Rice & Veggie Bowls with Thai Coconut Lime Dressing

Here's something I don't take pictures of: cooked food.

I take many, many photos of our raw produce (haha, funny joke, everyone knows I only take baby and flowers photos now), but I don't ever photograph prepared meals. I feel that without professional lighting and staging it is basically impossible to make cooked food look appetizing in photographs, and ain't nobody got time for that in high summer. But, if I were ever going to photograph cooked food, it might have been this rice bowl. I guess you'll have to trust me that it was gorgeous and instead enjoy this photo of our carrots, which were featured prominently in said bowl.

This recipe meets one of my main criteria for summer eating in that in can be described by the following three steps. Step one: make some kind of spicy sauce and some kind of rice. Step two: cut up whatever veggies were harvested that day. Step three: mix together in an obscenely large bowl and eat. 

Adapted from this recipe on Food 52 for two people, but you should probably double it - it makes great leftovers! 

For the Thai coconut-lime dressing:
Juice of 1 lime (about 1/4 cup)
2 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/3 cup full-fat coconut milk
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
Zest of 1 lime (about 1 to 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons fresh lemongrass, finely chopped
1/2 serrano pepper, seeded and minced (I used a japapeno!)
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint

For the salad bowl and toppings:
1 1/2 cups cooked black or red rice
10 ounces poached chicken breast, shredded, if you want. Or tofu. Or nothing.
2 cucumbers
4 large radishes, thinly sliced
1 - 2 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
4 hakurei turnips, thinly sliced
1 cup onion scapes or scallions, cut thinly on the bias
1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh mint

Tempura Tuesdays!

Here at Four Root Farm we take dinner very seriously. Even if it means eating at 9:00 pm (or 9:30... or 9:45...) we all sit down together to eat a hearty meal almost every night, and those meals are almost always almost entirely veggies just pulled from the field. And we don't take any day more seriously than Tuesdays - affectionately known as Tempura Tuesdays!!

This time of year our weekly tempura adventures get more and more exciting as we have more crops to add to the pile, but really we will tempura almost anything that can be sliced and won't disintegrate in steaming hot oil. We recommend you take the same approach - the more creative the better, you won't be sorry. We harvested our very first summer squash on Tuesday specifically for tempura, and also included bok choi, hakurei turnips, carrots, broccoli raab florets, and squash blossoms. 

Here's what you do to make the tempura batter - the rest is up to you.

1. Slice whatever veggies you're experimenting with into manageable bite-size pieces. If they're too small they'll fall apart and if they're too big they'll be hard to bite.
2. Mix together:
   1 egg
   250 ml cold beer (PBR is our prefered lager)
   salt and pepper
   100 g flour
3. Meanwhile, heat vegetable oil in a heavy saucepan that's deep enough to submerge the veggies you've prepared. You can test the temperature of the oil by dropping in a drip of batter - if it sinks to the bottom and then rises up, the oil is hot enough. 
4. Once the oil is the right temperature, coat the veggies in the batter and deep fry them for 3 - 5 minutes, or until they're golden brown. 
5. Eat SOON! Tempura is best when it's just cool enough to eat.

Quick Pickled Hakurei Turnips

Hakurei turnips are, in truth, more like a radish than they are like a turnip - best eaten raw, with a hint of spicy. But unlike radishes, hakurei have a creamy texture that is unlike any other veggie we grow. Though my favorite way to eat hakurei is pulled out of the ground, wiped on my shirt, and chomped into three seconds later, my second favorite way is this quick pickle recipe. Try it!

Quick Pickled Hakurei

Adapted from Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan
Makes 1 quart

4 Cups whole hakurei turnips, tops removed
1 cup water, piping hot from the tap
½ cup rice wine vinegar
6 tbsp sugar
2¼ tsp kosher salt

Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Pack the turnips into a quart jar, pour over the brine, cover, and refrigerate. These will be best about a week after you make them, and they will last for months!

Hakurei Turnips

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Care & Storage

For Eating Fresh Turnip Greens: Remove the greens. Wash and dry and store in a perforated plastic bag in your fridge's crisper.

For Eating Fresh Turnips: Store beets unwashed in a perforated plastic bag in your fridge for up to one week. The sooner they get eaten the better - they'll lose their tender crunch over time. 

For Freezing (Turnip Greens): Wash then blanch the greens for 3 minutes in boiling water. Cool immediately.

Availability

May - June, September - October

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