Beef and vegetarian empanaditas (turnovers) and rice croquettes made a wonderful spread at the BBG
We were like children in a candy store –let loose to harvest anything in the Herb Garden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden because we were cooking up turnovers and croquettes for the Sunday celebration of the opening of the Herb Garden. This past Friday, Caleb Leech, Herb Curator of the BBG, toured us around the Garden which had expanded its reach beyond the typical Mediterranean herbs we are all familiar with. The new Herb Garden had Malabar spinach (a Filipino veggie staple) along with veggies like eggplant, squash, longbeans and fruits like Asian pears, Bosc pears and apples.
Saturday night, Chef Romy had cooked two different types of filling for the empanaditas: beef with hyssop, fennel, Cuban oregano, garlic chives & lemon thyme AND a vegetarian one with corn, purple sweet potato, carrots and greens from the Garden such as red and yellow Swiss chard and beet leaves. A week ago, I had a eureka moment and thought of inviting Ayesha Vera-Yu to participate in our project by presenting the organic rice grains grown in her family farm in Capiz, Philippines. She and her mother are trying to test the US market for their grain varieties representing several stages of polish. So she decided to ask her nephew, Casto Unson, a passionate cook, to make rice croquettes using their unpolished red rice with Casto adding roasted lavender and goat cheese to the mix.
Casto harvesting Thai basil, parsley & mint to top the rice croquettes
In the meantime, Perry Mamaril, our chef-artist (of bamboo fame) was busy harvesting chiles, tomatoes, sea fennel, lemon balm to add to the growing list of toppings to put on both the empanaditas and croquettes. He sliced some chiles which added a nice kick to the beef turnovers squeezing lemon juice, sprinkling sea salt and a dash of olive oil to what was becoming an herb and tomato salad.
Different chiles harvested from the Herb Garden
Even though the crowd was light and our pace was leisurely, we ran out of food by 2:30 pm - 400 empanaditas and 100 rice croquettes gone in three hours. What was surprising was to see children delight in the textures of unpolished red rice and many of them were turned on to herbs and tomatoes.
It was a very pleasant day — overcast with no sun and we were thankful that our spread was not rained out. Thank you to the BBG staff: Katie Blumm who thought of matching us up with the Garden in the first place after seeing our little garden at Purple Yam; Josh Diamond for providing logistics and good cheer and to Caleb Leech, who gave us bags of harvested Malabar spinach and Swiss Chard for our vegetarian empanaditas.
We hope to have continued partnership projects with the BBG in years to come!
Bee feeding on the flowers
red leaf amaranth
