Knit & Nosh

Smoked and Pickled Green Onions

This recipe comes straight from Preservation Kitchen, a book I highly recommend. I adjusted the quantities a bit because I am using green onions instead of spring onions and put those green onions into pint and half jars.

The original recipe calls for a stovetop smoker. If you do not have one, instructions are provided in the book for making your own! Even that felt like too much work, so I devised a different plan to smoke the onions.

First, I soaked about half a cup of wood chips in a bowl of water. The chips need to soaked for at least 30 minutes before using.

Next, I put six charcoal briquettes into a chimney and tried to light them. It took several tries, it seems that lighting a few briquettes is much more difficult than lighting a few dozen. While the coals where getting hot, I prepped the onions, cutting off the furry ends and sizing them to fit the jars.

On a sheet pan I placed parchment paper, which turned out to be unnecessary. I was not certain how the hot coal thing was going to work so I used my ugliest sheet pan, just in case it needed to be recycled after this adventure. It did not.

I then fashioned a rectangle out of heavy duty foil that fit the center of the pan. This is where I planned to put my charcoal and wood chips, so it needed tallish sides.

I used three pounds of green onions for four pint and half jars. You could also do pint jars using the same amount of onions.

Foil tray in the middle of the sheet pan, prepped onions on either side. Hot coals in the foil tray followed by soaked wood chips, then the whole thing is covered with foil. Not too tight, you ned to let some oxygen in there. Then I let it sit for 17 minutes. The original recipe says 12 minutes, but my method was not generating the same amount of smoke as a stovetop smoker, so I decided to let it sit the extra five minutes.

They are beautiful! Just warm and glistening and full of smokey goodness.

From there I stuffed the onions into the jars, added a few springs of thyme, covered with hot brine and sent them to the water bath. Pack those jars tightly, and I mean tightly. The onions are going to shrink in the hot water bath and shrink equals float. Tight is good. I used three times the amount of brine for four pint and half jars. 10 minutes for pints, 15 minutes for pint and half.

A recipe that is easy to make in the spring/summer when green onions are local, but just an easy to make in the winter when the onions are from California but you have an itch to play with jars.

Smoked and Pickled Spring Onions

1 1/2 pounds spring onions, root ends trimmed

10 ounces champagne vinegar

10 ounces water

2 ounces honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 springs thyme

 

Smoke the onions for 12 minutes.

In a pot, bring the vinegar, water, honey, and salt to a biol. Keep hot.

Trim onions to fit jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Pack jars tightly with onions and slide two sprigs of thyme down the side of each jar. Fill with hot brine, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Process is a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Instructions for water bath canning can be found here.

Makes 3 pints.

 

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garden check

I have been dutifully taking garden photos, but then the day/week gets away from me and no post. There has been quite a change in the past few weeks.

The beds look great.

We have been harvesting greens for quite awhile and had our first squash last weekend.

The tomatillos are a surprise. When I planted them I had no idea if they would grow in this cool, damp climate. Seems they like it just fine. The plants are not as large as those grown in the southern part of the country, but I should have enough for a batch of Salsa Verde. Next year I will put them in cages as some of the branches are pretty floppy.

This my friends is corn! Can you believe it? I am guessing two more weeks and then the corn will go directly from the plant to the grill. I can hardly wait!

The yellow squash is doing well. We have only had one fruit big enough to harvest, but there are lots of little guys on the plants so I am trying to be patient. Last weekend Youngest Son used his trusty pocket knife to cut the squash and I used it to make a hummus pizza. Wow was it good. Recipe in the next few days.

The zucchini are not growing at all. I planted three starts and they have grown very little while producing flowers, but no fruit. Can they all be boys?

Some of the onions are ready to be pulled.

The two main types of lettuce I planted are Red Oak and French Crisp. Turns out that even though I like red lettuce, I did not like the Red Oak at all. The plants that are left have bolted and I will pull them out this weekend. French Crisp has been a huge hit. Big, beautiful, and tasty.

The chard has been trying to flower since the moment I put it in the ground. I really like chard and will need to read up and learn more about how to actually grow them.

One lone beefsteak tomato, but plenty of flowers. A nice fall would help. Tomatoes are always a crap shoot here in Seattle, but we are an optimistic people and plant them every year.

This tomato plant is about five feet tall and has just produced it's first wee fruit.

The romas are doing fine, assuming we have enough summer left to actually let them ripen.

I cut the garlic scapes last week and need to use them. Maybe I will let them flower?

The last of the strawberries.

How is your garden doing?

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cbrm - vintage cakes

I know it is not Monday, but a book that I am very excited about was released yesterday and I am anxious to tell the world about it.

I should tell you straight out that while I am a cake eater, I have not been much of a cake baker. Looking back I see that it has to do with inspiration. Cake recipes are usually left to the back of big all encompassing cookbooks. Straight recipes, no photos, no stories, no reason to break out the cake pans. Then came Vintage Cakes.

Just the title, Vintage Cakes, grabs my attention. A title like that hints at a book full of cakes that have stood that test of time.

The copy of Vintage Cakes I am working from is an advance copy. This means the photos are black and white. Once I began reading about the cakes, even the black and white photos sparked my imagination. What do these cakes look like in real life?

One of my BFFs had a birthday coming up and the first thing I made was The Classic. Perfection on a cake plate. The cake is a traditional yellow cake, the kind you find in bakeries but can not find a good recipe for at home. Tall, moist, tender, one of the best cakes I have ever eaten. The frosting is simple and uses a new to me technique that produces a thick, deeply chocolate frosting. The combination is perfect and the only traditional birthday cake recipe you will ever need. Ever.

I cut into the cake thinking I would take a photo of one slices the following day when the sun was shining. The cake did not make it that long, by the end of the night it was gone, every last crumb.

Now that you have a recipe for the best birthday cake ever it is time to see what else the book has to offer:

The Chiffon Cake. The first cake to be made with oil instead of butter, developed by insurance salesman Harry Baker in the 1920's.

Watergate Cake with Impeachment Frosting came about when instant pudding and cake mixes were popular ingredients. The recipe here replicates the flavors from scratch.

What about a Jam Cake with Caramel Chocolate Ganache?

Or a Kentucky Bourbon Cake? BTW, this cake was the prize-winning entry by Neil Lewis at the 1963 Pillsbry Bake-Off.

In the actual book, the colors are in mouthwarering full color. Every cake begins with a bit of history which makes this my favorite sort of cookbook. Hasty Cakes, Everyday Cakes, Little Cakes and Light Cakes, Flips & Rolls, Layer Cakes, Party Cakes, Filling, Frostings and Icings. Vintage Cakes has it all!

 

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