April 27th, 2009 by Trevett

The Week Ahead
Ramp season is in full swing!  If the Legume menu seems ramp-heavy for a while it’s just because they’re not here for long and we really enjoy eating them.  The grass-fed beef burger with gruyere cheese and ramp aioli was a big hit at brunch, so we’ll be doing that one again next Sunday.  Scallops with lentils, bacon and ramp vinaigrette was really good too and I think the dish will be even better this week with arctic char.  (BTW if you love ramps like we do, a visit to Dinette for the ramp pizza is imperative.)

Stinging nettles are due to arrive Thursday.  I’ve come across recipes calling for nettles many times over the years and had always been curious about them. I was really excited to see them on the Penn’s Corner product list this week.  Assuming we cook them right, they will very likely find their way into some kind of pasta dish this weekend, probably in the form of a pesto. 

We received our first shipment of day boat scallops and smoked seafood from Browne Trading Company last week and were very excited about the quality.  These scallops are guaranteed to be less than 48 hours off the boat when they’re shipped to Legume, which is pretty good if you know anything about the journey most scallops make to Pittsburgh.  We’ll be getting them in on Friday for the weekend menu.  Come early on Saturday, because we’ll probably run out of them by the second seating.  

Lamb steaks are due to arrive towards the middle of the week.  These steaks are a cross-cut of the leg, which is an important thing to consider if you’re expecting the texture to be like a typical beef steak.  It’s not.  The lamb steak is at its best medium-rare.  Rare can be chewy and anything over medium tends to be tough.  It’s a risky thing to put on the menu since about 1 in 20 gets sent back for not being like a beef steak.  But for those folks who know what they’re ordering, it is a great cut of lamb.

Sunday Brunch Grand Opening
Thank you to all who came to our soft brunch opening last week.  It was really great to hear people’s feedback and to get practice for our grand opening this coming Sunday. 

We’ll have the lobster omelet, Scottish smoked salmon from Browne Trading Company, and a few things we’re trying out new this week. Click here to see a tentative menu of what brunch might look like. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; walk-ins only/no reservations.  Don’t forget to bring your own vodka and/or champagne for Bloody Marys and Mimosas.  We’re waiving corkage with any purchase of a carafe of Bloody Mary mix or fresh squeezed orange juice.   

We are taking reservations just for Mother’s Day Brunch on Sunday, May 10th. Give us a call if you’d like to come!

Mulberry Garden
The warm weather helped the garden with a quick growth spurt this weekend. Lettuce and arugula are making steady progress and we may have morning-picked salad greens for Legume within a few weeks.  Radishes look ready to be thinned in a day or two, and may find their way next to a slice of pork terrine by Thursday.  Sage and oregano are growing like crazy.  For some reason the thyme didn’t make it back this year.  The compost pile was good and hot, which means it’s time to begin saving vegetable trimmings from the kitchen again.  

April 20th, 2009 by Trevett

the week ahead
We’re starting off the week with an extra-simple menu since our biggest day of prep will be interrupted by the installation of a new range to give us more burners and to replace the convection oven that finally called it quits last Thursday. Jamison lamb shanks are prepared and ready to go. A working oven means chicken will be back on the menu as well. Alaskan halibut is due to arrive on Tuesday.

Vegetarian options are getting easier to make as wonderful over-wintered vegetables and fresh spring green things appear. Parsnip and carrot soup is made with parsnips so good the soup doesn’t even need chicken stock. Here’s the recipe: water, carrots, onion, a touch of ginger, a little cream and amazing parsnips. Salsify planted by Jeff from Grow Pittsburgh last summer and left in the ground all winter will be turned into ravioli as part of this week’s Wednesday Evening Vegetarian tasting.

A beautiful story, really: a curious cook and a curious farmer, both curious about what would happen if salsify was left in the ground all winter results in one night of ravioli. As Legume grows to three, ten, fifteen years old I hope stories like this are told every day at Legume. But not yet. It takes time.

brunch
Last Sunday we invited a group of friends, family and colleagues to join us for a trial run of brunch. Now we’re extending the invitation to those of you who actually read the notes from the kitchen every week to join us this coming Sunday for brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. We’re still trying to figure out what we really want to do for brunch, what really works in our tiny space and what the wishes of our customers are. One thing we learned last week is that short order cooking in the Legume kitchen is not fun, and so we’ll be making brunch a little more upscale than we had originally thought. I’m thinking seafood and light fare. (Why ruin your Sunday weighing yourself down with hard-to-digest food?) If you do come, we hope that you will take a moment to fill out the comment card to help us figure out what we’re doing before our mega grand opening on May 3rd.

beef
A good number of our customers have asked about the hanger steak. Many folks want it back, and I think I am ready to cave in and go back to buying conventionally-raised beef steak.

It seems as though we may have painted ourselves into a corner when we decided not to use factory-farmed beef at Legume. While properly processed local lamb and pork are readily available to us, beef is a much trickier beast. Since we began getting our steak from Niman Ranch six months ago, the extra expense of buying hormone and antibiotic-free meats has made it more difficult to put a reasonably priced steak on the menu, which is something we feel defines what a bistro is.

Not only is it an issue of cost, but also of quality. We used to hear from customers on a regular basis that the 18 oz. bone-in rib steak was the best steak they had ever eaten. But since we have switched to using naturally-raised beef, we haven’t heard this once. The difference between Jamison lamb and large-scale lamb is like night and day. Jamison tastes way better. The same is true for Heilman’s pork. We are happy to pay the extra cost involved in buying from these farmers, because their product is so much better tasting than their conventionally-raised counterparts. But when it comes to beef, the naturally-raised stuff available to us just isn’t better tasting than the conventionally raised stuff – at least not to the degree that paying almost double the price should justify.

The story may not as be as beautiful or perfect as we’d like to tell it, but for the time being, using conventionally-raised beef can help Legume’s business stay viable by offering a great tasting steak, at a reasonable cost which allows more people to enjoy a great steak. Of course, we will continue to offer local, naturally raised chicken, pork, lamb and beef (other than steak cuts). As a way to distinguish between the locally-raised meats and poultry and the conventionally-raised stuff, we will start listing the farmers’ names on the menu, a practice that I’ve always found annoying and rather like name-dropping. Nevertheless, stating the origins of the meat on the menu will allow our customers to make the decision rather than us making it for them.

We’d really like to know what you think about this. If you’d like to comment, please do so by clicking below.

April 13th, 2009 by Trevett

The Week Ahead
Alaskan Halibut is due to arrive tomorrow.  Served simply with Montpelier butter and crushed fingerling potatoes, it has quickly become a favorite.  The mussels we got last week were super plump and delicious so we’ll be getting more tomorrow and steaming them simply with white wine, fennel seed, fumet and Spanish saffron. Pork goulash is making one final appearance for the year at the beginning of the week, so now you know what to do with that special bottle of Riesling you’ve been saving.  

Other than that, it should be the same old same old, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Our chicken is still as good as ever and has remained mostly unchanged for over two years except for little tweaks here and there.   Despite having served over two thousand orders of Chicken Cooked Under a Skillet at Legume since we opened, I still find myself making it several times a year at home for Sunday evening supper. 

Rumors of ramps are swirling. 

When Life Gives You Green Mangos…
An extremely frustrating switch in mango brands by our produce purveyor resulted in many jars of green mango chutney.  The same company that sent amazing mangos one week sent mangos picked so early it would have been impossible for them to ever get truly ripe.  The good news is that the chutney is delicious and that there is enough of it canned and processed to last a good while.   

Mulberry Garden
Peas, radishes and fava beans are peaking out of the ground.  Arugula and lettuce mix were started Sunday.  Oregano and sage leaves are already appearing while garlic chives blanket the ground underneath the mulberry tree.