Fleeting Flavor

There are many traditions in a kitchen. Ingredients that the team looks forward to returning with a new season, a beloved dish that comes to the menu for a special holiday each year. Some of the most beloved traditions are often the most fleeting. Catching an ingredient at the absolute peak of flavor often means the most memorable bites are only available for a moment.

One of Executive Chef Cassidee Dadney’s favorite menu traditions is easy to miss. It has an incredibly brief presence on the Summer menu, but it makes a big impact.

“I've been doing it for years,” says Cassidee. “People love it; it's delicious.”

It starts with picking herbs. Just before we get into the highest temperatures of the Summer, Cassidee harvests herbs from the Garden. If the herbs stay in the ground, flower and live in the heat, they will get bitter and dry, compromising the flavor profile desired from them. So, it’s important to pick them at the right time. “Then what do you do when you have a bazillion herbs? You pickle them!” says Cassidee.

Exactly what herbs depends on what’s growing that year. In 2024, she worked with thyme, golden oregano, basil buds and purslane. She tastes each herb raw to understand the natural flavor before she decides what preservation process she wants to embark on. “I pickle each individual kind of herb slightly differently depending on what the herb is telling me. If they are starting to get a little bit bitter, I'll add sugar. If they're super light and delicious, I'll do a very light pickle on them so that the flavor really comes through.” Once she’s pickled that year’s herb harvest, she combines them to create a sort of pickled herb relish. Each year the relish is unique, reflecting the flavor and harvest that came through in that year’s growing season.

Typically, she incorporates a bit more flavor from the Garden, creating a seed oil from the seeds of flowers growing in the rows. That oil goes into the pickled mixture to create a beautifully unique condiment fill with flavors from the Garden. That final condiment is the garnish on her whey-braised potatoes.

Fresh potatoes have a different texture than what you experience if you’re buying potatoes from the store. And that’s the moment Cassidee wants to capture each year with this dish. It’s the moment when potatoes are their best. They’re in season, picked straight from the Garden and coming to the plate.

“It just so happens that the herbs are happening at the same time,” says Cassidee. “And that we also have a ton of onions curing in the Garden.” So, the dish becomes a true celebration of a moment in time in the rows – the sweet spot where you can capture everything at its best. It’s soft, sweat onions cooked in butter, fresh, warm potatoes and fun, bright pickled herbs.

“And it only lasts until we run out of the potatoes. Once we run out of them, there's no point in doing it,” says Cassidee.

This dish makes it to The Barn menu at the end of August, into the beginning of September. It’s there, and then it’s gone. Capturing a brief moment in the Garden where potatoes are at their best, and celebrating them by using what’s growing right next to them.

Learn more about The Barn at Blackberry Farm®.