Month: November 2007

Before I get started, I created a set of directions to Polyface farms, you can see my directions.  These are different then the ones at the Polyface Farms website but i think mine are a little easier, now about my visit.

Polyface Farms is a small family owned farm near Staunton Virginia, which is in the southwest part of Virginia.  Staunton is about 30 miles west of Charlottesville (via I-64) and 20 miles north of Lexington (via I-81).  If you’ve read the Omnivore’s Dillema by Michael Pollan you will recognize the name.  You can read more about it at the Polyface website, but their basic premise is more accountability in our food choices and their methods involve sustainable farming.  They use no chemical fertilizers and minimize the amount of external feed needed for their animals. 

Everything is related to each other, the cows graze on grass (fertilizing the fields with their manure), the egg hens sanitize the manure of the cows (removing the insects, reducing disease), the roosters fertilize the fields with their droppings (high in nitrogen) while being allowed to roam in large sections of the pasture, the pigs aerate the compost piles (instead of using heavy machinery). 

In a move that goes against the popular trend they are not certified organic, instead of depending on a government agency to certify your food the people at Polyface provide transparency, allowing you on the farm to see exactly how they raise their product.  I have to admit that these animals were some of the "happiest" that i’ve ever seen.  I put happy in quotes because I obviously don’t know if animals understand happy, but to me, they looked like how cows, pigs and chickens should look. 

They’re wasn’t much left in the freezer as we went late in the season and they just filled a large order.  We made a beef stew with a chuck roast, and the meat was a little tougher, but it had a much more pronounced, beefy flavor.  The color was also decidely different from super-market beef, instead of the neon red, it was a deep red/brown (like the color of blood).  If you can get their eggs, they have some of the highest sitting yolks i’ve ever seen. 

A surprise will be their prices, while a number of items are more expensive then the supermaket, the quality is clearly much higher.  In this day and age when we try to pay less and less for everything we buy, maybe we should stop and ask why the thing we are about to put into our bodies is so cheap.  People are quick to put premium gas in their cars (and pay extra for it), doesn’t it make even more sense to put premium food into our bodies?

After this wierd, overly warm fall we’re finally into winter, which means stews and braising.  I’ve always liked braised short ribs but i’m asian and always like the one my mom made for me.  This recipe is from David Chang of the NYC Momofuku Empire.  It’s a lot of asian flavors with a twist on a french braised short rib. 

A great thing about this recipe is that the vegetables are cooked separate from the braising of the meat, so you can control the texture of the veggies.  This is great because sometimes the meat needs a long time to get soft (this time i braised it in the oven for 4 hours) and the vegetables will get mushy.  This also makes it better for reheating for lunch when i pack the rice and fixings in the same container.

Recipe can be found at the New York Times site (second page of article).  Some notes about the ingredient list mirin is also called Sweet Rice Cooking Wine, use a cheap sake because the strong flavors will overpower anything expensive anyway.  The pear juice i find at latino grocery stores (or one serving a lot latino customers), i’ve made it with apple juice as well and i prefer the pear juice.

I braise the meat the day before i plan on serving it, storing the meat in the strained broth (step 4) in the refrigerator overnite.  There is so much gelatin and rendered fat in this dish that it will solidfy fairly solid.  In the recipe he tells you to saute the carrots and potatoes in butter, but i think it has so much fat already that i skim the solidifed fat from the meat/broth and use that as my saute oil.  I then place the potatoes and carrots into a high heat oven and roast them to a golden brown.  When those are at a desired doneness i add the meat and sauce to the vegetables.  If the sauce is a little thin you can add a little butter to thicken it up.  This is not a low fat dish.  Surprisingly, it’s not that salty, or overly sweet.   I want to heat up some right now after writing this post! 🙂