Update:
In what the barbecue news blogs have called the
Cinderella story of 2005, of the 18 countries
and hundreds of teams competing, Barefoot in the
Pork placed third for its rib entry.
Here
is an adapted recipe for BITP's pork ribs and
rub, letting your home grill serve as a slow smoker.
The rich flavor of either Scharffen Berger gives
an intense chocolate flavor, which leaves you
craving for a glass of ice cold milk. The bittersweet
chocolate adds lusciousness to the texture and
the walnuts add crunch. The brown sugar keeps
them moist and adds another dimension to the flavor.
At Delfina, we like to serve these strawberries with our Carnaroli Rice
Pudding. But they're also lovely with plain cake, a fresh cheese such
as Quark or chèvre, fruit sorbet, or, especially when still warm,
topped with fresh cream.
Being a lean and very flavorful meat, bison should usually be cooked
medium rare. Beyond this, it tends to be a bit dry. Letting the meat
rest allows the interior juices to redistribute, making for a more
tender, flavorful roast.
This rich, earthy gratin could stand on its own at a meatless
Thanksgiving celebration as well as being a perfect foil for roasted
bison. Make this a day ahead and reheat it when you’re ready to serve.
Serves 8.
This rich stuffing is very nice with the roasted duck and some chutney.
Be sure to make plenty for leftover fried rice (see below) for
breakfast the next day. Cook the rice while you cook the duck, that way
you can add the delicious caramelized bits from the roasting pan (and a
bit of the duck fat—it’s Thanksgiving!) to the rice as it bakes.
Chutney is an all-encompassing and delicious use for leftover
vegetables, bumper crops, or those big bags of fruit given to you as a
gift. It can be made with anything. I prefer a mix of sweet fruit, some
vegetables, raisins, sugar, vinegar and spices. The technique is
nothing more than cooking everything down to a paste and seasoning to
your liking to achieve that nice balance between sweet, spicy and sour.
I have used apples, pears, green tomatoes, overgrown zucchini, plums,
onions, kumquats, peaches and sweet potatoes with varying success. The
great part is that you can make it a month ahead of time—it keeps well
in the fridge and gets better with age.
This is a meal we love to have on one of
those classic crisp fall days -- the kind that makes you want to put on a
sweater and tuck into a dish that is truly comforting. We like to use pork loin
(not the tenderloin) because the layer of fat (I know...) gets nice and crispy
and sinfully flavorful. The root veggies caramelize, too, giving the whole dish
great depth of flavor.
This recipe comes from our great friend Mary DeFlaun, who serves it to her family at Thanksgiving every year. This soup is incredibly easy to make and a great start to a rich, fall meal.
Nothing says Cape Cod like scrod and sea scallops for an entree. Flaky white scrod is excellent for rolling and stuffing. Sea scallops make the stuffing moist like the ocean air of a Cape Cod morning. The Newburg Sauce tastes good on just about anything, but for some reason it seems to tastes better on a cool spring night east of the Bourne Bridge.
If you are wondering what scrod is, Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “a young fish (as a cod or haddock)”. Scrod in restaurants is indeed just young cod. There is a small difference in the quality of the meat in the immature fish. I’m sure a sophisticated palate could probably make the distinction, based mostly on texture. The truth to buying scrod is to make sure that it is fresh. When scrod is frozen, the flakiness of the fish tends to form more ice crystals within the layers. This sometimes can make the frozen fish taste synthetic, so always try to buy it fresh.
When Susan Fernald raved about this dish she had at Starlight Café in Nantucket I confess that, at first, I didn’t even understand what she meant by “gingersnap fluke.” And when I did, I thought it sounded downright weird. Boy was I wrong. The ginger, sweet, and acid deliciously offset one another. If you weren’t told what they were, you wouldn’t be able to place the flavors—but the results are excellent and really unique.
An elegant and creative dish, it highlights farm fresh eggs--so do make the effort to seek them out. You can try Kelley’s Katch Tennessee Paddle Fish Caviar, which can be purchased over the Internet, but we used inexpensive whitefish caviar from the supermarket and the results were still mighty tasty. Â
Bill and Denise Atwood from The Red Pheasant served this tuna preparation at the restaurant last summer to great acclaim. The salad combination is unusual but the balance of tart, sweet, and salty combine well and it is delicious. It is worth searching out the finest tuna–try Cape Fish and Lobster in Hyannis. Â
This dish is emblematic of the delicious and creative flavor combinations that Joe Dunn at The Island Merchant devises. It takes a little time to caramelize the onions, but it’s worth it as they are magical with the goat cheese. If you don’t have Cognac to marinate the peaches, you can use whatever is on hand (rum or port would be good) or omit it altogether.
Summer is the season when we move the bulk of our cooking out of the kitchen and onto the grill, and when vegetables, salads, and fruits move from the sidelines to the center of our plates. Keep in mind that fruit doesn’t have to be relegated to dessert; it makes a lovely savory companion to fish and meats when grilled with olive oil and sprinkled with herbs or used in a fresh salsa as follows. The recipe is courtesy of Elsa Sampou, who offered us a batch to go with the striped bass her husband Andre caught and was kind enough to share with us. The sweet fresh fruit offsets the rich taste of the wild bass and it would also be delicious made with local peaches, although it was awfully good made with supermarket mangos.Â
If possible, grill over lump hardwood charcoal as it imparts a nice smoky note to the fish, but a gas grill or even an oven at 350 degrees works just fine.
We tried this recipe with both a French Bread and a Country Loaf. Both breads are delicious, but we preferred the lighter texture and flavor of the French with this delicate spread.
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