Neighborhood Chef Series with Okra Cookhouse & Cocktails + Crudo

This weekend the market was humming with energy as everyone enjoyed strollingthrough and grabbing their favorite fresh local items from honey, to fruits and veggies and everything in between. We celebrated our one year anniversary at the Saturday market as well and we’d like to thank you all for making the market the success it is. Here’s to many more years! To celebrate we had a photo booth, a jumpy house that was in the shape of a celebratory cake and balloon artist busting out spiders and swords.

Chef Cullen Campbell from Crudo and Okra helped us celebrate in style by keeping our bellies happy with hoe cakes and apple chow-chow. Digging into his Memphis roots, Chef Campbell felt that the market and the morning would be perfect for southern style pancakes, aka hoe cakes. A simple batter made with cornmeal and a few other ingredients was crisped up on the griddle and topped with some apple chow-chow and melted butter.

What’s apple chow-chow you ask? Chow-chow is typically a pickled relish made from a mix of veggies, usually things you might have on hand. Chef Campbell was loving McClendon’s Select Organic produce and used what they had available to whip up the chow-chow. Chef used green tomatoes as the base and noticed that the apples at McClendon’s Select Organic were looking juicy and he added those in as well. Also present at the market was Homeboy’s Hot Sauce, you can find them here every week and did you know, they created a special sauce just for Chef Campbell’s restaurant Okra. You can grab it at the market and receive $10 off you next meal at Okra, sounds like a good deal to me!

With the help of a student from C-CAP AZ, Chef Campbell was cooking up samples for market goers to enjoy while they browsed the stands. The finished product was a nice warm cake with a soft inside and light crunch on the outside, topped with a sweet and buttery fresh apple chow-chow. If you got to try these out and you want more or if you didn’t get a chance to try them, have no fear, Okra has hoe cakes on the menu for you daily. Or you may have been one of the lucky winners of the 4 $50 gift cards we raffled off at the market.

Thanks to Chef Campbell from Okra and Crudo for supporting our market. Up next at the market will be Ross Simon from Bitter & Twisted, showing you how to use market items to garnish your cocktails. Stay in the know by subscribing to our weekly e-mail list and follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).