Salad with Saltwort, Fresh Berries, and Brie

My new farmers market has an abundance of things I've never heard of, but the one that first caught my attention was saltwort, aka Batis maritima. One of the local producers has carried this the past few weeks and the first week, the week I actually bought it (a sign said it went well in salads) I had trouble finding out anything about it on the internet.

Saltwort (aka turtleweed), according to the producer, grows in salt marshes. That was the knowledge I started off with--and I've found out since that it does particularly well after storms and can deal with water-logged soils for a long time, which makes it an early colonizer after devastating storms, like hurricanes. It's a succulent shrub that reaches a little over 3 feet in height. Apparently it grows better in less salty soil, which seems a bit ironic to me, since it likes salt marshes, but whatever. In the coastal, southern U.S. this is a moderately common plant (though not along all of the coastal areas). It also grows in Hawaii and California, as well as Central and South America. If you want to know more about it--such as the types of wildlife it attracts, there's plenty of information out there that doesn't actually say much at all. It attracts butterflies and has small flowers. It doesn't like shade. Et cetera. My definite impression is that most people don't know much about it--so if you know about saltwort and want to weigh in, I'd love your comments.

When I got home with my saltwort, I looked at it. It looked kinda like limp rosemary and tasted lightly salty when I picked off a couple leaves and popped them in my mouth. Salad was the suggestion I'd been given, so salad it was. I tend to trust what farmers say about how to prepare the things they're growing.

Certainly saltwort was too salty to stand alone in the salad, so I stripped the leaves off the woody stems and gave the saltwort leaves a base of lettuce. To dress up the salad, I added blackberries picked fresh from the backyard along with some of the heirloom tomatoes (also berries) I'd purchased at the growers market and some picked (and still warm) from the yard. And because I had it, and because I don't usually), I added some brie to the salad. I dressed it with a tahini-based salad dressing from my food co-op and was set with my pre-dinner salad.

I don't know where this might grow where I could actually forage it (my growers have cultivated this plant), but it's definitely a plant you can forage and in my attempts to get more people into the urban foraging movement, I encourage you to seek it out if you live where it grows!

Salad with Saltwort, Fresh Berries, and Brie
Note: The amounts below assume you're only serving yourself. Please increase accordingly for the friends that join you

Lettuce (I like salad and used about a cup and a half)
1/8 cup saltwort (leaves only), coarsely chopped
10-12 small tomatoes, halved
5 blackberries
1/2 ounce brie, cut into small chunks
Dressing

Layer the salad in the order listed above and serve. In the picture above I used golden currant cherry tomatoes (so sweet! so tiny!). In one variation of this salad, I also included a green-striped tomato, called Green Zebra with an unknown variety of orange cherry tomatoes.

(For more information about heirloom tomatoes, this site is wonderful, as is Dave's Garden.)

The tahini-based dressing I used, combined with these ingredients, went well with a glass of Viogner from a local vineyard.

Cheers!

Honey-Chipotle Dipping Sauce

To me, an integral part of summer is grilled food. Seasonal fruits and vegetables on the grill are a key aspect of this for me. However, some people like to have a bit more protein and there’s definitely logic to that. Protein helps you feel full longer. My protein is usually whatever the grocery store has on sale in the seafood department or pressed and marinated tofu.

My father was grilling shrimp a few weeks ago and made a marinade for them out of some soy sauce, lime juice, and pureed chipotle pepper, plus a generous pinch of salt. I wanted to reduce the marinade after the shrimp came out. I tend to do this with marinades and some are more successful than others. I added honey and sugar to help balance the heat and tartness of the marinade. Although this reduction worked out just fine, the flavor wasn’t quite what I was aiming for—I was hoping to replicate the glaze over a piece of salmon I tried in St. Louis earlier this summer.

I found the original version of this sauce online and made some modifications. The next time Dad made those shrimp, I made this sauce for dipping them in, but it doubles well as a sweet-and-spicy salad dressing, and also works well for painting vegetables as they grill (do it just before they come off the heat, otherwise it’ll just melt off) if you make it thicker. This still isn’t the sauce from the St. Louis brewery, but I like it and it encourages me to keep roasted garlic around, which when it’s done right is incredibly sweet.

If you don’t have wine, don’t worry about it. Add a little bit of water instead—or like I did last time, leave it out completely and just remember that you don’t have as liquid a mixture when you’re deciding how much cornstarch you want to add.

Honey-Chipotle Dipping Sauce

¼ cup rum
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white wine
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon roasted garlic, minced
½ - 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
1 ½ tablespoons lime juice
½ cup honey
½ - 2 tablespoons chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, pureed
Pinch of salt and sugar, if needed

In a saucepan over medium heat, mix together the run, soy sauce, wine, ginger, and garlic. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Meanwhile, combine cornstarch and lime juice. Depending on how thick you want your sauce, vary the cornstarch between ½ tablespoon and 1 ½ tablespoons. Add to saucepan once the rum mixture boils. Stir well.

As the mixture begins to thicken, add the honey and pureed chipotle pepper. The amount of pepper you add should be determined by how spicy you want the resulting sauce. Bring back to a boil and cook until fully thickened. Taste and add salt and/or sugar, if needed for balance.

Yields: about 1 ½ cups sauce