Shrubs, not just for your garden anymore!

Refreshing Beverage of the Week
I love the way words and terms define us. I used to erase, now I delete. I used to call someone, now I ping them. I used to say "I'm not in the mood to talk about that," now I say "let's circle back to that and take it offline." (Just kidding, I never say that shit but I learned it when I worked in corporate kitchens in NYC.) I used to eat everything, I was a "good" eater and exercised whenever, now I am a senior citizen obsessed with micronutrients and strengthening my core. Currently we are obsessed with probiotics, kombucha, apple cider gummies, actually all kinds of gummies, and kraut. Life goes on.

My clients (I am a private chef) have decided to limit their alcohol intake and have asked me to make mocktails. These drinks mirror actual cocktails using non-alcoholic booze substitutes — which, frankly, taste awful and are terribly expensive. So I searched the internet for recipes and, so far, not too many were drinkable. They are unhealthy and usually full of high-sugar fruit juice.

The non-alcoholic beverage market is booming and I have tried about 5 different brands and I would say the best-tasting ones are the gin alternatives. Juniper berries are very distinctive and even in a weird herbal base that flavor reminds you of gin. I tried a non-alcoholic tequila beverage made with apple. I accidentally spilled some, and it was so vile I had to scrub down my counter with lemon juice to kill the odor. So I started looking for other options.

This brings me to the subject of shrubs. I first had a shrub at Russ & Daughters Cafe, and it was love at first sip! A shrub is a drink made with fruit- and herb-infused vinegars (usually apple cider vinegar), a sweetener, and some club soda or anything sparkly. You'll find tons of recipes out there to make the vinegar. I am going to share a great all-around method and then some recipes. There are two ways to make a shrub: cold and hot. Hot is faster, cold is better.

Basic recipe for any fruit shrub · Food52

Ingredients
1 pound chopped fruit
2 cups sugar
2 cups vinegar (usually apple cider, I also like using rice wine vinegar, coconut, or white balsamic)
optional: ginger; rosemary; thyme; cardamon; bay leaves; etc.

Procedure
Assemble your fruit (sliced or gently mashed) in a bowl, and toss it with the sugar. Let this mixture sit, covered securely with a dishtowel, on your kitchen counter for about 2 days. Stir once a day. It should start to look very juicy. After 2 days, strain the mixture into a measuring cup, discard the fruit, then combine the syrup with approximately an equal amount of vinegar (again, your choice, but apple cider vinegar is a good place to start). Do this slowly, tasting as you go, so that you get a shrub that is sharp but tasty.

That's it! Pour it into a jar and stick it in the fridge. Here are two recipes with great combo of flavors.

Mixed berry shrub · Bon Appetit

Ingredients
12 ounces berries (such as raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, or strawberries), sliced or quartered if large
1 1/2 cups (or more) granulated sugar
1 cup (or more) vinegar (such as red wine, white wine, apple cider, white balsamic, or unseasoned rice)

Procedure
Gently mash berries in a medium bowl with a fork. Transfer to jar, add sugar, and stir to combine. Seal jar and let fruit mixture sit at room temperature, shaking a couple of times, until berries are very soft and falling apart and sugar is at least mostly dissolved, about 1 day (mixture should look very juicy).

Strain fruit mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl. Line sieve with a layer of cheesecloth if you want to catch every bit of seed and fruit pulp, discard fruit. Scrape any undissolved sugar left in jar into bowl. Add vinegar to syrup and stir to combine. Taste shrub and adjust of necessary. Pour shrub into a clean jar; cover with lid and chill until flavors come together and mellow, at least 1 week.

Shrub can be made 6 months ahead. Keep chilled.

To make a drink, pour 2 Tbsp. shrub into a glass filled with ice and top off with club soda; stir gently to combine. Garnish with berries and/or herbs. Thai basil is a good choice!

Butternut Sage shrub · The Spruce Eats

Ingredients
2 cups good-quality apple cider vinegar
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups cubed butternut squash
1/2 cup fresh sage leaves, from about 8 sprigs
Cold seltzer, ginger ale, or still water, for serving

Procedure
Place the apple cider vinegar in a medium saucepan over medium heat, then stir in the sugar. Lower the heat to a simmer and continue to cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves.

Add the butternut squash and sage. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the squash is softened and easily pierced with a fork, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the heat. Lightly smash the softened squash with a potato masher or wooden spoon in the saucepan to release more flavor. Cover and steep for 3 hours.

Strain the squash and sage from the liquid using a fine-mesh strainer. Bottle the shrub, seal, and refrigerate for 3 to 4 days before using.

To make a drink, pour 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) of the butternut-sage shrub into a glass (over ice, if you like). Top with about 6 ounces (3/4 cup) of cold seltzer, ginger ale, or water, pouring more or less to taste. Stir well.

Tonic Water and Sage

Excellent Ingredients of the Week
Today we are going to talk about two interesting ingredients!

tonic water

First, let's chat about tonic, It’s a famous mixer, found in most well stocked bars but what’s it all about? Tonic water is a carbonated soft drink in which quinine is dissolved. Originally used to fight against malaria, tonic water usually now has a significantly lower quinine content and is consumed for its distinctively bitter taste. It is often used in mixed drinks, particularly in the gin and tonic.

It was originally intended for consumption in tropical areas of South Asia and Africa, where Malaria is a problem. The mixed drink gin and tonic originated in British colonial India when the British population would mix their medicinal quinine tonic with gin to make it more palatable. Medicinal tonic water originally contained only carbonated water and a large amount of quinine. However, most tonic water today contains a less significant amount of quinine, and is thus used mostly for its flavor. As a consequence, it is less bitter, and is also usually sweetened, usually with corn syrup or sugar. It also contains caffeine. Tonic water with lemon or lime flavor added is known as bitter lemon or bitter lime, respectively.

Tonic water will fluoresce under ultraviolet light, owing to the presence of quinine. In fact, the sensitivity of quinine to ultraviolet light (UV) is such that it will visibly fluoresce in direct sunlight. You can make glow-in-the-dark Jell-O with it! Some people use quinine to eliminate foot and leg cramps but there are some risks associated with that. Save it for the gin and vodka. And if you are really into it, there are recipes on line to make your own but they involve ingredients I can not pronounce. So now you know it all.

Sage

Sage on the other hand is less mysterious. It’s a beautiful, easy-to-grow plant, and once it establishes itself it will keep coming back, so give it room to grow! Some wiki info:
Officially called Salvia officinalis has been used since ancient times for warding off evil, snakebites, increasing women's fertility, and more. The Romans likely introduced it to Europe from Egypt as a medicinal herb. The plant had a high reputation throughout the Middle Ages, it was valued for its healing properties. There are numerous herbal websites which tell of its amazing healing properties, you can decide about that for yourself — let's talk about cooking!

As a kitchen herb, sage has a slight peppery flavor. It is used mostly for flavoring fatty meats as it helps in digestion. It's traditionally used in poultry or pork stuffing. Complementary flavorings include onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, parsley, bay leaf, and rosemary. Sage Derby cheese is a great English cheese. French cuisine never uses sage, go figure!

Some ideas for using sage:

• Thread sage leaves in between meats and vegetables for shish kebabs.
• Sage with white beans, sage with potatoes (as you'd make rosemary potatoes)
• Frizzled sage garnishes
• Sage in potato-mushroom soup
• Sage-grilled chicken
• Sage-rubbed pork loin
• Sage pesto
• At the end of the season, you can freeze sage leaves or dry then grind them up for later use

Amazing Duck Pie

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
I love duck any way you make it. From a simple roast half duck (bones intact, hopefully with crispy skin), to duck Prosciutto, to duck sausage, I will always try the duck on the menu. Bernice had the duck salad at Max’s a few weeks ago — it seems to run in my family. Even my favorite game as a kid was Duck Duck Goose! So when I found this recipe for Duck Pie in the Loaves and Fishes Party Cookbook, which I bought at the KSFR book sale, I was intrigued. However, they started with a whole duck and removed the meat. I say why not just buy the Maple Leaf boneless duck breasts a save some time. And I also made some other changes, which just made sense to me — well, I am a chef! So here is the recipe.

Ingredients for pastry crust
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
12 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/3 cup very cold water

Procedure for pastry crust
Place flour, butter, salt, and pepper in food processor with steel blade a pulse a few times 'til butter appears the size of small peas. Now add lemon juice and cold water and continue to pulse till mixture starts to get clumpy. Remove from mixer and dump onto floured counter. Gather pastry into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Now make duck filling.

Ingredients for filling
2 pounds duck breast meat
1 pound lean pork, coarsely ground
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup minced shallots
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup Madeira wine
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 tablespoon drained green peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 cup sour cream
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk

Procedure for filling
Cut the raw duck meat into 1/2 inch pieces, place into a bowl and add the ground pork. Melt the butter in a large sauce pan, add the shallots and sauté for 2 minutes over low heat. Now add the garlic and the meat mixture and stir to break up meat lumps. Add chicken stock, Madeira, sage, peppercorns, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Turn up to high heat and cook the mixture for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in the sour cream and let cool to room temperature.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. To assemble the pie, divide the pastry into 2/3 and 1/3. Roll out the larger piece into a 12 inch circle and place in the bottom and up the sides of a buttered and lined, 10-inch springform pan. Spoon meat mix into the bottom of the shell. Roll out remaining dough and place on top where the side pastry ends. It will not fill the pan. Use a fork to seal the top and bottom crusts together. Cut a few slits in the top to let out steam. Now with a fork, whisk together the egg yolk and milk and brush the top to create a nice glaze. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 then lower the oven to 350 and bake for 40 minutes more. Let pie cool 30 minutes before serving, so the mixture can set. Serve warm or room temperature. This is worth the effort, trust me!

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Sage Corn Bread Crust and Braised Cabbage

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
Last Sunday I had a lovely dinner party with some of my friends and took the opportunity to try some new recipes. My husband and I love pork; some of you might remember that's part of why Jim married me, my pig skills. So I thought let's try a new way to cook pork tenderloin. I found this recipe in the Gourmet magazine archives, which tends to be a very trustworthy, well-tested archive of information and it worked perfectly.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Sage Corn Bread Crust

Ingredients
1 one-pound pork tenderloin
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 corn toaster cakes, crumbled, or 1 cup crumbled corn muffin
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Procedure
Preheat oven to 400°F. Pat pork dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown pork, turning, about 4 minutes. Transfer to an oiled shallow baking pan. Add butter to skillet and cook garlic over moderate heat, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove pan from heat and stir in crumbs, sage, and salt and pepper to taste.

Spread mustard over pork and pat half of seasoned crumbs onto mustard, then sprinkle with remaining seasoned crumbs. Roast in middle of oven until an instant-read thermometer inserted diagonally 2 inches into meat registers 155°F, 20 to 25 minutes. (Check after 15 minutes to see if crumbs are getting too dark; if they are, tent loosely with foil.) Transfer to a cutting board, then tent loosely with foil and let stand 10 minutes before slicing (temperature will rise to 160°F). Serves 4.

I also found this great-braised cabbage recipe. Now some people think braising is some kind of scary, advanced technique. Au contraire mes amis! It just means cooking long and slow with liquid. Nothing to it! Give this dish 2 hours to simmer and it will be melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

Braised Cabbage

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
2 tart apples, peeled, cored, finely diced or pear
1 head of cabbage, coarsely chopped or shredded, about 8 cups
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 cup apricot preserves or apple jelly
salt, to taste

Procedure
In a large saucepan, electric skillet, or Dutch oven, heat butter over low heat; add onion and apple; sauté for about 7 to 10 minutes or until soft. Add cabbage, pepper, vinegar, and preserves or jelly; toss to blend well. Cover tightly and simmer slowly over low heat for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until cabbage is very soft and tender. Add salt to taste. Serves 6-8.

Pumpkin baked Ziti with Caramelized Onion and Sage Crumb Topping

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
Pumpkin and pasta are two foods I never really thought about putting together until now. But I found this vegetarian recipe (it used to be vegan but I changed it) in a great cookbook called Vegonomicon by Moskowitz and Romero — two women from Brooklyn — and it’s a winner!

Ingredients
3/4 pound uncooked ziti
2 onions, sliced thin
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch white pepper
pinch Cayenne pepper
2 cups pumpkin puree
1/4 cup veg broth
2 1/2 cups Panko
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons dried sage
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure
Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease a 9-inch x 11-inch casserole pan with olive oil. Cook off the Ziti until it is al dente. Cool in running water and set aside.

While the pasta is cooking, sauté the onions in the olive oil. Cook low and slow so they get brown and sweet, about 15 minutes. In a mixing bowl, combine the ricotta and the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, nutmeg, peppers, veggie broth and mix. Add the cooked ziti pasta and the carmelized onions to the ricotta mixture and pour into prepared pan.

Now make the topping: In a sauté pan, melt the butter and combine with the bread crumbs, walnuts, dried herbs, paprika, and salt and pepper. Stir for about 4 minutes so it all gets toasted and lightly browned. Sprinkle topping over the pasta. Bake for 28-35 minutes, till the top is browned. Cool for 10 minutes before serving. I like to have a bowl of fresh shaved Parmesan for garnish.

Italian-style Sage-infused Vin Rosé

Refreshing Beverage of the Week
This is a traditional recipe for sage wine from Italy. It only takes a few minutes to assemble but must be left to infuse the flavors for a few hours, so make another cocktail while you are waiting for this one to mature.

Ingredients
1 bottle vin rosé
3 sprigs of fresh sage
strips of lemon zest

Procedure
Add the sage leaves to the bottle of wine and put the cork back in, let rest at room temperature for 8-10 hours. Then strain the wine and chill for at least 6 hours before serving. Add a strip of lemon zest in every glass and pour in the wine and serve. Nice with lunch, or a picnic. On my yacht perhaps? "Have more wine dear!"