Rutabaga Noodles with Brown Butter and Sage

Rutabaga’s relative starchiness and affinity for brown butter and other rich flavors make it a fun option for winter vegetable noodles.

1 large or 2 small rutabaga
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp chiffonade sage, divided
2 Tbsp heavy cream
Pinch nutmeg or mace
Parmesan & cracked peppercorns, to garnish

Peel the rutabaga and trim so it will fit in a spiralizer, or cut into long quarters and shave with a mandolin or Y peeler, then slice resulting sheets into ¾” wide noodles and set aside. In a medium frying pan, cook the butter, salt and 2 tsp of the sage over medium heat, stirring often, until the butter browns and the sage crisps. Remove from heat and rest to cool briefly, then whisk in the cream. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and add the rutabaga noodles, let simmer and stirring a few times. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until just tender and the “turnip funk” cooks off. Strain and toss in pan with sauce and nutmeg/mace, then pile on plates and shower with parmesan cheese, the reserved sage and pepper. Serves 4.

Potato Radish Soup

1 small yellow onion, diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1½ lb red potatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, diced
6 oz white wine, dry cider or ale
3½ cup stock of your choice
2” chunk parmesan rind
½ lb radish, sliced thin

In a soup pot, sweat the onion in the oil until translucent, then add potato and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until slightly softened. Add garlic and quickly cook until fragrant, then deglaze with wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid cooks off. Add stock, rind and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and cover, turning heat low to simmer until potatoes are as soft as you'd like them. Add radish and simmer 5 minutes or until softened and translucent.

Farmer Ben's Roasted Pepper Soup

Here’s a great soup to warm you in the winter! It uses our frozen roasted peppers and tomato puree. We like to serve it with cornbread or crostini, and salad with homemade buttermilk ranch :)

Ingredients

1 package of Whatley Farm Hot or Sweet Italian Peppers

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 medium potato, chopped

1x 24 oz jar of Whatley Farm Tomato Puree

Bit of butter and olive oil

Dashes of herbs and spices like basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary and thyme

1 generous splash cream or half and half (optional)

1. Do ahead: thaw the peppers.

2. Once thawed, remove the stem and seeds and chop the peppers. Set aside ⅓ of the peppers to add at the end.

3. Sweat onion, carrot, and celery in a bit of butter and olive oil, using a saucepan on medium heat. Add salt and any herbs/spices you’ve chosen.

4. Add one chopped potato and cook until they soften.

5. Add the tomato puree and bring to a high simmer. 

6. Add ⅔ of the chopped peppers and let soup simmer for 20 mins or so.

7. Blend the soup with an immersion blender. Back on the stove, add the remaining ⅓ of the peppers. 

8. Optional: add a splash of cream or half and half just before serving.

Chef Ali's Peanut Noodles with Asian Slaw

Chinese Cabbage

Long, pale and frilly Chinese cabbage is mainstay throughout Asia. Left raw it adds crunch to a salad or slaw, sautéed it adds texture to a stir fry and slowly braised it soaks up flavors becoming a beautiful vehicle for flavor. Here are 3 recipes one for each incarnation.

Peanut Noodles with Asian Slaw

I LOVE this dish for a potluck it can be served warm, room temperature or cold straight from the fridge (actually it’s a fabulous thing to find in your fridge when rummaging through looking for a midnight snack). If you have a peanut sensitivity substitute tahini for the peanut butter, and toasted sesame seeds for the peanuts. This works well with many types of pasta from soba noodles to rice noodles to angel hair, it is especially fantastic with fresh Chinese egg noodles if you can find them.

Asian Slaw

This slaw can hold its own as side dish with sticky ribs, teriyaki salmon or shrimp, on top of any sort of fish especially tuna or pan fried haddock. It makes a terrific addition to sandwiches and a fun refresher with sriracha spiced chicken wings. It works well with anything spicy, sticky or fatty.

Ingredients

• 3 cups Chinese Cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons (julienne)
• cup red bell or horn pepper, sliced into thin ribbons, ribs and seeds removed
• 2 scallions sliced thinly
• ½ cup grated carrot
• 1 whole Asian pear cut into matchsticks (sub apple or jicama if there is no Asian pear available)
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp. neutral oil (vegetable, canola or grapeseed or peanut)
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• Juice & zest from 1 lime
• 1 cup cilantro leaves

Recipe:

1. Place the cabbage in a large bowl
2. ix together salt, ginger and sugar
3. Rub the salt/sugar mixture into the cabbage and let sit about 10 minutes
4. Add remaining vegetables
5. Whisk together the oils, lime juice & vinegar
6. Let sit at least 15 more minutes or overnight
7. Toss cilantro leaves in right before serving

Other things you can add: Slivers of ripe mango, slivered of under-ripe mango or papaya, julienned daikon radish, julienned jicama, julienned broccoli stems, Thai basil leaves, fresh mint leaves, bean sprouts, pea shoots or slivered snow peas (raw or blanched)

Peanut Sauce

• 1 small clove garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp. minced or grated fresh ginger
• 1 tbsp. dark soy or tamari
• ½ cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• ¼ cup orange juice
• 1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
• 1 pinch red pepper flakes

1. Put everything in a blender or food processor and blend until creamy
2. aste and adjust seasoning to your liking, you may like it saltier or sweeter or find you like more acid or spice

Putting the dish together

• 1 pound noodles of choice
• ½ cup chopped salted roasted peanuts or toasted sesame seeds

1. Boil the noodles in salted water according to package instructions
2. Before draining the noodles set aside ½ cup of the pasta water
3. Drain noodles and set aside in large bowl
4. Whisk reserved hot noodle water in to the peanut sauce
5. Add sauce to noodles and using tongs gently turn the noodles in the sauce about 20 times until all the noodles are covered in sauce
6. op with slaw and peanut right before serving.

You can make this a more substantial meal by adding cooked shredded chicken or some bits of firm tofu or cooked shrimp, pork or beef.

Chef Ali's Parsley Recipes

Parsley

Fresh parsley is full of flavor, vitamins and antioxidants. The curly parsley sprig of yore, awkwardly sitting atop a slice of orange belies nothing of the actual power of the parsley! Parsley’s main flavor is green, it adds freshness and vitality to rich, fatty, unctuous foods, it brightens and lightens. Parsley is the Bob Balaban of herbs—it may not be the star attraction, but the dish is ultimately better because of its presence.

QUICK ADDS –

Toss fresh parsley leaves with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper and strew them across a plate of pasta Bolognese or Alfredo.

Chop fresh parsley and add it to a rice pilaf or stuffing just before serving.

Save parsley stems to add flavor stock and soups, add fresh chopped parsley to soups (especially chicken)  just before serving

Dress parsley leaves and thinly sliced white onion with red wine vinegar, olive oil + salt and pepper and add to a sandwich. (especially good with leftover roast chicken and Dijon mustard).

Persillade- Parsley Sauce

This simplest of sauces elevates any dish. Simply drizzled over a grilled chicken breast or a filet of fresh fish it quickly converts eating to dining. I like to toss it in with roasted vegetables right before bringing them to the table, or I spoon it over a simple roast chicken, grilled meat. Finish a risotto, or creamy pasta dish with a few spoonfuls. I use it as a layer is a mushroom lasagna, or I toss roasted mushrooms with a spoonful or so, also great with oven fried or roasted potatoes.  And let me tell you it quickly makes fried or scrambled eggs (esp. duck eggs!) into a meal (it’s not bad on toast, but even better if that toast has something fatty like goat cheese or pate on top). It has endless uses and lasts a couple days in the fridge.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch fresh parsley

• 1 small clove garlic (or one large depending on your garlic preferences)

• 1 teaspoon coarse salt (You can use a fine salt IF that’s all you have, but a salt with some texture really takes this up a level- I recommend Maldon Salt or coarse Maine sea salt)

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 tablespoon vinegar (anything but balsamic, it’s too heavy) or the juice and zest of a lemon, or orange or lime.

Instructions

1. Place parsley and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and pulse 5 or 6 times, alternatively you can chop them by hand or use a mortar and pestle- you want a fine chop but not a puree (though a puree is fine too)

2. Stir in oil and vinegar and season with salt

Other things you can add

Persillade will become Salsa Verde if you add a finely chopped anchovy filet and a tablespoon or so of capers (or just capers if you are anchovy adverse)- I am particularly fond of this sauce on lamb or beef, and it is rather beautiful on grilled fish, or mix into roasted peppers and serve with thick grilled country bread.

Replace half the parsley with mint for an exotic South American twist.

A teaspoon or so of red pepper flakes will add heat, and is especially nice with pork chops, or added to a dish of pasta with clams or shrimp.

Replace the garlic with finely chopped shallot and spoon over raw, grilled or roasted oysters.

Replace the olive oil with softened unsalted butter and smear under the skin of a whole chicken right before roasting--- or top of the skin right before carving, or both.

Replace olive oil with mayonnaise and use a dip for cold poached seafood or with fried fish as an alternative to tartar sauce, or (my favorite) French fries

Parsley and Toasted Almond Pesto

I absolutely LOVE this with clams, and of course it is lovely with pasta. Simple bright fresh and green its beautiful and relatively inexpensive dinner put together in mere minutes. You can make a large batch of this and freezer for later use.

Ingredients

• 2 cups parsley (you can use the stems!)

• 1/2 cup toasted almonds (if you want to be fancy use Marcona almonds)

• 2 clove garlic

• 1 tablespoon orange zest

• 1/2 cup grated pecorino cheese

• 1 pinch red pepper flakes

• 2/3 cup olive oil

• Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Place parsley, garlic, orange zest, nuts in bowl of food processor.

2. Process until it becomes paste

3. With processor running slowly add olive oil

4. Scrape in to a bowl, stir is cheese

5. Season to taste.

6. Toss into hot pasta along with a ladle full of pasta water for creamy sauce or dollop on to steamed little neck clams ---or both.

Other ways to use it

This pesto is also an AMAZING addition to grilled cheese, use a good strong sharp cheese like a tome. Aged gouda or cheddar.  

Slather it on chicken breasts or shrimp before or after roasting (or both).

It’s also rather good spooned in to a minestrone soup (or creamy  potato soup, or butternut squash soup or white bean soup—really almost any soup- it may seem wrong but a spoonful stirred into clam chowder is pretty great too)

Apple, Parsley & Walnut Salad with Blue Cheese

This is my favorite Thanksgiving salad. The Thanksgiving salad is a something my husband and I fail to agree upon, he thinks it an unnecessary addition, I think salad should be part of every feast. My Dad, who was my Thanksgiving cooking partner would have loved this salad—bitter greens with fruit and cheese, slightly decadent but not so over the top. I personally like it after the turkey, before dessert as a Cheese/Salad course hybrid with a few oat crackers and glass of tawny port. The apples, parsley & lettuces help ease your digestion, and the cheese and nuts get your palate ready for dessert.

I especially love this salad with foraged wild apples, I am deeply in love with those random roadside fruits, if you can get your hands on a rough skinned perfumed Russet apple they are glorious in this recipe, but any apple (even pear) will work.

Lovely on its own, serve it alongside a bowl of butternut squash soup with some good bread and you have a hearty fall lunch or lovely light supper. It is also a terrific side dish to roast pork, duck or sausages.

If blue cheese is not something you love you can use fresh goat cheese or leave out the cheese altogether or set a wedge of ripe creamy camembert, brie or other washed rind cheeses on the side.

This makes 2- 6 salads depending on the portion- actually it could just be a big salad for one, I love a big salad.

Ingredients -Salad

• 1 cup apple cut in thins slices or matchsticks (I don’t peel them but you can)

• 1 cup fresh parsley leaves (I prefer flat leaf for this salad)

• 1 cup bitter lettuces (radicchio, endive, frissee or all three) julienned or in the case of frisee torn in small fluffy pieces

• ½ cup toasted walnuts

• ½ cup celery leaves (those pale green leaves lurking deep in the heart of a head of celery)

• Salt & pepper to taste

• ½ cup good local blue cheese, crumbled

Ingredients - Dressing (can be made ahead up to 3 days ahead)

• 1 small shallot diced (about a tablespoon or so)

• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar (if you can find some good artisan vinegar that is the best)

• ½ tablespoon honey

• 2/3 cup Olive oil OR 1/3 cup grapeseed oil + 1/3 cup walnut oil

• 1 teaspoon fresh Thyme leaves

Instructions- Dressing

1. Pour vinegar over shallots and let sit while you prepare the vegetables

2. Whisk honey & thyme leaves into the vinegar and shallots

3. Slowly whisk oil in to the vinegar mixture

4. If you are using 2 oils start with the grapeseed and finish with the walnut oil

You can also just put in all in a mason jar, screw the cap on and shake hard about 20 times

Instructions- Salad

1. Toss the parsley, celery leaves and lettuces together

2. Add the apples

3. Season with alt and pepper

4. Toss altogether with dressing

5. Top with walnuts & blue cheese