Recipes

Tacos with fresh rockfish, plentiful year-round, offer a winter getaway for the palate.

A Rockfish by Any Other Name

written by Thor Ericksonphotography by Tambi Lane Order rockfish at a restaurant in New York, and you’ll likely get a striped bass. Place the same order in California, and you could end up with a vermilion rockfish. Here in Oregon, rockfish can be anything from quillback, pygmy, shortbelly, longspine, yellow-eye, to widow, canary, chilipepper, thornyhead and the old standby—red snapper. Oregon sport and commercial fishermen regularly catch more than twenty-five species of rockfish. Many of these rockfish have similar characteristics and are difficult to tell apart. According to the Food and Drug Administration, a single fish species can go by multiple names from the time it’s caught until the time it ends up on your plate, and many kinds of fish can legally be sold under a single name. The good news is that all these species of Oregon rockfish taste relatively the same. The flesh is versatile and can…

Home Grown Chef, pasta

An easy homemade upgrade to your Marinara

1859’s Home Grown Chef Thor Erickson shares the secret to a gourmet alternative to marinara that you can easily do while in quarantine. Try Thor’s simple pasta all’Amatriciana!   Find more recipes from Thor that use local Oregon products here.    

Chanterelle Mushroom Compound Butte

Chanterelle Mushroom Compound Butter

Home Grown Chef Thor Erickson | photography by Charlotte Dupont Thud, thud, thud! The knock on the door reverberated as I took my first sip of morning coffee. It was around 7:30 a.m. on a damp October Sunday. At the door was my friend and colleague Julian Darwin. “Good morning, Chef!” he exclaimed with urgency. “Get your things, we’re going into the forest.” “What? Why?” I asked. “For chanterelles, of course!” he announced, his British accent elevating it to a proclamation. I put my coffee in a thermos, put on my boots and coat, and we were off. Julian, more than just a chef, has been a mentor to me in many ways. He introduced me to the world of teaching. Before that, our culinary paths crossed, and we’d worked together. European trained, he is an old-school chef with the same work ethic and ideology I learned during my early…

Cream of Chanterelle Mushroom Soup

The Magic of Mushrooms — Cream of Chanterelle Mushroom Soup & Chanterelle Mushroom, Brie + Hazelnut Toast

Cream of Chanterelle Mushroom Soup Nicoletta’s Table / LAKE OSWEGO Yields 8 cups  2 pounds fresh chanterelle mushrooms  2 tablespoons shallots, finely minced 1⁄4 cup onion, finely chopped 1⁄4 cup celery, finely chopped 2 tablespoons sweet butter 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped 1⁄4 cup dry sherry  4½ cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)  2 cups heavy cream  2 teaspoons Kosher salt 1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper Clean the mushrooms of any excess debris and pine needles by gently brushing the mushrooms using a vegetable brush or a clean soft cloth. Gently tear the mushrooms into 1⁄2-inch wide lengths. In a heavy-bottomed, 6- to 8-quart pot, melt the butter and add in the olive oil over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, shallots, onions, celery and thyme and stir occasionally until everything is wilted and soft, without allowing the vegetables to color. Turn up the heat…

Herb foccacia

Homegrown Chef: Fresh Herbs

Fresh herbs are easy to grow here in Oregon. Most of the hardy varieties and some tender varieties will survive the cold winters. Growing herbs yourself makes it easy to pick what you need, and the freshness is unmatched.
Fresh herb blends are especially key to getting the herbal flavor you want without overshadowing other ingredients in a dish.

Vote for Pedro Cocktail

Vote for Pedro Ximénez Cocktail

Pedro Ximénez is a sherry made from a highly sugar-concentrated Spanish wine grape variety grown in several Spanish wine regions, but most notably in the Denominación de Origen of Montilla-Moriles—a variety of sherry wine characterized by a dark tone.