Making Marigold Wine

This is a little video I slapped together with the Flip program, which doesn't have any creative features other than allowing you to edit the length of the videos and choose from a half-dozen pre-selected background music files.

This was just me playing around with the Flip. I don't videotape music every weekend anymore like I used to do at Stumpjack and just had the urge to fiddle around a bit. We're actually in the idea stage of creating a series of high quality video episodes of this sort of thing (foraging, local artisan food production, cooking, interesting personalities or projects, etc), and those will be "professional" in format and visual quality. But this was fun anyway.

Stumpjack Hot Sauce

Here's the recipe Stumpjack Hot Sauce I promised I'd share. It's a riff on the Blue Ribbon Restaurant, New York, hot sauce recipe. The garlic and onion give it an extra layer or two of flavor and the carrots give it a nice mellow sweetness and great color. I especially like it on eggs and in certain creamed soups.

Ingredients

• 3 cups distilled white vinegar
• As many habanero and cayenne peppers as you want (I used 10-12 total, 5-6 of each), with seeds removed. The seeds add more heat but may not puree completely. If you want more heat just add more peppers.
• 2 heaping tbsp coarse Kosher salt
• 1 1/2 lbs carrots (trimmed & peeled, cut into chunks)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small clove garlic, diced
• 1/4 cup diced white onion

Directions

1. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a wide saucepan. Sauté the onion, garlic and peppers for just a minute or two, just enough to soften everything up a tad and release some flavor and aroma.
2. Add the vinegar and salt, and bring everything to a boil. (Make sure you open the door or a window to get some good ventilation; boiling vinegar can get pretty intense.) Let it cool.
3. Add the chunked carrots to a pot with just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 8-10 minutes. You want the carrots tender but firm. Drain and give them a few minutes to cool.
4. Add the peppers, onion, garlic and vinegar mixture to a blender or food processor along with two cups of the cooked carrots. Puree until smooth.
5. Taste it. If it's got too much heat add another cup of carrots and puree again, until you get it to where you want it.
6. Once you have the flavor and level of heat you're happy with you can either bottle it up right there, or strain it to get a greater liquid texture.
7. Bottle it in a cool-looking bottle. It will last in your refrigerator for at least a year.

* variation: divide the vinegar mixture in half, pureeing one half just as directed, but to the other half add some fruit like papaya, peach or pineapple before pureeing. You can cut down on the carrots a bit if you add fruit. The best advice for making this stuff is to let your imagination be your guide, have fun and write your ingredient list and process down as you do it. You might come up with something that knocks your socks off and having it written down will ensure that you'll be able to replicate it again.

Curing Salmon Roe for the Kitchen

We went salmon fishing a few times this autumn and did fairly well, catching several. We released some of them because they were too far into their spawning run and were therefore too dark for good eating, but a few had enough good color and firmness to keep. Two or three big females we caught and kept also had excellent stores of roe.

In the past, while I've reserved some of the eggs for eating I've usually just collected most of the skeins and had simply frozen them for later use as fishing bait. But with salmon roe going for anywhere between $6 and $9 or higher per ounce there is plenty of incentive to make use of this delicacy in the kitchen.

Step 1: rinse/clean the salmon eggs

We'll try to add a few recipes that make use of roe when we make something we think you might enjoy as well. You'll probably have good results with salmon roe in dishes that combine it with other ingredients such as goat cheese, chives, farm eggs, mayonnaise, peppers, and certain fairly intense cheeses. Basically, wherever you might use anchovies, like on pizza, in spring rolls or as part of some tapas plates, you can use salmon roe.

Step 2: dissolve Kosher salt in warm water

Here's a simple recipe to cure or temporarily preserve fresh salmon roe. I'd also suggest letting yourself play with this in anyway that strikes your fancy. Try any number of curing or pickling ingredients (gin or vodka, hot peppers, garlic, cucumber, herbs, etc). It's quite all right if some attempts don't turn out so great; you might hit upon something that is totally awesome.

Step 3: add eggs to salted water and let cure for 2-3 hours

Ingredients:

• Salmon Roe
• Kosher Salt
• Water
• Dark beer
• Sugar

Here's the recipe I used to beer brine cure around 3 lbs of fresh roe (steps correspond with images):

1. Rinse the eggs if they're loose and free of the skein (the membrane that holds the whole bunch together) to get rid of any bits of blood bits. If they're still in the skein rinse it thoroughly.
2. Add and dissolve between 1/3 to 1/2 cup Kosher salt into around a quart of 100° water.
3. Add the eggs to the salted water and let them sit for a couple hours. If they're cloudy going in they should be clear after the brine bath.
4. After two or three hours rinse the eggs using a sieve and running water. If the eggs were still held together in a skein now's the time to peel the membrane from them so that they're free. Be attentive when doing this because the little things seem eager to escape and bounce around.
5. Prepare a second brine of dark beer and sugar. I used a bottle of Dragon's Milk from Michigan's new Holland Brewing that my friend Brian gave me. It's a rich, creamy oak barrel aged ale, 10% abv, and goes down like a liqueur. Added (and dissolved) to the beer 7 heaping tablespoons of sugar and a tablespoon or two of Kosher salt..
6. Add the loose eggs and let them sit for two or three hours.
7. After two or three hours drain the eggs in a sieve (don't rinse) and jar them. They'll last for two or three weeks in the fridge.

Step 5: prepare beer/salt/sugar brine

Depending on the character of the eggs when you brine them they may be a little "hard" and "poppy" when you bite down on them. They soften up a bit when heated during cooking and are easier to eat.

Step 6: cure eggs in beer/sugar/salt solution for 2-3 hours

Step 7: drain eggs

Step 7: jar the eggs and refrigerate (good for 2 or 3 weeks)

Below is a simple recipe to add a little color and interest to your breakfast, with beer cured salmon roe.

Scrambled Eggs with Roe & Chives:

• Cut a few chives from your herb pot and scissor them up into tiny pieces.
• Whip three eggs in a bowl with a bit of cream or milk and salt & pepper.
• Melt butter in skillet over medium heat and sweat a little diced garlic and onion (around a teaspoon each).
• Add a tablespoon of the salmon eggs to the skillet and cook them for a minute or so, stirring them around a few times. This will soften them up and let them soak up some of that good butter/garlic/onion flavor.
• Pour in the egg/cream mixture, sprinkle the chopped chives over the top, and move it around like you do for scrambled eggs, until it's nice and fluffy and done. Drop a teaspoon of butter on top as it's about to finish cooking.
• As soon as the eggs are plated turn the heat up a little and lay a slice or two of country bread, buttered on both sides, in the skillet to quickly toast it, flipping it once. About a minute and a half. Pour yourself a cup of coffee in your Stumpjack mug while the bread is browning.
• Bonus points: take a picture of it all and share it with us and post it on facebook.

Final Step: eat 'em up!