Recipe: Corn and Jalapeño Fritters

Nobody’s perfect all the time. We do our best to stick to a seasonal produce schedule, buying locally when we can and often amending recipes or changing culinary tacks when we can’t. But there’s one night, almost weekly, when we fill our grocery carts with abandon, and that’s taco night.

Sure, we do our best. We buy our steak from North Plain Farm and our radishes, cabbage, tomatoes, even jalapeños, from farms around the county. But we just can’t let go of our beloved guacamole, and the avocados and limes that it calls for. It’s a deliciously rebellious treat that we relish—so much so that we often over-buy for our table of two and happily gorge on leftovers for a few extra days.

But we’re always striving to bring it back to the Berkshires. The last couple taco nights we’ve been enjoying these delicious and easy corn fritters. They’re a quick way to get a little more local produce on our plates, and a great off-the-cob vehicle for the corn which is so bountiful and sweet this year. Serve with lime, avo and creme fraiche as a starter, or skip the tortillas all together and pile your taco fillings on top, torta-style. However you do it, you’ll be doing your local farmer a favor while enjoying more global flavor.

Corn and Jalapeño Fritters

+ 2 beaten large eggs

+ 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

+ 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

+ 1 teaspoon kosher salt

+ 2 cups fresh corn kernels

+ 1 thinly sliced scallion

+ 1 finely chopped seeded jalapeño

+ 2 tablespoons safflower oil (canola will work, too)

+ Flake salt

+ Creme fraiche, avocado and lime, for serving

1. Combine eggs, flour, grated Parmesan, and kosher salt in a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix well.

2. Add corn kernels, scallion, and jalapeño; pulse 2–3 times.

3. Heat oil in pan. When hot, cook heaping tablespoonfuls of batter until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side. Season patties with flake salt and serve with creme fraiche, avocado and lime.

Note: This recipe originally appeared on RuralIntelligence.com on August 17, 2014. It's been back-dated here on our blog so that it falls, seasonally, in the right place. 

Recipe: Puerco Pibil

This can be a hard time of year to get excited about local, seasonal, sustainably-sourced food in New England. You can only eat so many grains and root veggies before you start thinking about bending your food rules. But then, just in the nick of time, winter's saving grace pours into the grocer's case.

That's right, we're talking about citrus! American citrus is at it's peak right about now, and while oranges and lemons aren't exactly local, they can can easily be sourced from responsible organic farmers throughout the country. And man oh man, does it add some zing and zest to our browning plates and greying days.

On our honeymoon this fall, we visited Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. Along with azure Caribbean waters and spring breakers, the Yucatan has a vibrant farming community with a rich agricultural history. In every market we visited (and trust us, we sought out quite a few) we were stunned by the towering piles of limes, sweet and sour oranges, grapefruits and lemons. And in every restaurant we visited, we found ourselves coming back to the classic Yucatan dish: Puerco Pibil.

Peurco Pibil is pork shoulder which is marinated in sour orange and ground achiote then slow roasted in banana leaves, over an open fire. A prime example of Yucatan flavor and technique, the pork becomes soft and velvety, with a deep orange hue and a unique tang. If that wasn't enough, it's then served with fresh corn tortillas and bright red onions, pickled in sour orange and salt.

We've been reminiscing about this dish and decided to try our best to recreate the experience, taking advantage of all the great available citrus. Of course, we made a few substitutions to keep the meal as local as possible. Rather than buy tortillas we served the pork over polenta, and we used a mix of US organic Hamlin oranges and limes instead of the traditional Mexican sour orange. The pork came from Great Barrington's North Plain Farm, and the spices from El Punto De Encuentro Latin Market. And because it's winter and we don't have banana leaves, we tried to emulate the effect by doing a slow-and-low roast in a covered enamel pot.

Puerco Pibil

Serves 12

Ingredients

Pork

+ 5 tbs Achiote seed

+ 1 ½ tbs of dried Mexican oregano

+ 1 ½ black peppercorns

+ 1 ¼ tsp cumin seeds

+ ½ tsp whole cloves

+ 6 inches of roughly ½ inch thick Mexican cinnamon (canela) or 1 1.2 tbs of ground cinnamon

+ 1 tbs spoon of Salt

+ 14 garlic cloves, peeled

+ 1/2 cup of fresh oranges- 3 Hamlin oranges

+ 1 cup of fresh lime juice- 10 limes

+ 12 pounds of bone in pork butt (cam be split into two or three pieces)

Pickled Red Onion

+ 3 large red onions

+ 1 1/3 cups fresh lime juice- 12 limes

+ 2/3 fresh orange juice- 4 Hamlin oranges

1. Grind the spices together. You can use a spice grinder, a coffee grinder or a good old mortar and pestle – or just use pre-ground spices and herbs.

2. In a blender mix the spices, garlic and juice until the marinade has a slightly chalky texture between your fingers.

3. Place the meat in an enamel or cast iron pot and pour marinade over it. Cover and let sit in the refrigerator overnight.

4. Heat the over to 200. Cook the pork, with marinate still on it, in the pot for at least 6 hours, or until it pulls apart easily.

5. While meat is cooking slice onion thinly, and place in a bowl. Bring a pot of water to boil and pour over onions for 10 seconds then drain. Place onions in a small bowl with juice and salt.

6. Take the meat out of the oven and shred. Serve with pickled onion and corn tortillas or polenta.

This recipe can also be found on Rural Intelligence.

Recipe: Pork Tacos

Around this time of year we generally like to go on a short, relaxing, south-bound escape. After a long winter cooped up in the sludgey city, it's the perfect time to jump on a plane headed for sandier pastures. Last year's destination was Isla Mujeres, a tiny island just off the coast of Cancun. It was the perfect getaway; a long weekend packed with beach reading, bike riding, tequila drinking and, of course, taco eating. It's been over a year now and those tacos - served on paper plates at a colorful municipal food court, simple and fresh corn tortillas, topped with crispy pork shoulder, raw onions and radishes, paired with a bright, cold beer - have had us swooning ever since.

Unfortunately, this year we won't be going on a trip. We've both just started new jobs, and are knee-deep in exciting projects, but those tacos have been on our minds. So this weekend when radishes finally popped up at the market, we knew exactly what to do with them. Jake brought home the pork shoulder cut in to pinky-sized strips and Silka picked up fresh veggies, some local creme fraiche, and Hot Bread Kitchen corn tortillas. A quick pickle of radishes and onions, some fried pork and a Sixpoint later, we satisfied our craving. So maybe we weren't enjoying a breezy island evening over crystal clear waters, but with good food, good company, and good things to come... who needs vacation?!

Quick Carnitas

+ 2 lbs of Pork Shoulder cut into pinky-sized strips

+ 2 tbsp of lard

+ salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

1. Put the lard in a large, heavy pan and and turn the heat to high. Season the pork to taste.

2. When the lard starts smoking, throw in half of the pork. Stir occasionally, until the pork takes on a  deep brown color and gets nice and crispy.

3. Remove the cooked pork, put on a serving dish and repeat.

Serve on warm tortillas with radishes, onions, creme fraiche and chives.

Quick-Pickled Radishes and Onions

+ 4 radishes, thinly sliced

+ 1/2 white onion, thinly sliced

+ 4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

+ 1 tablespoon sugar

1. Mix ingredients together and cover. Chill for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Serves 4

Recipe: Beef "Barbacoa" Tacos

As we explore new dishes for the blog, we know we'll eventually have to branch out of our Euro-American comfort zone. Since we both love Mexican and most of the ingredients for a good taco are readily available at the Union Square Greenmarket, we thought it would be a good place to start.

We had already invited our friend Joe over and since he's a consummate beef lover we knew what meat would be the base. Given the weather we thought that a full-flavored shredded beef would be perfect - like the barbacoa at Chipotle! But when we started to look for recipes in all our usual places, nothing looked quite right. Many  recipes called for a crock pot, which we feel doesn't allow you to develop depth of flavor. On the other end of the difficulty spectrum was our go-to Mexican chef, Rick Bayless. His recipe is for real barbacoa including an open fire, a pit, and some banana leaves. So we decided to wing it, taking what we could from various recipes and relying on our epicurean instincts.

We are proud to say we pretty much nailed it, and without much difficulty. At the end of a 9-hour day of of slow cooking we had a bowl of rich, deeply-flavored shredded beef with a spicy, earthy sauce and amazing fresh corn tortillas from Hot Bread Kitchen. We made a cabbage and carrot slaw to add a green and acidic contrast to the beef, some chili-roasted potatoes and piled on the cilantro, limes, and sour-cream!

“Barbacoa” Beef

+ 2 ½ lbs Beef Chuck Roast

+ 1 chipotle pepper in adobe sauce plus one tbsp. of adobe sauce

+ 1 med onion, diced

+ 1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and crushed

+ 1 tbsp cumin

+ 1 tsp. ancho chili powder

+ 3 tbsp. of tomato paste

+ 3 dried guajillo chilis, de-seeded

+ 1 can tomatoes

+ 16 oz of Six Point Crisp (or other light beer)

+ 2 oz. bittersweet chocolate

+ 2 tbsp. oil or lard

+ salt

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

2. Pat the roast dry and coat in salt.

3. Place a dutch oven, with oil or lard, on high heat. Brown the roast on all sides - about 2 minutes per side.

4. Turn heat down to medium-high and place onions, garlic, spices, and tomato paste in the pot.

5. Once the onions start to soften and the spices release their aroma, pour half a can of tomatoes, the beer, and the chilis into the pot. Bring to a boil, and place in the oven.

6. After 8 hours, take out pot of the oven. Remove the beef and place in a  bowl. Remove the chilis, and throw away. Return dutch oven to stove top on medium heat.

7. Put in the rest of the tomatoes and chocolate into the dutch oven and stir. Simmer to reduce for another 45 minutes. Meanwhile, shred the beef and cover to keep warm.

8. When ready to serve, pour about a cup of the sauce over the shredded beef, serving the reserved sauce on the side.

Serves 4