Posted by Brenda Crow, April 19, 2013 at 12:05pm
Before Elias Cairo of Olympic Provisions was a charcutier, he was a chef. He worked in kitchens all over Europe and trained among some of the best. But much of his training was done in restaurants and street stalls in big cities and small villages, eating traditional foods in their hometown.
In Madrid, that meant late night eats. Exit a bar in the city's wee hours and you're in a good eats wonderland. I asked Eli about some of his favorite late night Spanish bites, and his enthusiasm was contagious. These buñuelos de chorizo were among the top.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, March 2, 2013 at 11:20am
In Joseph Dabney's, The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking, he spends a chapter on the legacy of benne seeds (pronounced bennie). Bene means sesame in Gambia and Senegal and they were brought to the Carolina-Georgia coastal plain with slaves from Africa in the colonial era. The plants grew so well on the slave plots that Lowcountry farmers quickly realized their humidity and fertile soil were perfect grounds for planting the oily, nutty benne seeds.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, January 23, 2013 at 12:55pm
It's been a while since I last made crackers at home. Heidi over at 101 Cookbooks reminded me how easy it is and invited a new appreciation for making them. Her basic recipe for a thin olive oil cracker is an absolute gem. It's right up there with Jim Lahey's no-knead bread and Kim Boyce's whole wheat chocolate chip cookie (more on that soon). One of the greatest attributes of her recipe is its adaptability. Think of it as a base from which limitless departures can be made. I chose the route of rye, using Bluebird Grain Farms Dark Northern Rye flour instead of semolina. Its sweet and malty flavor proved to be perfect in cracker form.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, January 12, 2013 at 4:30pm
Duck fat is a staple in my kitchen and I always keep a tub of it on hand in the freezer. It has a quality that other fats just don't. It tolerates a high temperature, sears ingredients to a lovely golden brown and renders them miraculously grease-free. And yes, all of these reasons are legitimate ones for its use, but the single most beloved feature of duck fat is the sumptuous umami flavor it imparts. There's no other ingredient like it. I use it exclusively for my Roasted Potatoes, but I also use it for meats, seafood and roasted root vegetables.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, December 8, 2012 at 1:20pm
In The Punch Bowl
, by Dan Searing, Chapter 5 features wine punches, both hot and cold. We like that wine punches are appropriate year-round depending on what base wine you begin with -- think sweet Sauternes for spring and summer, or full-bodied Bordeaux for fall and winter. We love the dark and fruity profile of the Cold Claret Punch that hails from Chafing Dish Recipes from 1896. Claret is the British term for Bordeaux wine, known in the U.S. as Meritage. The blend is usually comprised of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. If you have a hard time finding either of those, select a Bordeaux-style, jammy, full-bodied red wine.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, November 25, 2012 at 8:50am
Kale is one of the brightest seasonal ingredients of winter - especially lacinato or black kale. While tubers, onions and potatoes stare you back in the vegetable aisle, lacinato kale shimmers a steely, deep dark green - it's winter's prize. I love adding lacinato kale to soups and stews, but my favorite way to eat it is raw, dressed simply with good olive oil and lemon juice and tossed with smoked paprika, chorizo matchsticks and bits of pecorino. It makes a radiant winter salad.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, November 11, 2012 at 11:05am
Years ago, I would've shared this recipe with you thinking it was from our family vault. It is, in a way. We've made it for decades, through generations, starting with my Nana. Then, a year or so ago, I ran across the identical recipe in an old copy of the Austin Junior Forum's Lone Star Legacy: A Texas Cookbook. And again, I found a variation in the pages of another cookbook, From Amish to Mennonite Kitchens. Clearly, we weren't the only family breaking Dilly Bread every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. And, I discovered, we have a Mrs. Leona Schnuelle from Crab Orchard, Nebraska to thank for it. In 1960, she took the blue ribbon prize for her Dilly Bread recipe in the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Since then, it's been baked in American kitchens across the entire country. There is a reason for that. It's good. Really good.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, October 31, 2012 at 10:10am
Combining olive oil, anchovies, fennel, pine nuts, golden raisins and saffron is a classic Italian move. A couple of really talented Italian cooks introduced it to my world years ago and I've made riffs off of it ever since. Classically, it's used as a sweet, savory, briny sauce in which to bathe fresh sardines. It's also commonly slicked onto warm linguine strands - so good. But it occurred to me after noshing on just-cooked sweet and chewy Bluebird Grain Farms Emmer Farro, that the two would get along brilliantly. A little bit of tinkering confirmed it - the sweet, nutty Emmer grains are a perfect compliment.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, October 19, 2012 at 12:50pm
The duo behind this recipe, Barb Foulke, owner of Freddy Guys Hazelnuts and Vitaly Paley, chef & owner of Paley's Place have worked together for years. Together, they were profiled in Harvest to Heat: Cooking with America's Best Chefs, Farmers, and Artisans
, a gorgeous cookbook that illuminates the synergetic relationship between American farmers and chefs. Barb's farmstead hazelnuts provide the inspiration for myriad dishes on Vitaly's menu, both savory and sweet. This soup is satisfying in every way - creamy, but no too rich, with the natural nutty sweetness of squash and hazelnuts. Don't forego the gremolata! The orange rind, parsley and garlic really bring this dish together.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, October 9, 2012 at 7:50pm
We recently spotted a stunning walnut cream tart that was topped with grapes, silently stealing the show in the pastry case at one of our favorite local cafes, and we were instantly smitten with the idea of this elegant dessert. We resisted eating pastry cream for breakfast that day, but returned to the kitchen determined to recreate our version.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, September 26, 2012 at 12:00pm
I've always considered gazpacho a hot weather respite. Yet, as that warm weather turns cold, there remain a lot of green tomatoes tugging at the branch, deprived of summer's dog days. Lucky for us, under ripe tomatoes are hardly a settling prize -- they make a dashing debut in their most popular form, fried. They also inspire a gorgeous cold fall soup, bright with acidity, and surprisingly mellow paired alongside almonds, grapes, cucumber, apple and pear.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, September 16, 2012 at 3:40pm
Alongside the classic Italian coffee desserts like tiramisu and affogato, Coffee Jello looks fantastically goofy. An American original, this witty little dessert was dreamed up by once proprietor, James Hallett, at his Boston-based eatery, Durgin-Park. Dismayed by seeing coffee wasted at the end of service, Mr. Hallett devised a way to give it new life on the dessert menu - and the idea turned out to be a brilliant one!
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Posted by FoodShed Kitchen, August 30, 2012 at 10:30am
During state fair season, fried food always assumes its exalted status in the culinary world: Tempting otherwise healthy eaters with crunchy textures and nutty aromas. Or, making headlines with the latest and greatest experiments in greasy goodness. Fried Pineapple Upside Down Cake anyone? You can still get your fill of wacky fried foods at the ultimate in competitive frying, the State Fair of Texas. The Big Tex Choice Awards for 2011 Most Creative goes to Fried Bubblegum.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, August 10, 2012 at 8:05pm
This recipe is ice cream ad lib at its best — caramel corn deconstructed. Who doesn't love the flavors of sweet nutty corn and buttery, creamy burnt sugar combined? The inspiration set in after savoring a spoonful of Hot Cakes Confections Salted Caramel Sauce. First, came the craving for ice cream, then the hankering for crispy sweet caramel corn. And so, the two were combined.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, July 16, 2012 at 7:00am
I love the mellow pungency, gentle sweetness, and smoky edge of charred green onions when they appear on beef skewers, chopped up in tacos, or whole on a platter of grilled summer veggies with a bowl of romesco. For extra versatility, I decided to capture those same flavors in a sauce that we can add to everything from pasta to sandwiches, or spoon across a fillet of fish or medallions of pork tenderloin.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, July 5, 2012 at 10:20pm
Have you ever noticed that white miso paste tastes a little bit like Parmigiano-Reggiano? Mix it with butter and magical things happen -- like this recipe for crisp corn on the cob slicked in a mildly sweet, spicy and cheese-like butter. It's in the same vein as the classic Mexican style corn on the cob with lime, chile and cotija cheese. And it's equally as good.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, June 27, 2012 at 5:15pm
I hesitate to encourage a variation on the classic caprese salad. Despite the fact that a quality insalata caprese is more dependent on a keen eye and savvy shopping than actual culinary technique, I know many a food traditionalist who would wag their chef's knife at me for such treachery. I admit that the combination of juicy, ripe tomatoes, creamy mozzarella, fragrant basil, herbaceous extra-virgin olive oil, and the bite of black pepper is an expression of simple ingredients at their finest. And yet, I insist that this recipe is worthy of breaking the rules.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, June 21, 2012 at 11:25am
Few kitchen tasks give me greater satisfaction than whipping shapeless egg whites into glossy peaks. It's the ultimate food transformation - molecular gastronomy at an elemental level. But when it comes around to eating them, I'm rarely the first in line. As much as I adore turning clear whites into suspended waves, I've never been crazy about the sweet, monotonous texture. That is, until I discovered this recipe. Culled from the pages of Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen, it combines pillowy angel food cake with exactly what it's been waiting for: character. The simple addition of poppy seeds turns the mundane into magnificent, producing a cake that gathers fans every time it's served.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, June 8, 2012 at 7:00am
You may not recognize this dish. Look closely -- canned tuna, pasta, crispy bits on top -- it's starting to come into focus now, isn't it? No matter the amount of kitchen wisdom gathered throughout the years, I remain steadfast in my love for tuna casserole. I chucked the canned soup ages ago, replacing it with homemade Mornay sauce instead (so much better). Then one day, in need of a quick food fix, and yearning for my old standby, I dreamt up this iteration: Spaghetti, slicked in a simple tuna sauce, sprinkled with crispy spicy breadcrumbs. The tuna casserole of the 50's was revered because a delicious meal could be put together in 30 minutes. This new version promises all the same comforts in less than 20.
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Posted by Brenda Crow, May 30, 2012 at 7:00am
Deviled crab is a popular Lowcountry dish, especially in South Carolina. Deviled refers to spicing up a dish with one or two ingredients, such as hot sauce, mustard, or red pepper flakes. We've used a sweet and tangy hot sauce from NW Elixirs for a flavorful heat, but any hot sauce can be substituted. Add a few extra dashes according to your heat preference. I like extra spice against the rich and creamy crab.
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