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I'm Amy Thielen,
and I left a career as a chef in New York City
to return to my hometown in rural Minnesota.
Now I grow my own vegetables,
buy my eggs at the beauty salon
and milk from local dairy farmers.
Aah! [ Chuckles ]
The Midwestern traditions are at the core of my cooking.
They're simple and honest, and I want to share them with you.
So join me at my heartland table.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Here in northern lake country,
the ice is just as important to us as the water.
In fact, half of the year,
our world is basically iced over.
And so, we embrace it.
We ice fish, we ice skate,
we have parties on the ice.
In fact, the granddaddy of all ice parties
is the Eelpout Festival in Walker, Minnesota.
I go to Eelpout every single year.
Eelpout Festival's almost like a frat party on the ice.
You have to see it kind of to believe it.
They bring their ice houses,
they bring their four wheelers,
they bring their couches on skis.
It's a time to fish, eat, tailgate,
and burn off your late-winter energy in the Arctic air.
It's a great time,
and this menu is really inspired by living on the ice.
First, I'm going to make a monkfish
sautéed in a kind of rusty paprika butter
with lots of toasted almonds,
and then I'm gonna make a pilaf
with our local wild rice and lots of fresh chestnuts,
and then cast-iron carrots sautéed in coconut oil
with a little bit of curry.
And for dessert, I'm gonna make toffee bars --
a vintage brown-sugar midwestern bar cookie
that's very classic.
And then, because we're talking about ice fishing,
we have to have a cocktail,
so I'm gonna make a birch-syrup whiskey snow cocktail.
And for a little something to go with the cocktail,
maple-lacquered bacon.
So, I'm gonna begin with the pilaf.
I'm gonna grab a couple of different rices.
This is wild rice that my husband, Aaron,
just harvested from the creek,
and this is just basmati rice.
Wild rice cooks up to more volume than white rice,
and so I'm gonna use just ½ cup of that.
And wild rice, like most rices,
really needs to be rinsed very well.
You want to rinse this until the water runs clear.
For ½ cup of rice, I'm gonna use about 1 cup of water.
It doesn't matter if you have a little bit of extra water.
You can just kind of pour it off.
1 cup of basmati.
I rinse all my rices, actually,
'cause they don't stick together so much.
And for 1 cup of white rice,
use a little bit less than 2 cups of water.
Okay.
I'm gonna cook these separately.
For this pilaf, I love the textural contrast
of the white rice and the wild rice,
especially with the chestnuts.
Salt and pepper.
You have to season both of the rices.
If you don't season them, they won't have any flavor.
Okay, I'm just gonna slap the lids on
and turn the heat way down.
This pilaf is something that my mom used to make.
She used a lot of butter.
I'm gonna use about 6 tablespoons.
Feel free to add more at your whim.
I want about 2 cups of diced celery.
The celery is what gives this pilaf a lot of nice flavor.
Whenever people come to visit,
I like to make something with wild rice
because it's right from here.
It actually grows wild in the creek,
which is my front yard.
Every fall, Aaron and his dad, Morris,
they go out in the canoe and they harvest the rice.
I get very excited
when something I make comes from here.
There's a book of county and township history
that Aaron and I have.
In it, they have stories
about people harvesting and eating wild rice.
They have stories about people harvesting the tree sap.
And so, you see this lineage,
and I feel like a part of that history
when I'm doing those same chores.
6 tablespoons of butter.
A little bit more than 2 cups, but that's okay by me.
The aroma of celery sweating in butter
really reminds me of my mom.
She used a lot of butter
when she would sauté onions or celery or anything like that,
and it's really smart
because any butter you're gonna use in the final dish,
put it all in the beginning.
Makes the vegetables taste sweeter
if you have enough fat in the beginning.
Little bit of salt...
and some pepper.
Okay, this looks good to me.
The juices are kind of coming out of the vegetables
and mixing with the butter.
Smells wonderful.
And then I want to finish my pilaf.
So, I'm gonna put in a little bit of garlic,
and then I'm gonna add some fresh thyme, as well.
I go to Eelpout every single year.
That's the annual ice-fishing festival
over on Walker Bay on Leech Lake.
Leech Lake is a huge lake.
Eelpout is a fish that grows at the 42nd parallel,
so in cold waters, in lakes that are really, really deep.
Other countries of the world love to eat this fish.
It's called burbot, technically. It's actually not eelpout.
But because I can't always get burbot,
and most people across the country can't get burbot,
so today, I'm actually gonna use a monkfish
to replicate the burbot.
At the end of February,
the collective cabin fever around here
has reached, honestly, a fever pitch,
so a festival at the end of February
is something that most people will go to.
We'll let that sauté for about 10 minutes.
Coming up, I start on my main dish --
buttery, juicy monkfish,
and add a nutty finish to my rice pilaf.
Awesome.
And later, chewy toffee bars and something snowy to drink.
Kind of like an adult snow cone.
AMY: Toward the tail end
of an icy Minnesota winter,
you got to blow off some steam,
which is why a local fishing contest
evolved into the wacky, decadent Eelpout Festival.
MAN: Two, one.
AMY: And this crazy ice party is my inspiration for today's meal.
My veggies are nice and tender.
It's time to finish the pilaf.
Basmati rice goes in first.
And the wild rice.
This is kind of my customization to this.
And then your vegetable base
with lots of buttery celery, onion, thyme, and garlic.
And then the roasted and peeled chestnuts.
So, chestnuts are really the star of this.
In season, fresh chestnuts, fantastic.
I grew up with my mom,
who would often roast them in the fall, and then she would
freeze bags of the fresh chestnuts in season.
Then we'd have the chestnuts for anytime during the winter
we wanted to add to rice or whatever.
So, just give these a rough chop.
Put these -- every little bit into the dressing.
These little tiny chestnut shards
are gonna mix with the butter.
It's awesome.
This is the kind of thing that you could actually use
as, like, a stuffing for a chicken or a turkey.
But I often use it as a side dish.
Just to finish this,
I'm gonna add a little bit of pistachio, as well,
just to kind of bump up the nut quotient.
We've got chestnuts.
We're gonna have a little bit of pistachio.
And just to crush these, I'm gonna go the easy route.
I'm gonna throw about ½ cup in a bag and just kind of pound them.
And I'm not gonna measure it.
There we go.
And then just a little bit of chopped parsley, just for color.
Give this one final mix.
I love it with the pistachios, too.
You can re-heat this,
or it can also be served at room temperature.
Next, one of my all-time favorite sides --
cast-iron curried carrots.
You can do this with really any root vegetable.
I just heat up the pan really hot,
add a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil.
It has a lot of fragrance.
What's great about it is with coconut oil,
you can fry things at a high temperature.
You just want enough fat to coat the bottom of your skillet.
I'm gonna add my carrots.
It's excellent.
A hot cast-iron pan and some root vegetables and coconut oil
just turns everything amazing.
I want to add salt and pepper to these.
I don't want to stir them too often.
I want them to get nice and brown on the bottom.
Okay, I'm gonna grab the spices --
the three kinds of paprika, my little rub for the fish...
and smoked paprika.
Honestly, one kind of paprika would probably do,
but I like the dimension that the three kinds give this fish.
My base is one teaspoon sweet paprika.
And then I want to use ½ teaspoon of the smoked.
About 1 teaspoon of garlic powder.
I don't cook with garlic powder a lot,
but here, it just gives it kind of an addictive crust.
It's perfect.
And then I want just a pinch of something hot.
Half-sharp paprika's what I use.
You can use just a little bit of cayenne if you like.
Okay, so this is not much.
I'm not gonna coat the fish in it.
You just kind of want to sprinkle it on.
I want to season this sparingly with salt and pepper,
and then I'm gonna just sprinkle on the paprika.
Eelpout has a really, really mild taste,
but the texture is really -- they call it poor man's lobster
because it has kind of a shellfish firmness,
kind of that texture like a lobster.
The closest fish, I think,
and a perfect substitution is monkfish.
Not too much.
You don't want to overwhelm the sweet flavor of the fish.
Just want to give it kind of a rusty edge.
So, fish.
Little bit of just plain vegetable or canola oil.
Just a thin coat.
Here we go.
There we go.
Beautiful.
I want one side to sear really hard
so we get a nice brown crust
and it's easy to flip in the pan.
I'm gonna add a bunch of shallots and some lemon zest
and some sliced almonds to it.
And then butter -- I'm gonna baste it.
So, just a little bit of lemon zest.
Just a couple of strips.
I like the flavor of it. It kind of brightens it up.
There's gonna be a lot of butter in the pan, so we need that.
All right. Here we go.
And then 1/3 cup of almonds.
As the butter browns, the almonds are gonna cook.
All of these parts with a little bit of butter.
It's kind of magical.
They're gonna all come together and be perfectly cooked.
So, I'm gonna add about half a stick of butter
just in the corner.
I can tell it's time to flip the fish.
You do that.
It looks a little bit dark,
and that's just the rusty paprika bottom.
Everything's gonna be a little bit reddish.
So, we'll let this butter melt.
So, these carrots are really nearly done.
Nice and brown. That's what I like.
And when we come back,
I finish the sautéed monkfish and glazed carrots,
making the perfect meal for a cold winter's day.
And then it's time for dessert --
midwestern brown-sugar toffee bars
followed by a snowy birch whiskey cocktail,
and one final indulgence.
Hard to resist.
AMY: My cast-iron carrots are caramelizing nicely,
and my monkfish has been in the pan for about three minutes.
Here we go. Now we're getting somewhere.
The hot butter, as I ladle it on top of this,
is gonna continue to cook the fish.
It's the hot, hot fat that's gonna cook it.
This is finished.
I'm gonna just line these up on a platter.
There's no way that we're gonna waste
any of these juices whatsoever, because at this point,
the fish juices have kind of melded with the butter.
This little guy has my name written all over it.
I love the almonds.
And I love little fried shallots.
To finish the carrots, I want to add just a little bit --
a pinch of curry at the very end,
and I'm also gonna add a little bit of cilantro.
And I'm adding it at the end so that it doesn't burn.
Okay.
What I love about this meal
is that it's very winter-inspired meal,
yet it has a lot of bright flavors
and bright, bright colors.
Little bit of this chestnut rice.
And then some carrots.
Cast-iron carrots,
that's something I could eat every single day.
It's perfect.
And a carrot, I just have to use my fingers. Sorry.
I love that -- the very end.
Incredibly sweet, so easy to do.
This is delicious, but I'm gonna save the best for last.
I call these vintage toffee bars,
and that's because they're the really basic,
most common bar in the midwest.
So, to get started
to make my toffee bars even more butterscotchy,
I'm gonna start with a brown-butter base.
1½ sticks of butter.
The only thing that's crucial
is pulling it from the heat when it turns amber brown,
so just kind of keep half an eye on it.
I'm gonna let that go, and then I'm gonna measure my flour.
So, 1 3/4 cup flour.
And 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Some salt -- about ½ teaspoon. That's crucial.
Don't forget the salt.
So, I just want to sift these together.
Okay. I'm gonna add my nutmeg to this.
I must admit I rarely measure fresh-grated nutmeg.
About ½ teaspoon.
So, brown butter. I love making brown butter.
You don't have to make it just for desserts.
You just want to keep an eye on it
and cook it until it turns brown.
There you go.
Hey, great. This is finished.
Nice and brown.
Deeply dark brown, but not burnt.
This stuff at the bottom, that's pure gold.
That's your flavor.
I'm gonna start with 2 cups of brown sugar.
And then the brown butter.
Pour that in.
Okay, that's mixed. I'm gonna add the eggs.
One at a time.
Another one.
And when it's nice and light and fluffy,
then I want to add just a little bit of vanilla.
Okay, when this is properly creamed,
this is gonna look kind of like frosting.
Okay.
The flour.
All at once.
And just stir to combine.
And you just want to make kind of a thick batter.
Plop it all into your lightly-buttered pan.
This may not look to you
like it's enough batter for this 9x13 pan, but it is.
It's gonna kind of puff in the oven.
It has three eggs in it, right?
Here we go.
So, this is the toffee bar at its plainest form, right?
You could just stop here.
I like to sink nuts into this.
I like hazelnuts.
About ½ cup.
Just kind of drop them on.
Okay, into the oven.
350 degrees, 35 minutes
until the top looks wrinkled
and the entire expanse is nut brown.
Coming up, I finish my buttery toffee bars
and quench my thirst with a snowy winter cocktail
accompanied by a sweet and smokey snack.
It's very hard [chuckles] very hard to resist the bacon.
AMY: My toffee bars just came out of the oven,
and they need maybe a little bit of dressing up.
I'm gonna make a melted milk-chocolate topping.
So, I just want to drizzle these.
Just kind of splatter it.
These are kind of my modern fancy-pants edition.
And then while the chocolate is still melted,
I'm just going to sprinkle
a little bit of flake sea salt on top.
I love that little burst of saline salt crystal.
Kind of a surprise.
This is kind of melty, but I'm going for it.
Mmm.
Nicely chewy, very caramely.
I love the chocolate.
My snow cocktail will be great by itself,
but I like to drink it with a side of maple-lacquered bacon.
Not bad.
Oh, yes. Here we go. It's sizzling.
I dipped this bacon in maple syrup
then baked it at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes
until it was almost crisp.
Just make sure this doesn't stick.
It's very hard [chuckles] very hard to resist the bacon.
Good.
Now that the bacon's done,
it's time to make the whiskey birch cocktail
using the ultimate local ingredient,
which happens to be just outside.
Fresh snow.
Now that I have that, I have to work pretty quickly.
The base of this cocktail is whiskey,
little bit of sherry, and then some birch syrup.
Around here, we have the silver birches.
They make great syrup.
Birch syrup basically tastes like maple syrup
with a drop of bitters in it.
Really, you can use any tree syrup,
but obviously, maple's probably the most common.
I'm gonna start with 3/4 cup of whiskey.
I know most people measure cocktails in ounces,
but I don't know, I'm a baker.
I just do it in cups.
3/4 cup.
½ cup of the syrup.
1/4 cup of sherry.
Use a dry sherry, but one that's not totally bone dry.
So, you just mix all these together.
It's a little bit sweet, but...
it's also very, very strong.
If you don't have fresh snow, you can just use shaved ice
or you can use a lot of crushed ice.
Kind of like an adult snow cone.
Really good.
I poured that a little stiff for myself, actually.
This is definitely a deep winter drink,
something that feels right when the sun sets at 4:30.
Mmm.
One thing that's clear
is that this goes very well with this.
In fact, it's kind of hard to tell here
where the appetizer ends and the dessert begins.
For more information on this or any of these recipes,
just go to foodnetwork.com/heartland.
Thanks for joining me.
Just gonna continue with this.