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.
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.
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.
This is the first recipe I ever mastered as a young girl. I thought the recipe was lost forever when my parents downscaled their home years ago, but rediscovered a close version of it in the Master Gardeners Cookbook. Making it again to test for the magazine brought back vivid memories and it is as I remembered easy as, er, pie, to make.
Adapted From Chef Christian Schultz of the Barley Neck Inn
This sauce is classic French and is rich with wine, butterand cream.Here it is applied tomonkfish, which is available from area waters. Some of our tasters found themustard too assertive when we first made this so we reduced the amount used byChef Schultz.The truth is thatmustard varies greatly in strength depending on how old they are and who the purveyor is. If you wantstronger mustard flavor when you taste it at the end by all means addmore.
Another tip: To make the monkfish medallions easier to workwith, ask your fishmonger to remove the membrane that sometimes remains on thetail meat.