — three meals, if you count leftovers. A bowl of fresh cherries, courtesy of a neighbor with a bumper crop, was the icing on the cake.
KOOBIDEH GRILLED PERSIAN KEBABS
(Makes 2 to 4 servings)
1 bulb Gonzales Farm garlic, rinsed thoroughly, stalk removed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 sprig fresh rosemary
Sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste
1/2 cup fresh curly or flatleaf parsley, stems removed, chopped finely
1 large egg, slightly beaten
Juice of one lemon
1/2 pound ground Pecos Valley Grassfed beef
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 cup panko (Japanese-style) bread crumbs
For the roasted garlic: Rub the bulb of garlic with the oil, season with salt and pepper, and place on a 6 inch by 6 inch square of aluminum foil. Top garlic with the fresh rosemary sprig, and fold up the foil edges around it to form a loose bundle. Place bundle in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven on a baking tray and roast for 40 minutes. Carefully expose the garlic bulb's top (escaping steam is dangerous — I use two forks and oven mitts) and roast for another 15 minutes, being careful not to burn it. Cool for 15 minutes, and then squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulb into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment.
For the kebab mixture: Lightly mix all ingredients with a fork in a bowl. Transfer to the food processor containing the roasted garlic and pulse three times, or blend on low for six seconds (the garlic acts like a binding agent, allowing you to minimally process the ground meat, thus retaining much of its original texture. Many recipes call for processing the beef until it's "sticky " to prevent the meat from falling off the skewer. With roasted garlic in the mix, you can ease back on the processing — unless, of course, gummy meatloaf on a stick is your ultimate goal).
Assembling and cooking the kebabs: Preheat your gas grill to high, or prep your charcoal grill to the temperature you prefer for cooking burgers. Have four stainless steel skewers (or four wooden skewers soaked in water for an hour) and a bowl of cold water at the ready. Dip your hands in the water and grab enough beef mixture to equal the size of two golf balls. Form the beef mixture around a skewer to the desired thickness (I like the size and shape of a large egg, two per skewer, for presentation and ease of eating with the hands), leaving enough room on both ends to turn the skewer with tongs. Repeat with remaining beef mixture and skewers. Season with salt and cracked black pepper. Grill skewers, searing on all "sides," until just barely cooked through (shoot for an internal temperature of about 155 to 150 degrees). Keep warm in a 300-degree oven for 15 minutes (but no more) if necessary.
* * *
MINTED SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH OLIVE OIL AND SEA SALT
(Makes 2 to 3 servings)
1 pound Orozco Farms sugar snap peas, rinsed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh spearmint, chiffonade (destemmed leaves, rolled and then sliced thin)
Sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
Water for steaming
Place a stainless steel steamer basket in a large pot of water, making sure the water doesn't breach the basket's bottom. Cover the pot and bring water to a boil. Snap or cut the ends off of the pea pods and peel away fibrous strings. Steam the pods, covered, for about 5 minutes, or until a few pods start to split and reveal their peas. Remove the steamer basket and carefully rinse the peas under cold running water for 60 to 90 seconds. Dry the cooled peas by tamping them between paper towels or a flour sack, and toss them gently in a bowl with the olive oil, mint and salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.
* * *
HONEYED YOGURT WITH MINT
1 cup Greek-style plain yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
Zest of half a lemon
Mix all ingredients with a whisk and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Serve cold as a dipping sauce for the koobideh and snap peas.
This recipe, when thinned out with a little buttermilk, also works well as a dressing for bitter arugula and dandelion greens.
* * *
ROASTED NEW POTATOES WITH GARLIC
(Makes 2 to 4 servings)
1 pound new red potatoes, scrubbed, rinsed, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Cloves from one whole bulb of Gonzales Farm garlic, skins removed
Stalk from garlic bulb, rinsed, and cut into 2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon pimentón (smoked paprika)
Salt and pepper to taste
Toss all ingredients in a bowl, and wrap tightly in aluminum foil. Roast in a hot, covered grill or on a baking sheet in a 400-degree oven for 40 minutes — or until potatoes are just cooked through. Open up the foil to expose the potatoes and continue cooking until golden brown.
The Market Share scours the Santa Fe Farmers Market — and other markets — for edibles, providing recipes and pictures here at TASTE and www.etasteantafe.com. If you have a recipe or discover a hidden treasure that involves ingredients produced in New Mexico, The Market Share wants to know about it. Send tips and recipes to Rob DeWalt at rdewalt@sfnewmexican.com, or fax them to 505-820-0803.
