On Saturday morning, I started off with a plan: buy ingredients to cook with salmon. The Farmers@Firehouse market in Pittsburgh’s Strip District had just about everything I needed—even the salmon. Sara Pozonsky of the Wild Alaskan Salmon Company flies it in from Alaska. How’s that for one-stop shopping!
Bok Choy
I started though, at the Blackberry Meadows Farm booth, where the assortment of produce, including dandelion greens and bok choy, caught my eye. Well, I only recognized them because they were labeled. But since I’ve never cooked or even knowingly eaten either, I needed some help…
Heath Gamache and his partner, from Blackberry Meadows Farm
Heath Gamache could have told me what to cook with moon rocks if I’d asked him! He recommended using the dandelion greens with endive in wedding soup—as long as I made my own meatballs. (Look for a wedding soup recipe with homemade meatballs later in the week.)
For an Asian-inspired salmon dish, he suggested sauteing the bok choy in sesame or peanut oil with garlic and ginger, pressing sesame seeds onto the salmon, serving with soba noodles, and garnishing with cilantro and a soy or balsamic glaze. Yum! He also suggested adding some mushrooms from Jonathan Cingota of Mushrooms for Life…
Oyster Mushrooms
Mushrooms are deceiving. If they were a cartoon character, they’d be the ogre with a heart of gold. Their rough, crinkled appearance disguises a delicate makeup and rich taste. The metaphor breaks down (you wouldn’t taste an ogre, would you?) but you get the idea. These mushrooms melt in your mouth. I know because Jonathan was almost sold out of his stock only two hours after the market started.
Jonathan Cingota of Mushrooms for Life shows off his oyster mushrooms
I’m never sure how to clean mushrooms, so I asked. Whatever you do, DON’T RINSE MUSHROOMS. Dust them off with a pastry brush. Jonathan also said that many mushrooms today are grown inside, with HEPA-filtered air, so they’re cleaner than a lot of things you put in your body. Good to know.
