At The Market

Farmers market season is in full swing. The markets are bursting with fresh fruit, vegetables, and other delectables including, you guessed it, tamales. Salvador Molly's newly gussied up tamale booth can be found at:

PSU Farmers Market-every Saturday (8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.) at PSU park blocks.
Hillsdale Farmers' Market-every Sunday (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.).
Portland Farmers Market at Shemanski Park-every Wednesday (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.).

Need some help cooking those tamales? Check out Molly's tried and true tamale steaming instructions!

A Letter from Chef Margot

As chef at Salvador Molly’s, I firmly embrace the idea that ingredients have no borders. That suits our globally influenced menu very well. I love to take locally raised meat and locally caught fish and spin them with our global flavors. Although the peak growing season is short here in the Northwest, there’s a lot a purchaser can do throughout the year to ensure that their product is sourced as locally as possible. For instance, 97% of the year, all of our onions, potatoes, zucchini, horseradish, and cucumbers come from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. That may not seem like much variety, but they form the backbone of our produce purchases through the winter months.

This year we have partnered with FoodHub, an internet site matching growers and farmers to buyers. This has allowed us to partner with local growers like Gales Meadow Farm to grow our vast amounts of jalapenos, tomatoes, and cilantro we’ll be using for our salsa at this season’s farmers markets.

It’s a personal pleasure of mine to grub around in the warm dirt, but when I can’t, I hop over to my Sunday Hillsdale Farmers’ Market (right 

across the street!) where I might find collard greens (for stuffed tofu, steamed stuffed rolls, or just great greens!) at Deep Roots Farm, sunchokes (that we fry for terrific chips) at Gathering Together Farm, or amazing marionberries for our market fruitade from Ayers Creek Farm. I can’t resist Fraga Farms’ creamy goat cheese, or the Smokery’s pepper-crusted white King Salmon, or Sweet Briar Farms’ unsmoked pork belly. My son, Ben, is especially fond of nibbling raw broccolini and sampling all the melons when they come into season.

Since we have chickens, we rarely buy eggs, but I’ll tell you, you’ll never be happy with a grocery store egg again if you start buying fresh eggs. There is no comparison—at all! If you’re an “egg slut”, you’ll just have to fry one up and set it atop your favorite sandwich, so when you bite into it, all that runny eggy goodness goes all over your mouth and chin. Nothing works like a fresh egg—incomparable Hollandaise sauce, fluffier waffles and pancakes, lighter, fluffier cake, higher meringues, moister quickbreads, and creamier custard.

So…visit your local farmers market and see what loca-vores are howling about here in the beautiful, abundant Northwest. If you spot me in my bright blue jacket, ask me what’s cookin’ this week, or come by every Sunday night during market Season to check out our Farmers Market Supper.
Happy Shopping!
Chef Margot
Salvador Molly’s