Pickled Ramps & Deviled Eggs

Every year I pick a few ingredients that I seldom cook with and step into the HOG laboratories to experiment. Last year it was nettles and the year before it was venison. From brown cardamom to pork belly, curd, masa and quinoa; what’s new to me is exciting. And that’s the beauty of cooking right, you will always until the day you leave this earth, have new things to learn. I love to get out of my safety zone when it comes to cooking. Sure the first few rounds of experiments might not turn out like I wanted but after a few attempts; voila! Kind of like tennis…You have to hit the ball a few times before…

A couple of months ago I bought a few pounds of ramps to play with. Ramps are better known as wild leeks and are in abundance in the Southern part of the United States and in Canada. They’re a small baby version of a leek and look kind of like a weed. They have a very powerful onion flavor and should be used sparingly. In the Appalachia, for example, they fry them in bacon grease and serve with potatoes and boiled eggs. You can put them on pizza, fold into risotto and make a potato leek (ramp) soup with them, to name a few applications. They have a pretty short season so be sure to get them while there hot.

What I decided to do with them is pickle them to see how the strong onion flavor would work with high acid, sugar, salt and aromatics. The recipe makes it hard to mess up so the ones I made turned out pretty darn good. The only problem was that the flavor was still intense, so much so that any Muni driver would block your entrance on a bus. Seriously! that strong. So how do you cut flavor a bit you might ask? well, food chemistry tells me that combining tangy acidic flavors with something fat and creamy to balance it out.

Summer time is here, and I’ve been fascinated with the egg lately so I thought why not use the ramp as a garnish for deviled eggs! And you kkow what? It worked! The sharp sweet flavor of the ramp worked nicely with the creamy eggy flavors of the deviled egg. Since ramps are out of season now and we ate the last jar last week of ours you will have to substitute pickled onions of leeks until then.

Chef Stephen, Hands On Gourmet

Pickled Ramps & Deviled Eggs
Ramps
Ingredients
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon red peppercorns
1 teaspoon white peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 pounds ramps, cleaned and trimmed
Kosher salt for blanching
1 tablespoon salt for the pickling liquid

Instructions
1. Trim the ends off of the ramps and cut down the leaves leaving about 1/4 inch of green, saving the green ends for another purpose. Wash the ramps under cool, running water.
2. Blanch the ramps quickly (30 seconds) by dropping them in a large pot of salted, boiling water, and then shock them in ice water. Drain the ramps well and place them in a mason jar.
3. Combine the vinegar, salt, sugar, and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the bay leaf, mustard seeds, coriander, pink and white peppercorns, and fennel seeds.
4. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the ramps in the mason jar and let cool, sealing tight and transferring to the refrigerator.
In the refrigerator these pickled ramps will last a few weeks to a couple of months.

Eggs
6 hard-boiled eggs
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 green onion, very thinly sliced (slice a little of the green and keep separate from white)
a few leaves of fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped, optional
freshly ground black pepper
salt, to taste
paprika, optional

Preparation
Halve or quarter eggs; scoop yolks into a small bowl. Mash well; add mayonnaise and Dijon until desired consistency is reached. Stir in white part of sliced onion and most of the chopped parsley. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. Using a small teaspoon or pastry bag, fill egg white halves or quarters. Sprinkle with sliced green onion and remaining parsley. Sprinkle with a little pepper and/or paprika, if desired.
Makes 12 halves, 24 quarters. Recipe can be doubled.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 1:08 pm and is filed under New Ingredients, Sides & Snacks , classes, cooking parties, deviled, eggs, events, hands on gourmet, ramps, stephen gibbs, team building, teambuilding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.