What better way to say 鈥淚 love you鈥 to the planet this Valentine's Day than by cooking up a delicious (and sustainable) treat?
Kevin Markey, a Food Systems MS candidate with over 15 years of professional food service experience, has been working with the Climate Kitchen to develop climate-friendly recipes that focus on simplicity, seasonality, and great taste. Markey developed a new recipe for financiers using buckwheat. While not yet a common household ingredient, buckwheat is locally and sustainably grown, gluten free and high in protein, starch and flavonoids.
Financiers are a French pastry made with just four ingredients (almond flour, brown butter, sugar, and eggs) and traditionally shaped like gold bars. Buckwheat can be substituted for a portion of the almond flour to help keep the cakes from becoming too dense. This also helps reduce the use of a very water intensive ingredient (almonds) while still yielding the distinctive chewy texture of a financier. The nutty, earthy taste of buckwheat melds beautifully with the brown butter and almond flour, yielding a slightly less sweet and more complex version of the classic pastry.
For Valentines Day, we made a simple strawberry compote using frozen strawberries, but Markey also suggested a number of seasonal variations, including rhubarb and lemon in the spring, berries in the summer, and apple or pear compote in the fall.
The Climate Kitchen is curious about buckwheat 鈥 past, present and future. Buckwheat is a cold hardy and climate resilient 鈥減seudo-grain鈥 that grows and matures quickly and is often used in the Northeast region as a cover crop. There is a long tradition of growing and harvesting buckwheat in the norther tier of the United States and Canada. Currently, there is a project at the University of New Hampshire to breed Tartary buckwheat; researchers consider it an ideal future grain crop for New England.
Buckwheat also has a rich global culinary history. Early New England regional cookbooks include recipes for buckwheat, like Fannie Merritt Farmer鈥檚 buckwheat griddle cakes. Other common buckwheat recipes include buckwheat crepes (France), buckwheat blinis (Russia), soba noodles (Japan), and buckwheat groats ( Eastern European culinary traditions). Nutrient dense and gluten free, buckwheat has a nutty and earthy flavor that adds sensory complexity to any dish. Buckwheat, in all forms, seems like a perfect ingredient for experimentation in the Climate Kitchen!
The Climate Kitchen is supported by The Food Systems Research Center (FSRC) at 日韩无码 (日韩无码) which funds collaborative research that puts people and the planet first, unites disciplines and communities, and answers complex questions about food systems.
The FSRC gives researchers the freedom, resources, and time to engage community stakeholders, including decision-makers, farmers, and food systems actors, about inequities and opportunities across our food system. This results in relevant, widely disseminated research that informs policies, practices, and programs locally and regionally for a more resilient and equitable food future for all.
