This would have been a pretty routine Sunday breakfast except for the goose eggs.

Picture below: A young comparison shopper, who then moved on, giving me an opening.

I’ve never tasted a goose egg, so when I spotted [just one] at a stall in the Greenmarket on Saturday, I was happy to learn that the farmer had more. One of them ended up on each of our plates at breakfast the next day, in the space where there would normally have been 3 chicken eggs. That’s a 6-inch teaspoon in the picture below.

The first thing about goose eggs is that they take more than just a gentle tap on the side of the pan to crack open (on my first try I messed up the yoke, and the second, almost).

The second thing about goose eggs is they’re delicious, and not all funky.

• the ingredients for the meal were 2 goose eggs from Quattro’s Game & Poultry Farm, smoked bacon from Flying Pigs Farm, dried golden habanada pepper (from fresh peppers purchased last summer from Norwich Meadows Farm), Tellicherry pepper, Maldon salt, lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, baby leek from Norwich Meadows Farm, Gotham Greens Rooftop packaged basil and Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, olive oil, Kerrygold butter, and lightly-toasted sourdough bread (rye flour, sunflower and flax seeds) from Hawthorne Valley
• the music was Haydn’s ‘Stabat Mater’, The English Concert and Choir, directed by  Trevor Pinnock

 

This swordfish dish has become very familiar on this site, except that last night the fresh herb was mint rather than the usual oregano, and the micro ‘greens’ which finished it were chard, which may never have made an appearance here.

The vegetable was almost totally new to our table: Ten months ago I had served Kale sprouts (the proprietary name is ‘Kalettes’©), a hybrid of kale and Brussels sprouts which grows on stalks like Brussels sprouts. Last April I had treated them as I would almost any greens, wilted with garlic in olive oil. This time I popped them in the oven, and, voila! puffs of kale chips!

When they came out of the oven they looked like Brussels sprouts that had exploded, like popcorn. They tasted like their botanical heritage: a mix of Brussels sprouts and kale. The texture was that of kale chips, which is to say, sensational! We ate them with our fingers (they were impossibly delicate).  Addictively crunchy, but, Unlike kale chips, each sprout finished with a little chewy bit in the center.

• one swordfish steak from the Seatuck Fish Company stall in the Union Square Greenmarket, purchased direct from the owner, fisherman Rob Williams, cut into 2 pieces, marinated for about half an hour in a mixture of olive oil, chopped fresh mint from Eataly, a pinch or 2 of golden home-dried habanada pepper (the fresh peppers acquired fresh last season from Norwich meadows Farm) a tiny bit of crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, and a small amount of a thinly-sliced baby leek from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, drained well and covered with a coating of dried homemade bread crumbs, pan-grilled above a fairly high flame for about 3-4 minutes on each side, removed, seasoned with salt and pepper, removed to the plates, scattered with a little of the freshly-cut green part of the leek used in the marinade, sprinkled with a little local lemon juice from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, scattered with some micro chard from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and drizzled with olive oil
• a couple handfuls of kale sprouts, a hybrid of kale and brussels sprouts, from Northshire Farm, stems trimmed, the sprouts washed, dried as well as was convenient, tossed in a bowl with a bit of olive oil (little more than a tablespoon), some Maldon salt, and a bit of freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, spread onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, baked for 10 or 15  minutes at 450º to 475º, or until the aromas arising suggested they were done
• the wine was a Spanish (Rueda) white, Naia D.O. Rueda 2014, from Verdejo old vines
• the music was Philip Glass’s 3rd and 5th string quartets, performed by the Smith String Quartet

It was a snow day. It felt like a holiday. It was also pretty cold outside (and we still haven’t turned on the heat inside), so a warm kitchen felt right. I had all the makings for a traditional German entrée inside the apartment, and we also had some terrific beer.

We had a terrific, traditional German dinner. Also, nearly everything in it came from farms in the area (our area, not Germany, which somehow makes it even more special).

We usually drink wine with our meals at home, partly because we both much prefer draught beer to bottled, but two of the beers we spotted at Schaller & Weber last week were very special to us: These Rauchbiere are from the area of Northern Bavaria from which my mother’s family emigrated to Wisconsin almost 175 years ago. In addition, both unusual and quite rare, we had thoroughly enjoyed them at Schankerla, the beautiful Brauereiausschank of the brewery itself, 5 years ago, with Barry’s mother, and we had never forgotten those pleasures. With some of the entrées however, we also had enjoyed good Franken wine, in a Bocksbeutel.

Smoked bier is not a gimmick, but an ancient tradition which continues today, and from our own experience alone, with good reason. Five years ago Barry described his first taste, “Nice and smoky like bacon in a glass.”

My maternal great-great-grandparents, who were from Franconia, but not Bamberg itself, may never have had Rauchbier. If they had, they might never have left.

• one 16-ounce glass jar of sauerkraut (simply cabbage and salt) from Millport Dairy Farm, drained and very well-rinsed in several changes of cold water, drained again and placed in a large enameled cast iron pot with one chopped onion from Tamarack Hollow Farm, one chopped parsley root (in lieu of the more traditional carrot) from Norwich Meadow Farm, half a dozen whole allspice berries and an equal number of Tellicherry peppercorns, a little salt, 2 Sicilian bay leaves from Buon Italia, about 8 ounces of beer (a bottle of Peroni, which had already been opened and kept in the refrigerator, some of it having been used in an earlier meal), a little water as needed, and a tablespoon of olive oil, all brought to a boil and then simmered over a low flame, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour, covered, and then uncovered for 20 or 30 minutes more before two 9-ounce smoked pork chops from Schaller & Weber, having first been briefly seared on both sides inside a dry cast iron pan, were buried in the sauerkraut, heated for about 20 minutes, the chops and sauerkraut arranged on 2 plates and sprinkled with chopped fresh parsley from Eataly
• a small pot of some pretty good ‘Organic German Mustard’ from Whole Foods served on the side
• two Dark Red Norland potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in heavily-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, a couple tablespoons of rich Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter [with 12 grams of fat per 14 grams, or each tablespoon of butter; American butter almost always has only 11 grams, which makes a surprising difference in taste and texture], the Saltzkartoffeln arranged on the plates with the chops and the sauerkraut, and sprinkled with homemade breadcrumbs which had first been browned in a little butter
• the beer was from Germany (Franconia), two different versions of a very special Bamberg Rauchbier (smoked bier), Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen, and Aecht Schlenkerla Eiche Dopper Bock, from Schlenkerla, in Bamberg, both purchased at Schaller & Weber here on 2nd Avenue
• the music was, no surprise, Georg Solti’s 1959 recording of Wagner’s 1854 opera, ‘Das Rheingold’, with the Vienna Philharmonic

I have no idea how professional chefs manage to reproduce the same dishes over and over again; I’ve used this same tuna recipe more often than I can count, and it turns out at least a little different each time, even without half trying.

But then, reproducing the same dinner happens to be exactly what I’m never trying to do at home.

As for an accompaniment to the tuna, I had realized early on that I didn’t really have enough collard greens left from a bunch whose largest portion had been put into service for a previous meal, so I decided to add a second vegetable, some radishes I had almost forgotten were in the crisper, and to add their greens to the collards, or at least those that had still retained their freshness.

The fruits of this improvisation – and good home economy – were delicious, and colorful as well.

• one 12-ounce tuna steak from American Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket (caught on Scott Rucky’s fishing vessel, ‘Dakota’), cut into 2 triangular pieces, tops and bottoms rubbed with a mixture of a tablespoon or so of dry Sicilian fennel seed from Buon Italia and a little crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero), also from Buon Italia, the two having been ground together with mortar and pestle, the surfaces also seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, before they were pan-grilled for only a little more than a minute or so on each side and finished with both a good squeeze of the juice of some tiny local lemons from Fantastic Gardens of New Jersey and a drizzle of olive oil
• a small bunch of ‘French breakfast’ radishes from Eckerton Hill Farm, cleaned and scrubbed, some of the stem retained, sautéed over medium-high heat in a little olive oil inside a heavy tin-lined copper skillet until they had begun to soften and color, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled with fresh lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a modest amount of tender collard greens from Phillips Farm, stripped of most of their stems, torn into small sections, washed several times and drained, transferred to a smaller bowl very quickly, in order to retain as much of the water clinging to them as possible, braised inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pot in which one large quartered clove of garlic from Tamarack Hollow Farm had first been allowed to sweat in some olive oil, the collards joined halfway through by some of the greens of the radish roots, adding a little of the reserved water along the way as necessary, finished with salt, pepper, a little of the same crushed dried Sardinian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a Spanish (Galicia) white, Martin Codax Rias Baixas Albarino Burgans 2015, from Philippe Wines
• the music was Roger Reynolds, the pretty awesome, ‘Odyssey’ (1989-92, for 2 singers, ensemble, and computer sound), from ‘The Paris Pieces’

Yeah, pretty snazzy, yet still down to earth, I’d say.

I couldn’t resist these little ones.  We love quail itself, but, while I’ve had many opportunities to bring home quail eggs, there was never the kind of imperative I felt looking at the beautiful clear plastic (yeah, well..) package of 15 while at the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday:  They were local and they were organic-fed. That, and the opportunity of preparing something I hadn’t before was more than good enough for me this time.

But I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

My assumption was that they would a part of a first course, the second being a simple good pasta. Last night I put those two concepts together: The appetizer became a dish of fried quail eggs on toast and the main course a beet pasta with a browned-butter sage sauce which I embroidered only slightly.

• eight quail eggs from Violet Hill Farm, fried in a heavy tin-lined copper skillet, seasoned with Maldon salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, sprinkled with organic Sicilian dried wild fennel flowers from Buon Italia, slid onto 8 slices, cut on the diagonal, of a really wonderful, sturdy ‘baguette sarasin’ (buckwheat flour bread) from Eric Kayser, which were toasted on top of the stove, then served with a little upland cress from Two Guys from Woodbridge, the little greens drizzled with a bit of very good Campania olive oil, from the Sannio region, and seasoned with salt and pepper
• eight ounces of Sfoglini beet fusilli with a brown butter sage sauce composed of 2 tablespoons of ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘ melted in a heavy, high-sided tin-lined copper sauté pan and heated until golden brown, after which a number of sage leaves from Keith’s Farm were tossed in and stirred with the butter, the pan was removed from the heat and juice from almost half of a local lemon (Fantastic Gardens of Long Island) added, the sauce set aside until the pasta had been cooked and drained (some of the pasta water retained), when it was added to the brown butter, heated gently and stirred, a good part of a cup of the reserved pasta liquid added, 2 or 3 tablespoons of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Vache Rosse from Eataly tossed in and mixed with the pasta, which was then divided into 2 shallow bowls and scattered with a small handful of toasted pine nuts from Whole Foods Market
• the wine was a California (Lodi) white, Karen Birmingham Sauvignon Blanc Lodi 2015
• the music was Jordi Savall’s album, ‘Music for the Spanish Kings’ (of the 15th century), with his ensemble, Hespèrion XX