Saucisse Paysanne: Fathers Day Fun!

Well its another year in a new kitchen on Fathers Day! I must say that I was pretty excited to give all the guests and employees some of our best food. Today my goal was to change the pickles served with our smoked salmon board. The pickles we use are just loaded with HFCS and other nasty ingredients. I decided to switch from the nasty pickle to my fresh pickle chips. As usual I use the staff as guinea pigs. I expected that they would love it, and they did! This is truly a simple recipe. Once you try making these, all store bought pickles will take a backseat. To start have the right equipment. The purchase of a Japanese mandolin will make your life a whole lot easier. You will be amazed at how useful this tool is. Start out slicing one pound of English cucumbers.

Set the mandolin at its widest setting for slicing. You will litteraly fly through these. Be very careful, the worst injuries I have ever seen on the job have come from not paying attention using a mandolin. Your next task is to peel and slice a half pound of white onions on the same setting.

Combine the cucumbers, onions, 3/4 cup of cider vinegar, 1.5 teaspoons of salt, .25 t of mustard seeds, and 2T of sugar in a stainless steel sauce pot. Gently heat the mixture on a low flame. I use a soft spatula to stir the mixture so I don't mutilate the cucumbers. Keep the mixture moving so the cucumbers wont discolor. While you are doing this have another stainless pot available and combine 3/4 C of white vinegar, 1 t allspice berries, 1 t celery seeds and 1/2 C of sugar. Bring this to a boil. This will not take long. When the vinegar is boiling pour the cucumbers into a container and dump the boiling vinegar on top. Gently stir to incorporate. Don't be alarmed if there does not seem like there is enough liquid. The cucumbers and onions will release enough on their own to make up for this.

Sweet Pickle Chips

1 Pound English cucumbers

1/4 Pound Sliced White Onions

3/4 Cup Cider Vinegar

1.5 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1/4 teaspoon Mustard Seeds

1/2 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 teaspoon Celery Seeds

3/4 Cup White Vinegar

1 teaspoon Allspice Berries.

This recipe yields one quart

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

The next adventure of the day was completely random! I saw in our walk-in a ton of rhubarb! Woo-Hoo!! Strawberry rhubarb compote anyone! I do this a little differently than most. I make this compote in the oven. So many times I have made this on the stovetop and the result is a purple bubbly goo that looks so unappetizing! A pastry chef at Shelburne Farms told me about baking compote in the oven. I thought she was crazy! The result amazed me! The color was a deep dark crimson with outrageous aroma and flavor. I was sold! Today I took one pound of rhubarb, peeled and chopped.

Next I stemmed and chopped 2.5 pounds of very ripe strawberries and added this to the rhubarb

Juice four lemons and add that along with 2 cups of sugar to the fruit.

Toss the fruit gently to cover and pour into a stainless baking pan. Wrap the pan tightly with foil and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, remove the foil and continue baking. Check the compote every five minutes and stir! You will see that this is where the color comes from. Keep doing this until you have reached the desired texture, about 20 minutes.