Food
Recipes, Restaurant Reviews, and More ...
-
Maple Syrup Season in New Hampshire
It’s maple syrup season here in New England, and for the past few weeks, sugarhouses have been busy, boiling down maple sap to create maple syrup. You really don’t see sap buckets on the trees like the ones shown in the photograph on the left anymore. About the only place you can find those are in antique shops. That’s because the process of collecting sap has been streamlined over the years. Look carefully into the woods and the evidence is unmistakable: plastic tubing snaking from tree to tree, terminating in large, sealed plastic containers that can hold many gallons of sap. It takes about forty gallons of sap to make one…
-
Homemade Griddle Cake (Pancake) Mix
Ingredients Basic Mix: 5 cups all purpose flour 2 Tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 cup granulated sugar 2 teaspoons Salt Additional Ingredients: 1 cup milk 1 egg, beaten 2 Tablespoons margarine, melted Making the Dry Griddle Cake Mix Mix together the basic mix ingredients and store in an airtight container for later use. Making the Griddle Cakes To 1 1/2 cups of the dry mix (above), add the egg and milk and mix together. Then gradually mix in the margarine until the batter is smooth. To bake, spoon a ladle of batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle. Turn when the top of the griddle cake develops tiny bubbles.…
-
Sunday Morning Bread Baking
This morning, as I occasionally do on Sunday mornings, I baked up this nice loaf of crusty, rustic European bread. This particular loaf is destined for Elisa’s Ribollita recipe, but I’m also baking a second one, just to have around for the next few days. One of life’s pleasures, which I first experienced when I was in the army and stationed in Italy, is a nice slice of a good, rustic, European loaf of bread. I still remember fondly a particular bread known as Pane di Lucca that I had in a trattoria called In Pelleria, which is located inside the ancient walled hill town of Lucca, in Tuscany. But that…
-
Dinner at New World Bistro Bar, Albany, NY
My wife and I drove to Albany a few weeks ago to see the Doc Watson concert at The Egg. Elisa had researched the restaurant scene in Albany, and after she showed me the menu, we decided that the New World Bistro Bar would be a great place to have an early dinner before the concert. We called ahead from the road and made reservations for two, and we arrived right on time. The New World Bistro Bar is a cozy location in the corner of a building on Delaware Avenue. There is ample parking in a lot behind the building. You can tell that the owner, Ric Orlando, has put…
-
Spicy Basmati Rice with Black Mustard Seeds
Ingredients 2 cups basmati rice 4 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 medium onion, peeled, halved, and sliced into paper-thin half rings 1 red bell pepper, sliced into very thin strips (optional) 2 teaspoons black mustard seed 2 teaspoons fresh minced garlic 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 3/4 teaspoon garam masala 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock, heated Instructions Place rice in a bowl. Add water to cover. Rub the rice grains with your hands until the water turns milky. Drain the water. Add more water and repeat the process four or five times until the rise is well washed. (the water…
-
The Hunt for Better Chicken
Over the past thirty years or so there has been a steady decline in the quality of the chicken that can be purchased at the supermarket. The flesh has no firmness because the chicken industry primarily raises chickens crammed together so that they don’t have room to walk, and they often have difficulty standing when not being propped up by other chickens. That issue aside, the chickens we buy just don’t seem all that … fresh. They were likely slaughtered and then flash-frozen for transport, although your grocer will probably deny it. The flesh has often been injected with water, so that you’ll hopefully fall victim to the illusion that the…
-
Lunch at Lilac Blossom, Nashua, NH
A few months ago, my good friend and coworker Darshan recommended that my wife and I try his favorite Chinese restaurant in Nashua, Lilac Blossom. We found ourselves in Nashua on a recent Saturday, so we dropped in for lunch. Lilac Blossom has two locations in Nashua; we chose the the location in the south end of town, based on Darshan’s recommendation. The thirty-item lunch menu was very affordable, and each item on the menu included choice of soup and rice. I ordered a spicy dish called Twice Fried Pork, accompanied with hot and sour soup and brown rice. Elisa made the same soup and rice choices to accompany another of…
-
Pie Dough Made With Vodka
Ingredients for one double-crust pie 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour 8 tablespoons leaf lard (cut into small pieces) 8 tablespoons butter (cut into small pieces) 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 2 tablespoons sugar (optional) 1/4 cup vodka, cold (brandy works just as well) 1/4 cup cold water Instructions Combine all ingredients except the water and vodka in a medium bowl. Blend with a pastry cutter. Be careful to not overwork the dough. Sprinkle the water and vodka over the mixture and then, with a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix the dough together. You are looking for a consistency where the dough just holds together in a ball and…
You May Also Like
Rendering Leaf Lard or Beef Suet
