- [Presenter] Today on George Hirsch Lifestyle, I visit a greenhouse very popular with the best chefs, that grows hundreds of ancient heirloom microgreens, cultivated in a socially-responsible manner.

Then I'm off to meet my good friend, Alex Scofreyer, chef, journalist and award-winning photographer.

We share many like values when it comes to food and our passion for the natural beauty of the East End.

Back in the kitchen, I'll prepare a hearty cauliflower steak and a good-for-you roasted rainbow carrot salad with green goddess dressing.

For dessert, one of my favorites, an apple-berry crisp.

(lively guitar music) - [Speaker 1] Long Island Farm bureau is a proud presenter of George Hirsch Lifestyle.

Long Island farmers continue their commitment to providing abundant, fresh commodities.

Supporting farmers and the local agriculture community for over 100 years.

- [Presenter] Micro greens may be micro in size but they're big in flavor.

Strolling through carpet-cress is an enormous greenhouse on the east end of Long Island overwhelms the senses.

It's a whirlwind of color, light and smells that range from the sweetness of flowers to the savory aroma of the pungent earths.

Each delicate petal belies the potent punch of flavor they pack.

- [Speaker 2] Our background was always to find those unique herbs for the chef, and then came the idea of the microgreens and then came the idea about exporting it here in US because many people were questing something a little bit more unique than their common parsley or mint leaf to put in their plate.

When you go from the washing to the planting to the harvesting phase, all those varieties are all heirloom ancient varieties of aromatic herb.

We look for something that is naturally available in nature but people have been forgetting about it.

Natives American were using it, Aztec were using it.

Some of those plants, some come from the tropics, some come from Africa, some would come from Scotland, so each of those variety grow in a very different environment.

Some of them need to be covered and to be wet and cold and you have all the crops they like to be humid and hot.

Really varies a lot but we need varieties.

- [Presenter] How are you able to take it from greenhouse to plate and keep it with that pristine quality?

- [Speaker 2] Most of the farmers, because we are farmer, just different type, when earth we understood that the added value was always understood by the chef so instead of doing pushing marketing, we were doing pulling marketing, where we will be needing chef in New York City showing our product and explaining them how they could get it.

So the flavor could go as crazy as oyster, it's totally crazy, 100% natural.

We have all of that taste, I call it my savory Willy Wonka.

When the flavor actually change as you chew on it and it's actually a plant coming from Tibet, it's often a compliment when they say, how, this cannot be natural.

Yes it is, it's a compliment that you tell me that but it's also sad to believe that people believe that the radosa would be only thing with flavor out there.

And there's things that are natural and if our kids were exposed to it, they will eat much more greens.

Supporting your local farmers always such a critical and you have all these oysters, the quell, we have escargot now, made from ungayanon, that's crazy stuff.

Look at that, even your yufagra is great from the hunting valley and I think there's a very very bright future for the US.

- [Presenter] Passionate farmers always produce crops infused with love and those are the best ingredients.

(lively guitar music) Know your cauliflower.

I have two beautiful heads of cauliflower, and a great way of checking if they are fresh is that the florets, also known as curds, need to be very very very tight and not loose and spread apart.

Also that there's no blemishes or marks on the cauliflower.

When they grow, the leaves are actually covering it and that's what makes them white.

Secondly, turn it over and make sure the stem is still nice and moist and that means that it's fresh.

You know, cauliflower is also a great substitute for mashed potatoes.

Puree it the next time and, you know what?

You'll thank me.

(lively guitar music) All right, let's get started with our very hearty and flavorful cauliflower steak.

So again, the most important thing with the cauliflower is to start with a fresh head.

Now, you can actually hear the snap, crackle and pop of the cauliflower and that's what's going to help hold these florets together.

So just take the small part of a paring knife and make an incision going around but don't cut into your core because that's what's gonna help hold the cauliflower together.

Now, with a french knife, we only want to make the center cuts, if you can think of it almost like the center cut of a filet mignon, you'll have your tips, you'll have your head, well it's almost the same thing.

So just make your incision on the cauliflower.

You'll have some ends and they're perfectly usable for either just a side vegetable or put them into your potatoes when you make mash or puree potatoes.

Next, you wanna make your steak at least the cut about one inch.

It'll shrink somewhat when you are putting them in a hot pan and grilling them or pan-searing em.

Make your second cut and as you can see, now you have more of the core area that's really gonna be holding your steaks together.

And add of an average size head of cauliflower.

You'll get anywhere from about maybe three to four or five.

Locally, in season when we have the large Long Island cauliflowers, the heads are this big and I've gotten as much as maybe five or six per head.

So we'll just take our cauliflower steaks and put them in a casserole pan.

And there's no need to season them right now because it's pretty much just like doing a steak.

You could just gently salt and pepper it, but that's basically all you have to do.

So preheat a cast iron pan to a medium to high temperature and once it's nice and hot, sear your cauliflower off about five to 10 minutes on each side depending upon the thickness.

(lively guitar music) So after about five minutes, we just flip over the cauliflower steaks back over to the other side that has a nice little charr.

(pan sizzling) Add a pad of butter.

(pan sizzling) and one tablespoon of capers.

So there we have our beautiful cauliflower steaks.

Very meaty, well, not just like a steak but it is a very hearty dish.

So I'm just going to finish it off and top it with a little bit of fresh butter, some ground black pepper and to garnish it up again we're going to use a few microgreens.

These are actually radish sprouts that I have right here and that's gonna give a slight about crunch and kind of that peppery taste that a radish has.

And then to kind of dress it up with some micro beet tops.

I'll cut a few of those.

And that just gives it the eye appeal.

That's what says pick me up and eat and enjoy your steak.

Now this could be something right out of a steakhouse.

And there you have it, a very hearty and satisfying cauliflower steak.

(lively guitar music) Okay, let's get started with our roasted rainbow carrots with a microgreen salad.

So I have an assortment of beautiful colored carrots right here.

And to the carrots I'm going to add in a mixture of paprika, thyme, a little bit of nutmeg, cinnamon and some pure cane light brown sugar which is gonna help kinda caramelize the outside of the carrots.

The carrots will be sweet enough inside as they roast but the brown sugar just kinda helps it right along.

And then right on top of that rub, some fresh ground black pepper and I have here a little bit of natural sea salt and we'll just make sure that has a nice, light coating on there.

And a small, small drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Gently rub the carrots on the whole surface so it's equal.

And I have the carrots set up to be roasted in a cast iron pan.

Then take carrots, put them in a 375 degree oven for about 25 to 35 minutes.

The amount of time on the carrots is gonna be dependent upon the age of the carrots and your own oven.

So here we have a classic green goddess dressing.

Let's get started with three anchovy filets.

And I'm going to take the anchovy filets and just roughly chop them.

And then they'll be made into a slight paste inside the base of the dressing.

Now there may be somewhat of a saltiness that the anchovies will give off but it's absolutely going to give it the balance of the dressing, much like a classic Caesar dressing.

So we put the three anchovy filets inside the dressing.

Next I'll add in about six or seven caramelized garlic cloves and just kind of gently push them down, they'll actually careen right into the dressing.

A pinch of salt.

and what's going to make the acid part of the dressing is going to be fresh lemon juice.

Now, you could use a light-colored vinegar but I particularly like the fresh lemon juice over vinegar in this dressing.

And then we'll just let the lemon juice kinda macerate with the anchovies and the salt to kinda produce the main flavor for this dressing.

Now, what makes it a green goddess is the herbs, the fresh herbs that go inside, and for this dressing, use a combination of fresh chives and fresh, flat-leaf parsley.

So we'll need about a quarter cup in for the dressing.

And then the base of the creaminess is going to be using about a quarter cup of fresh mayonnaise, about a quarter cup of fresh yogurt.

Now it's always best to make the dressing at least about a half hour ahead, put it in the fridge, it allows all the flavors to come together.

Then right before you're going to serve it, you can finish it with some fresh ground black pepper.

You don't necessarily need anymore salt to finish it because the anchovies and the little bit of salt that you put in the beginning.

And then for a little bit of body, just about a teaspoon of olive oil.

And there you have a wonderful classic, creamy green goddess dressing.

So now we have our beautiful, roasted and chilled rainbow carrots, and what I wanna do is arrange them on that bed of boston, it's a hydrponic boston lettuce, which is actually grown in water, it's not grown in the soil, and arrange our colorful mixture of carrots on our bed of greens.

So you can see how beautiful these roasted carrots are on the bed of hydroponic boston.

It's sometimes also known as a butter lettuce cause it's very, very sweet, very, very, delicate, so it's going to hold up very, very nice to the tenderness of the carrots.

And you can see the arrangement of the carrots that we're going to put a drizzle of the green goddess dressing.

So it'll be kinda very very pungent but yet the fresh herbs will really come out in this dressing.

Now the only way to finish this off and top this off and showcase it, is with some nice microgreens.

So we'll snip some microgreens.

And there's so many varieties that you can use in the ancient greens.

Here I have a little bit of coriander, baby micro coriander, and there you have it, a simple seasonal salad of roasted rainbow carrots on a bed of boston lettuce topped with that green goddess dressing and crowned with ancient microgreens.

(lively guitar music) Being on the edge of a water, being far away from a kitchen, never stopped us from any culinary adventure.

Whether it's a text or a call, hey Alex?

(laughs) You know I have something really out there.

Let's do a $10,000 tasting menu benefit out on the water on a yacht for six people with matching wines for every course, just have a good time.

- [Alex] Yeah well those people had a really good time because we had to stop in Greenport to pick up more matching wines for every course cause they went through the first round of wines within, like, the first two hours.

- [Presenter] It's also about kinda having a little bit of knowledge of what we're doing.

- [Alex] Yeah.

Because once you leave the dock there's no going back for napkins or forks or-- - [Alex] Big eaters and big drinkers, and you're in the middle of nowhere and you have no option for re-upping on resources.

- [Presenter] and then from there, there was Sole Foundation event that we did.

- [Alex] We literally did a charity event in New Jersey and set out next to a New Jersey farmer's market and then unloaded a truck completely filled with Long Island produce.

- [Presenter] And then, let's go one step further because one of the facilities that we do a lot for benefit in spiritual nature, how we were able to turn around during a construction project with no kitchen to do this mega gala with live chef stations and always pulling a surprise for the next course or the next hour.

- [Alex] oh yeah, but two Sunday suppers while that was going on.

- [Presenter] And two Sunday suppers for the community.

But what I really have to kinda dig out of you right now is just not your culinary roots, because that is evident in everything that we've done, everything were.

But there's kind of a side of your journalism background, and not just in writing, but in photography.

Walk me through your passions.

- [Alex] In high school I was always good at photography and if there's one thing that we have a plethora of out here, it's birds.

So I started just going out by the water because this is one of the largest migratory shore bird places in the world.

So to teach myself photography so that I could get journalism jobs, I just started taking bird pictures and I got a lot of flack from a lot of my friends and-- - [Presenter] That's how you became known as birdman, right?

- [Alex] Yeah, so we started this whole bird front thing and then other friends joined in and then it just became this kinda funny thing and, what started as a joke for me to practice photography has really morphed into a love of the land that I didn't have before I went away to school.

- [Presenter] Always in search of that one elusive bird which, now, is starting to nest here.

- [Alex] Yeah, the bald eagle.

- [Presenter] The bald eagle.

- [Alex] They're everywhere.

I've had about six times where they've flown over me while I was driving my car and I've yet to get a good shot of one out here on the east end.

A couple of my friends are baymen and they've seen them when they're out clamming or digging for different kinds of shellfish.

I have yet to see an east end bald eagle.

- [Presenter] Well, maybe you can start with some of the turkeys that were running around here today.

- [Alex] I know!

(laughs) I even dressed today, scouting out this location.

I took a picture of that offspring, I sent two turkeys, I'd never even seen a turkey over here.

- [Presenter] Well, okay, let's get back to then our culinary adventures and let's see what happens next.

(lively guitar music) So let's get started for the topping for the apple-berry crisp.

This is a great all-purpose topping, and it can be used for any type of cobbler or crisp and I'm gonna start with the butter.

The butter should be ice cold, it's really good for the butter to be cold because you want the butter to be broken into walnut-sized pieces.

And you break the butter up, distribute it throughout the flour.

And then once it's evenly distributed throughout then we'll add in our brown sugar.

Now this part is absolutely optional, and this is adding in rolled oats.

This is not instant oats, it's rolled oats, so they haven't been precooked.

Otherwise, if you added instant oats, it would become very very very mushy.

Add in your rolled oats, and, again, coating it in well.

Now, the butter is a sweet butter so it has no salt in it.

Just to add a little but of savoriness into the topping, put a little salt in and then a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Now from here you can get as extravagant as you want.

If you wanted to put in some chopped almonds or hazelnuts, that would be good.

But this is just a good general purpose topping for the crisp.

Okay, let's get started with our apple-berry crisp filling because this is certainly gonna be a dessert favorite.

What I have here is one green apple, which is going to give tartness to the dish.

And we're gonna sweeten it with some pure cane brown sugar.

And some fresh blueberries.

You can see how plump and juicy those fresh blueberries are.

Now for our green apple, you could leave the skin on if you want to but I really prefer to take the skin off.

A green apple will give nice amount of tartness to the dish.

And counteract with some of the natural sugars that are in the berries.

And one of the reasons why I like using a green apple is because it'll kind of hold up and it won't really disintegrate.

So we're gonna take our apple now and just quarter it down.

Get off any remaining skin and seeds.

So if you wanted to make this an all-apple crisp, you could use a combination of the Granny Smith and, maybe, a softer apple such as a Macintosh or a gala apple.

All right, so we'll take our quarters.

Just cut them a little bit smaller because what I like to do, and this is something to keep em on you doing a lot of cutting, is try and keep your fruits or your vegetables the same size cause they'll, in this case, bake evenly.

So we'll cut them down and it's just a rough cut that when you scoop out the crisp when you're ready to serve it, it has a little bit different texture.

The berries will be a little bit softer and the apples will be crisper.

And add em to the berries.

And what you can also do for the filling is let the filling sometimes sit in the fridge for about a half hour, lets all the flavors of the fruits come together.

Now what I really enjoy about this dessert for entertaining is it certainly can be made ahead.

Could be made ahead the day before.

You could even prepare it in the casserole dish.

Now, what I have here is four pads of butter.

And if you're preparing this a day ahead unbaked, and just use your hand, go in there, spread the butter around.

And that's going to give, again, more flavor to the inside of the filling.

And either use some cake crumbs or, I have here, more rolled oats as a base.

And that's gonna help soak up some of the juice that's in the berries.

Just make sure it coats the bottom.

Another thing you could use, if you wanted to, is, maybe, Graham cracker crumbs.

Okay, now what we wanna do is fill the whole oven-proof casserole pan.

This will serve probably about four to six, depending upon if it's a lunch or a dinner.

But you can see already the beautiful color of all the berries and the juice.

Now, because there's already oats within the topping, you don't necessarily have to add any additional starch or flour.

If it was very, very liquidy, you could add in a tablespoon of cornstarch or even a tablespoon of flour.

Okay, we take our crumbs for the crisp and we just coat the top.

Now what we like is those large lumps that are there.

Those are the ones that everybody grabs and breaks off, that they want.

Now, with any additional topping, just take and put it in a freezer bag and keep it in the freezer until you're ready to use it and then you can just pull it out whenever you have an overabundance of extra fruits.

So once you have everything assembled, you can put it in the fridge, you can bake it tomorrow.

But put it in a preheated oven, about 400 degrees for about 45 to 50 minutes.

You wanna bake it at a heavier temperature because you don't want the fruit to overboil into your oven.

You wanna cook it hot and cook it for about 45 minutes.

Saving the best for last, an apple-berry crisp soon to be your family favorite.

And to guild the lily, I have some vanilla ice cream.

Serve it on the side or serve it on the top, just serve it up.

So, there you have it.

My dishes made fresh from the farm to your table.

A very satisfying cauliflower steak topped with microgreens.

Good-for-you roasted rainbow carrot salad with green goddess dressing.

And a soon-to-be family-favorite apple-berry crisp.

Remember, if I can do it, you can do it.

We'll see you real soon.

For more on recipes, entertaining lifestyle tips, tv series, blog and selected video clips from today's show, join me at chefgeorgehirsch.com - [Speaker 3] To download and own episodes of George Hirsch Lifestyle, containing inspiring lifestyle segments, original recipes, and complete how-to, visit amazon.com or chefgeorgehirsch.com.

(lively guitar music) Long Island Farm Bureau is a proud presenter of George Hirsch Lifestyle.

Long Island farmers continue their commitment to providing abundant, fresh commodities.

Supporting farmers and the local agriculture community for over 100 years