August 31st, 2009 by Trevett

the week ahead
This will be the last week of our summer menu at Legume. The shelling beans, cabbage and winter squash have been around for a few weeks now and by the time we get back from our week off (we’re closed from September 6-14) we’ll be thinking more fall than summer. While summer will still technically be here a few more weeks, the start of football season and the school year along with a few chilly evenings always propels me from a watermelon-and-zucchini state of mind towards an apple-and-butternut state of mind. We’ll still be making use of plenty of corn and tomatoes as long as they are around; they just won’t be running the show when we get back from our break.

This is a great time of year for New England swordfish because it is extra fatty right now after a summer of voraciously eating their way up the Gulf Stream.  We’re bringing it in from Browne Trading just a day (or less) off the boat.  Also from New England this week comes fluke, a fish that is sometimes used as an alternative to turbot, sole or halibut but which can be appreciated for its own great qualities.

In the meat department, we’ll have rib steaks at the beginning of the week and lamb steaks towards the end. Chicken should be available all week unless it is abnormally popular.

That’s all for now. Sarah and I are traveling to Maine later this week where I have an opportunity to cut fish with some amazing fish mongers and to cook a few days in the kitchen of one of my all time favorite chefs.  I’ll tweet about it. We’ll be sending our September newsletter early next week in which we will foreshadow the upcoming late summer/early fall menu and announce our fall and early winter events. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

August 27th, 2009 by Trevett

the week ahead
The first lima beans have arrived, which in my opinion is more exciting than the first tomatoes of the season. Now we can make succotash instead of “succotash.”

Fish-wise, we start the menu off this week with Virginia Spots and Coho salmon. The Coho that came in last week was delicious—nice and fatty. Towards the end of the week, we’ll try to bring in more wild stripped bass which continues to be phenomenal. Don’t forget: we always tweet on Thursday about the incoming fish for the weekend.

Heirloom tomatoes are in full force now. With so many varieties available these days, it’s hard to know what to buy. So far we’ve worked with at least fifteen types of tomatoes this summer, many of them disappointing. This week we’re keeping it basic and are bringing in Brandywines, Cherokee Purples, and Striped Germans—things we know taste great. So, while our heirloom tomato salad will be a little less colorful this week, at least I know it’ll taste good. We’ll be serving these as an appetizer with nothing more than some olive oil, basil, fleur de sel and some 25 year old balsamico. It’s a real treat. We are grateful that we’re able to get good tomatoes from Penn’s Corner and Grow Pittsburgh this year despite the blight.

Mike from Horizon-View farm brought by some amazing-looking rib steaks. I’ve never seen such well marbled grass-fed beef before. He said it was a cross between two different breeds, the names of which I promptly forgot. He also brought by a piece of round that we used for tartar on Saturday which was the best we’ve ever made. The color was just beautiful. We didn’t sell a whole lot of it, but I enjoyed hearing from Sarah that the staff devoured the leftover tartar at the end of the night like a pack of starving hyenas.

second maine shore dinner: sunday, november 1st
We’ve had such an enthusiastic demand for our October 4^th Maine Shore dinner that we decided to do a second one on November 1^st!

I must admit I am a bit worried about people’s expectations for these dinners. You see, most of the time when you come to Legume, we do most of the work for you in the kitchen. But for the Maine shore dinner, YOU are going to be the one cracking open the shells with lobster crackers and working the meat out with a pick! I assure you this is the second best way to eat lobster. (The best way to eat lobster is at a lobster pound in Maine where they boil it forever in ocean water. You have to work for it yourself there too.)

Normally, when we dabble in lobster at Legume we’re buying them from a local company that holds the live lobsters in tanks somewhere in Cleveland. Yes, the lobsters are alive when they come to us, but they require a little more tinkering on the part of the cooks to make them into something great. These exiled lobsters make great raviolis when we can mix the cooked meat with chives and mascarpone cheese and make a tasty sauce from the bodies.

But when you’re going to simply boil a lobster, like we’re going to do at both Maine shore dinners, it is absolutely essential that the lobsters be held in running ocean water, which is why the lobsters we’ll be getting will be shipped directly from Maine.  There is absolutely, positively no culinary value in a boiled lobster that has spent weeks of its life in a tank outside of New England.  While lobster is a wonderful thing to eat, true Mainers know that the best kept secret in Maine are the steamed clams which will be part of the meal too.  I am also really looking forward to the Bang’s Island mussels which Johnny and I discovered last summer during an epic weekend of eating in Portland.  Truly the best mussels I’ve ever tasted.

So while it may seem a little excessive to pay $75 for a dinner in which you have to do a little work, you should know that no expense will be spared in brining the absolute freshest, well cared for lobsters, clams and mussels you could possibly find in Pittsburgh. Seatings are at 5:00 and 8:00.  If you’d like to come, let us know!  We’ll provide the bibs.

legume will be closed september 6-14

the dehydrator
We’ve been having a lot of success this summer with our new dehydrator. We are very excited to add an additional method for preserving local food to be used in the winter. Each summer we learn how to put away more food more efficiently.

I resisted buying a dehydrator for a long time. I have always liked the comforting image of the little old grandmother canning things in old-fashioned mason jars the old-fashioned way. But when my father reminded me that people have been drying food way longer than they have been canning it, and then I stopped to think about what some of my favorite things to eat are—beef jerky, salt cod, prunes, sun dried tomatoes—preserving by the dehydration method began to make sense.

Chefs like me have a tendency to forget that something done the easy way can sometimes result in something as spectacular as something done the hard way. This spring I looked into buying apparatus for sun-drying tomatoes, cherries and peaches in my back yard. But when I imagined my back deck filled with racks of dried produce that would have to be protected from bugs and brought in every night or whenever it rained, the dehydrator seemed to make a lot more sense. With the purchase of our new dehydrator, all we have to do is cut up whatever it is we want to dry, put it in the dehydrator, set a timer and wait until it is done.

Shriveled up vegetables and fruit stored in plastic bags in the freezer aren’t as picturesque as beautifully canned things—we’re not going to show them off in the dining room the way we do the pickled things throughout the seasons—but the flavor of dehydrated food is phenomenal and I imagine it is more nutritious too.

But don’t worry—we won’t be garnishing our plates with precious powders anytime soon.

August 11th, 2009 by Trevett

the week ahead
August is a month in which we dedicate a lot of energy to tomatoes. Besides being the focus of our daily menu, the whole month (and much of September) is dedicated to making a winter’s supply of tomato conserva and dried tomatoes. Not a day goes by when there isn’t a giant stockpot of tomato sauce simmering quietly on the stove, either to sauce a dish that evening or to be reduced down to a paste that will fortify pasta sauces, soups and meat reductions in the winter months ahead.

Vegetables and fruits continue to take center stage at Legume this month. While they’ve played a more supportive role in the past few months, now is the time where the menu revolves around the vegetables. Simple, cold vegetable salads made with pristine vegetables are one of my favorite things to eat on a hot summer day and so you can expect to see several cold vegetable dishes on the menu this month.  Don’t overlook these simple, dull sounding dishes.

Wild stripped bass available to us from a company from Cleveland called Euro has been stellar this month, as it was last year at this time. This is a great fish that pairs well with things like corn, bacon, tomatoes and chanterelle mushrooms. We’ve also begun working with the Honolulu Fish company which sent us some spectacular hebi last week, and is sending us some kaku tomorrow. As frustrating as fish can be in our landlocked city, we’ve made some improvements over the past five months sourcing better quality fish, and I’m really excited the way our fish options have opened up.

goat
Goat is the most popular animal to eat in the world. I’m not sure why it isn’t more popular in the United States, but I have a feeling it will be as familiar to us as goat cheese in another decade or two. Goat is lower in saturated fat and cholesterol than beef, pork or lamb and it is widely available in this part of the country. Best of all, it tastes really good. We use young goats with a delicious, not-too-gamey flavor. The difference between an old goat and a young goat is like the difference between mutton and lamb. If you’ve tried goat before and found it unappealing, it might have been because of its age. If you like lamb, you will probably like young goat.

Right now, we’re preparing goat in our comfort zone, which means we’re sticking with the familiar seasonings and forms of simple Italian and French food. This past week we roasted whole goats and made ravioli from the pulled meat. As we get more familiar with the animal, however, we plan to explore the flavors of cuisines that typically serve goat.  If this sounds interesting, come to our three-course goat tasting menu on Thursday, September 24th.  (The regular menu will also be available.)