Reference Recipes: Melissa Clark’s Small-Batch Pulled Pork

Published by Saturday, May 11, 2013 Permalink 0

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With summer on its way, you may just want to have pulled pork for smaller family weekends, before all the big summer festivals start. Here’s an easy video recipe from Melissa Clark at Pulled Pork, for Crowds Large or Small.

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A Sausage Walks in to a Bar…..

Published by Monday, July 16, 2012 Permalink 0

by Alice DeLuca

A story for carnivores

Assador - Alice DeLuca 2012 (C) digimarc

Assador

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This whole adventure started with a search for the perfect sausage to use in a recipe for pork with clams, which led to a little ceramic pig, and ended up with a truly excellent party. This cute little piece of specialty cookware, which looks like footwear for some impossible outer-space monster, is in fact designed for brazing sausages over flaming, hi-octane Portuguese liquor. As we learned the purpose and the method for using this device, we became completely distracted from our original mission and found ourselves planning a sausage-roast.

Linguica roasting - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc

Sausages roasting over flaming Aguardente

First, we had to obtain the little pig dishes from Portugal – that was easy and took only a few weeks. As soon as the dishes arrived we set about making home-smoked sausages and invited some guests to come over and roast them with us – RSVPs were instantaneous and none declined the invitation.

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4th of July Healthy Recipe Roundup

Published by Monday, July 2, 2012 Permalink 0

4th of July Recipe Roundup

by Christina Daub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the fourth of July right around the corner, it’s time to clean the grill and get ready to barbecue. Whether you are using charcoal or gas, Independence Day just wouldn’t be the same without the smell and the sizzle of a big steak wafting through the backyard.

For my taste buds, however, nothing beats the old-fashioned, three-legged charcoal grill, whose heat has been reduced nearly to embers and tinged with hickory chips I’ve soaked to add that delicious smoky flavor that enhances grilled food so well. Unfortunately, in Switzerland, unless you have a personal source of wood chips, you’ll have to use regular charbon de bois, or wood charcoal, which is usually a mixture of several different woods.

To get juicy, flavorful steaks, try slathering each side with mustard, Worcestershire sauce and soy, then let the meat sit while the charcoal reduces itself for slow cooking.

When grilling ribs (the pork variety), soak your wood chips in apple juice for about 30 minutes, then wrap them in foil, perforate it, and lay it on the coals. This gives a slightly sweet taste to the ribs which complements the saltiness of the pork.

Traditional or healthy accompaniments?

While the kids line up for hot dogs (in the Lake Geneva region, local pork butchers or charcuteries often make their own homemade frankfurters) and hamburgers (get the butcher to grind it for you fresh on the morning of the 4th), think about what you want to serve with your grilled delicacies.

Traditionally, there was potato salad, great lumps or cubes of potatoes swamped in mayonnaise, with perhaps a scallion or two to give it some punch. However, not being a fan of such cholesterol- and fat-filled fare, I have always opted for the healthier green salad, loaded with a variety of lettuces and pea shoots I can get by hitting the farmers’ market early enough. In Switzerland, there is an endless choice of greens, herbs and shoots at this time of year in any farmers’ market you go to.

A platter of just-cut, ripe red tomatoes (local if you can find them), sprinkled with salt and drizzled with high quality olive oil and a local full bodied red wine round out the meal. Until  dessert.

Dessert: a healthier version than in the old days

Christine Koh
Photo used with authorization of Christine Koh

I have to say while the all-American barbecue meal totally sates me, I never pass up dessert, and this is one time of the year it’s really fun to use color in making dessert. There are a number of red, white and blue desserts I’ve come up with in the past, but everyone’s favorite seems to be what I call the “flag cake.”

This is a flat rectangular sheet cake that I cover either in white icing or whipped cream. On top, I create horizontal rows of raspberries for the red stripes of the flag and in the left corner, I intersperse blueberries so that the icing can shine through as “stars.”

For a lighter, but equally festive dessert, I layer yogurt with berries in parfait glasses, alternating the raspberries (you can also use strawberries or currants) with the blueberries in between the layers of yogurt. The kids seem to prefer vanilla yogurt, but for the adults I use plain, sweetened with a bit of honey.

Let the fireworks begin!

Christina Daub studied at L’Ecole du Cordon Bleu in Paris. She now lives in Washington, D.C. She is a poet, and teaches poetry at George Washington University and other writing workshops around the country.

Photos compliments of GenevaLunch.

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Brisket and Love: A Tribute to Beatrice Beckenstein Levine, or “Granny Bea”

Published by Monday, October 3, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Rosh Hashanah beef brisket brings back so many fond memories. It makes me think of how by mother-in-law would start preparing the brisket and the feast days before we arrived. The children were accustomed to eating European food, and in their earlier years had serious misgivings about brisket.

Granny Bea’s brisket was saucy like this one, but the sauce was not beer. It was made with carrots and onions that had been slow-cooked to the point that they formed a sweet sauce, “making it healthier,” she would say.

It was all made with such love and we felt that love in the air as we ate; it created a bond so strong that it will stay with us forever. Every time I hear the word “brisket” I remember the good old days, when she was alive, when we received all her love through her food and her loving, gracious manner, and tried to give it back to her as nobly as we could. Now we can only do that in our thoughts and prayers.

And now when the children hear “brisket”, I can see on their faces that they too feel that love, that bond.

Food made with love and shared in a spirit of love does that to you. Food helps you transmit your love; it also teaches you how to receive love.

This is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Beatrice Beckenstein Levine, the apple of my eye. I love(d) you, and I think of you every day and my heart still gets all warm and I shed a tear or two, and a taste of your brisket comes to my mouth. I’m going to ask for Granny Bea’s brisket once a week when I get the heaven.

Click here to read Mark Bittman and Daniel Meyer’s version of an up-to-date beef brisket.

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