Category: Food

Steamed pudding with rhubarb sauce

This isn’t the type of pudding you’re thinking of. It’s an old-fashioned, British-style steamed pudding adapted from a 1930 recipe booklet put out by a baking powder company that I found at a yard sale this spring. It’s like a dense cake, but steamed in a pot on the top of your stove, instead of baked in the oven. This sort of pudding goes back to pre-Roman times and makes a lot of sense if you think about how difficult it must have been to keep an oven at a consistent temperature. Using steam to cook would keep the temperature at a steady heat, so once you’d worked out the timing it would be an extremely reliable recipe.

Pudding

  • 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup (about 5½ Tablespoons or 75 g) butter
  • ½ cup (99 g) sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 cup (227 g) whole milk
  • 1 cup (170 g) dried, sweetened cranberries

Rhubarb Sauce

  • About 3 cups (333 g) frozen, chopped rhubarb
  • An equal amount, by weight (333 g), sugar
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • Juice of ½ lemon

Whisk the dry ingredients together — the flour, baking powder and salt — in a bowl, and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together with your electric mixer, then beat in the egg. Add the milk and the dry ingredients a little at a time, alternating between the two. Stir in the cranberries by hand.

Fill a “mold” with a cover with the batter. Back in the day, every kitchen would have a couple of pudding molds. If you have a small Bundt pan, that will work well. Crumple up some waxed paper or parchment paper, then cover the pan, and tie it on with twine. (Yes, I know that sounds like Too Much Trouble, but it really isn’t.) Alternatively, I used a 1-quart glass bowl with a plastic lid, and it worked well.

You probably have a steamer in one of the drawers in your kitchen, but you’ve never been sure what it is. It’s really easy to use. Look up “How to steam a pudding” online and you’ll find any number of short videos that will demonstrate it for you. If everything seems too complicated, place a couple of bricks in the bottom of your largest pot, then pour an inch or so of water into the bottom. Place your mold on top of the bricks, and that will work just as well.

(My only steaming hack is to wet a tea towel and drape it between the top of the pot and its lid, and use it to make a tight seal, so the steam is trapped in the pot.)

Steam the pudding over low heat for two hours.

Meanwhile, cook the chopped rhubarb and sugar together over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally, until it comes to a boil. Remove it from the heat and stir in the lemon zest and juice. This makes a sweet but tart sauce that goes spectacularly well with your steamed pudding — and, if you are so inclined, a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Featured photo: Steamed pudding with rhubarb sauce. Photo by John Fladd.

Herbs for food and health

Greenery is on the menu for the 17th annual Herb and Garden Day

As you might suspect, the New Hampshire Herbal Network is made up of herb enthusiasts.

“We are a social group that gets together to talk about herbs, gardening, herbal medicine, environment and society,” said Ann-Marie Jackson, the group’s president. The NHHN will hold its annual Herb and Garden Day Saturday, June 6, at the Forest Society Conservation Center in Concord.

“This will be our 17th annual Herb and Garden Day,” Jackson said. “It’s an educational fair, so there are workshops for all levels, plant ID walks, kids’ activities, and there’s also a market, and it’s an artisans market. It’s like a fair. There are activities that can be crafty, so [people] can make and take, or they can be super-fun and just interesting. [Activities] might be about gardening or they might be about health or a particular issue. For instance, one of the workshops this year is going to be on menopause, and another workshop is going to be on botanical beauty — how to use herbal products for your skin care and your hair care and things like that.”

The Herbal Network looks at herbs from perspectives of food and of health. In fact, Jackson said, there isn’t a huge distinction between the two.

“If you look at [herbs like] thyme, basil, oregano or garlic,” she said, “these are all actually medicinal herbs. In workshop sessions for a plant ID walk on Saturday, an herbalist will take you around the property and point out any medicinal herbs that they would see, or plants of interest that they would see, or even fruiting trees and mushrooms. Myself, I am leading the mushroom ID walk.”

Jackson said that this year’s Herb and Garden Day will be a little more tightly focused than in some previous years, with a more select group of vendors. This is due, she said, to the event’s new venue.

“This is our first time at the Society for the Preservation of New Hampshire Forests’ Conservation Center in Concord,” she said. “And we could not take as many vendors as we have in the past. For the last four years we were at the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner and we were outside and we had about 35 vendors. This year we have some indoor and outdoor space, but we only have 20 vendors at this one.”

According to a schedule of events posted on the Herbal Network’s website, in addition to plant ID walks there will be workshops on aromatic kitchen herbs, oils and mushrooms, herbs used for pain relief, herbs used to fight cancer, plant-based dyes, herbs’ role in gut health, self-sufficiency through food preservation, and more — highlighting the versatility of herbs in different aspects of people’s lives.

Jackson said Herb and Garden Day is a good way to introduce the public to the New Hampshire Herbal Network.

“We do not ask membership dues from any of our members,” she said. “In fact if you want to become a member all you need to do is either subscribe to our newsletter or buy a ticket for Herb and Garden Day and you will become a member. We have other public meetings through the year, but this is our big fundraiser. The money is to go toward paying our teachers and getting guest speakers and things like that.” She encourages people to visit NHHN’s website for more information about this year’s Herb and Garden Day.

Herb and Garden Day
The New Hampshire Herbal Network’s annual Herb and Garden Day will take place Saturday, June 6, at the Forest Society Conservation Center at 54 Portsmouth St. in Concord. Tickets are $35 in advance, or $55 on the day of the event. Visit nhherbalnetwork.org/herbday.

Featured photo: Herb and Garden Day will focus on culinary and medicinal herbs. Courtesy photo.

Local bacon, beer and help

High Hopes Foundation makes NH its focus at Bacon & Beer Festival

The High Hopes Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to providing life-enhancing assistance that promotes independence, inclusion and fun for New Hampshire’s chronically ill children. According to High Hopes’ Lisa Rourke, for the past decade the answer to getting buy-in from the community has come down to two factors: beer and bacon.

On Saturday, June 6, High Hopes will host its 10th annual NH Bacon & Beer Festival in Manchester’s Arms Park.

“This is really New Hampshire’s premier all-inclusive event,” Rourke said. “It includes all-inclusive tastings of craft brews, cider, seltzer, all-inclusive tastings of the bacon creations we have going on, and live music.” For Rourke, the key term here is “all-inclusive.”

“I’ve done my due diligence,” she said. “I’ve visited other beer fests to see what’s been going on. I’ve always had a great time, but then I’d get hungry and I’ve had to go pay for food. Not here. The general admission ticket prices are $70, but you don’t take out your wallet once you get in. The food is included, the drinks are included, it’s all included.”

“The High Hopes Foundation exists to serve the state of New Hampshire only,” Rourke said, and that is represented in the food and drink at the festival. “There will be more than 20 local restaurants, and food truck vendors participating. There are about 60 local brewers and makers of cider and seltzers. They all come together to support the Foundation and our mission. We award a people’s choice prize for the best bacon sample. It’s fun to see those guys get real creative. Over the years, we’ve come a long way from a bacon jam and now we’re up to dishes like inside-out pork belly and bacon-wrapped dumplings. It’s been really fun to see those guys having fun and getting really competitive with it over the years.”

Rourke said that because one of the organizers’ main priorities is to focus on the attendees’ good time, the restaurants coming up with these bacon dishes never present them to a panel of judges. “It’s all the people’s choice,” she said. “We have about 1,500 attendees [who] come to the event,” and feeding them something great is critical.

“I think food just brings people together,” she said, “and certainly, especially in the Manchester area, there’s some culinary greatness coming out of there. And we’re excited about a lot of the restaurants we have this year, like Campo Enoteca, Stashbox, and Industry East; those guys are just so good at their craft. And they’re really good at ramping up the crowd. They’re just fun people to be around. For all of us, I think it’s more about getting together over great dishes than anything else, and just coming together for the good of the community and having a great time.”

Rourke said the Bacon & Beer Festival has become the unofficial launching point of the food festival season.

“The other thing I like about this festival,” she said, “is we promote it as a kickoff to summer. So you can go sample from 60 different breweries and figure out what they have that’s new and fresh and that you want to bring to the lake with you all summer. We hope. that attendees have a great time, that they feel good about their ticket proceeds going to a nonprofit that supports our state. And we hope that attendees get to experience different vendors within our state and what they have to offer and hopefully remember them and visit them after the festival.”

And that they eat a lot of bacon.

10th Annual NH Bacon & Beer Festival
When: Saturday, June 6, from 1:30 to 5 p.m., with last pours at 4:30 p.m.
Where: Arms Park, 10 Arms St., Manchester
Tickets: General admission tickets cost $70 in advance or $80 at the gate if they are still available. A three-hour session includes continuous 3.5-ounce brew tastings from 60 brewers. More: nhbaconbeer.com

Featured photo: Lucky Pig BBQ. Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 26/06/04

• Manchester farmers market opens for the season: Manchester Farmers’ and Makers’ Market has opened for the season. Wednesdays, 4 to 7 p.m. at Arms Park — the one by the river, with the painted steps. Has your local farmers market opened for the season yet? Let us know at jfladd@hippopress.com.

• Popcorn and pinot: Red River Theatres (11 S. Main St., Concord, 224-4600, redrivertheatres.org) and Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host a Sip and Snack party Thursday, June 4, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Theatres. Snack on classic movie concession treats paired with fun, sippable wines and a voucher to a movie of your choice. Each $40 ticket includes four classic movie snacks, four complimentary wines and a glass of bubbly. Visit the Wine on Main website.

• A daze of wine and roses: Lose yourself in an evening of painting, flowers and wine. There will be a Paint & Sip workshop on floral watercolor paintings on Thursday, June 4, at LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Paige Lindsey of Paige Lindsey Design will teach you how to paint expressive summer florals while exploring foundational watercolor painting techniques in a relaxed, creative setting. All class materials are provided, and no experience is necessary. Tickets start at $64 through the LaBelle website.

• Rhubarb! The Town of Bennington will hold its Annual Rhubarb Festival on Saturday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Sawyer Memorial Park, 148 Route 202. Enjoy a celebration of all things rhubarb. There will be a craft fair, vendors, food trucks, children’s activities, a petting zoo, a story walk, music, plants, baked goods, jams, beverages and more. Visit townofbennington.com/rhubarb-festival.

• Brunch at the winery: Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) will hold its first Brunch and Bubbles event of the summer Sunday, June 7, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sparkling Cayuga White is included with your brunch; have fun with a make-your-own-mimosa bar. Tickets are $42.30 through the Flag Hill website.

• Classy but relaxed: Local Street Eats (112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com) will host Bubbles and Bumps, an evening of Champagne and caviar with Island Creek Caviar and Moët & Chandon, Wednesday, June 10, at 6 p.m. Guests will explore four distinct varieties, from buttery California white sturgeon to bright Danish trout roe, while sipping perfectly paired Champagne and building their own bites with elevated accompaniments. Tickets are $95 per person through the Local Street Eats website.

• Cupcakes and martinis! The theme of June’s cupcake-and-martini pairing at the Copper Door (15 Leavy Drive, Bedford, 488-2677, or 41 S. Broadway, Salem, 458-2033, copperdoor.com) is mango and coconut. The Mango and Coconut Martini includes coconut tequila, coconut rum, mango juice and pineapple juice with a toasted coconut rim for $14.75. The Mango and Coconut Cupcake is a coconut cupcake with a mango puree filling, coconut frosting, a white chocolate cup, coconut cream drizzle, dried mango and dried coconut flakes for $12.

Purple Fruit Bat

I recently needed to develop a recipe for a cocktail based on the theme of a magical fruit bat, as one does, because — well, because of reasons.

Purple Fruit Bat

  • ½ ounce + 1 ounce chili-lime rum
  • ¼ cup (4 Tablespoons) dried, sweetened blueberries — the type you might put in some sort of fancy trail mix or something
  • ¾ ounce Aperol
  • ¾ ounce peach-flavored whiskey — Crown Royal makes a good one
  • 1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice

You will also need some special equipment for this. Well, not need need, but you’ll be able to use a couple of these items that you don’t get to break out very often, and you’ll feel vindicated for buying them in the first place:

A muddler — This is a special stick for grinding ingredients up in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Sure, you could use a wooden spoon for this, or even an actual stick, but I like breaking out the pestle — the stick part — of my largest mortar and pestle.

A bar spoon — one of the ones with a long, twisty handle. Again, you could just use your largest cereal spoon or the wooden spoon mentioned above, but if you’ve got a cool actual bar spoon, it would be a shame not to use it. I have one that’s black and twisty and has a skull on the end of it.

A strainer — This could be an actual fine-mesh strainer that you use for pasta or something. There are any number of bar strainers, often called julep strainers or something similar. I use a $2 sink strainer from the dish-soap aisle in my supermarket. It does a really good job and has almost exactly the same diameter as a martini glass.

Add the dried blueberries and ½ ounce of the rum to a cocktail shaker, then muddle the heck out of them. Adding just a little alcohol to the muddling process will help strip colors and flavors from the berries, some of which are not water-soluble. Muddle everything for longer than you think necessary.

Add the rest of the alcohol — the rum, the Aperol and the whiskey — then stir everything thoroughly with the bar spoon. Mashing the berries like you just did has smashed them into a solid layer on the bottom of the cocktail shaker, and this will break that up and give all the berries access to an alcohol bath.

(Optional) If you’ve got a few minutes, let the berry corpses marinate in this alcohol bath for a few minutes while you make yourself a piece of toast or something.

Add the lime juice (which is acidic but not alcoholic and probably won’t help with the blueberry stripping) and some ice to the shaker, and shake the mixture thoroughly, until you hear the ice start to break up into tiny pieces.

Strain the mixture over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Sigh with satisfaction at its beautiful purple color.

This is a really nice afternoon drink. It is definitely fruity but not overly sweet. The chili-lime rum works really well with the fresh lime juice. Blueberries love acid — lemon or lime juice especially. The dark purple from the blueberries blends with the bright red of the Aperol, giving it a classic violet color.

Given the number of ingredients, “refreshing” is probably not the adjective you would expect to describe this cocktail, but there you are. It is refreshing; you’ll just have to have a couple more to check that first assessment.

Featured photo: Purple Fruit Bat. Photo by John Fladd.

Adventures in baking

Sourdough has a life of its own

April Repoza and her daughter Bailey own and operate Bigfoot Sourdough in Milford, a sort of a combination homestead bakery and mad science lab that goes well beyond simple loaves of bread.

“We do make artisan loaves,” April Repoza said, “and then we do all of the very standard ones like jalapeno-cheddar and pesto-parm. We make bagels and they’re sourdough obviously, but they’re New York-style where they’re boiled in malt syrup and then baked. We make hamburger buns. We make stuffing cubes for Thanksgiving, cookies, and brownies. We do sourdough pizzas. It’s endless. But what we’re known for is when people reach out and say, ‘Hey, can you make this flavor?’ and if it’s something I’ve never done, I’ll say, ‘Of course — you know, let me try that.’”

“We love taking on crazy ideas,” Repoza continued. “We made a Pizza Night Loaf that we actually folded cooked spaghetti into. We used a tomato sauce-based dough and added cheese and it was literally a whole meal. You’d cut it and there’d be pieces of spaghetti inside. We made a Demogorgon Loaf for Stranger Things that went kind of viral. But yes, so we make regular loaves, too. Our English muffins have definitely been our best seller recently. We make standard sourdough English muffins and then we do a flavor of the week; this week we’ve got banana-nut ones and then we do a sourdough coffee cake of the week. This week we’re doing a Cosmic Brownie Coffee Cake. We make a cinnamon roll of the week and this week it’s based on the concept of a ‘kitchen sink’ cookie; we call it Bigfoot’s Junk Drawer. There’s a viral trend of people holding their sourdough like men hold their fish when they’re showing off their catches, so I upgraded my sourdough one week and made it into a fish shape”

Getting creative with sourdoughs began with April’s daughter Bailey, Rapoza said.

“She had gone to college and came home for Christmas break and said, ‘Mom, I got us a sourdough starter. Let’s try to make some bread.’ I was like, ‘OK, sure,’ I’ve never done it before. I went to culinary school 500 years ago, but I was like, ‘Alright, let’s try it out.’ We both just fell in love with it and fell in love with the science. We did hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of research before we even offered it out to friends or family or anything like that. I wanted to really try to perfect it before we went any further. Eventually we started getting known for our unique flavors and the different projects that we take on. Every product we make is sourdough-based, from cookies to king cakes, which we made this year. It was insane! I think we sold about a hundred different king cakes this season.“

The Rapozas started with a purchased starter, April said, but after developing thousands of batches of dough, their dough has evolved to the point of being uniquely suited to their needs. “It’s funny,” she said, “because people will say, ‘Well, I use a 200-year-old starter…’, and that’s partially true, but once you start feeding it your own water and your own flour, it changes. So it’s not the exact sourdough starter from 200 years ago. Ours is definitely its own thing at this point. My family jokes that if we go on vacation I have to arrange babysitting for our dough. My mom will come over to feed it; she’s like, ‘We never expected for you to have another child.’”

Working with sourdough, and learning to think about it as a living organism, has changed the way she looks at her baking and at food in general, Rapoza said. “We constantly look for ways to make not-so-healthy things healthy, but we also like to go kind of over the edge and make healthy things a little crazy too. I feel like you can do both.”

Bigfoot Sourdough
Where: 33 Cortland Road, Milford, 801-6265, facebook.com/BigfootSourdough
When: open Thursday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pickups can be arranged seven days a week by appointment. Special orders require notice 48 hours in advance.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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