We Can Pickle That!

I know it's been a while since we've posted anything, but once again, work and life has gotten in the way.  We've been sticking to old standby recipes that we can whip up in a flash.  Plus, the polar vortex has limited the amount of produce we've been receiving in our share, so we haven't had much to work with on that front either.

Nonetheless, we've got a quick an easy way to spice things up during these cold winter months.  A few months back, we got a bunch of jalapenos in our share.  With no immediate use for them, we decided to pickle them, following this recipe by Michael Symon.

Start by poking a few holes in each pepper, and placing them in your jar.  This will allow the brine to get inside the peppers, and pickle them from the inside out.

For your brine, bring to boil equal parts water and vinegar, some sugar and salt (in equal proportions), and your aromatics; bay leaves, whole coriander seeds, a few garlic cloves, and black peppercorns.  We didn't have any peppercorns on hand, so we just used our coarse ground black pepper instead.  We also didn't have whole coriander seeds, as the recipe called for, so we used ground coriander.  That's why our brine looks a bit muddy.  We also decided to throw in some mustard seeds for good measure.

Once your brine begins to boil, turn down the heat, and let it simmer for about 5 minutes.  Pour the brine over your peppers, place the lid on, and let it cool.  Once cooled, put them in the fridge, and let the brine work it's magic.  Let them sit in the fridge for about a week before using them.  This will give the peppers time to pickle.

Then you can slice them up and serve as you see fit.  Ours have a nice sweetness to balance out some of the heat.  They're great on top of nachos or tacos.

It's the Greatest of all Time (G.O.A.T)

I've only eaten goat once before, at my graduation dinner last year at Komi.  It was a slow-roasted goat shoulder, served with pita, tzatziki, and a few other condiments.  So when we got ground goat in last week's share, we drew inspiration from that meal to make Greek-style goat meatballs with tzatziki.

For the meatballs, we found this recipe by one of our Food Network favorites, Michael Symon.  As always,we took a few liberties with the recipe, and made our own tweaks.  To start, we chopped (rather than grated) half an onion and a couple cloves of garlic, and tossed them into a pan to sweat down.  After 8-10 minutes, the onions will be translucent.  You'll want to set them aside and let them cool before you add them.

While the onions and garlic are cooking, you can start mixing up your meatball mixture.  Cumin, coriander, cinnamon and nutmeg went into a bowl with our goat.

To that we added an egg to help bind the meatballs, the zest of a lemon, some oregano and mint.  Once your onions and garlic have cooled, toss them in with the meat mixture, and combine everything thoroughly.  Just be careful not to overwork the meat.  Form the meat into balls, roll them through some flour, and toss them into a hot pan to cook.  We got a nice sear on the outside of the meatballs, and then tossed them into the oven to cook through.

To accompany our meatballs, we cooked up some romanesco.  It is a variant of cauliflower, and almost looks like some kind of medieval torture device.  We decided to treat it as we would cauliflower, and roast it with brown butter, mint, red onion and lemon juice.  Since we didn't have any cheese, and we still wanted a salty, umami component, we shaved a little bottarga on top.

To finish off our meatballs, we whipped up some tzatziki, sliced up some red onions and tomatoes, and toasted up some pita.  Slather your pita with some of your tzatziki, line with red onion and tomato, and then toss in your meatballs.  We used some extra mint as garnish.  To help your meatballs fit into your pita, give them a little smash with a fork.  I learned this trick from eating lots of falafel!  And there you have it...Greek-style, goat meatballs!