Featured recipes from the American Harvest Workshop
To assemble this main-course dish: Place fennel salad in the center of the plate. Lay two slices of salmon over the fennel salad on each plate. Arrange a few micro-greens on top of the salmon. Scatter cu-cumber gelée around the salad. Place fresh herbs, diced tomatoes, diced cucumbers, fresh herbs, and shaved radishes around the salad. Drizzle parsley oil lightly around the outside edge of the plate. Sprinkle a pinch of fleur-de-sel and freshly cracked white pepper on top of the salmon. Serve cold. Chef’s note: A squeeze bottle can be used to drizzle the parsley oil.

Dessert by Chef Ned Bell
Warm Scharffen Berger Chocolate Pudding with Bellwether Crème Fraîche Ice Cream and Cakebread Cellars Syrah Caramel (from 2000 Cakebread Cellars Syrah)
A brownie sundae for grownups — a dark chocolate pudding with a tart crème fraîche ice cream and a caramel sauce. Chef Ned Bell, Murieta’s West Coast Grill, Calgary, Alberta, chose to garnish the dessert with spun caramel. Serves 8-12. Preheat oven to 350°F. Over high heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and the corn syrup and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a double boiler, melt the chocolate over simmering water. Stir the chocolate occasionally as it melts. Remove the double boiler from the heat and stir in the butter. Set aside to cool slightly.
Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs at high speed until they are frothy. Lower the speed to medium and carefully pour the hot sugar-syrup into the beaten eggs. Add the chocolate mixture and blend on a low speed until smooth.
Butter a muffin tin (with small, 2- to 3-inch di-ameter cups). Fill the cups with the pudding batter, leaving a little space for the puddings to ex-pand while baking. Find a roasting pan that is large enough to hold the muffin tin and fill with 1 inch of very hot water. Set the muffin tin in the roasting pan and place in the oven.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the pudding comes out clean. Remove the muffin tin from the water bath and set on a rack to cool. Cool the puddings to room temperature in the pan before inverting to unmold. If preparing the pudding in advance, cover the muffin tin in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Whisk all the ingredients until thoroughly blended. Set an electric ice cream maker to stir and to freeze the mixture for approximately 30 minutes (or until frozen). If using a manual ice cream maker, stir the mixture until frozen.
In a heavy saucepan over high heat, combine the sugar and the water. Boil until the mixture becomes amber in color (about 12-15 minutes). Remove from heat and cool until the mixture is thickened but still pliable (about 20 minutes). On a baking sheet lined with parchment, spoon the thickened syrup into 3-4 inch rounds, forming either paper-thin discs or loose spirals. Cool until hardened.
In a heavy saucepan over high heat, combine the sugar and the water. Boil the mixture until it be-comes amber in color (about 12-15 minutes). Re-move the pan from the heat and cool the mixture slightly. Then slowly add the Syrah to the caramel and simmer over medium heat until the sauce is reduced by half.
To serve the dessert: On each individual dessert plate or bowl, place a caramel disc, a chocolate pud-ding, and one scoop (about 2 tablespoons) of ice cream. Drizzle with Syrah caramel sauce and gar-nish with spun caramel (optional).
Story by Katheryn Freeberg, copyright 2005. All rights reserved. Photographs by Terry McCarthy and Katheryn Freeberg.