On a recent morning, Dustin Brafford walked out the back door of Opus restaurant, leaving his crew to prep for the 11 a.m. lunch service, and walked two blocks to one of his favorite destinations: the Cherry Creek Farmers Market.
The sun was out and so were the vendors, tending to crates that were bright with produce from Front Range farms. Brafford was in his element.
“I just really like the freshness of a farmers’ market,” says Brafford, a 30-year-old Ohio native who moved to Denver four months ago after a dozen years cooking in the Buckeye State and, for a while, Beirut. “I like to support the local guys, the little guys. They say history repeats itself, and it’s nice to see things going back to small farms.”
Brafford had been invited to participate in . The idea: pairing chefs with neighborhood markets, where they pick what’s fresh and create a handful of recipes for readers.
And so he walked through the stalls in a parking lot at the southeast corner of First Avenue and University Boulevard, eyeing the produce and thinking out loud. The mercury was supposed to hit the 90s that day, so he already had salad on his mind when he stopped in front of the Brighton-based stand.
“These people always have good stuff,” Brafford said. He eyed the overflowing boxes, knowing he already had salad greens back at the restaurant. “I could roast these radishes, which takes some of the heat out of them and sweetens them up.”
Into the bag went tomatoes, asparagus, baby purple onions, a bunch of feathery dill and the radishes. Carrots and beets would arrive Saturday, he was told.
On to The Fruit Stand, operated by Ethan Lehrburger. Rainier and Bing cherries were in from Palisade, and Brafford had an idea.
“A grilled cheese sandwich with a cherry jam spread,” he said. “That’s as seasonal as it gets.” He bought a pound of glistening, deep red Bings from Lehrburger.
Brafford moved on, talking about what the market meant to him. The Cherry Creek farmers market is a neighborhood staple, running twice a week. (9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays through Sept. 30; from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 31.)
“I didn’t know anyone when I first moved here,” he said. “Coming here was a way to get to know people and find out what’s in season. It’s a smaller farmers market, but it’s got what it needs.”
Brafford also tends the sidewalk garden at Opus, which sits at 250 Josephine St. The tomatoes are transitioning from flowers to small green fruit, and runner beans are beginning to climb the trellis. An array of herbs is coming up, too, including a pineapple sage that tastes and smells strikingly like that fruit.
Just down from The Fruit Stand, Brafford came to the tent. His eyes lit up. To one side, a steel-mesh drum packed with Anaheim chiles rotated over gas jets. The aroma of roasting chiles filled the air.
“During the season we roast Anaheims from California and Big Jims from the Hatch Valley down in New Mexico,” Kimberly Guerrero of Bailey said.
As a chef and former resident of the Phoenix area, Brafford did not need to be sold on the virtues of chiles. He bought a fat plastic bag of them. “I can use these in a green chile vinaigrette for the salad,” he said.
With that, it was back to the kitchen.
Working the magic
Brafford’s two dishes came together quickly. He prepped and assembled them with the deftness of a longtime professional who is used to improvising.
Because it would take the most time to cook, Brafford started with the cherry jam for the grilled cheese sandwich. He used a cherry pitter to de-seed the Bings then tossed them into a small sauce pot with some sugar, orange juice and a big sprig of rosemary. Onto an iron grid on Opus’ six-burner Imperial went the pot.
Next, Brafford prepped his radishes for the salad. Slicing off the tops and tendrils, he washed the bulbs before coarsely chopping and arranging them on a baking sheet. A dash of kosher salt, then they went into the oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes.
The asparagus was cleaned, then blanched in a wire basket before the stalks were “shocked” in ice water to stop the cooking and set their vivid green color. They were then chopped.
On to the green chiles. Since they were already roasted, all Brafford had to do was shuck the charred skin and remove the seeds. That reduces the peppers’ heat so they won’t overwhelm the salad.
The chiles went into a blender, along with some of the diced purple onions and a splash of soy sauce and sherry vinegar. After a one-minute purée, Brafford stuck in a small plastic tasting spoon and sampled the vinaigrette. He was pleased. “Now that’s interesting,” he said.
Brafford assembled the salad in a porcelain bowl, adding some mixed green lettuces before topping them with the showcased veggies — asparagus, radishes, tomatoes, a bit of dill and some purple onion — a sprinkling of crumbled goat cheese and a small ladleful of the vinaigrette.
Then a garnish, a grace note of leafy borage.
“It tastes like cucumbers,” he said, handing a sprig to a visitor. “It’s one of my favorite things.”
Finally, the sandwich.
After running the cooked cherries through a blender, Brafford spooned the runny jam on two slices of sourdough bread, noting that if he was cooking for guests, he would have reduced the sauce over heat for another two hours to tighten it up.
Goat cheese was crumbled on the jam and the two slices of bread were moved to a flat-top cooking surface for toasting. After that, some arugula was lightly tossed with a bit of honey-lemon dressing the kitchen keeps on hand and added it to the sandwich.
Voila, a sweet-savory sandwich where the goat cheese and jam had melded perfectly with the crispy, peppery lettuce.
“And that’s the flavor of summer,” Brafford said.
William Porter: 303-954-1877, wporter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/williamporterdp
