{"id":7698,"date":"2016-04-07T01:23:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T01:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7698"},"modified":"2016-04-07T01:23:58","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T01:23:58","slug":"celeriac-soup-elk-cress-horseradish-potatoes-celtuce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=7698","title":{"rendered":"celeriac soup; elk, cress, horseradish potatoes, celtuce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/celeriac_soup_spiced_maple_vinegar.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7706\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7706\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/celeriac_soup_spiced_maple_vinegar.jpg\" alt=\"celeriac_soup_spiced_maple_vinegar\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>celery root soup with spiced maple vinegar<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-7731\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/elk.jpg\" alt=\"elk\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>elk steak, cress, horseradish potatoes, braised celtuce, stems and leaves<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t\u00a0often get a chance to enjoy a meal like this, either at home or out. This is America, where ordinary folk can only enjoy\u00a0<em>genuine<\/em> game if they import\u00a0it from another country, and that\u00a0means\u00a0paying a serious premium\u00a0(it&#8217;s a long story, and not one which makes our food regulations\u00a0look good).<\/p>\n<p>The elk sirloin steak I prepared Tuesday evening was a gift of a friend who has a cousin\u00a0who hunts, in Kansas. Actually we were given two packages of elk, the other was a flank steak. Each package\u00a0weighed around\u00a020 ounces. We decided we would share\u00a0each of them with two different\u00a0people whom we know are\u00a0interested in the kind of meals\u00a0we like to put together (sometimes with good\u00a0success).<\/p>\n<p>I panicked a little bit the day before our guests arrived last night, when I started to think\u00a0that 20 ounces meant there would be only 5 ounces of meat per person;\u00a0that amount seemed just a bit mean, but eventually I persuaded myself that what I had available was pretty much what most knowledgable sources I came across\u00a0suggested was\u00a0a proper portion size for a meat this rich.<\/p>\n<p>Besides, I had seen to it that\u00a0some equally uncommon\u00a0vegetables would be sharing the billing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We began by nibbling on some long whole wheat rustic breadsticks from Buon Italia, while sipping sparkling wine.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wine was a California sparkling, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/wines\/eponina-brut-california-nv.htm\">Eponina Brut California NV<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I found <a href=\"http:\/\/cooking.nytimes.com\/recipes\/467-celery-root-soup-with-spiced-maple-vinegar\">the recipe for the celery root soup<\/a>, one of our favorite starters, and usually reserved for a late fall or winter holiday meal, years ago in a &#8216;Pairing&#8217; piece in the New York Times. It&#8217;s much easier to make than it sounds, and, except for the\u00a0final assembly,\u00a0can be prepared ahead of time.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wine with the soup was a German (Pfalz) white,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/friedrichbecker.de\/de\/1\/startseite.html\">Weingut Friedrich Becker<\/a> Estate Pinot Blanc 2013, a special order from <a href=\"http:\/\/appellationnyc.com\/\">Appellation Wines &amp; Spirits<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Putting together the potato and horseradish dish could hardly be simpler (I kept thinking, shouldn&#8217;t\u00a0I be adding something to these very few\u00a0ingredients?), and it too was assembled and cooked before the guests arrived. I simply thinly sliced 3\u00a0large Yukon Gold potatoes\u00a0from Whole Foods, and arranged them in layers\u00a0shared with almost a cup of shredded horseradish, also from Whole Foods, and two cups of heavy cream. The casserole went into a 400\u00ba oven, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, then covered with aluminum foil and baked for another 30.\u00a0I\u00a0placed it in the refrigerator for a while, later removed\u00a0it, let it come\u00a0close\u00a0to room temperature\u00a0and then\u00a0warmed it for 12 minutes or so in advance of serving.<\/p>\n<p>The celtuce, which I had gotten from Lani&#8217;s Farm in the Greenmarket, was also largely prepared ahead of time, and only needed to be saut\u00e9ed, the stalks and the leaves in succession, then drizzled with some of their juices. <a href=\"http:\/\/foragerchef.com\/celtuce\/\">This link<\/a> will give you much of what you need to know about this vegetable, as well as the basic recipe I used yesterday.\u00a0My adjustments included parboiling the stalks in a much smaller volume of stock, and using far less butter than <a href=\"http:\/\/foragerchef.com\/\">Foragerchef<\/a> seems to indicate.<\/p>\n<p>The excellent local cress, from Stokes Farm, needed absolutely nothing after it was rinsed and drained.<\/p>\n<p>The elk, especially because I didn&#8217;t want to overwhelm the elk with a major marinade or a sauce, could hardly have been easier to prepare. I took my cue from an almost-30-year-old Daily News\u00a0clipping which described\u00a0how\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.menusofchange.org\/advisory-councils\/biographies\/brendan-walsh\">Brendan Walsh<\/a>\u00a0(we loved\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1997\/06\/25\/garden\/what-ever-happened-to-the-stars-of-the-80-s.html?pagewanted=all\">Arizona 206<\/a>) treats a venison steak. After rubbing softened butter into the steak and\u00a0pressing some strong freshly-cracked pepper into, I let it sit for about an hour, I simply saut\u00e9ed it for a few minutes on each side, waiting to turn it until juices began accumulating on the surface, removed it to a wooden carving board and cut it into four sections, poured\u00a0a bit of cognac into the pan, stirred it over hight heat for 1 or 2 minutes, while scraping\u00a0the drippings, seasoned it with sea salt, and then, off heat, I added\u00a0a little\u00a0butter, pouring it over\u00a0the meat which was now resting on warm plates. \u00a0After the photo was taken I remembered that I wanted to scatter some chopped parsley, from Eataly, over the elk.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wine with the main course was an Italian (Chianti) red, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wine.com\/v6\/Felsina-Chianti-Classico-Riserva-Rancia-15-Liter-Magnum-2010\/wine\/131826\/Detail.aspx\">a 1.5 liter magnum of\u00a0Felsina Chianti Classico Riserva Rancia 2010<\/a>, the gift of our guests<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was prepared to serve a cheese course assembled from a selection of <a href=\"http:\/\/considerbardwellfarm.com\/\">Consider Bardwell Farm<\/a> goat and cow cheeses, but we agreed to pass on it, perhaps because of the hour and a certain\u00a0satiety after\u00a0second helpings of the potato-horseradish-cream casserole. \u00a0As a\u00a0consolation, I brought out a package of some special Italian dried figs, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calabriatavola.com\/nicola-colavolpe-c\/\">Colavolpe Fioroni Classici<\/a>, from Eataly, which I had expected to serve with the cheese.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the beverage enjoyed with the figs was a very good\u00a0Venezuelan rum, one I would describe as the sipping rum I had always believed\u00a0existed somewhere; it was from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cacique_(rum)\">Cacique<\/a>, and it was a gift of an artist friend of ours from Caracas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>celery root soup with spiced maple vinegar elk steak, cress, horseradish potatoes, braised celtuce, stems and leaves &nbsp; I don&#8217;t\u00a0often get a chance to enjoy a meal like this, either at home or out. This is America, where ordinary folk can only enjoy\u00a0genuine game if they import\u00a0it from another country, and that\u00a0means\u00a0paying a serious premium\u00a0(it&#8217;s &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meals-at-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}