At a combined Passover/Easter lunch hosted by Melissa’s Produce in Vernon last week, Director of Public Relations Robert Schueller revealed something that may ruin Easter for small children everywhere: “The chocolate egg doesn’t come from the bunny. Neither does the dyed one.”
What does arrive this time of year, in glorious abundance, are vegetables so colorful they look like they were decorated for the holiday by Mother Nature herself. According to Schueller, spring is when produce puts on its best outfit.
Think baby vegetables, pattypan squash, zucchini, crookneck and bright yellow summer squash. There are also English peas and snow peas. Mild, multicolored sweet peppers – they look like chilies but register zero on the Scoville scale — and rainbow carrots seem designed for a holiday platter. Even vacuum-packed beets, a gift to anyone who has ever scrubbed magenta stains from a cutting board.
“Time-saving” is the trend Schueller sees in home kitchens with pre-washed, pre-trimmed purchases. No prep. No peeling. No trimming. Just cook.
“Carrots are having a moment,” he reminded us. Those feathery tops most of us discard? His grandmother used them. Culinary team member Nancy Eisman suggested whirring them into pesto. Waste not.
Some items never go out of style. Potatoes and onions, Schueller said, remain Melissa’s core staples year-round. Sweet onions, by the way, contain less pyruvic acid, the compound that makes us cry.
Then there are the colors. Cauliflower now comes white, green, yellow and a regal purple that holds its hue when cooked. Purple asparagus, which makes up just 1% of the crop, turns green in the pan, much like red okra does. Okra, Schueller warned, must be cooked carefully or it turns black, a detail Southern cooks know well. Garlic cloves now come in neat packages.
“Mushrooms are a huge trend, thanks to plant-based diets,” Schueller said. Speaking of mushrooms, white truffles are running about $2,600 a pound this year, roughly double black truffles, purely a matter of supply and demand.
Spring fruit is also putting on a show. These are the last weeks for organic strawberries from Oxnard and Ventura County. Beginning in May and through June come the coveted Harry’s Berries, for which Melissa’s has been the retail distributor for 15 years.
Mango season is also underway, including a new Kent variety grown near the Mexican border and in Mexico. Melissa’s tree-ripened mangoes are silky smooth.
“Never refrigerate a mango until it is soft and fragrant,” Schueller warned. The same goes for guavas, which he calls the most fragile fruit in the produce department. Refrigeration stops ripening cold.
Wondering why citrus skin appears green this year? Blame our warm winter. However, “color is not an indicator of sweetness. If we’d had a true cold snap, they’d have turned orange.” Look for Meyer lemons (a lemon-tangerine cross) that turn almost orange as they sweeten in May and June, and Pixie tangerines that taste like bottled sunshine regardless of peel color.
As guests left, we were handed boxes of produce used in the lunch served, including parsnips for reproducing blogger Christina Conte’s unique savory parsnip scones.
She offered three rules for scone success: “Use quality ingredients, use a very sharp cutter, and place the scones close together on the baking sheet so they help each other rise.”
According to British tradition, these call for no glaze or sugar.
Oh, and here’s a trick that will save you an egg: “Leave a spoonful of the beaten egg in the bowl to brush on top of the scones before baking. And when you eat the scone, it should break apart easily in your hands. That’s how you know you did it right,” Conte said.
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
SAVORY PARSNIP SCONES
From Christina Conte
Ingredients:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter (cold)
• 1 cup parsnips (graded/shredded)
• 1 large egg
• 9 tablespoons buttermilk
Method:
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In bowl, place flour, baking powder and salt. Mix lightly to combine.
3. Put buttermilk in a measuring jug. Beat egg in a small bowl, then pour into buttermilk. Stir to combine.
4. Place butter in the center of dry ingredients and cut with a knife into about 16 pieces. Next, take another knife, or a pastry blender, and cut/ mix butter into flour until it resembles coarse crumbs, finishing off pastry using your hands once the pieces have become quite small.
5. Make a well in center of dry ingredients and pour in egg and buttermilk, reserving 1 tablespoon of liquid in the jug. Mix gently with wooden spoon until a dough begins to form, just about 10 seconds. Add grated parsnip and gently mix in evenly.
6. Place dough onto a clean, well-floured surface. Form into a ball, then pat out to approximately 3/4- inch thickness. Do not knead dough or it will make scones tough. With sharp cutters, cut out scones and place on silicone baking mat or parchment-lined baking tray. Gently knead scraps together and repeat with remaining dough.
8. Using a pastry brush, brush tops of scones with remaining egg/buttermilk mixture. Bake in middle of preheated oven about 9 minutes, then turn tray 180° and continue to bake another 9 minutes or until scones look golden brown on top.