“Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons,” By Steven Satterfield
Harper Wave, 2015; $45
Steven Satterfield is the chef at the helm of “produce-driven” Miller Union, in Atlanta. What does it exactly mean for a restaurant to be “produce-driven”? According to Satterfield, it means working closely with local sources. It means cooking with scrupulous seasonality. And it means cooking “root to leaf” — the vegetable-and-fruit equivalent of “nose to tail.”
That struck me as intriguing. Would my composting output be reduced by half? Would there be no more trimmings for stock? Would a “white-and-light-green parts only” leek once again be the whole vegetable it was? As always, the proof would be in the testing.
Naturally, “Root to Leaf” is seasonally organized, though not particularly specific to Southern seasons. At this time of year, it made sense to test the spring and summer portions of the book. I found some familiar flavor combinations, but often they came in unexpected contexts or made use of slightly tweaked techniques.
I’ve put asparagus stalks in the oven a million times, but I’ve never chopped them into segments first. Tossed with quartered radishes and garlic, they roasted quickly and consistently for a colorful and versatile side, and although you might think a radish too watery for such treatment, its final texture was firmer than expected and a good match for the asparagus.
If you can’t get hold of true spring onions, you can use leeks in a spring onion pizza, which is mouthwatering in almost the same way a scallion pancake is. I’m still wondering about Satterfield’s directive to cut four ounces of mozzarella into eight pieces; the huge chunks fell catastrophically off the pizza as I tried to slide it from the peel (there was no real lip on the pie). Some fast work with the tongs (and a few more scars to add to an already impressive crisscross of forearm burns) averted disaster. But next time, I might grate the mozzarella and spare my children the streak of profanity that issued from the kitchen.
The only rhubarb in my supermarket was pale and celery-colored, and it bore no resemblance to the blushing, firm-looking stalks in “Root to Leaf’s” photo of rhubarb roasted in honey. Mine melted into a sort of flimsy compote, but one that was still tart and intriguing with roast chicken.
Some shockingly tender shrimp make a good match for silky new fava beans and a bit of crisp radish. Satterfield’s method of cooking shrimp might be my new favorite: The protein and the butter go together into a cold pan and slowly heat, the shrimp barely turning opaque as the butter melts.
Sweet strawberries in rose water have a romantic, over-the-top scent; you use the macerating liquid to flavor and pink up the whipped cream that goes with them, which makes a visually striking match with toasted pistachios and shortbread cookies. The basic shortbread recipe is little different from what you might have made before; pistachios and black pepper lend richness and bite.
Summer recipes marry sweet and savory elements with equal effectiveness. Blueberries, with their ample freight of pectin, naturally thicken Satterfield’s mostarda, a kind of heavy-bodied gastrique, acidified with vinegar and lifted by faintly popping mustard seed and minced ginger. I served it with seared chicken paillards, and it transformed what would be a very ordinary weeknight meal into something memorable.
There are a lot of bright, crunchy, good ideas in his crab salad: cucumber, preserved lemon, basil. But be sure to spring for the best-quality pasteurized crab you can find, as you won’t be cooking it further. I did not, and now the Night of the Bad Backfin is seared into my memory. If not for that, those cool, crisp textures might have become a summer staple.
Once the eggplants are ripe (and if you can bear turning on the oven to roast them), you can make Satterfield’s peanutty baba ghanouj; though be sure the eggplant has cooked enough to truly founder in its own skin, even if you have to go beyond the 40 minutes indicated. Ours had not, but I was impatient, and the flavor suffered for it. A salad of green beans, roasted pepper and potato salad similarly makes the most of summer. Its dressing, though, falls back on cooler-weather apples (in the form of vinegar) and oranges (in the form of juice), bizarrely but happily mingled with mashed anchovy, in the manner of a nicoise salad.
I learned something from most of those recipes. But I’m still puzzling about that phrase “root to leaf.” I had rather hoped it meant I would discover undreamed-of treasuries of flavor in strawberry hulls, rhubarb leaves, cucumber seeds, radish roots and potato peels. Yet those vegetable castaways were still mostly cast away, and the compost bucket remained as full as ever throughout a week of testing.
It’s little more than a quibble, really. These recipes might not be as thrifty and resourceful as the nose-to-tail recipes they emulate. But they’re still full of craft and reverence, and they make good companions for the harvest in any season.
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