Category: Food

Food truck Fridays

Intown Concord sponsors food trucks for First Friday

This past May, Intown Concord started a new tradition with First Friday. On the first Friday of every month, businesses in downtown Concord are encouraged to stay open until 8 p.m. or later. Each month, Intown Concord sponsors one food truck to attend, previously Wicked Tasty Food Truck and The Sleazy Vegan. Next up, on Friday, Sept. 1, is One Happy Clam.

“In the past, people have made comments about Concord closing up early and how there wasn’t much to do in the evening here, so we thought to focus on an effort to get the businesses to do something special once a month to encourage people to come downtown,” said Jessica Martin, the executive director for Intown Concord. “We have been sponsoring a food truck to come … and we’re hoping long-term that more food trucks will come down.”

Derry native Rick Metts, who has been in the restaurant business for 50 years, established One Happy Clam in September 2021. He started out at McDonald’s in 1974 and worked there through high school and into college. Twelve years later Metts, along with a friend, bought Clam Haven in Derry, where he worked for 33 years along with his wife, daughters and grandson.

“I had always dreamed of owning a diner, and the food truck craze was starting [around] 2015, 2016, so I put that in the back of my mind to maybe pursue when I got out of Clam Haven,” Metts said.

In 2020 when he sold the restaurant, that’s exactly what he did with his wife, daughters and grandchildren. He bought a pre-built truck in August 2021, bought and sold the necessary equipment, and a month later, One Happy Clam was on the road. Along with seafood, they also serve hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and more. Due to his time at Clam Haven, he already had a reputation in the community.

“They knew what we served at the restaurant, so I try to use the same suppliers and the same menu items,” he said. “There’s a consistency, so they know if it’s me this is what they’re going to get.”

Unable to attend First Friday in July because the truck needed a new transmission, Metts is eager to be involved in September.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “It’s a little different market. They don’t know who I am up there, some might, most don’t, so we get a chance to make a good first impression.”

Martin says there’s been a great response from the downtown businesses, Gibson’s Bookstore, Homebody and Achromatic being among the ones that have taken part in the later hours.

Revelstoke has been having a DJ, Wine on Main has done a free wine tasting and Spruce Home has even given out free iced coffee and doughnuts.

“It’s been a little bit of a slow burn but we’re gaining momentum,” Martin said. “We’re trying to put some sort of musical act near the food truck so it’s kind of a nice vibe, people get their food, they can sit there and eat and listen to some entertainment at the same time.”

First Friday
When: The first Friday of every month. The next event is Friday, Sept. 1
Where: Downtown Concord
Cost: Free
This month’s First Friday is being billed as “Dogapalooza” highlighting the dog-friendly nature of downtown, according to an Intown newsletter which include a list of businesses that allow dogs either inside the business or outside leashed as well as which businesses offer treats or water.
Also this Ryan Deachman (pictured bottom right) from 6 to 7 p.m. at Bicentennial Square.

Featured photo:Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 23/08/31

News from the local food scene

• Try gourmet kettle popcorn and handmade wine: Visit Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline) between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 1, and Saturday, Sept. 2, for gourmet popcorn paired with handcrafted wine. From mango maple moscato, strawberry zinfandel and black currant wine to sweet caramel and brown sugar and garlic pepper and rosemary popcorn, there is a combination for everyone. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased through eventbrite.

• Bourbon, wine, golf: Stonebridge Country Club in Goffstown (161 Gorham Pond Road) hosts Bourbon, Wine & Nine on Friday, Sept. 8, from 2 to 9 p.m. Sample wines, bourbons and scotches and enjoy food from Drumlins Restaurant. Festivities include a nine-hole scramble tournament, a putting contest, live music and chances to raise funds for The Liberty House Charity for Veterans and win prizes. Golf registration starts at 2 p.m. and tee-off is at 3 p.m. The tasting tent opens at 5 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $60 and can be purchased via eventbrite.

• Meet Austrian winemaker and try his wines: Stop by Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord) on Friday, Sept. 8, between 5 and 7 p.m. to meet Austrian winemaker Paul Direder and try his wines.

• Launch party for Botanica #9: Enjoy brunch, gin cocktails, music, a flower steam bar and more at Manchester Distillery’s (284 Manchester St., Manchester) Gin & Jam launch party for Botanica #9. The free event will be held on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with an official toasting at 9 a.m.

• Medium reading and wine tasting: Psychic medium Jessica Moseley will hold a group medium reading at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline) on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. Guests 21 and older will be offered a complimentary wine tasting flight of four vintages or a single glass of wine. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased on exploretock.com.

• Hampton Beach Seafood Fest: Don’t miss the 34th Hampton Beach Seafood Festival from Friday, Sept. 8, through Sunday, Sept. 10. More than 50 local food vendors and 70 local artisans will be displaying and selling their products, such as home decor, honey and hot sauce. More than 15 performances will take place over the course of the weekend on two stages, featuring The Great Escape, Maddi Ryan, Being Petty and Brandy Band among others. Festival events include a cornhole tournament, a 5K, a lobster roll eating contest, live culinary demonstrations, a mini air show, an art gallery and auction, and fireworks. Tickets are $10 per day. Visit seafoodfestivalmh.com.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

A lot of people seem to be deeply suspicious of my cooking.

I like to cook interesting — and yes, sometimes experimental — dishes. When I try to share them with others, my friends and coworkers suddenly surprise me with previously unknown lactose or gluten intolerances. Worst of all is when I try to give food as a gift:

“Here. Please accept this token of our friendship that I baked especially for you. It was hard work, but I wanted you to have it, because I like you so much.”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

If this has happened to you, try this.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

  • 2 sticks (200 grams) salted butter
  • 8 ounces (230 grams) extremely good dark chocolate. Chocolate chips would work for this, but it will be better with your favorite eating chocolate. Because this is a dense, decadent cake, if you have a hidden stash of Very Dark Chocolate hidden somewhere, that would be a good choice for this.
  • 1¼ cups (250 grams) brown sugar
  • 1½ cups (125 grams) unsweetened cocoa. If you have Dutch process cocoa, that would be even better; it is less acidic.
  • 2 teaspoons (10 grams) vanilla paste – a tablespoon of good vanilla extract will work for this, too.
  • ¼ teaspoon (0.5 grams) kosher salt
  • 6 whole eggs

Heat your oven to 350º (175º C)

Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan, and cover the bottom with parchment paper. (Easy “cheat” method for cutting a round of parchment paper to size: Fold a square of parchment paper into quarters, then in half, diagonally, to make a triangle. Fold the triangle in half, to make a sharper angle. Keep doing this until you can’t fold the paper anymore. Measure out half the diameter of your pan from the tip — in this case, four and a half inches — then cut across the triangle. Unfold the sharp end, and it will be an almost perfect circle the exact size of your pan. Actually, it will be a pentacontagon — a 50-sided polygon — or something, but close enough to a circle for our purposes.)

Over low heat, brown the butter in a small saucepan until it is the color of a tweed coat and smells nutty. Set it aside.

Break your chocolate up into small pieces, and place it in a plastic or glass mixing bowl. Melt it in your microwave, stirring it every 20 seconds.

Whisk the brown butter into the melted chocolate. Normally, adding a liquid to melted chocolate will make it seize up, but browning the butter has not only added flavor to it but also cooked off its water content.

Whisk in the brown sugar and vanilla, then the eggs, one at a time.

Sift the cocoa powder into the mixture, and whisk to combine. Cocoa powder, like cinnamon and some other dry ingredients, is hydrophobic, which means that it doesn’t like to mix with wet ingredients. Even though there isn’t any water in your mixture anymore, there was a small amount in the eggs. You will have to force the issue with your whisk.

Bake for 40 minutes, remove from the oven, and let it cool for at least half an hour before unmolding it. Your house will smell amazing.

Serve with a truly injudicious amount of whipped cream.

This is a very, very dense and decadent chocolate cake. It is earthy with cocoa flavor, but the brown butter and brown sugar give it a subtle butterscotch background. A small slice at a time will be perfect. For what it’s worth, anyone who normally gets out of trying your cooking by suddenly claiming to have a gluten intolerance will have to find another excuse. For anyone who actually has a gluten sensitivity, this will be a special treat.

Another up-side of this cake is that because it is not very sweet, you might be able to avoid having to share this with young children. Your husband or girlfriend is another matter.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Amanda Baril

Amanda Baril is the owner of NH Doughnut Co., a small family-run doughnut shop with locations in Concord and Bedford. The company, which Baril started in 2018, serves yeast and cake doughnuts made fresh each morning. While the menu rotates monthly, the doughnuts come in a wide variety of flavors like guava cheesecake, blueberry lemonade and honey dipped glazed. They also offer other baked goods like French crullers, with flavors like key lime pie and toasted coconut, apple fritters, as well as vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options. You can find them at the Concord farmers market on Saturday mornings.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

Scissors. I like to keep at least six hanging around since they seem to disappear.

What would you have for your last meal?

Mashed potatoes. Last meal, every meal, give me all the potatoes.

What is your favorite local eatery?

This is a toss-up between Cotton and Mangia Italian Restaurant.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Definitely the French crullers.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I know I am biased, but doughnuts are hot right now. They are popping up everywhere, including restaurant dessert menus and pairing events.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

Shepherd’s pie.

Focus on fermentation

Chef Sarasin’s new cookbook features fun flavors

According to local chef Keith Sarasin, humanity wouldn’t be where it is today if it weren’t for fermentation.

In his latest cookbook, Mastering Fermentation, which will be released on Tuesday, Sept. 26, Sarasin aims to show readers the beauty of fermentation while walking them through the process.

“This was a topic the publisher approached me with … and I asked them to focus on certain techniques,” Sarasin said. “I think if we said to anyone off the street [to] name a fermented dish, people might say kimchi or sauerkraut, but I wanted to move beyond just those things and really talk about why fermentation is such a backbone of culture and food.”

Sarasin says his passion for cooking comes from his mom. Growing up in Nashua with just his mother, he wanted to find ways that he could help. He started washing dishes at various restaurants and establishments, working his way up to an executive chef position. He also started working with local farms and in 2012 established the Farmers Dinner, which hosts dinners on various farms all throughout the region. Over time, Sarasin developed a passion for Indian food and culture, an area he now specializes in.

“I was a really picky eater when I was coming up working in kitchens and I think I had a lot of misconceptions about Indian cuisine like many people might,” he said. “One day I walked into a spice shop in Nashua called Food & Fashion of India and there was this lovely little lady in the back … and she kind of took me under her wing. After a lot of coaxing she helped me understand that there was so much more to Indian food than naan and chicken tikka masala. She really gave me my passion for the cuisine and helped me understand it, and subsequently she ended up becoming like a mother to me.”

For the past 16 years Sarasin has dedicated his studies to the cuisine and culture of the Indian subcontinent. He runs a pop-up series called Aatma — the name translates to “soul” — working with farms to bring this food to a new audience.

In Mastering Fermentation Sarasin, whose previous books include Meat: The Ultimate Cookbook and Wild Game Cooking, continues to expose people to new things. He feels there is a lot of confusion surrounding fermentation, a process he says has been used since 6000 BC to make alcohol and preserve food.

“I think a lot of time people think if you leave food out it spoils. I think we’re all taught that. But leaving food out can also lead to fermentation, which is so beautiful,” he said. “Fermentation involves really allowing naturally present or added microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, fungi and those enzymes to work their magic in the absence of oxygen. This leads to the killing of any pathogenic bacteria and creates an environment where beneficial bacteria can thrive.”

There are three types of fermentation to produce fermented foods at home, according to Sarasin: lactic acid fermentation to make things like pickles, yogurt and sourdough; alcohol fermentation to make beer and other alcoholic beverages; and acetic fermentation to produce vinegar and kombucha, among other things. In his book he gives a recipe for yogurt and whey fermented berries.

“I think people will realize this is a book to help you safely understand how to leave food out and turn it into a beautiful, fermented food,” Sarasin said. “Another thing I think people are going to realize very quickly and be surprised with is the amount of food that you can ferment to create wonderful healthy flavors really quickly.”

New book
Mastering Fermentation by Keith Sarasin (208 pages, Cider Hill Press) will be released Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Lacto-Fermented Carrots

From Keith Sarasin.
Serving size: Makes about 1 quart of lacto-fermented carrots (4-6 servings) Active time: 20 minutes Total time: 3-4 weeks

Traditional methods of preserving food and improving its nutritional content include lacto-fermentation. It entails using helpful bacteria called lactobacilli to transform the food’s carbohydrates into lactic acid. The food is preserved during this process, and the environment is made hostile to dangerous microorganisms. In addition to improving the food’s vitamin and enzyme content, lacto-fermentation also makes it more nutrient-dense and digestible.
Vegetables, dairy products and grains are among the foods that are frequently lacto-fermented. Foods that have undergone lacto-fermentation include sourdough bread, pickles, kimchi and sauerkraut.
Carrots that have been lacto-fermented are … a delicious complement to salads, sandwiches and other foods and have a somewhat sour, crunchy texture. The following is a straightforward recipe for lacto-fermented carrots.

Ingredients
4 cups grated carrots
2 Tablespoons fine sea salt
1 quart-sized jar with a tight-fitting lid

Directions:
In a large bowl, mix the grated carrots with the salt. Using your hands, massage the salt into the carrots for about 5 minutes, until the carrots start to release their liquid.
Transfer the carrots to the jar and press them down firmly. The liquid should cover the carrots. If necessary, you can add a little water to cover the carrots.
Close the lid tightly and place the jar in a cool, dark place for 3-4 weeks. Check the jar every few days to make sure the carrots are fermenting properly and to release any excess gas.
After 3-4 weeks, the lacto-fermented carrots should be ready. They will have a slightly sour, crunchy texture and a slightly cloudy appearance. If the carrots are not sour enough, you can leave them to ferment for a few more weeks.

Featured photo: Photo by Matthew Lomanno.

The Weekly Dish 23/08/24

News from the local food scene

• Gate City Brewfest: Gate City Brewfest is this Saturday, Aug. 26, from 1 to 5 p.m. (entry for VIP is at noon) at Holman Stadium (67 Amherst St., Nashua). Over 100 brews and vendors will be in attendance, such as 603 brewery, Citizen Cider, Canteen Spirits, Seacoast Pretzel Company and the Rotary Club of Nashua. There will be live music by Bradley Copper Kettle & Friends, Phall Roots and Frank Viele in addition to bounce houses, games and other activities. Tickets range from $15 to $70 and can be purchased at nashuapal.com or via eventbrite. See gatecitybrewfestnh.com for details including information about parking and shuttle buses.

• Stretch and Sip: Stop by Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline) from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Aug. 26 for yoga and wine tasting. A tasting of four samples of wine will follow an hour-long yoga class led by Happy Body Yoga instructor Leah. Tickets are $30 per person and an additional charcuterie board is available for $20. Tickets can be purchased online at exploretock.com.

• Bottle Your Own Experience Sundays: Tour the vineyard, winery and wine cellar, learn about the history of Brookline’s Ice District and enjoy four wine flights and a charcuterie board at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road) in Brookline on Sunday, Aug. 27. The vintner will choose a wine for you to bottle (one bottle is included and additional bottles can be purchased) and you’ll take home an Averill House Vineyard Wine glass. The first session will be held at noon and the second session will be at 2 p.m. Attendees are advised to arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Tickets are $59 and can be purchased at exploretock.com.

• Bottle signing with celebrity chef Robert Irvine: Sign up now to reserve your spot for a meet and greet and bottle signing and tasting with celebrity chef Robert Irvine at the NH Liquor & Wine Outlet in Bedford (9 Leavy Drive) on Monday, Aug. 28, from noon to 3 p.m. held by the NH Liquor & Wine Outlet and Stone Fence Beverage. Customers who purchase a bottle of Irvine’s Vodka ($15.99 to $21.99) or Gin ($19.99 to $25.99) during this time frame will be able to participate. Reserve your spot online via eventbrite.

• Save the date: Glendi, the 44th annual celebration of Greek food and culture at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St. in Manchester; stgeorgenh.org/activities/glendi, 622-9113), will take place Friday, Sept. 15, through Sunday, Sept. 17. Admission is free but bring money for the dinner or gyros and coffee, pastries and other Greek eats. The festival is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

• Get a taste: The 18th annual Taste of New Hampshire will take place Tuesday, Oct. 3, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Dr. in Concord). Tickets cost $40. The event features sweet and savory eats from area restaurants as well as live music and a silent auction — all to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Central New Hampshire. See tasteofnh.com.

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