The Passion (Fruit)

On a most recent trip to Paris I was lucky enough to catch sight of the absolutely spectacular and surreal passion fruit flower which begins to fruit in the Spring in France (though in places closer to the equator the seasons are longer August - December and March - May). I've always loved passion fruit with it's tart sweetness and crunchy bits of seed interspersed throughout. It's a commonly eaten fruit in both Colombia and Thailand, two places that are home to me and I've grown up in. But for whatever reason, I never caught glimpse of what it looks like as it grows, nor did I know it was a creeping vine, much like a weed - it can spread and grow like no other fruit I've seen. Except perhaps raspberries which also spread in bramble style across where they are planted or native.



In any event, it got me thinking what has passion fruit been used for medicinally speaking, since that's what I think about almost all the time as it pertains to food. In Chinese Medicine, passion fruit is considered cooling, slightly bitter and bland, and has a calming and nourishing affect on the heart yin (in non-TCM terms this would be more so the liquid and physical aspect of the heart, versus the function). Interestingly enough, passion fruit has been studied quite thoroughly by the pharmaceutical industry for it's calming and sedative effects! The irony of the use of passion in it's name helps you to remember that it is not there to inflame but rather to sedate and calm. Passion fruit is also known to lower high blood pressure and can be used as a digestive stimulant, especially in cases of stomach cancer.



The one thing about passion fruit that is challenging is the often times incredible tartness. This can mean that it requires the help of a little added sweetness to round it out and let the flavors come out more. My favorite way to have passion fruit is in juice form.

Passion Juice

Ingredients : fresh fruit or passion fruit pulp, honey, ice, water

1. Simply scoop out the pulp, put it in a blender, mix with some ice, water, and honey (or your choice of sweetness enhancement) and blend. Water to pulp ratio should be about 1:1 (adjust per taste).

Another excellent way to use passion fruit in the summer is in sorbet form, here is a recipe that is simple and delicious.

The Star of Early Summer: Scapes

Last year around this time in June I posted about garlic scapes, which I used to make a marinade for a slow cooked goat leg. This year I've been experimenting with all sorts of young green Alliums out there, ramps (which are in essence a wild leek but are similar to a scape), onion scapes, and of course garlic scapes. Scapes can arise out of any of a number of plants and are considered a flowering leafless stem. Not all are edible but if you catch them early enough and they come from the onion genus (Allium), then you're in luck! Onions and garlic are incredibly medicinal and healing foods. Onions in general work to lower blood pressure and decrease cholesterol, alleviate dysentery, induce sweating, and treat the common cold. Garlic acts as an antiseptic, antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, enhances digestive capabilities, has diuretic properties, and relaxes the blood vessels (i.e. decreases blood pressure). Scapes are the the pure young essence of all these properties and are excellent for ridding yourself of any lingering winter ailments. The bonus to a scape is the flowers popping out on the top, which taste like a concentrated savory onion. In Chinese Medicine flowers are considered to have a more dispersing effect, which means they are particularly good for treating colds and flus as well as skin disorders.



I chose to experiment with an onion scape (courtesy of Kinnikinnick Farm) that had bolted and was technically considered past it's youth and prime in the farming world . Meaning, it wasn't as delicately flavored and instead had more kick and spice to it. I cooked it in with slow braised pork chops until they shredded, along with a few potatoes from the Fall season to give the sauce body, salt and pepper to taste, and some absolutely amazing lambs quarters from Three Sisters Garden (considered a weed) that literally tasted of what the descriptive word GREEN would taste like if it jumped into a vegetable! I used the scape flowers (pictured at the top), which have an incredibly delicious onion punch, to make a light, vinegary, and kickin' drizzler sauce when the dish was plated. We served the braised pork with a poached duck egg and baked purple asparagus.




Pork Chop Braise with Lambs Quarters and Onion Scapes

Ingredients (serves 4)
lambs quarters (2 large handfuls)
2 large thick cut pork chops with bone in
1-2 onion scapes & flowers
salt
pepper
olive oil
6 small potatoes
rice vinegar



1. Brown pork chops in olive oil, add minced onion bulb from scape, save flower and a bit of the green stalk for sauce.
2. Cook on low heat, adding about 1 cup of water for about 1 hour. Add peeled and chopped potatoes in and cook for another hour.
3. Wash and strip lambs quarters leaves off of stem, add to pork when it has begun to shred and is almost done. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Make sauce: mince or just simply pluck off little flowers into olive oil (1-2 tbspns), rice vinegar 1 tbspn (substitute with good quality white wine vinegar if you desire), salt and pepper. Add 1 tbspn of minced green stalk from scape, using the portion closest to the flower so it's relatively tender.
5. Poach duck or chicken egg and serve over pork with a sprinkle of sauce on each dish.

Tins, Tomatoes, and Soup

The first snow dropped today! There goes the green, and all color for that matter, for a little to a long while. Luckily the canned, tinned, and preserved fruit and vegetables from the Summer bounty will add some color to your plate if you're sticking to trying to eat most of your foods as they are in season (your seasons can be canned!). Look for brands that use the least amount of preservatives, I prefer the simplest of all: tomatoes and salt. And today I was craving tomatoes due to a little liver heat situation I was experiencing (a TCM - Traditional Chinese Medicine - term for certain symptoms related to the liver such as : red eyes, high blood pressure, headaches, dryness, thirst, and indigestion/food retention). In my case it was the latter symptom, a case of food retention and some sluggishness. It could be partly due to the holiday thump of heavy foods and winter creeping in, or a myraid of other reasons. In any case, I had a tomato bread soup in mind all along and that's what I made, and it was wonderful. And simple. When it comes to tomatoes you don't want to overdo it as they can weaken your calcium absorption and are also detrimental in arthritic cases, but when you need a little kick start, they work. I needed to rev up my engine so to speak and I didn't want any meat but I still wanted some substance.

Ingredients:

1 can of tomatoes
1/2 a white onion
sprig of parsley
1 celery stalk
salt
pepper
paprika
stale or toasted bread chunks
chicken stock
parmesan optional

Instructions: Saute bread in olive oil so it browns lightly then take it out and place to the side. Add more olive oil to the pan. Caramelize onions, add celery sliced up in small moons, add tomatoes, chicken stock, salt, pepper, and paprika. Cook it all down so it melds (taste), then add the bread and let the soup soak into it. Serve in a bowl and grate some parmesan if you so wish and add a bit of fresh parsley on top.

The End of Summer

(George Street, Chicago)

I always drag out each season to the last possible minute, and then some. I was still stewing dinners, warm and slow, when June came around. Even though by then winter was long gone. And now, at the last possible minute as the fall is inching it's way in, I finally managed to put together a gazpacho. Last of the tomatoes, the peppers, and the cucumbers for 2009 (at least seasonally speaking).


(I made this gazpacho with some Greek yogurt to cream it up a bit without leaving it heavy.)

As I was contemplating this transition into the orange and yellow glow of autumn, I came across a sunflower, flush with the sun's seeds at the farmers market. Nothing depicts the end of summer quite like a sunflower drooping heavy with it's seeds. I've been watching a patch of sunflowers in front of a lovely house on George Street in Chicago every time I peddle past on my bike and it was just today that I saw that they were not only well over 7 feet tall but that the bigger ones were starting to droop their heads and looked so human I almost expected them to yell hello as I zipped past.



And then I came across one of their cousins at the farmers market, nipped off at the neck with just it's head full of seeds - I've never actually harvested my own seeds out of a sunflower but I have to say it is one of the more pleasurable food activities I have partaken in. Popping each little seed out makes you relish it that much more when you munch it on your mouth. It also will never cease to amaze me how many little tiny seeds fill the smiling face of a sunflower!



When I lived in Beijing my roommate whom I still miss all the time, introduced me to the Beijing variety of sunflower seeds. There were all kinds of flavors and we would sit there for hours crack, open, crunch, crack, open, crunch, crack, open, crunch. It was soothing. It was a lovely way to chat endlessly. She of course had years of experience doing it and was about five thousand years ahead of me in the matter of the crack-open-crunch but I managed to fare well towards the end of my time living there. Crack open crunch. So lovely.

So, sunflower seeds in all their sunny glory - what are they good for? Well, they are very beneficial to the lung and large intestine according to Chinese Medicine. They are also very tonic for the stomach and nourish your 'essence' (all the good stuff: blood/yin, moisture, elasticity). Maybe those "good for you" explanations are too lofty for you. If you want to be more specific, sunflower seeds will treat hyperlipidemia, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and they are great in cases of weak digestion where you still want to get some essential fatty acids into your system. Native Americans used them as a diuretic. They are the perfect antidote for all that good and plentiful summer living, full of grilling and chilling, it's time to substitute all that bounty with a little lighter yet still hearty fare.



While the fresh seeds tasted wonderful raw, I wanted to keep them for longer than a week so I soaked them in salted water for 8 hours, laid them out the next day on a baking pan with a sprinkle of salt, and roasted them for well over an hour at 250 degrees fahrenheit (you will need to test the doneness yourself if you do it at home). Enjoy.

Peachy Clean

Just a quickie before I am off to New York for a work training weekend... I picked up some lovely peaches at the farmers market yesterday. Juicy, tart, definitely sweet, soft to the touch and excellent for those of you suffering from any conditions where you have a dry throat or cough, and it also just so happens that it is helpful in lowering blood pressure. A peach has a cool thermal nature in TCM and is said to build body fluids, so go get some while they're in season and build up those essential fluids to counteract all the sweating you're likely doing whilst steaming away in the sun this summer. Do any of you recall "James and the Giant Peach"? Here's a little excerpt...



Not far away, in the middle of the garden, he could see the giant peach towering over everything else. Surely it was even bigger tonight than ever before? And what a dazzling sight it was! The moonlight was shining and glinting on its great curving sides, turning them to crystal and silver. It looked like a tremendous silver ball lying there in the grass, silent, mysterious, and wonderful.

......Almost without knowing what he was doing, as though drawn by some powerful magnet, James Henry Trotter started walking towards the giant peach.......He put out a hand and touched it gently with the tip of one finger. It felt soft and warm and slightly furry, like the skin of a baby mouse.

......there was a hole in the side of the peach......The tunnel was damp and murky, and all around him was the curious bittersweet smell of fresh peach. The floor was soggy under his knees, the walls were wet and sticky, and the peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

Hibiscus for Hypertension

The flower Hibiscus sabdariffa, also known as flor de Jamaica in Spanish, is not only delicious but also incredibly medicinally beneficial. I drank this flower tea growing up in Thailand as my mother would brew it often when she found out you could purchase it there, having already been exposed to it in Colombia. I vaguely recall the tea as being "good for you" (how often we hear that nowadays), but the reason for it being good for me did not stick in my mind, perhaps because hyptertension, high cholesterol, and water retention are not necessarily something a 15 year old thinks about. Before it was just a delicious chilled rose-colored tea water with a hint of cranberry'esque tartness, now it has taken on new dimensions as I continue to cultivate my knowledge of food as medicine.

Thailand and China are in fact the major producers of hibiscus so it is no wonder I drank it often when I lived in Bangkok. It is thought to be that Thailand produces better quality hibiscus than China, but that Sudan has the best variety, though it's exports are small and rare because of production difficulties. Malaysia became a large producer as well in the 1990's.

The uses for hibiscus are varied as it is used through the world in Asia, Africa, North America, Europe, and South and Latin America. In the U.S. they have primarily toted it as being a drink high in vitamin C. In Thailand they recommend it for the treatment of high cholesterol and hypertension. In South America it is considered good for not only it's high vitamin C properties but also as a mild diuretic and laxative. In Sudan it is used as a cough suppressant and the heated green leaves of the flower are used for cracks and boils on the feet. There are so many uses for this beautiful flower, that I am likely missing some, but will keep this post updated if I learn of more.

While I have been referring to it as flor de Jamaica since I bought it in a Mexican market, you can also find it under the following names (I obtained this information from Wikipedia):

"The roselle is known as the rosella or rosella fruit in Australia. It is also known as meśta/meshta on the Indian subcontinent, Tengamora in Assam, Gongura in Telugu,chin baung in Myanmar, กระเจี๊ยบ'krajeab in Thailand, bissap in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger, the Congo and France, dah or dah bleni in other parts of Mali, wonjo in the Gambia, zobo in Nigeria (the Yorubas in Nigeria call the white variety Isapa (pronounced Ishapa)), karkade (كركديه; IPA: ['karkade]) in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, omutete in Namibia, sorrel in the Caribbean and in Latin America, Flor de Jamaica in Mexico, Saril in Panama, rosela in Indonesia, asam paya or asam susur in Malaysia. In Chinese it is 洛神花 (Luo Shen Hua)"

There are a few different ways to make hibiscus tea, you can boil and steep the flowers for 20 minutes or you can soak them in room temperature water for 2-4 hours (depending on how strong you want it). I chose to do the boil and steep for 20 minutes and the tea turned out delicious, I added 1 large tbspn of rock sugar to sweeten it and I served each glass with a sprig of mint leaf, delectable! Here are the pictures:





The approx. measurement is 1/2 cup flowers to 4 cups of water, but you can play it with according to taste.



Let the flowers steep for 20 minutes.



I used rock sugar which I find to be less "sugary" and more nourshingly sweet rather than sickeningly sweet.



The dried flowers expland and turn back into vibrant flowers in the water.



I put the steeped flower juice into a pitcher so I can keep it in the fridge nice and chilled and ready to drink whenever I want.



A glass of chilled flor de Jamaica juice with a sprig of mint in it.

If you were to primarily use this to treat hypertension, high cholesterol, cystitis, or water retention, you would drink it every day. Because it is a mild diuretic, there aren't the normal dangers associated with diuretics. However, I always recommend that people monitor themselves whenever using anything on a daily basis and it is good to take "medical breaks" from frequent use of any herb or medicinal food.

As a side note, while researching this flower I came across a recipe for Sorrel Punch, which is the fun and alcohol-laden Carribbean version of flor de Jamaica (they just like to have more fun in the Carribbean!). Here is a general recipe (which I have not tried yet but hopefully will attempt this summer), I got it from the blogger eCurry.com:

To make the Sorrel Punch:

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups dried sorrel flowers
2. 1/4 cup fresh gingerroot, peeled and chopped
3. 1 stick cinnamon
4. 4 whole cloves
5. 1 cup sugar
6. 6 cups water
7. 1 1/2 to 2 cups over-proof Jamaican rum (or any of your favorite dark rum)
8. Lemon, lime and orange slices, for garnish

Preparation:

In a large, heat-proof bowl, combine the sorrel, the ginger, the cinnamon stick the cloves and the sugar. Set aside.

Bring the water to a boil and pour it over the sorrel, spices and sugar. Allow the mixture to cool. Cover the bowl and let and let the punch steep for two days.

Strain the mixture through a fine cheesecloth and return the liquid to the bowl.

Stir in the rum. Cover once more and allow the mixture to stand for two more days.

Strain the punch a final time and place it in the refrigerator to chill.

Serve the Sorrel Punch over glasses full of crushed ice, with garnishes of lemon, lime and orange slices. (During the holidays, this is accompanied with a slice of Fruit Cake)


**The lovely hibiscus flower has made it into the news (8.20.2009) as the New York Times displays all the edible flowers being used in cocktails.