Great Combos Part Two The Sweet Side

 Some ingredients are made for each other. Dessert ones are no different. They make for delicious treats of all shapes and forms On their own they're good. Together, they're phenomenal.

We have French chocolatier Henri Roux who combined salt and caramel together in the late Seventies. This Breton candy maker wanted a treat that would stand out among the competition while making use of the local ingredients. Voila! He used a salted butter in his caramel recipe and it instantly became a hit and in 1980 was named Best Sweet In France. Now it's all over the place. A popular fun dessert to make is salted caramel cupcakes. This is making an almost butterscotch batter with the addition of a quarter teaspoon of sea salt. Another idea is salted caramel frosting, perfect for chocolate cakes and cupcakes.  The Two Sisters website - known for their variety of yummy frostings has a recipe for it , creating a homemade stove cooked caramel from butter, milk, brown sugar. It's added to confectioners sugar along with the addition of sea salt. For any salted caramel recipe use a good flaky sea salt like the British Malden or Celtic's Flower of the Ocean.Another good marriage is chocolate and any berry. You can't go wrong with a chocolate cake filled with strawberries and frosted with a strawberry frosting. Another treat is combining chocolate syrup with powdered raspberry for a delicious topping for ice cream sundaes and parfaits.It also makes for a tasty sauce for crepes. 

It's rhubarb season and that means the stalks are out in full force now.It's also strawberry season too. These two balance out each other's complexities while the sweetness of the berries counteracts the stalk's sourness. Another reason for their combo is that they both come into season at the same time.  The combo can be made into all sorts of recipes. For a lovely Spring dessert think a strawberry - rhubarb pie. This is perfect for barbecues , especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. You can also put the combo in a rustic galette to bring to a picnic or in a buttery tart for an elegant end to a candlelight dinner. Of course both are perfect in crisps and cobblers. These are easy to make and they easy baked toppings bring out the flavor and juices of both. Strawberries and rhubarb can also be made into a compote. This is incredibly easy to make. Just add half a cup of brown sugar and a pinch of salt to the two. It's then letting the juices flow out and cooking the cut strawberries and rhubarb in them. This ruby red compote is perfect to add to Greek yogurt for a healthy dessert or spooned over pancakes or waffles.

There are some great combos for dessert out there. Try topping a cake with a salted caramel frosting. Top off a parfait with a chocolate and berry sauce. Finish dinner with a strawberry rhubarb crisp or cobbler.These pairings make for a sweet duo.

Great Combos Part 1

 Some ingredients just are great together. They add to the recipe and their combined flavors knock the dish out of the park. what ingredients work together.?There are several great pairings.

Mushrooms and spinach are the perfect pair when wedded together. There's something about combining the two that just works well. It could be the mushrooms' earthy flavor that lets the bright springy  flavor of the spinach shine through. You could easily turn the two into a tasty salad. Just remember to cook the mushrooms first for the ultimate flavor.  You can eat them raw but they're tastier air fried. Add some bacon and a few sliced hard boiled eggs for a filling yet light lunch or dinner. One of my favorite pasta and polenta sauces is a sauteed mix of the leaves with sliced baby bellas. They're first sauteed in a mix of olive oil and I Can't Believe It;s Not Butter.. Sliced garlic is added along with a cup of vegan chicken broth. This is really the best marriage of the two. It's a great flavorful sauce and a nice departure from the traditional tomato ones.Another delicious mushroom spinach combo is Julia Child's famed tart. This has a beef Wellington crust encasing a blend of spinach , mushrooms and  bacon. It's a bit labor intensive but worth it

Potatoes and leeks are another good combo that produces an earthy but flavorsome taste. They work best in a creamy soup.Garlic and butter along with chicken or vegetable broth . These enhance the other two so much. Sub in heavy cream for the butter and then put the pot in an ice bath after cooking and you have the elegant potage vichyssoise. This is the perfect first course for an elegant summer dinner with friends. For a heartier fare think mashed potatoes with cooked leeks. It's a great side for roast chicken or turkey. The leftovers can be turned into puffs that can be air fried for a  side or snack. Potatoes and onions also work well together. A truly yummy side is the two roasted together. Add rosemary and garlic to bring out their flavors. This dish  is  perfect  with any roast ,whether London Broil or chicken. You can easily add onions , whether white or yellow to it to zing it up a bit. A tasty way to repurpose  any kind of potato is slice it and frying in in oil with sliced onions. It's an indulgent snack but oh so tasty.

Great combos always enhance any dish. They make for yummy, sides or snack along with main dishes. Try them  for a delicious marriage of flavors.

Spring Food Musts

 Spring is the time of longer and warmer days. Gone are heavy winter days and heavy winter food. It's time to celebrate with classics like lamb, asparagus and rhubarb , perfect for dinners and desserts. Think light. Think delicious.

Lamb is usually served all year round but it's most popular in the Spring thanks to Easter and Greek Easter. You could easily make a lamb stew with Spring vegetables. Use a boneless lamb shoulder and cook with, tomatoes carrots and petite pois or pearl onions. Red wine could be added along with the beef broth. The good thing about stew is that it can be made in an Insta Pot or crock pot  which leaves you free for a few hours.Another idea is cooking the meat in  herbs. Garlic and lemon are added for more flavor with such herbs as tarragon, dill and cilantro. Cumin and coriander seeds are also used. Greek Orthodox Easter is next week and there will be lamb served at almost all Greek homes. Try their version which is roasting a leg of lamb. Its first studded with garlic cloves and then generously sprinkled with a mix of  sea salt, pepper and paprika. Olive oil and lemon juice are then drizzled on it and then it's first braised and roasted.if the cut is too much then think about lamb chops. They can be marinated the same as the shoulder and sprinkled with oregano. You could easily serve these with crunchy and lemony Greek style roasted potatoes, 

Of course the best side is asparagus. This is a Spring must have and can be made a variety of ways. The best is with  the classic Hollandaise sauce. Home chefs always feel that this is hard sauce to create but it's really not. It's just combining egg yolks, lemon juice and a dab of Dijon mustard. Cayenne can be added for some heat but it's mot necessary. Melted butter is them streamed into the sauce and it's blended with an immersion blender. (you can use a regular one for it too).Another is Piedmontese style with the spears drenched in melted butter  and topped with sliced hard boiled eggs and Parmesan cheese. You can also grill them as well. Grilled asparagus is perfect with chicken or steak. Rhubarb is another culinary star of Spring. It's usually paired with strawberries but it's great on its' own. Stewing it into a compote is easy and it's a nice topping for vanilla ice cream.It;s slowly cooking chopped stalks with sugar and water. You can add a dash of cinnamon for more flavor. This veggie, similar to celery also makes for a good crisp or cobbler. These are easy desserts with mixing oatmeal, flour sugar and topping to form a tasty crust on top of the rhubarb. Strawberries can be added too for a variation. Serve any crisp or cobbler with freshly whipped cream for a down home but still fancy dessert.

Lamb, asparagus and rhubarb are the stars of the Spring table. They make the season even brighter and sunnier with their distinct flavors. Plan a dinner, make a dessert with these gems for a warm weather treat.

New York Is Back

 One of the cities that took a tremendous hit during the lock down is New York City. Manhattan and its' boroughs  have been struggling.One of the biggest hit was the restaurant industry. Good news!!! Eating out is coming back and with it a slew of must visit places. It's time to get dressed up and enjoy a meal out!!

The New York Times Food critic Pete Wells wrote about this renaissance of sorts in yesterday's New York Times Food section. This is not only great for the inhabitants of the five boroughs but also visitors from out of state and even out of country. Mr. Wells gives us seventeen eateries that have to be tried. They're not solely in Manhattan but scattered around the boroughs so they can be an easy drive from Long Island and New Jersey.Of course the city places have a certain air of excitement to them. Diners can try Blue WIllow, a new Hunanese restaurant in Midtown. Their  whole steamed sea bass is legendary while their longevity chicken soup with ginseng tastes like homemade. Tex-Mex lovers will go mad for Greenwich Village's Yellow Rose, a taqueria that offers chicken stewed so much in salsa verde that it's green and beef cheek barbacoa.A true fusion restaurant is The Migrant Kitchen located on William Street in the Financial District. The menu has carnitas going into a sharwarma sandwich and falafel being turned into a waffle. The hip St. Mark's Place has Mokyo, chef Kyungmin Hyun's second restaurant that features Korean cuisine but also has other Asian as well as Maine or Louisiana dishes. Thai Diner in Nolita offers diner classics like burger and fries but also fried rice with lump crab meat.

The boroughs don't disappoint either.For those who want a French seaside vibe head to Rockaway Beach's Bar Marseille.There is bouillabaisse and pastis scented mussels and olive tapenade. The Bronx gives us Empanology At Bronx Brewery where flaky palm sized empanadas are stuffed with everything from pizza to Bananas Foster. Then there is All Things Good in Brooklyn which features masa or ground corn meal recipes. They serve half moon quesadillas griddled or fried, and triangles of masa that look like mini volcanoes and filled with refried beans, salsa verde and melted Chihuahua cheese. Trendy Williamsburg has the even trendier Kokomo, a fun waterfront eatery that serves wings with a sweet gochujan glaze. There's also chicken and waffles with both whipped coconut cream and a Scotch bonnet hot sauce.  Another win for Brooklyn is Rangoon which serves mohinga,a fragrant fish soup with noodles. Another Thai restaurant is gracing Brooklyn too, It's Tong in the Bushwick section and it features kub klaem or whiskey snacks such as a spicy steak tartare and goong pai, tiny shrimp pancakes along with bite sizes sausages

New York is going to be hopping again with good eateries. Head to the city. See what's in your neighborhood for some tasty bites again.

Vegan Cheese Please

 As any vegan or even vegetarian home chef will tell you cooking without cheese can be daunting. It figures in almost every dish, from French onion soup to pizza. Then there's the charcuterie platter which demands a variety of cold cuts and cheeses. Luckily there are more and more vegan cheeses out there to fill this gap. Better still, they actually taste just like their dairy counterparts.

Regular contributor and California restaurant critic for the New York Times wrote about this in the Critic's Notebook section of today's New York Times Food section. Vegan cheese has undergone a vast transformation in the past decade. Cheese is always the hardest food to give up. There's something about the tanginess of cheddar or the creamy goodness of Brie.At one time those non dairy kinds could not hold a candle to them. However that's all changed. The newer generations of packaged cheese is now more convincing, thanks to being produced in roughly the same way as regular cheese is. They're made from cultured plant based milks that develop texture and flavor. Companies that are leading the way are the smaller, more artisan Blue Heron Creamery of Vancouver, the Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis and Vtopian Artisan Cheeses in Portland Oregon. There is also Philadelphia's Conscious Cultures Creamery and the famed nationally known Miyokos.

Conscious Cultures Creamery owner, Stephen Babaki has made Barn Cat , a Camenbert , inoculating the surface with various strains of Penicillium candidum which is typically used to ripen Camembert and Brie. it's then aged for two to three months. Some work , some cheeses take more time to perfect. Miyoko Schinner, who first published  the how to Artisan Vegan Cheese, created her early ones with homemade Rejuvelc - sprouted fermented grains filled with probiotics and lactic acids. She researched her book by taking cheese making classes and studied the ways traditional cheeses were made. She experimented in her San Anselmo California  kitchen , giving her kids samples. She then opened up an alternative dairy business, Miyoko's Creamery that's sold all around the country. she is not without competition but she is a pioneer in the industry. A decade ago she couldn't even get what she called "culture houses" companies that sold cultures to take her seriously. Now there are vegan cheese makers everywhere.Aaron Bullock and Ian Martin started Misha Foods, in part to help African Americans eat healthier. They made alternative cream cheese from cashew milk, one of the most popular milks used by vegan cheesemakers. Denise Vallego makes vegan Mexican cheeses, in part from being inspired by Ms. Schinner. Then there is Kristen Maitland and Frank Zwar of Rebel Cheeses in Austen Texas  who recreate all sorts of cheeses and came up with a Cheddar Brie hybrid.

Now vegans can rejoice because there are actual cheeses for them. They can indulge with Brie smeared on crackers or a grilled cheese. It's time to celebrate again with a big wedge of cheesy goodness.

Strange Wine

 The wine industry surprisingly has some interesting developments lately. It's not just reds and whites with the occasional blush. This is something different. Wine is becoming exciting again, thanks to news ideas and new wine making concepts.

Orange wine is now on oenophiles' radar. I discovered this just yesterday during a pop ad and it intrigued me. Originally I thought it was a fermentation made from orange juice but that couldn't be the case. You can make orange wine at home but there are no wineries that actually do this. Orange wine is actually white wine made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the juice. This creates a deep orange hue. What about the taste? It has diverse and aromas not usually associated with wine, such as sourdough, jackfruit along with honey, varnish (!!!) and linseed oil (!!!!!). Palate wise they're dry and big , possessing a tannin like red wine with a sourness  that fruit beers have. Orange wine does pack a punch. You may want to sit down after a few sips.Since this is a bold wine, bold foods should be served with it. Think spicy Moroccan or Ethiopian cuisine - like those spongelike pancakes called injara. The wine also is great with Korean and Japanese foods. It's also good with beef and fish thanks to its' high phenolic content. Coppola and Red Hook Wineries sell orange wine.

Then there's Stella Rosa that sells all sorts of fruity wines. I found this out from Mike Colameco's Food Bites on PBS Sunday afternoon. His is just a two minute filler between America's Test Kitchen and Lydia's Family Table. Chef Colameco was mentioning about the billboard ads for Stella Rosa' wine of the month club that he saw on his way to his second home in Cape May. They were featuring a wine of the month club featuring fruity  berry wines. This  deserves some investigating. Stella Rosa does have some odd flavors like watermelon (!) and grapefruit (!) flavored ones.They also have pineapple and mango too as well as cherry , blueberry, peach and even vanilla.Where do these come from? The Ribolo family in Los Angeles where they founded LA's historic San Antonio Winery. Their "regular" wines come from the aromatic grapes grown in their native Asti in Piedmonte and they were the base of the winery's first big seller Moscato d'Asti. They also created Rosso, the first semi sweet, semi sparkling red wine blend.The family also has tasting rooms  and bistros across California.

Wine is becoming exciting again. Try a bottle of orange. Join Stella Rosa's wine of the month club. It'll make for some interesting drinking.

The Master Home Chef

 Prince Harry recently described his grandfather , the Duke of Edinburgh as "a master of the barbecue" This was true of men of Philip's generation. They loved to cook only outdoors while the kitchen remained the domain of the women of the household. Yet as we 've discovered from the last two generations and lockdown that's all changed. Men have become as adept as women and in some cases more so at cooking and baking.

There have been some men who have always loved to cook and bake (namely my grandfather, Poppy, and his son my uncle).it was a chance to get creative and test their skills. High school Home Ec classes even taught what was known as "Bachelor in the Kitchen" where boys learned how to make pizza from scratch and even whip up a buttercream frosting. Now single and stay at home dads are just as enthusiastic at finding the right sourdough starter as moms are. They're getting excited over catalogs from Williams & Sonoma and King Arthur Flour. They're buying air fryers and immersion blenders at Target or Wal-Mart. The best part is they're enjoying it, as they include the kids in various aspect of meal preparation. Kids are learning their their kitchen skills from their fathers as a generation or two ago learned how to throw a baseball or drive a car. Sons and daughters are taking direction from how to make the right pasta dough to basting a turkey. It brings them closer because they can then sit down and eat together and share their day's experience.

What are dad home chefs cooking?Mac and cheese is probably number one on the list. It's a comfort food , harking back to their childhoods. They may have even gotten the recipe from their moms and grannies.Some  are probably putting their spin on it by adding in Gruyere or Parmesan or subbing in rotelli pasta for elbow macaroni. Hamburgers are another must cook. These are not the already made patties but hand made ones, with the addition of  minced onions and bacon bits. The more advanced home chefs may try their hand at Cornish game hens with a wild rice stuffing or a prime rib. Of course the male home chef shines not only at parties but super events like the in house Super Bowl gathering. This is a chance to get creative with those wings, homemade pizza and of course, grilled and smoked meats. They'll probably make all sorts of sauces for the wings like the tangy lemon pepper flavor to four alarm wing marinade. Male home chefs will bake up the kind of guy pizza their friends love with layers of steak and pepperoni topped with mozzarella and Parmesan. Of course they grill. The steaks will probably have a gourmet touch with a medallion of herb butter on top or spiced with chimichurri sauce.

Home cooking concepts have changed from Prince Philip's generations to his grandsons. Male home chefs are expanding their skills and their palates as they claim the kitchen as theirs. They're making  their stand and becoming good at it with time honored recipes.