Chicken x 4 and counting

Here we are, the fourth meal from one big farm chicken. (Well, more than four if you count leftovers!) Today, I boiled the carcass with herbs and vegetables to make a nice chicken stock, which I used to make Mushroom Orzotto. Recipe here. There's more stock, so tune in for Meal #5.

Check out the other meals here:

Meal 1, Meal 2, Meal 3

The chicken is from a CSA operation (community supported agriculture) near Saskatoon: Susan 343-7990.

I'm a fun-gal - MOREL AND FIDDLEHEAD ORZOTTO

Well, I am having fun in the kitchen! I just came into a heap of fresh-picked morels and fiddleheads from north-east Saskatchewan, and I wanted to cook them together in the same dish. This orzotto was delicious served with grilled porkshops and asparagus. (Orzotto is what I call a risotto-type dish made with pearl barley instead of rice - a very Saskatchewan substitution.)

Morel and Fiddlehead Orzotto

1 cup fiddleheads
3 tbsp butter
1 cup chopped fresh morels
3 green onions
4-5 cups vegetable stock
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil (or canola)
1 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Soak the fiddleheads in well salted water for 30 min. Drain. Rinse the fiddleheads several times to remove little flecks of brown husk. Melt 1 tbsp of butter and cook fiddleheads until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

Finely chop the green onions, white part only. Melt 1 tbsp butter. Cook morels and green onions until softened. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat the stock to a simmer. In a heavy-bottomed pot, melt 1 tbsp butter with 1 tbsp olive oil. Sauté the diced onion and garlic until soft. Add the pearl barley, stirring, until all liquid is absorbed. Add the wine and cook until it has evaporated. Add one cup of vegetable stock, stir well, and cook until the liquid is almost absorbed. Add the remaining stock, one cup at a time, cooking and stirring until the barley is creamy and tender to the bite.

Stir in the fiddleheads, mushrooms, rosemary and cheese. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve with an extra sprinkling of cheese.

Gourmet shoots of spring - ASPARAGUS ORZOTTO

Italians make a rice dish called rizotto (riz is Italian for rice). I make the same type of dish with pearl barley so I call it orzotto (orzo is Italian for barley). This time of year, fresh young asparagus is abundant in the farmers' market, so don't be buying imported asparagus from the grocery store. This recipe serves two people as a main dish or 4-6 people as a side dish.

2 tbsp butter
2 fat green onions, sliced (about ¼ cup)
1 bunch asparagus, in 1-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
½ cup cooked ham, small dice
(I like to use the smoked pork from Emco Meats in Saskatoon)
1 ¼ cup pearl barley
¼ cup Madeira wine (optional - see note below)
1 tsp salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
5 cups hot chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
¼ cup parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Sauté the onions and asparagus until softened. Remove the vegetables with a spoon, leaving the remaining butter in the pot.

Turn up the heat to medium. Add the ham and pearl barley. Stir to coat with the butter. Add the Madeira wine. Cook until all the moisture is gone, stirring frequently to prevent sticking or burning. While doing this, stir in the salt and pepper.

When the barley is good and dry, add one cup of hot stock. Cook, bubbling and stirring, until the liquid is absorbed. Continue in this manner, adding one cup of stock and stirring until absorbed. With the last cup of stock, return the asparagus and onions to the pot. Bubble the mixture, stirring frequently, until the liquid has formed a creamy sauce. Take off the heat and stir in the cheese. Serve hot.

Note: Madeira is a sweet dessert wine. It’s very good served over an ice cube with a slice of lemon.

Newspaper - MUSHROOM ORZOTTO

This first appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoneix on 16 January 2006.

My husband gave me a cookbook for Christmas that’s heavy enough to be a door stop. It’s called The Silver Spoon, or in Italian, Il Cucchiaio d’Argento. It’s been the most popular cookbook in Italy for 50 years. With 2,000 recipes, it’s massive.My goal is to adapt it to Saskatchewan.

This is, for the most part, an easy task because so many traditional Italian recipes can be made with Saskatchewan ingredients. Pesto, for instance, is a popular pasta sauce. The primary ingredients are basil and garlic, which thrive in our hot dry summers. Opening the book at random, I come to Tomato and Mozzarella Packets. It calls for cherry tomatoes, basil and parsley (all grown here), mozzarella cheese (made by Saputo in Saskatoon), eggs, pancetta (bacon or ham will do) and pastry.

I should explain my motives: Since last spring, I have been eating almost nothing but Saskatchewan foods in my own home. It’s an experiment in local consumption that’s good for the economy, for the environment and for my health. My taste buds like it, too. In fact, I have adopted some habits of a traditional Italian cook. I shop at the farmers’ market, I buy foods that are fresh and in season, and I choose recipes that fit the ingredients on hand (rather than buying "imported" ingredients to fit the recipe).

The first thing I cooked out of The Silver Spoon was Mushroom Risotto, which I made for New Year’s Eve dinner with grilled steaks, coleslaw and, for dessert, cake with cherry sauce.
Risotto is a rice dish named for the Italian word for rice, riso. For risotto, the water is added one cup at a time, until the rice is plump and creamy, not dry and fluffy like boiled rice. The risotto section in The Silver Spoon is eleven pages long. Of course, white rice is not grown in Saskatchewan, but no matter, because I have discovered it is equally delicious made with pearl barley.

Which raises an important question: What do you call risotto made with barley instead of rice. Since the Italian word for barley is orzo, I’ve decided to call it orzotto. There you have it – the invention of a new Saskatchewan dish.

My pearl barley was purchased last summer from the Daybreak Farm near Estevan. As for the mushrooms, I used chanterelle I picked myself in the forest near La Ronge, which I sautéed lightly in butter and froze. (The Italian recipe calls for dried mushrooms; you might be able to get some at the Saskatchewan Made Store on 8th Street. Soak in water before cooking.) I also used my garden tomatoes (frozen), rosemary (dried), parsley (which is miraculously holding out in a vase of water in my fridge) and fresh sage (which is still green underneath the snow).

Mushroom Orzotto
1 cup sliced mushrooms, sautéed in butter
2 T butter
2 T olive or canola oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 sprig each rosemary, sage and parsley, chopped
4-5 tomatoes, chopped
salt and pepper
6-7 cups water or vegetable stock, boiling
2 cups pearl barley
1/2 cup red wine
1 cup Parmesan cheese


Melt the butter and oil in a stockpot. Sauté the garlic, onion and herbs until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the barley, stirring until the grains are shiny and little liquid remains in the pan. Add the wine and cook until evaporated. Add a cup of boiling water (or stock), stirring until it is absorbed. Continue to add water, one cup at a time, stirring until each one is absorbed before adding the next. As you get closer to done, the barley will need more stirring to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan. When the barley is almost done, add the mushrooms. Stir in the parmesan cheese. The orzotto is ready when the barley is just tender to the bite. Sprinkle each serving with some cheese and perhaps some fresh parsley.

Week 17 - PINE MUSHROOM AND BARLEY RISOTTO

Saskatchewan Menu of the Week -- 10 August 2005

Breakfast -- Scrambled eggs with chopped tomato.
Lunch – Open-face cheese, tomato and basil (toasted).
Dinner – Pine mushroom and barley risotto. Fried fish. Raw kohlrabi.

PINE MUSHROOM AND BARLEY RISOTTO
I picked these mushrooms myself near La Ronge. They are a great delicacy in Japan where they are eaten by men for verility. (A young mine mushroom has the same shape as a certain male body part.) The pearl barley came from the organic mill at Daybreak Farm of Estevan.

Melt 2T butter is a saucepan. Sauté 1C sliced mushrooms. (I used pine mushrooms I picked near La Ronge, but any mushroom will do.) Remove the mushrooms and set aside.

Add 1C pearl barley and stir until the barley is coated in butter and starting to stick to the bottom of the pan. Pour in 1C warm broth. (I used homemade chicken stock). Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed. Add 1/2 C white wine and cook until evaporated.

Continue adding broth, one cup at a time, until the liquid is absorbed and the barley is creamy and just tender to the bite. Season with salt and pepper. Return the mushrooms to the barley before serving.