Taylor Shellfish Farms and Italian Steamed Mussels

We all know when our favorite fruits and vegetables are at peak season. Tender asparagus, strawberries and spinach fill our plates in the spring; heirloom tomatoes, peppers and corn are the kings of summer; while mushrooms, apples, pears and root vegetables welcome us back to fall.

But did you know that Mediterranean Mussels hit their prime in the late summer into fall? Who knew that shellfish also have peak seasons? I sure as hell didn’t until I walked by Taylor Shellfish Farms retail store in the Melrose Market on Capitol Hill.

Taylor Shellfish Farms is easily one of the most influential companies to Seattle’s seafood scene. The Taylor family has been growing shellfish in the bays and inlets of Puget Sound for over 100 years and provides succulent shellfish to over 3-dozen Seattle restaurants. Tom Douglas, Ethan Stowell, Campagne, and Sitka and Spruce are just a handful of top-notch restaurants that feature shellfish from Taylor Shellfish Farms.

Now it’s easier than ever to bring fresh shellfish of the highest quality to your very own home. The Taylor Shellfish Farms retail store has been open since early summer and allows customers to browse tanks of live oysters, mussels, clams, Dungeness crabs, geoduck, and Maine lobsters. Fish and scallops and all sorts of hardware needed to break open shellfish are also available for purchase. The staff are very knowledgeable and know their product well. If you’re hungry, an oyster stew, clam chowder and fresh oysters are available for the slurping.

If you love, steaming clams and mussels, making clam chowders, slurping fresh oysters or cracking into crab or lobster, then you must visit this bivalve botique. Having this kind of access to the most plump and fresh of the ocean’s bounty is a gift to the city of Seattle and you won’t find better shellfish anywhere else.

The face of Taylor Shellfish is probably Bill Whitbeck (aka Oyster Bill). I first met Oyster Bill at the University District Farmers Market when a group of women probably in their upper 30’s approached the Taylor Shellfish Farms stand. The girls giddily went on and on how the boys are in Vancouver for a bachelor party while the girls were enjoying their bachelorette weekend in Seattle.

I found it a bit odd that they were at a farmers market as part of a bachelorette weekend. Even more peculiar, all they bought was a bag of well-endowed geoduck. After the girls walked away, Oyster Bill leaned over with a huge smile and whispered “Batteries not included!”

Ok…so maybe you had to be there. Back to mussels.

I wanted to find a recipe that showcased peak of the season Mediterranean mussels. I chose a recipe out of Pure Flavor, a cookbook from the man behind Beecher’s Cheese, Kurt Beecher Dammier. I knew you couldn’t go wrong with a recipe involving mussels, marinara sauce, prosciutto, basil, and sun dried tomatoes.

The recipe calls for 2 cups of marinara sauce or store-bought marinara. I used the following tomato sauce, and added 3 tablespoons of chopped basil.

The recipe is either meant to be an appetizer served with warm bread or as a meal served over a bowl of steaming pasta. The night I made this, Abbie had the following facebook status:

Walked into my building after a long day and smelled something delicious, crossed my fingers that it was coming from my apartment...and it was!

Italian Steamed Mussels

Adapted from Pure Flavor by Kurt Beecher Dammeier

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1.5 ounces (2 to 3 slices) thinly sliced prosciutto, chopped

4 galic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons thinly sliced sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained

2 cups marinara sauce with fresh herbs or store-bought marinara sauce

4 sage leaves, thinly sliced (optional)

1 pound mussels, scrubbed and debearded

1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Heat the olive oil in a stockpot or a large pot on medium-high heat. Add the prosciutto and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes, or until brown. Add the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and sauté for 30 seconds.

Stir in the marinara sauce and sage and bring to a boil. Add the mussels, cover the pan and cook on high heat for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the mussels open.

Remove the pan from the heat and discard any unopened mussels. Spoon the mussels and the sauce into 4 bowls, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve hot.

Taylor Shellfish Retail Store

1521 Melrose Ave, Seattle

206.501.4321

 

Friday Food Photos - Sugar Bakery & Cafe

If you happen to be at Sugar Bakery on a Tuesday or Friday morning, you might find me in hospital scrubs securing the last of the almond croissants.  I usually call the bakery at 6:30 am from the nurse's station to secure my favorite after-work treat.  Only made twice a week, these buttery croissants topped with almonds, powdered sugar and stuffed with a rich almond paste are often sold out before 8 am. They really are that good.  

While I love Sugar Bakery's Almond croissant, Abbie's favorite after-work treat is a classic pain au chocolate. After a long shift at the hospital, we take to our pajamas and enjoy our croissants while looking forward to our time off together. It's often the best part of my day. 

Many other sweet treats are available at Sugar Bakery. Cookies, cakes, muffins and more are on display just waiting to be eaten.

Savory treats, baguetes, sandwiches, and soups are also available making Sugar Bakery a very popular lunch spot for the neighborhood dwellers, as well as staff from all the nearby hospitals.

West Seattle may have Bakery Noveau, and Columbia City has their very own Columbia City Bakery, but Capitol Hill and First Hill are lucky to have Sugar Bakery. 

SUGAR BAKERY + CAFE
1014 Madison Street 
(between Boren & Terry Streets)
Seattle, WA 98104
(206)749-4105
Monday - Friday 7am-6pm
Saturday 9am-1pm

Flourless Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwich Cookies and How I Finally Decided to Take up Baking

Last week, Abbie decided we were going to have friends over for dinner and that she was going to cook. She planned a 5-course French themed dinner and chose not to reveal to anyone what she was preparing.  Abbie even went to Pike and Western Wine Shop and bought all the wine that was to be paired with our dinner without allowing any input from her food and wine loving husband (me). I was putting my time in at the hospital the night before so she finished most of her prep while I was working and sleeping.

After pleading to help with the cooking, Abbie finally let me be in charge of salads and helped in setting the table. When our good friends Arturo and Tanya arrived, we all sat down as Abbie revealed her beautifully planned meal. Salmon rillettes, boeuf a la mode (not with ice cream), cheese soufflé, and crème brulee were all wonderfully prepared and out of Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Around my French Table. The beef dish was hands down everyone’s favorite dish as it was fork tender, juicy and packed with flavor. By the end of the evening, we were all stuffed and happily intoxicated with great company and 3 bottles of French wine.

As hinted above, I initially had a hard time watching Abbie do all the planning and cooking for this luxuriously French meal. We don’t have people over for dinner often enough, and the few opportunities that we do, I certainly don’t like idly sitting on the sidelines watching. After all, I am FrancisFoodie and cooking is a big part of what I love to do. I admit it was nice for a change to just sit back, relax and eat. It was also a nice reminder that I’ve married one hell of a cook (Abbie’s second Twitter handle is now @mrs_foodie).

Now I don’t want to say that I felt anger or frustration for not being involved in the cooking although I do admit it was difficult. But the fact that my wife was cooking all of us dinner without allowing any involvement from me actually left me feeling a bit demasculanized. Ironically, I decided to cope and regenerate my kitchen manhood by putting on my apron and taking up baking for the first time.

Abbie was participating in a hospital sponsored bake sale and we’ve recently starting canning our own raspberry jam. I chose Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cookies for my first baking venture in many years. I looked up peanut butter and jelly cookies on Food Gawker and decided on a recipe from the food blog, Mind Over Batter. Her stunning photography, hysterical writing and simple gluten and flour free recipe is why I went with her website’s recipe. I’m excited to increase my versatility (and perhaps virility) in the kitchen by finally entering the world of baking.

Flourless Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cookies

From food blog Mind Over Batter and adapted from Fine Cooking

 Ingredients

2 1/2 cups of smooth peanut butter at room temperature

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon of baking soda

2 large eggs

2.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Jelly, jam, or preserves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat baking liners. In a bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the peanut butter, brown sugars, and baking soda on medium speed until blended, about 1 minute. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed until just blended, about 25 seconds. You will be left with a crumbly sort of dough that should come together if pressed.

Shape level spoonfuls of dough into balls about 1 inch diameter, or use a 1.5 tsp cookie scoop. Arrange the balls about 1.5 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. Press the balls of dough down slightly. If filling with jelly, make a small indentation in the middle of each cookie and fill with jelly, jam or preserves - Your choice. Repeat with each cookie.

Bake one sheet at a time until the cookies are puffed and crackled but still moist looking, about 10-11 minutes, no longer.

Remove cookie sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove cookies from rack.

Assembly: 

Turn half of the cooled cookies over so they are flat side up. Spoon or smear jelly, jam or preserves onto the center of each cookie. Top with the remaining cookies, flat side down. Press gently on each cookie to spread the filling to the edge. Let your jelly show.

Makes about 30 sandwich cookies or about 60 cookies.  

Friday Food Photos - New Restaurant Month

The restaurant eater's dillema is always present: Do you eat somewhere that you know you'll enjoy, or do you take the risk and try somewhere new? The month of August was proclaimed to be New Restaurant Month for both Abbie and I and it forced us to broaden our restaurant horizons. We were not dissapointed with our new explorations and we'd like to share some of our discoveries with you in this week's addition to Friday Food Photos.  

Ethan Stowell is quickly becoming synonomous with excellent food. Here's a pate appetizer we had at How to Cook a Wolf.  

The Book Bindery is a beautiful restraurant on the south side of the Fremont Canal. While waiting for appetizers, the waiter was handing out free amuse-bouche (one bite appetizers) of a creamy vanilla corn soup topped with truffle oil. You take the soup like a shot and at the bottom of the glass were little bits of black truffle. 

Our appetizer was toast with bone-marrow butter. 

While Abbie had her scallops, I had the duo of pork: a generous cut of pork chops along with some pork belly, peas, and peavines. 

To change pace a little bit from upscale dinning to neighborhood burgers, we checked out Lunchbox Laboratory in South Lake Union where they have Kool Aid and Tang on tap!

We stopped briefly one night at downtown Seattle's highly acclaimed RN74 just to have some dessert. It's grand opening night had Bill Gates in the dining room. This $5 dollar ice cream sandwich was on their "Realy Sweet Deal" dessert menu.

Before visiting our last restaurant, our good friends Heather and Brendan enjoyed an afternoon of Beatles Laser Light Show, Butterfly Gardens and fun filled interactive exhibits at the Pacific Science Center. 

An afternoon of learning and fun worked up our appetite. Luckily, Boat Street Cafe was just a few short blocks away. This bread was hot right out of the oven. 

Heather claimed these Crab Cakes to be the best she's ever had. She obviously has yet to try mine. 

Abbie loves her white meat and she ordered the chicken breast.

Both Brendan and I decided to man up and eat meat off a bone with these juicy pork chops.

And that's it for this week's addition to Friday Food Photos. We're thinking of making every other month New Restaurant Month. I hope these photos inspire you to venture out and try new places and have a New Restaurant Month of your own. 

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

 

If comfort foods were a fantasy sports league, then fried chicken would probably be my number one draft pick. Whether you’re cooking for a picnic, weekend football game or a family get together, I can’t think of another dish that will consistently score you more points, finger licks, and happy tummies than Thomas Keller’s fried chicken.

Thomas Keller recruits an aromatic citrus poultry brine to help uniformly flavor his chickens before frying. Chicken is brined for 12 hours before dipping it in a seasoned flour mix, followed by a bath in buttermilk, then a final powdering of the seasoned flour. The satisfying sizzle when dropped into the hot oil all but guarantees that satisfying crunch we look for in fried chicken.

After chomping your way through the feathery crust, the effects of the brine will come through in the juicy and flavorful meat. We all have come to love fried chicken, but this fried chicken can quite possibly be the best you’ll ever have. Colonel Sanders only wishes he can make fried chicken this good.

Some notes on making this recipe: 

• The brine mix must be boiled to dissolve all the salt and merge all the aromatic and citrus flavors. It then needs to be completely cooled and refrigerated before brining the chicken. This may take a considerable amount of time so plan accordingly.
• The recipe calls for chickens in the 2-3 pound range. Pieces this size ensures the appropriate meat to crust ratio that is such an important part of the pleasure of fried chicken
• Have extra oil handy to rapidly cool down oil that has become too hot. 

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Adapted from Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller

Chicken Brine

5 lemons, halved

24 bay leaves

1 bunch 94 ounces) flat-leaf parsley

1 bunch (1 ounce thyme)

1/2 cup clover honey

1 head garlic, halved through the equator

1/4 cup black peppercorns

2 cups (10 ounces) kosher salt, preferably Diamond Crystal

2 gallons water

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and cool completely, then chill before using. The brine can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

For Dredging and Frying

Peanut and canola oil for deep-frying

1 quart buttermilk

Kosher salt and freshly ground black peppers

Coating

6 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup garlic powder

1/4 cup onion powder

1 tablespooon plus 1 teaspoon paprika

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cayenne

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Ground fleur de sel or fine sea salt

Rosemary and thyme sprigs for garnish

Cut each chicken into 10 pieces: 2 legs, 2 thighs, 4 breast quarters, and 2 wings. Pour the brine into a container large enough to hold the chicken pieces, add in the chicken, and refrigerate for 12 hours (no longer, or the chicken may become too salty).

Remove the chicken and rinse under cold water, removing any herbs or spices sticking to the skin. Pat dry with paper towels or let air-dry. Let rest at room temperature for 1.5 hours or until it comes to room temperature.

If you have 2 large pots and a lot of oil, you can cook the dark and white meat at the same time, if not, cook the dark meat first, then turn up the heat and cook the white meat. No matter what size pot you have, the oil should not come more than one-third of the way up the sides of the pot. Fill the pot with at least 2 inches of peanut oil and heat to 320 degrees F. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet. Line a second baking sheet with parchment paper.

Meanwhile, combine all the coating ingredients in a large bowl. Transfer half the coating to a second large bowl. Pour the buttermilk into a third bowl and season with salt and pepper. Set up a dipping station: the chicken pieces, one bowl of coating, the bowl of buttermilk, the second bowl of coating, and the parchment lined baking sheet.

Just before frying, dip the chicken thighs into the first bowl of coating, turning to coat and patting off the excess; dip them into the buttermilk, allowing the excess to run back into the bowl then dip them into the second bowl of coating. Transfer to the parchment-lined pan.

Carefully lower the thighs into the hot oil. Adjust the heat as necessary to return the oil to the proper temperature. Fry for 2 minutes then carefully move the chicken pieces around in the oil and continue to fry, monitoring the oil temperature and turning the pieces as necessary for even cooking, for 11 to 12 minutes, until the chicken is a deep golden brown, cooked through, and very crisp. Meanwhile coat the chicken drumsticks and transfer to the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Transfer the cooked thighs to the cooling rack skin-side-up and let rest while you fry the remaining chicken. (Putting the pieces skin-side up will allow excess fat to drain, whereas leaving them skin-side down could trap some of the fat.) Make sure the oil is at the correct temperature, and cook the chicken drumsticks. When the drumsticks are done, lean them meat-side-up against the thighs to drain, then sprinkle the chicken with fine sea salt.

Turn up the heat and heat the oil to 340 degrees F. Meanwhile, coat the chicken breasts and wings. Carefully lower the chicken breasts into the hot oil and fry for 7 minutes, or until golden brown, cooked through and crisp. Transfer to the rack, sprinkle with salt and turn skin side up. Cook the wings for 6 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Transfer the wings to the rack and turn off the heat.

Arrange the chicken on a serving platter. Add the herb sprigs to the oil (which will still be hot) and let them cook and crisp for a few seconds, then arrange on the chicken.