Stone Fruit Salad

We’ve all been a bit off schedule since the recent loss of a beloved family member, so my #LetsLunch munchie entry is perhaps understandably late. This salad was created to use up available produce and soothe grief but had the curious effect of eliciting comments that sounded, well, a tad stoned.

“This is weird, but really good,” said one consumer. “I know,” enthused another. “I don’t know why I’m eating this, but I can’t stop.”

Whether sad or artificially happy, I dare you to try this and not feel better.

Stone Fruit Salad

3 large ripe peaches, peeled and cut into chunks
1 “personal” size seedless watermelon, trimmed and cut into chunks
2 large tomatoes (preferably Cherokee Purple), cored, lightly seeded and cut into chunks
1 large or 2 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded and sliced
¼-½ cup fresh mint leaves, sliced thin
I teaspoon sea salt, or more to taste

Gather all fruit and cucumber slices in a large sealable container, stir to combine.

Sprinkle with at least ¼ cup sliced mint and salt, stir again, then refrigerate for at least an hour – or until you just have to have some.

Check for seasoning, adding more mint or salt to taste. Use a slotted spoon to serve, leaving accumulated juice behind.

Chef Ashley Christensen working on first book

The story first ran in INDY Week.

Ashley Christensen and Edward Lee at a Stir the Pot
event held September 2011 at Christensen's Raleigh home.

Ashley Christensen pre-ordered a copy of Smoke & Pickles, a book by her friend Edward Lee, so she could be among the first to read it.

“You’re immediately engaged based on what a great storyteller he is,” Christensen says of Lee, who she met a few years ago through the Southern Foodways Alliance. “He’s a brilliant writer. His food is beautiful, thoughtful and bold. Those are things that, in combination, create something very special.”

Christensen said she was struck by Lee’s honesty in sharing so many personal stories and how they shaped him as a chef. “As chefs and restaurateurs, you are always on display,” says Christensen, who has welcomed hundreds of strangers to her Raleigh home for fundraising events. “I believe the book will make a lot of people think differently about how they approach the process, about not keeping the public and readers at arm’s length.”

Christensen intends to use a similar approach with her first book. She hopes to sign with an agent this week, a crucial step in getting the project to a top publishing house.

“Ed's and my books will be very different, but I want to share stories as he does to show how my thought process works,” she says. “I learned to cook by throwing dinner parties. It will be based on how that can explode into other things we can make.”

Christensen has been working hard to document the recipes that dazzle diners at Poole’s, Beasley’s Chicken+Honey and Chuck’s. Some already have been featured in food magazines.

“Like Ed, my goal will not people telling people how to measure,” she says. “I want to teach them how to think about cooking, the history of how food got here and why the relationship between chefs, farmers and artisan providers is so important.”

Lee, a three-time runner-up for James Beard honors will be celebrated Wednesday evening by Chef Colin Bedford with a special dinner at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro. The event starts at 6 p.m. Tickets are $85, which includes dinner, a beer tasting, gratuity and a signed copy of Smoke & Pickles.

Strawberry-Basil Martini

I recently acquired a bottle to TOPO Piedmont Gin, which is produced near the Chapel Hill-Carrboro line in a building that used to rattle and hum with the sounds of newspaper production. My affinity for such places is strong, and my historic conviction that all gin smells like Pine-Sol has been shattered by this fairly mild sip – which has been described by those in the know as “not juniper forward.”

Working under the principle of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – a phrase credited to Einstein, whose cocktail preferences remain a mystery to Google (though it did try to connect “Manhattan”)  – I made the bold leap in home mixology by substituting gin in a beverage for which I might otherwise instinctively have reached for vodka.

In fact, thanks to some lovely, suddenly very much in-season strawberries, I specifically created this cocktail in the hope that it would be an appealing complement to gin’s inherently herbaceous nature.

It turned out so good – and was just as promising on the second batch as the first – that I have to admit I forgot to fully document my triumph at the time. Thankfully, the reporter in me reflexively wrote down a few notes, so herewith is my Strawberry-Basil Martini. It takes a little bit of planning, but just a little bit. And if you’re not confident about using gin, try it a splash of your standby vodka. The strawberry puree also is quite good stirred into bubbly soda water.

Strawberry Puree

2 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped
juice of 1 lemon
several strips of zest
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

Place chopped strawberries, lemon juice, zest and sugar into medium stock pot. Toss to coat then cover and allow to macerate for at least 30 minutes.

Simmer on low heat about 20 minutes until syrupy and very fragrant. Turn off heat and remove zest. Add 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar and puree with an immersion blender (or cool slightly then puree in a blender).

Place 5 ice cubes in a sealable quart jar. Pour in strawberry puree. Swirl to blend; when no longer warm, place in refrigerator to fully chill.

Strawberry-Basil Martini

Makes 2

Strawberry puree
Fresh-picked basil leaves
Simple syrup

Make a simple syrup by heating ½ cup of sugar in ½ cup of water. Bring to a low boil and stir until sugar crystals dissolve. Transfer to a small jar and cool; lid jar and transfer to refrigerator.

Place 5-6 basil leaves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Muddle aggressively.

Fill shaker about 2/3 full with ice. Add 1 jigger of strawberry puree, 2 jiggers of gin and 1 jigger of simple syrup. Shake it like to you mean it.

Strain into two martini glasses and garnish with a small basil leaf. Go outside to admire your garden and say to yourself, “My life is good.” Repeat; or, if for some strange reason you son does not appreciate its subtleties, drink his.

Carolina Crossroads Chef James Clark specializes in obscure fish

Chef James Clark's rose-dotted snapper, served
on a bed of stone-ground grits and dressed
in a sauce of minced ramps flambéd in Pernod.
© Photo by  DL Anderson

This story was first published in INDY Week.

Pity the jolthead porgy. Related to the grunt, it is among the many oddly named fish that, like awkward schoolchildren hoping to get picked for the dodgeball team, watches as its glamorous cousins such as grouper are selected for discerning customers at top restaurants.

But that's not how it works at Carolina Crossroads, the elegant dining room of the historic Carolina Inn at Chapel Hill. Though Chef James Clark has been cooking there less than a year, he has established a reputation for seeking out lesser-known but equally delicious and sustainable varieties that fishermen pull from the waters of the Carolina coast.

"My favorite is line-caught scorpion fish. They've got this hideous face with knobs," he says, demonstrating with a waggle of his large hands near his ears. "Most people won't give them a second glance, but I'm telling you, it's the best–tasting fish in the world."

Like most of the seafood Clark fixes in battered, nonstick pans in the restaurant's large kitchen, scorpion fish—when he's lucky enough to find some—get a slow sauté in light oil and are finished with a scoop of butter. "It cooks like oysters with this sweet cucumber flavor," Clark says with a dreamy look and a quick pursing of his lips, as if to catch the last drop of the memory's succulence. "Really, if you ever see it on a menu or in a market, you must try it."

It takes a brave man to sell fish with funky names to the affluent diners who frequent Carolina Crossroads, but Clark backs up his bravado by preparing unfamiliar eats in classic combinations. The jolthead porgy, for example, is finished in browned butter and served atop a generous smear of celery root purée. Clark adds an aromatic sauté of asparagus and oyster mushrooms, then garnishes the dish with a pearly dab of caramelized onion vinaigrette.

"People won't necessarily drive here thinking, 'Ooh, I hope they have jolthead porgy tonight,'" he says, wiping the edge of the plate to enhance its presentation. "But I don't think anyone who really enjoys fish would mind being served this."

The day Clark drove to Chapel Hill from Myrtle Beach for his cooking interview, he brought jolthead porgy, triggerfish and lane snapper—all procured from Wayne Mershon at Kenyon Seafood in Murrells Inlet, S.C. He had 11 hours to prepare seven dishes for eight people. Among them was a flight of ceviches, though he grew uncertain as to whether a trio of lime-cured raw fish was a smart idea.

"Thank god, it was their favorite course," Clark recalls. "It really built my confidence. I want to use underutilized fish every day. That's my shtick."

He now orders fish through Dock to Door Seafood of Chapel Hill, a wholesale distributor that provides the catch of the day to several top local restaurants. For those wanting to incorporate more under-appreciated fish at home, he recommends developing a relationship with an independent fishmonger or shopping at a well-stocked market with knowledgeable staff.

"The most important consideration when buying any type of fish is freshness," Clark says, urging customers to ask questions and even request a sniff before committing to a purchase. "These are people who genuinely care about what they're doing, and they'll be honest. When you understand more about fish, you're more likely to buy it often."

Inland markets and fine dining establishments are increasingly offering varieties that only a few years ago were considered unsellable outside of the coastal communities where they were caught. This includes versatile triggerfish, which award-winning cookbook author James Peterson heartily recommends ("snatch it up right away") in his encyclopedic Fish & Shellfish; red drum (think of Paul Prudhomme's once-ubiquitous blackened red fish); amberjack; and sustainable varieties of snapper.

Clark recently used rose-spotted snapper to demonstrate a dish for INDY Week. After seasoning lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper, he says to always start cooking "presentation side" down—which in his book means skin-side down. Clark does not slash the thin skin of the snapper, though doing so with other fish may help to prevent it from curling while cooking. Instead, he lightly presses down on the flesh with a wide spoon to keep it flat.

"Please, don't fry a beautiful piece of fish like this," Clark implores as he angles the pan to quickly scoop up foaming butter for basting. "You want to cook slowly on medium heat, which will give you crisp skin and moist flesh. No one wants to eat rubbery fish."

Clark finely minces some boiled ramps and red onion, which he then cooks over a low flame in a small skillet. He dramatically pours in a glug of anise-flavored Pernod to flambé the ingredients, plunking in a great scoop of butter as the flames subside. Noticing how observers were agog at the amount of butter and booze, Clark chuckles. "It's not healthy to eat like this every day," he concedes, "but it's good and it's good for you."

Served on a base of stone-ground grits, the sauced snapper looked a lot like a T-bone. "It's true of a lot of fish," he says. "If you were blindfolded and touched cooked triggerfish, you'd swear it was filet mignon. If I could get more people who eat steak and pork and chicken to just try fish, I know I'd sell a whole lot more of it."

Customers who appreciate his finesse with fish already have forced Clark to make big changes in the way he orders supplies. When he took over the kitchen, fish dishes accounted for about 25 percent of dinner sales. Today, it's about 55 percent.

So how does one sell a grunt to a first-timer? "Some people see these fish on the menu and think they've walked into Iron Chef, but it's not like that," Clark says. "It's all about educating your wait staff. Once they've tasted it, trust me, it's an easy sell."

Warm summer potato salad

This salad was a sudden inspiration to serve as a side dish for grilled pompano, one of the sweetest and simplest to cook sustainable fish to come from Carolina waters. I used vegetables from today's farmer's market foray, plus a jar of creamy garbanzo beans that I recently pressure canned. It was dressed with some basil picked fresh from our garden and a splash of Girard's blue cheese vinaigrette. I considered making my own, but it's light, delicious -- and was staring at me from the cupboard. If you have two extra minutes to spare, feel free to make your own.

Sorry, no photo. I didn't think to get one before dinner and there was barely anything left to rinse out of the bowl afterwards. Serves four hungry people; to turn into a main course, serve over mixed spring greens with extra vinaigrette on the side.

Warm Summer Potato Salad

1 medium spring onion, sliced thin (including some of the green)

1 pint garbanzo beans, rinsed

2 cups cubed carrot

3 cups cubed potato, skin on 

3/4 lb. fresh green beans, stemmed and snapped in half

2 tbsp. kosher salt, plus 1 tsp.

freshly ground pepper

1/3 cup blue cheese vinaigrette (such as Girard's, or homemade)

1 tbsp. white balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp. fresh-picked basil, rolled and sliced thin

Fill a medium stock pot about 2/3 with water. Add 2 tbsp. salt, cover and bring to a boil.

Trim spring onion, keeping a few inches of the green part, and slice thin. Transfer to large bowl. Rinse garbanzo beans; shake off excess water and add to mixing bowl.

Carefully pour carrots into boiling water and cook about 2 minutes, uncovered. Add green beans, stir and cook another 2-3 minutes. Check to ensure that both are tender crisp. Remove with slotted spoon or spider, draining well, then add to mixing bowl. Pour vinaigrette over warm mixture, stir and lightly cover.

Add cubed potatoes to the same boiling water. Cook 4-5 minutes, until  tender but not mushy. Drain in colander, shaking off excess water before adding to mixing bowl. 

Add 1 tsp. salt, a generous grind of pepper, the white balsamic and chiffonade of basil; mix well but try to not crush the potato cubes. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Lightly cover and rest about 20 minutes for flavors to meld. Serve barely warm or at room temperature.

Spring brings soft-shell crabs back to Crook’s Corner – but never to the menu

Bill Smith, chef at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, will be the guest of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, at Flyleaf Books.  

The combination of UNC graduation and Mother’s Day weekend always means big business for Crook’s Corner. Add to that the long awaited arrival of soft-shell crabs and you’ll see lines of eager customers wrapping around the block.

“I cleaned 39 dozen soft-shells, which took me from 9 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon,” Smith says just before the doors open for business on Thursday afternoon. “I think this should hold us through the weekend, but you never know.”

Standard blue crabs become soft-shells when they molt and shed their hard exoskeleton. They are among a select group of seasonal delights Smith prepares that cause regulars to go wild; others include honeysuckle sorbet, which will follow soon, and persimmon pudding, a delicacy of fall.

“I’ve seen fights break out over our soft-shell crabs,” he says, doffing his ball cap and smoothing his unruly hair. “I can’t list it on the menu because it sells out so fast. If we have soft-shells and honeysuckle sorbet at the same time, people will break down the door.”

Smith quietly announces their arrival to loyal followers of his @Chulegre Twitter account and the Crook’s Corner’s Facebook page. No matter how much someone pleased or begs, they will not reserve orders. “Oh, Lord no,” he says. “If you want some, be here at 5:30.”

His reputation as an expert on soft-shells, and seafood in general, has earned Smith a volume in the Savor the South series of cookbooks being produced by UNC Press. His entry will focus on crab and oysters and should arrive in 2014.

Smith grew up catching crabs with a chicken neck and string when he was a boy in New Bern. He keenly recalls his first taste of soft-shells with his aunt and uncle, who often took him for Sunday drives.

“We would go down to the town of Sea Level in Carteret County,” he recalls. “There was a restaurant there right on the water with a wall that was all windows. It took forever to get there and it always seemed like the end of the world to me.”

On one visit, Smith figures he was around 8 years old, he looked at the menu and told the server he’d have the soft-shell crabs. “My aunt said, ‘No, you mean deviled crabs.’ I wouldn't admit I didn't know what they were,” he says some 56 years later, “but I loved them."

Unless ordered in a restaurant, crabs were largely viewed as “free food” at the time by coastal residents, who found and ate them in abundance. “I learned how to catch and clean them when we’d visit my grandmother in the summer. She would make a crab stew that was very good,” he says. “Now, of course, crabs are very expensive.”

Soft-shells are even more costly because of the extra effort involved in catching them just after they molt. While usually available locally by now, Smith had to import his current order from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, which has been warmer that the North Carolina coast.

While he’s glad that customers rush to Crook’s Corner to enjoy them, Smith says home cooks should give them a try. If squeamish about dispatching them to crab heaven – for safe consumption, it is essential for soft-shells to be alive when purchased – most bona fide fishmongers will do the deed for you.

Smith recommends seeking out medium size soft-shell crabs. While jumbo specimens may look tempting, they are more difficult to prepare without overcooking. And don’t panic if a claw or leg falls off before the finished dish makes it to the table. “No matter how careful you are, it happens,” he says with a shrug. “Sometimes we save the loose claws in a bowl and enjoy them at the end of the night.”

Smith is collecting a variety of soft-shell recipes for the Savor the South book, which is likely to include a grilled version tossed with fettuccini that he enjoyed in Venice. Of all the possible variations, there are just two methods he refuses to consider.

“Don't fry them,” he says protectively. “The ones we do here are sautéed in browned butter with lemon juice, garlic and basil.”

The other unspeakable practice is to steam them, which a health-conscious customer requested a few years ago.

“Browned and crispy is the way to go, but she thought it wasn’t healthy cooked in butter,” he says, laughing and shaking his head. “I told her I thought they would taste like crickets. It's important to me for customers to be happy, but I wouldn't do it.”

Crooks’ Corner Soft-Shelled Crabs

Reprinted with permission of Bill Smith from Seasoned in the South: Recipes From Crook’s Corner and From Home (Algonquin Books, 2006).

Serves 4

8 fresh soft-shelled crabs
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup Maseca instant corn masa mix
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup clarified unsalted butter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons chopped garlic
Juice of 1 lemon (about ¼ cup)
¼ cup thin basil chiffonade

Clean the crabs (if you seafood market won’t do it for you) by first snipping off the face with kitchen shears. They should be soft and squishy all over. Then lift up each side of the carapace and snip out the gills. (These are four or five white, curved, pointed “devil’s fingers” extending from the center of the crab to the end of the shell on both sides.) Flip the crab over and cut off the tail flap – on males it is narrow; on females it is fat. Hold the crab under cool running water and gently squeeze out the yellow guts that are inside and just under the top of the shell. You don’t need to squeeze the main part of the body beneath this shell. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Very appetizing so far, yes?

Mix the flour and Maseca together and season with the salt and pepper. It is very important to use enough salt, so taste the flour before you begin.

Dip the crabs in buttermilk and then dredge in the flour. Shake off any excess flour and sauté them in very hot clarified butter – a quarter inch deep – until pretty and brown, turning once. The crabs should be crispy and very hot at the center. Remove them to a warm platter. Be careful, because they pop and spit a great deal, especially when very fresh. My staff refers to this as frying fire crackers.

Pour off the butter, but try to keep as much of the crumbs and browned flour in the pan as possible. Put the pan back on high heat and add the 3 tablespoons of whole butter. Begin swirling the pan at once. The butter will begin to melt and smell toasty. When the butter is pretty and brown, quickly add the garlic, swirl to spread it around, and immediately add the lemon juice to prevent the garlic from browning. Remove from heat, add the basil, and pour over the crabs. Serve at once. (They are not good cold.)

This process sounds tricky, but once you have done it correctly it will always be easy because the smell is so divine it will guide you ever after.

On Cinco de Mayo, declare your independence from Margaritas with a beer-based cocktail

House-made sangrita gives the Michelada
a special kick at Dos Perros in Durham.

For many Americans, Cinco de Mayo is celebrated as an annual excuse to drink to excess, generally by means of machine-dispensed frozen Margaritas that look like neon-hued slushies. Even if you opt to go on the rocks, there's generally little opportunity to go au naturale in busy bars that rely on  commercial mixers.

There are plenty of places in the Triangle where one can procure a truly fine hand-crafted Margarita made with fresh fruit, herbed infusions and and top-shelf tequila. But this weekend, undoubtedly one of the most profitable for tavern owners, what some gringo celebrants will find in their disposable cups is a rough mix of cheap tequila tempered by the cloying sweetness of a mass-produced mixer.

There's no rule that one must swill tequila to commemorate Mexico's unlikely victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Indeed, one imagines that hot and tired soliders were glad to revive their spirits much as thirsty modern Mexicans do -- with an ice-cold beer brightened by a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Across Mexico, you are about as likely to be served a beer with lime juice as you are to receive a sweet pour if you request iced tea in the American South.  But why stop there? Creative Mexican bartenders make all sorts of cocktails using beer, the most famous of which surely is the Michelada.

The Michelada is a cousin to the Bloody Mary, but with beer in place of vodka. There are about as many variations on the general theme as there are la barras in the distinct regions of Mexico, and across the U.S., where the drink is especially popular in border states -- and others, like North Carolina, with rapidly growing Latino communities. The Michelada's robust flavor can vary significantly, starting with pale or dark beer. Options include tomato juice or Clamato; hot sauce or a blend of select chiles; Worcester, soy or savory MSG-rich Maggi sauce -- or all three, depending on whose recipe you follow.


Michelada, Eating My Words-style, with
tomato juice, Worcester and Tiger Sauce.

You can choose from hundreds of Michelada recipes posted online, including ones by chef Rick Bayless, who tirelessly promotes authentic regional Mexican foods in his books and cooking shows. The flavor profile has become so internationally renown that chef Marcus Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden, confidently titles his version The Perfect Michelada Recipe. It was the starting point for several we made last night -- and one more today, so far -- strictly for the purpose of research.

Chef Bill Smith of Crook's Corner, who travels extensively in Mexico, believes that two area bars do an especially good job with beer-based cocktails. One is the Michelda at Dos Perros in Durham; the other is the Tiger Mojito at the recently opened Lucha Tigre in Chapel Hill. Both restaurants graciously shared their recipes.

So, if you're out and about celebrating Cinco de Mayo this weekend, leave the Margaritas for the first-timers and try a Michelada or other beer-based specialty. And if your friends call the next day in a post-tequila fog, be an amigo and invite them over. After all, among the magical Michelada's claims to fame is its acknowledged status as a hangover remedy.

Dos Perros Michelada

Rim a pint glass with a mix of salt, toasted chipotle peppers, Spanish paprika and cayenne pepper. Fill glass halfway with ice.

Prepare a shot of sangrita, which Dos Perros makes from the "juice" of its pico de gallo -- you can substitute the juice of homemade or store-bought pico -- Valentina hot sauce and a splash of orange and lime juices.

Serve components separately (see photo at beginning). Pour sangrita over ice then top with a Modelo Especial.

Lucha Tigre Tiger Mojito
Muddle a healthy pinch of mint, about 8-10 leaves, at the bottom of a pint glass. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar and fill the glass with ice.
Pour in 1/4 oz. fresh lime juice and 1/4 oz. light rum. Fill with Tiger Beer.
Stir with bar spoon until sugar is incorporated. Garnish with mint, lime wedge and sugar cane.