After a hot, sunny, Texas-summer-time bike ride on b-cycles, we gave up our quest for the BBQ joint we planned on visiting and ducked into the nearest restaurant we saw: Hillside Farmacy.
The Hillside Farmacy is a New American restaurant and specialty grocer housed in the old Hillside Drugstore building, and has been beautifully restored using the original pharmacy cabinetry. Walking inside feels like taking a step back in time, and can taste like that, too. The beverage menu features homemade fountain sodas, such as a traditional Brooklyn Egg Cream as well as punch, which you can order by the glass (1 cup) or bowl (20 cups). We opted for a couple glasses of this refreshing concoction of gin, bubbles, hibiscus syrup, and grapefruit juice.
A salad and sandwich sounded perfect to me, so I went for “the beets” with fennel, chévre vinaigrette, red onion, arugula, and radish.
Familiar flavors I’ve had many times, yet always one of my favorites. For my sandwich, I tries something a little more unique- the “Thank You.”
Roasted chicken, mozzarella, strawberry jam, sprouts, and aioli. I have one word: YUM.
Hillside Farmacy works with a number of local Austin farms, and sells a nice selection of hand crafted food items such as hot sauces, jams, and Texas rice. This sophisticated yet unpretentious eatery was a pleasant surprise.
Here’s what I created with a gorgeous piece of wild Alaskan salmon…
In the mortar and pestle I ground
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp Aleppo pepper (pick some up at Savory Spice Shop, or use red pepper flakes)
- 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
Next, add a pinch of
- Mexican Oregano
- Dried Tarragon
- Fennel Pollen
- Maple Sugar
- Sea Salt
Mix up the spice rub, get your nose really close to it, and breathe in. It smells fantastic. I bought a beautiful 1.8 pound piece of Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon.
After rinsing it in cold water, patting it dry, and tweezing out the bones, I sliced it in half (due to cooking restraints in a small space), rubbed it down, patted it with butter, drizzled it with a little Portuguese white wine (just happened to be the bottle I was drinking while cooking), and sealed it in heavy duty aluminum foil packets.
The fish grilled for approximately 10 minutes. I let it sit sealed in the packet a couple more minutes before squeezing a little fresh orange juice on top. That’s right- orange this time, not lemon.
Yum! I served this with some grilled red potatoes and parmesan peas (one of my favorites!).
Since my spice cabinet is filled with
Savory Spice Shop herbs and spices, it is always a fun endeavor creating something vegetarian for dinner. I’m interested in Fennel Pollen lately, so I thought I’d make a tempeh dish featuring this “spice of the angels.”
I didn’t really measure anything for my marinade, but it was basically
- 1 TB dehydrated onion
- 1/2 TB garlic powder
- 1/2 TB dried parsley
- 1/2 TB smoked Spanish paprika
- 1 tsp whole fennel seeds
- a pinch of fennel pollen
- 2-3 TB olive oil
- 1/4 cup white wine
- a splash of worcestershire
Mix that up, and pour it over some temepeh.
I let mine sit for an hour or so before grilling. Then, I opened my last jar of pickled onions from last summer’s crop. My pickled onions are so delicious- they’re not just any old pickled onions- they’re olive oil pickled onions, which means they have a coating of olive oil over the top which kept them from spoiling all winter (they did not withstand a boiling bath or any heated canning process). The olive oil mixes with the vinegar to create a salad-dressing-like flavor effect (or profile?).
I’ll be making twice as many pickled onions this year… But, first, back to my grilled tempeh. Grill it for a few minutes on each side. Easy.
I served mine with some grilled ciabatta, smoked provolone, olive oil pickled onions, and
Red Rocks Hickory Smoke Ketchup, which is, quite frankly, the best ketchup.
So, go grill some tempeh and enjoy a meatless BBQ. Wash it down with a
beer cocktail!
The turkey burger. It’s become my spur-of-the-moment, don’t have dinner plans and don’t have 2 hours to cook, go-to guy. I’ve added all kinds of cheeses, herbs, spices, jalapeños… lots of stuff, and they usually come out great. But, I might have my new favorite here.
The secret ingredient? Fennel Pollen. All of you sausage lovers out there probably appreciate the flavor of fennel seeds. But have you tried fennel pollen? It is the pollen that comes from the tiny yellow flowers on the fennel plant and, according to the label, is sometimes called the “spice of the angels.” I must agree with that statement. And you’re probably asking yourself, “Where can I find this spice of the angels?” Well,
Savory Spice Shop, of course. Where else would I get my secret ingredients?
Here’s how I made my new favorite burgers-
- 1.5 pounds ground turkey thigh
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- a pinch of fennel pollen
- ground black pepper
My least favorite part is mixing it with my hands and making the patties. I’ll admit it. But, I made 8 patties, grilled them for approximately 7 minutes on each side, and topped them with some Tillamook white cheddar cheese.
Left over ciabatta bread served as my bun, and homemade olive oil pickles from last summer’s crop added the perfect crunch to my spring-time, fennel pollen burger. Come to think of it, these will be great for grillin’ over Memorial weekend, and will pair well with my
Honey Pepper Rascal Beer Cocktail.
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