Smokey pickled beet vinaigrette salad

Did I never get around to telling you about this beet salad that I made last year? With smokey tea-pickled beets and kumquats and blue cheese and all things springtime?

My apologies for the gap, then!

I made this salad for a meeting of our Lab Ladies' Tea series, previously featured here, here, and here. I always delight in bringing a non-sweet item to a potluck, and also, the fellow Lab Ladies are such wonderful bakers--there's always for sure going to be some amazing goods already on the table. This time around, we had a rough "Slavic" theme, for a special guest that we invited to tea to regale us with stories of fieldwork in remote parts of Russia. Of course, "theme" is a very loose suggestion here, but hence my inspiration of beets pickled in lapsang souchong tea. Also, I learned that move from Annelies Zijderveld's tea book, and the smokeyness worked beautifully against the sweet/sour vinegar and crispness of the fresh beets.

This time around, I asked the other Lab Ladies to share their recipes as well, so below the fold are their recipes to some absolutely wonderful baked goods: a lemony-brandy bundt cake from Clara, an orange nut chocolate babka that Sarah made, jam-filled cookies by Emily, and savory kale, feta, and green chili khachapuri from Andréa. We had a huge picnic on a sunny balcony in the Berkeley hills overlooking a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and everyone got pleasantly sun-red from the weather and cheek-red from the smiling and tea. ♥ these girls. Go, women in science!

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Carrot za'atar muffins and lavender kumquat compote

Za'atar--the spice blend of dried thyme, sumac, salt, and sesame seeds--is one of my new favorite flavor profiles. It has that satisfying, almost-umami-y savoriness, with a dash of nuttiness from the sesame seeds and a hint of exoticism from the pucker-y sumac. Of course, after playing around with za'atar in all of the savory dishes I could think of for a while, my eye naturally turned to the dessert possibilities. (Since, you know, I love mixing savory notes into my desserts.)

Here's the result of my first venture: carrot za'atar muffins. To call these a sweet dessert is sort of a misnomer, actually. These muffins are perfect for breakfast because they're just barely sweet. Instead, they're hearty, from the whole wheat flour and shredded carrots, and za'atar fits in perfectly by spicing up the mixture in a more sophisticated way than the traditional cinnamon-and-carrots combo would. To go with, I made a sweet, loose jam-like compote of kumquats, with a woodsy hint of dried lavender (not enough to really tell it's lavender, but enough "darken" the brights of the kumquats). The result: a traditional sort of breakfast with a surprisingly non-traditional blend of flavors-- the perfect way to wake up your taste buds for a new day.

Find the recipe here, on the Anthology Magazine blog.

Osmanthus Panna Cotta with Kumquats in Vanilla Bean Syrup

The first time that I discovered kumquats was around the third grade, I think (come to think of it more, that was probably around the same time I went through my zucchini phase, but that's a whole 'nother story).  I remember very clearly learning that these small, little orange-like things were actually sweet on the outside and sour inside and being absolutely fascinated by this opposite order of things--'cause it's universal Truth to a smart third grader who knows not to eat glue that you don't eat orange peels either, right?!  Upon finding this out, I was truly a kid obsessed, scarfing down every single kumquat that I could come across.  They weren't very common back then, even in the California-based Chinese communities around where I grew up, so it wasn't soon after they went out of season (post-Chinese New Year's) that I quickly forgot about them and moved on to the next great third-grade obsession.  (Which was probably that zucchini phase.)

dried osmanthus flowers

Fast-forward until now and all of a sudden, I'm seeing these tiny, little, magical oranges of my third grade days pop up everywhere, even when it's not Chinese New Year's!  Like on food blogs! and in Trader Joe's!  (You know you've made it when you're sold at TJ's.)  and so, when I saw the kumquats at the store, sitting there in miniature relief between the lemons and real, normal-sized oranges, I couldn't resist grabbing a box of them and taking them home to re-live the fascination of my youth.  I am nothing if not hugely food-nostalgic.

Thinking about food-induced nostalgia also got me thinking about osmanthus flowers, which are these incredibly sweet and amazing-smelling flowers (second photo above).  My grandma used to have an osmanthus tree outside her home in Taiwan, and she'd make this amazing rice wine and tang yuan dessert soup flavored with osmanthus flowers.  I've always loved the sweet, summery smell and subtle taste of the flowers, but ones in edible form have eluded me for years here in the States.  (As for osmanthus in their non-edible form, I'm often willing to take the long bike path home from school just to ride down a street lined with osmanthus trees.)  Until, one day, as if by more food magic, my friend Amy (who was one of my food tour-guides in NYC) shows up with dried osmanthus flowers!  Magic!  --or not: apparently you can find the dried buds in Asian grocery stores or tea shops, and I just hadn't been looking in the right aisles. :-)

Anyways, here they are: two flavors that heavily remind me of my childhood, united in one sweet and simple dessert: osmanthus-scented panna cotta with candied kumquats in vanilla bean syrup.  I have to say that the osmanthus flavor is incredibly faint, but since it was my first time working with it, I didn't want to end up with a dessert that was way too flowery.  Other than that, the combination of sweet, candied, ever-so-slightly-toothy kumquats and vanilla bean-kumquat syrup over a delicate, jiggly, creamy, and lightly-flavored panna cotta is just wonderful.  It's the perfect grown-up dessert encapsulation of the nostalgic flavors of my yesteryear memories.  :-)

Back in the present, here's what's been going on during the recent blog-silence and slowed twitter-stream: finishing up my dissertation proposal and having my dissertation proposal defense meeting with my entire committee in one room for the first time (< they call it a "meeting" instead of a "defense" so that we don't freak out too much, but, given that I'm always overly dramatic, the euphemism didn't really discourage me from doing so).  It went better than I could have ever hoped, and while I have a few more final touches to go from the meeting comments, now starts the actual dissertation work.  Woot(?)!  So, thank you for all y'all's virtual and IRL support and encouragement over the past few weeks!  There might also be some exciting food-bloggery news coming over the next few weeks if plans currently set in motion continue the way they should, so stay tuned!

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