Every year, we wait patiently for the freestone peaches to be perfectly ripe so we can begin making preserves, brandied peaches, and peach pies. Freestone peaches are the best to cook with because the fruit comes easily away from the pit. Cling peaches, the ones with fruit that sticks to the pit, generally [...]]]> Every year, we wait patiently for the freestone peaches to be perfectly ripe so we can begin making preserves, brandied peaches, and peach pies. Freestone peaches are the best to cook with because the fruit comes easily away from the pit. Cling peaches, the ones with fruit that sticks to the pit, generally ripen a couple of weeks earlier than freestones. There are several cultivars of each kind–some sweeter and juicier than others.

This year, warm, rainy weather across the South has accelerated the growing seasons. The mayhaws, which are supposed to be ripe in May, were all harvested by mid-April. And the cling peaches, which we usually get in June, were already ripening in mid-May.

Looks like the freestones season is about to begin! Please leave alerts about where you are finding the best peaches this year in the comments section!

Peach Pie Recipe after the jump!

Texas Peach Pie (from Texas Eats by Robb Walsh)

Some years, the small, but intensely-flavored peaches grown in the orchards of the Hill Country are the best in the state. Other years, big, juicy East Texas peaches are the sweetest ones on the market. It all depends on where the rain falls and when the frost hits. But because of high local demand, Texas peaches aren’t marketed outside of the state. Use the sweetest, ripest peaches you can find,–preferably freestones.

6 cups peeled, pitted, and sliced peaches (about 8 peaches)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons minute tapioca
3 tablespoons butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter, cut in 1/4-inch cubes
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
Pastry for double-crust pie
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream, for serving

Toss the sliced peaches in a large mixing bowl with the tapioca, lemon juice, salt, sugar, butter, nutmeg and brown sugar. Cover the fruit mixture with a sheet of plastic wrap pressed against its surface to prevent oxidation, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each piece of pastry dough into a 13-inch round circle about 1/8 -inch thick. Drape 1 round around the rolling pin, carefully transfer it to line a 10-inch pie pan, and fit it into the bottom and sides of the pan. Trim the overhang excess to the edge of the pan. Brush the bottom and sides of the crust with the egg white. Pour the fruit mixture into the pie shell, being careful not to fill the shell crust more than even with the rim edge of the pan. Cover the fruit with the second round piece of dough and tuck the overhang underneath the edges of the bottom crust. Use your fingers or a fork to crimp the edges, and brush with the remaining leftover egg white. Using a small, sharp knife, cut 3 or 4 steam vents in the top crust.

Bake the pie for about 1 hour, on the bottom shelf of the oven until the crust is golden-brown. Let cool completely on a wire rack, about 1 hour. Let the pie cool on a rack before cutting. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Felipe Riccio’s “Rainbow Runner-Mayhaw Ceviche” appetizer at Reef in Houston, is a marvel. It combines two unique ingredients in a sensational dish that neatly sums up the restaurant’s philosophy.

While restaurants in Dallas and San Antonio concentrate on finding local sources for produce and meats, chef Bryan Caswell at Reef in Houston has led the way in expanding the definition of locavore to include local waters. Reef was one of the first restaurants to identify Galveston Bay oysters by specific reef names. Caswell and fishmonger P.J Stoops have helped launch the “Texas trash fish movement” in Houston and Austin.

“Trash fish” refers to underutilized species like sea bream, tripletail, and rainbow runner. These bycatch fish are harvested accidentaly while fisherman are targetting something else; creating demand for them is one key to building a sustainable fishery.

Rainbow runner is a member of the jack family. To make Reef’s rainbow runner ceviche, the flesh of the fish is salt cured and the bones are used to make a fish jus that is reduced with Maderia. The fish is marinated in mayhaw vinegar, which “cooks” the ceviche. The fish is served with blood orange supremes, pickled Gulf sea beans (a kind of seaweed), and pickled mayhaws.

Mayhaws were once gathered wild and turned into the mayhaw jelly sold at East Texas farmstands. The “haw” is the fruit of the hawthorne tree, and May is the season when its ripe, hence “mayhaw.” The traditional East Texas fruit has become rare in the wild and is now grown on a handful of farms including Jackson’s Fruit Farm in the Big Thicket where Reef gets its mayhaws.

Pickled mayhaws, pickled sea beans and candied kumquats are among the jars and jars of things you’ll find in Reef’s refrigerator–the kitchen turns out a steady stream of pickles, vinegars, syrups and preserves made from local produce on a weekly basis.

Riccio has been at Reef for two years now, he became sous chef one year ago. He received his training at HCC’s Culinary Arts program. In his last job, he worked with French chef Frederic Perrier at Aura Restaurant. The French have long been an inspiration when it comes to trash fish–bouillabasse was first concocted by fishermen’s wives as a way to use the varieties of fish that no one wanted to buy.

Felipe Riccio, Bryan Caswell, Adam Saxenian

It ain’t easy. But it can be done. And the results are pretty spectacular.

As you may recall, my first attempt at making fermented pepper sauce began with a trip to the produce terminal on Airline in Houston (also known as the Farmer’s Marketing Association) to find some ripe red peppers from Mexico. [...]]]> It ain’t easy. But it can be done. And the results are pretty spectacular.

As you may recall, my first attempt at making fermented pepper sauce began with a trip to the produce terminal on Airline in Houston (also known as the Farmer’s Marketing Association) to find some ripe red peppers from Mexico. I bought ten pounds of ripe jalapeños, washed them, chopped them, pureed them and put them in a 7.5 liter fermenting crock with about 150 grams of pickling salt sprinkled on each layer. I left the open crock out in the sun for a couple of hours to make sure some wild spores got into the mix.

The crock comes with weights, which are designed to keep the vegetables submerged in the brine. I put this in place, closed up the crock and added water to the channel in the lid to create the fermentation lock. A couple of days later, I peeked inside. The weights had sunk into the wet pepper mash. Alton Brown suggests an interesting method for fermenting kosher pickles. He fills a ziplock baggie with brine and uses the bag to keep the pickles submerged. I tried this method with the pepper mash, but the baggie sank into the mush and the liquids sloshed all around it.

If you don’t keep the vegetable matter under the saltwater, it will mold. With some fermented products, like sauerkraut, it takes a while for the salt to draw out enough water–you really have to push the weights down to keep the cabbage submerged. With my pepper mash, I had the opposite problem. The ripe jalapeños gave off too much water.

The solution was to take all of the wet pepper mash out of the crock and strain it until it was thick enough to hold up a baggie full of water. I strained a total of six cups of pepper brine off of the mash and returned the remaining eight cups of mash to the crock with a water-filled baggie on top. I reserved the six cups of brine in the refrigerator. (Except for the splash or two I put into my tomato juice.) There were lots of bubbles and burbs from the fermenting crock for a few days, then it quieted down. After a week, I opened the crock. The little bits of pepper mash that stuck to the crock above the baggie were covered with white mold. But I could see through the clear baggie that the mash underneath was in perfect condition and bright red.

I divided the fermented pepper mash and reserved brine into two equal batches–four cups of mash and three cups of brine each. For the first batch, I combined the four cups of mash with four cups of vinegar. I used a blend of half Steen’s cane vinegar and half distilled white vinegar.

Next, I strained the mash and vinegar mixture. Then I combined the strained liquid with three cups of the pepper brine to produce my first batch of fermented Louisiana hot sauce. When I compared the end result to Crystal Hot Sauce, I realized that although my sauce tasted great, it wasn’t as thick with pepper pulp as Crystal. I decided this was because the strainer I was using was too fine–I had quite a bit of pepper mash left over.

So I combined the second batch of mash with a half Spanish sherry vinegar, half distilled white vinegar mixture and put it in the crock to age overnight. Then I went to the store and bought a bigger, coarser strainer. The bigger mesh worked a lot better. Nearly all the mash in the second batch went through the strainer. There were a few chunks in the sauce, so I may need to run it through the blender to get it perfectly smooth–but the flavor is remarkable. I added more sherry vinegar, a little at a time, until the sauce tasted just right. My homemade fermented pepper sauce is still much lower in vinegar than commercial brands. I am sure this is because the commercial brands require higher acidity to make them shelf stable. But I am storing my pepper sauce in the refrigerator, so this isn’t a concern.

The flavor of this homemade hot sauce is sublime. The cane and sherry vinegars are much tastier than the white vinegar in the commercial stuff, the peppers are sweeter and hotter, and the salt is just right. It tastes fantastic in a pulled pork sandwich, tomato juice, scrambled eggs, and much more. To quote Edna, the old lady in the Frank’s RedHot commercials, “I put this (bleep) on everything!”

It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Chef Matt McAllister

I watched as the salads were assembled by McCallister and his volunteer assistants. You sure can’t call this tweezer food–the chef encouraged his helpers not to waste time arranging things, but rather to put the ingredients randomly around the plate. Carrots, kohlrabi and beets were the roots, the leaves included dinosaur kale, chard and lettuce, dill and other herbs were the stems. The soil was an amazing blend of brown powders including sumac (a Middle Eastern ingredient sometimes used in zaatar), cocoa powder, nuts and spices. Olive oil powder was sprinkled here and there among the vegetables–it turned slippery when you reconstituted it in your mouth.

Windy Hill goat breast with rack, tongue, mousse and farro puree, yogurt, mint, poppy and carrot jam was the meat course. The goat chops were big, juicy and rare. Windy Hill in Austin raises the big meaty Boer-cross goats called “redheads.” The condiments were all very charming, but the most amazing thing on the plate was the “mousse,” a creamy goat liver paste that might be the boldest liver preparation I have ever tasted. McCallister confessed in his remarks after lunch that he had never made goat liver mousse before. I just wished I had a glass of Malbec, or a Russian Imperial Stout to savor with it. The iced tea wasn’t doing it justice.

Dessert was a careening joyride of flavors you would have never thought of combining–caramel popcorn ice cream with Texas cheddar, a reduced sweet soy sauce called kepap manis, and sesame granola. McCallister, who has renounced molecular meddling, now embraces a Dallas version of a rustic seasonal cuisine that seeks to include local and regional influences. It’s a welcome sharpening of focus for a dining scene dysfunctional enough to inspire a departing restaurant critic to write an goodbye titled: “How Dallas became a Dining Nowhereville.”

Matt McCallister helped open Campo Modern Country Bistro in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. “The modern bistro features a seasonal menu inspired by a trip to the City of Buenos Aires and Mendoza region…reflecting French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese influences,” states the restaurant’s website. The biggest gripe McCallister got from customers at Campo was about the size of his portions. In an interview with the Dallas Observer, McCallister responded that Dallas diners need to eat less. McCallister doesn’t work at Campo anymore, and the Dallas Morning News restaurant critic observed that the food has declined in quality since he left.

Matt McAllister’s cooking career began in 2006 with a job at Stephan Pyles in Dallas. After rising quickly through the ranks there, the ink-sporting, self-taught kitchen wiz became executive chef at the molecular-gastronomy lab at Pyles’s Fuego. Before opening Campo, he staged at the one of the foremost molecular restaurants in the country, Alinea in Chicago.

McCallister is slated to open his own restaurant, FT-33 in the fall with chef Brady Williams as his second in command. In the meantime watch for surprise appearances and guest chef gigs. You’ll find news about him on the facebook pages for Chef Matt McCallister and Matthew McCallister.

Thanks to my daughter Julia Walsh for the photos.

My first foray into making Lousiana pepper sauce started with a search for red chiles. Tabasco chiles were introduced to Louisiana in the 1800s and became the favorite chile for bottled pepper sauces. The recipe included the elaborate step of fermenting the ripe red peppers in oak barrels. Pepper pickers carried a stick [...]]]>
My first foray into making Lousiana pepper sauce started with a search for red chiles. Tabasco chiles were introduced to Louisiana in the 1800s and became the favorite chile for bottled pepper sauces. The recipe included the elaborate step of fermenting the ripe red peppers in oak barrels. Pepper pickers carried a stick painted with the shade of red that the peppers needed to reach. The ripeness was important because you need a decent level of sugar to get the fermentation process going.

The chile plants in my garden don’t produce green peppers until the early summer. There aren’t any red peppers until July or so. But luckily for my purposes, chiles grow all year round in southern Mexico. So I took a trip to the Farmer’s Marketing Association on Airline where Mexican produce is trucked in daily. I didn’t find any red Tabasco peppers, but there were red poblanos, red serranos and lots of red jalapeños. I know red japaleños have lots of sugar and I love the flavor, so I decided to use them to make my first fermented pepper sauce. I tasted a couple to check the sugar level–they were sweet and very hot. I bought ten pounds.

After washing the chiles in a couple of changes of water, I cut off the stems, chopped the chiles and ground them up in the food processor. Then I put a layer of the mash in the bottom of a 7.5 liter Gärtopf fermenting crock with a sprinkling of pickling salt. I figured six ounces of pickling salt for the 8 and a half pounds of mash I ended up with ought to be about right.

The mash filled the crock about two thirds full. We’ll call it five liters. I let the crock full of mash sit outside uncovered for a couple of hours to allow some wild yeasts to get the fermentation going. Some people add whey from yogurt or hooch from a sourdough culture to kickstart fermentation, but we have plenty of wild things floating around in the steamy jungle air of Southeast Texas, so I just let nature take its course.

The crock comes with two flat stone weights that you are supposed to put inside the crock to keep the sauerkraut or pickles you are fermenting under the brine so they don’t mold. I tried to balance the weights on top of the pepper mash, but it didn’t work so well. The weights just kept sinking in the very liquid mash.

The crock also comes with a lid that sits in a channel that you keep filled with water to create a fermentation lock–the gas bubbles can escape, but oxygen can’t get in. Lifting the lid to see how the mash is doing completely defeats the purpose of the crock’s design, but I can’t help myself. Last time I looked, there were lots of bubbles, but the weights had capsized into the mash. One was sticking up out of the drink like the Titanic after it split in half. I think I better revert to the Alton Brown technique of placing a ziplock bag full of water inside the crock to keep the mash submerged.

Any advice from veteran fermented pepper sauce makers would be welcome!

It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll [...]]]> It’s hard to figure out where Texas cooking is headed right now. There are a lot of different trends going on and they have little to do with each other. In fact, sometimes it seems like the chefs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin arrived here from different planets. In this series, I’ll check out food from some hot Texas chefs and look for clues about the big picture.

Arctic Char with Bananas and Apple Slice

The title on the menu at the new restaurant in the Elian Hotel in the Hill Country outside of San Antonio reads: “Sustenio, Modern Southwestern Cuisine by Stephan Pyles.” The test tube full of melon puree had a capsule inside that exploded in my mouth as I drank it–it was melon juice. The flavor reminded me it would soon be time for Pecos cantaloupes. The crispy-skinned arctic char with creamy rutabaga puree, freeze-dried banana chunks and a glazed apple slice with a perfect star in the middle was wonderful. Though it brought to mind the question that restaurant critics and chefs in Texas used to grapple with: “What makes this dish ‘Southwestern?’”

Stephan Pyles was one of the founding fathers of the Southwestern cuisine movement. Traditionalists can still order such Stephan Pyles trademarks as tamale tart custard and cowboy ribeye at Sustenio. The surprise is that the kitchen serves ten kinds of Peruvian-style ceviche, imports oysters and fish from Canada, and dabbles in molecular gastronomy.

Gilbert & Pyles

Of course, Stephan Pyles is busy building a new restaurant in Dallas, so he’s not working at Sustenio full time. Sustenio’s Executive Chef David Gilbert is the mad scientist in the kitchen here. Raised in Dallas, the 34 year-old Gilbert graduated from the culinary arts program at Johnson and Wales University and externed at Michelin-starred Restaurant Vermeer in Amsterdam with Edwin Katz.

After working at some top restaurants across the U.S., Gilbert came home to Dallas to work at Luqa, where he became known for molecular effects like table side activation of rosemary aromas, having patrons suck mousses out of tubes, and encapsulating crème brulée caramel over the custard. In recognition of his cutting edge culinary techniques, Gilbert was the proud recipient of the 2007 Rising Star Chef award from Starchefs.com.

It’s worth visiting Sustenio just to get a tour of the new technology employed in the modernistic kitchen. You can follow Stephan @ChefPyles and Gilbert @beyondthekit on twitter.

That Velveeta is a part of the American Regional Cuisine called Tex-Mex is anathema to many of my friends in the food world. I have long defended Velveeta as the best ingredient for queso and enchiladas, and those on the other side have argued that “authentic Mexican food” in Texas doesn’t include processed cheese. [...]]]> That Velveeta is a part of the American Regional Cuisine called Tex-Mex is anathema to many of my friends in the food world. I have long defended Velveeta as the best ingredient for queso and enchiladas, and those on the other side have argued that “authentic Mexican food” in Texas doesn’t include processed cheese.

After reading the post titled The Velveeta Underground, a friend of mine named Richard Flores offered an explanation for the popularity of Velveeta among Tejanos that I hadn’t heard before.

We all wondered how this year’s Foodways Texas Symposium would top last year’s amazing event in Galveston. But there is no doubt that the 2nd Annual edition was bigger, better and even more delicious than the first.

The Foodways Texas Symposium theme this year, “Texas Preserved,” was intentionally ambiguous. Our speakers talked [...]]]> We all wondered how this year’s Foodways Texas Symposium would top last year’s amazing event in Galveston. But there is no doubt that the 2nd Annual edition was bigger, better and even more delicious than the first.

The Foodways Texas Symposium theme this year, “Texas Preserved,” was intentionally ambiguous. Our speakers talked about preserving Texas food history through new oral history initiatives and documentary films, preserving heritage breeds through a new approach to agriculture, and, well, preserving fruit and vegetables in Mason jars.

Preserved meats served up at the Artisan Market didn’t last long…

–we also heard about brewing and distilling as a way of preserving grains by making them into alcoholic beverages.

We learned about the effects of this year’s devastating drought on the cattle herds, the oyster reefs and the cotton and wine grape growers.

We all considered the reality that our priorities for water allocation in Texas currently favor suburban landscape watering at the expense of agricultural irrigation and getting sufficient freshwater to the wetlands where our seafood is produced. The discussions were riveting, the company was delightful and the food was amazing!

Our meals were served outdoors by outstanding barbecue pitmasters and famous chefs. Salads were made from greens and vegetables and flowers picked the minute before they were served.And delicacies like goat chops, ribs and goat liver mousse were whipped up in the middle of the farm to a soundtrack of clucking chickens and lots of laughs. We also heard some stirring words about preserving Texas food culture, especially some of disappearing ethnic traditions like old-fashioned soul food.

We ate well, we learned a lot and we made a lot of new friends.

I wish you could have been there!

Thanks to my daughters Katie & Julia Walsh for the photos!

For a much more complete account of the 2012 Foodways Texas Symposium, and much better photos, check out this post by Kelly at the MeaningofPie.com

Oyster and wine pairing events are pretty popular, I’ve done three of them in the last couple of weeks. But in Texas, we are also fond of drinking good beers with our oysters. That’s the theme of the party on March 27, Oysters, Brews and Blues at Armadillo Palace will feature a variety of [...]]]> Oyster and wine pairing events are pretty popular, I’ve done three of them in the last couple of weeks. But in Texas, we are also fond of drinking good beers with our oysters. That’s the theme of the party on March 27, Oysters, Brews and Blues at Armadillo Palace will feature a variety of oysters from specific Texas reefs with great local beers.

Expect oysters from famous Galveston reefs like Pepper Grove and Redfish Reef and some new brews from local Texas microbreweries like No Label Brewing Company and Southern Star Brewing Company. (There will be Texas wines on hand too.)

The event is a benefit for Foodways Texas and a book signing event for my new book, Texas Eats. The book features a map of the most famous oyster reefs in Galveston Bay. Buy your tickets at FoodwaysTexas.com now–we expect a sell-out!

On Monday, I was in New Orleans leading an oyster and wine tasting that featured oysters from Redfish Reef and Slim Jim Reef in Galveston Bay; Pointe aux Pins rack-grown oysters from Mobile Bay, Alabama; and oysters from Christmas Bay in lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. We tasted the oysters with Girard Sauvignon Blanc [...]]]> On Monday, I was in New Orleans leading an oyster and wine tasting that featured oysters from Redfish Reef and Slim Jim Reef in Galveston Bay; Pointe aux Pins rack-grown oysters from Mobile Bay, Alabama; and oysters from Christmas Bay in lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. We tasted the oysters with Girard Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, Crossings New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and two Pinot Grigios from Barone Fini. The crowd liked the big oysters from Slim Jim Reef the best.

On Tuesday we repeated the tasting at Oceanaire Seafood in Houston with the same wines, but slightly different oysters. This time we had creamy Resignation Reef oysters and spectacular Pepper Grove oysters. The oysters were from Jeri’s Seafood in Smith Point and they are available from seafood wholesaler Louisiana Foods in Houston.

It was the first time Gulf oysters have been included in this wine and oyster pairing format. This traveling oyster and wine tasting show is organized by the Deutsche wine group which represents the three vineyards. The tour usually tastes West Coast oysters with their wines, but the organizers asked me to step in and help when they discovered that it was illegal to ship West Coast species like Kumamotos and gigas to Texas. I was more than happy to drink their wine and wax poetic about Texas oysters.