Recipe Mutiny steals recipes from food blogs and recipe sites. Then we publish them. With credit (Naturally).
To help foodservice decision-makers deal with concerns such as increased competition, rapidly changing tastes and trends and rising rents and wages, Tyson Foodservice, Springdale, Ark., says it recast its business as a customer-centric enterprise “that understands what’s ‘on the line’ for operators.”
Long warm summer days are perfect for chilled pea salad!
This recipe uses frozen peas, which you don’t even have to defrost, green onions, water chestnuts, and smoked almonds. The peas do thaw a bit, but they’re wonderful crunchy and cold too.
I first encountered this delightful salad at a friend’s potluck. It was one of the dishes that everyone went back for for seconds.
I’m not sure of the original source of the recipe, but since the recipes calls for Smokehouse Almonds, perhaps the almond company? It could easily be made with tamari almonds as well. You just want salty, crunchy, roasted almonds for this salad.
Do you have a favorite pea salad? Please let us know about it in the comments.
Photos and recipe updated, first published 2007
Continue reading "Cold Pea Salad" »
These days, it seems as if every bar and home bartender were making infusions. The ultimate neutral palate, vodka is a natural place to start. Rum’s warmth lends itself to some flavors. Tequila takes kindly to spice. But hard liquor isn’t the only route to cocktails or infusions. Low-alcohol, nuanced, and adaptable, vermouths are infusion-friendly. Like wines, beers, and liquors, they work well in the kitchen. Infuse them, and they bring crafty elegance to cocktails, desserts, and entrees.
While red vermouths are deep, rich, and flavorful, the subtlety of white vermouths makes them an excellent starting point for exploring infusions with fortified wine.
White vermouths are not like triplets or quintuplets. From vines to botanicals, each house has its jealously guarded recipes, and each white vermouth has a distinctive flavor profile. Get to know the basics, and it’s easy to build on them.
A bartender favorite, Dolin Dry is crisp, dry, and light. That doesn’t mean it’s simple. Dolin’s as Alpine as a skier’s dream. There are more than 50 botanicals in that bottle, with chinchona, chamomile, and wormwood among them. Let it sit with sliced cucumbers and yellow peppers to bring out its clean vegetal flavors. When the pepper and cucumber are becoming clear, add a hit of anise or thyme, or a thin slice of fennel. Taste the mixture every five minutes. When the balance suits you, run the vermouth through a fine mesh strainer, funnel it back into the bottle, label it, and put it in the fridge to chill.
Another classic, Marseille-born and bred Noilly Prat is a rover. Made with two separately aged wine varietals, Noilly Prat gathers its twenty-something plants and spices from France, Tunisia, and Indonesia. The vermouth spends three weeks in casks, resting with the botanicals. This is a fruitier white vermouth, with notes of orange, as well as anise and herbs. Give it time over sliced and peeled peaches or nectarines, and drop in a bit of vanilla or mace toward the end. If you’re thinking in terms of dessert, and you want to spike a syrupy sub-note, then roast the fruit before starting the infusion.
Routin’s white vermouths differ enough that it’s worthwhile playing with both of them. Think “palate cleanser,” and you’ll be sharing space with Vermouth Routin Dry. Its 17 flowers, plants, and spices frame a nutty, borderline almond characteristic. It isn’t prominent, but it’s present enough to give the vermouth roundness. Boost that with chopped toasted almonds or counterpoint it with dried apricots or cherries. Add cardamom at the end, but taste frequently; cardamom can overpower fast. Take it in a different direction with rosemary and pan-warmed walnuts. Those autumn notes pair well with toast and cheese, but it’s also gorgeous drizzled over a savory cheesecake.
As is typical with the dry/blanc divide, Vermouth Routin Blanc is on the sweeter side of fortification. With one more botanical than its drier sibling, Routin Blanc tastes like sun-warmed stone fruit and freshly torn thyme—and thyme is a great starting point for an infusion. Add lemon peel, being careful not to include any of the bitter pith. Taste it every ten minutes or so, until it reaches the intensity you desire. Drizzle it over sorbet or warm cornbread, or use it to make sweet and sour chicken.
An Italian vermouth, Contratto Bianco has 50 flavor components—not counting the wine—but the makers will share only 28. Those include aloe, angelica root, gentian, rhubarb, pimiento seed, sage, clover, and sandalwood. Contratto Bianco doesn’t taste busy. This creamy vermouth has sweetness and tartness and an underpinning of something dry. Hazelnuts, nutmeg, and plums underscore the richness. Vanilla takes Contratto Bianco’s creaminess up a notch. A touch of cracked black pepper can provide unexpected brightness–just don’t let it steep too long.
Don’t feel constrained by cocktails. Vermouth is a strong player in the kitchen. Infuse it with the last of the caramelized onion, roasted carrots, herbs that won’t last much longer, and keep it in the refrigerator for salad dressings (cut back on the vinegar, and use vermouth in its place), glazes, or whatever else comes to mind. It will become one of your most flexible staples, and a natural way to use scraps, save on waste, and expand your creative range.
Chowhound
Swap a homemade infusion for a shelf vermouth, and take your gin martini from prêt-à-porter to haute couture. Get our Perfect Gin Martini recipe.
Savory Basil and Goat Cheese Cheesecake
Love and Olive Oil
Prick this savory cheesecake with a fork, drizzle it with vermouth, and you have an adults-only appetizer no one can replicate. For a glaze, reduce the vermouth to half over a low heat. Add finely chopped shallots and a pinch of thyme, to bring out the best of the basil in the cake. Get the recipe.
Andrew Zimmern
Andrew Zimmern’s pomelo sorbet gets bitterness from Campari and some of its sugar from sweet vermouth. Tweak its flavors with infused vermouth, taking the sugar down a notch or shunting it in a more savory, herbal direction. Get the recipe.
Michael Ruhlman
Michael Ruhlman uses dry vermouth in his Roasted Chicken Provençal. Choose your infusion, and heighten the flavors of roasted shallots, herbs de Provence, or citrus. Your guests will thank you (and probably eat all of your dreamt-of leftovers). Get the recipe.
Tomato and Scallop Pasta with a Lemon-Vermouth Sauce
That Square Plate
Use herb or shallot-infused vermouth in this tomato and scallop pasta. Here, too, you can reduce the vermouth a little to boost the flavor. Do that, and you can get away with using less vermouth, losing none of the taste and saving some fortified wine for other things (like your after-dinner cocktail). Get the recipe.
Make the Bronx your own by subbing an infused vermouth in this classic cocktail. Play with gins, too. Made with Plymouth or Dorothy Parker, the same recipe will give you a very different drink. Get our Bronx Cocktail recipe.
Cherry Cornmeal Upside Down Cake
Smitten Kitchen
Go ahead. Drizzle vermouth over Smitten Kitchen’s Cherry Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake. Nobody will tell. Just lock the refrigerator, or you might find yourself going back for a third slice of midnight snack. Get the recipe.
— Head photo: Pexels.
When I think about lettuce, I usually think of salad. And when I think of salad, I don’t usually think about throwing one of those bad boys on the grill. But it turns out that grilling lettuce is more than just possible—it’s delicious. The smoky aroma and lightly charred taste takes eating lettuce from chore to summertime treat.
Even if you’ve never considered this technique before, you’re only seven steps away from becoming a lettuce grillmaster.
Acquire some heads of romaine lettuce (one per every two people you’re looking to serve) and peel off the outer layer of leaves.
Use a knife to shave off the very bottom of the solid browned base. Then slice the heads down the middle long ways so that the leaves stay connected at the base.
Rinse the lettuce and dry it thoroughly.
Drizzle the heads with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Place the sliced heads cut-side down and grill over medium high heat until the leaves are slightly wilted and charred (about five minutes). It’s up to the chef whether you’d like to flip the heads over halfway through cooking.
Squeeze fresh lemon over the top.
Eat it just like that or dress your grilled salad as you see fit!
Here are 10 recipes to inspire your next green barbecue.
Grilled Romaine Hearts with Caesar Vinaigrette
Dessert Now Dinner Later
If a simple Caesar dressing suits your fancy, this recipe is for you. All you need to do is whisk together six ingredients, then drizzle the mixture over the sliced heads when they come off the grill. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine with Tomato and Basil
Vindulge
This recipe is a variation on bruschetta that uses lettuce in place of bread. As with the prior recipe, there’s no cooking required for the topping—just some quick and easy chopping and mixing. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Corn and Avocado
Floating Kitchen
This dish adds two more summertime veggies into the mix and ties everything together with a miso dressing. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Lettuce with Bacon and Parmesan
Hapa Nom
Here’s one for the bacon lovers! This recipe also features a creamy dressing that uses both lemon juice and lemon zest. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Bacon and Blue Cheese
The Garlic Diaries
Want to up the bacon factor even more? On top of sprinkling bacon on the finished product, this approach suggests using bacon fat in place of olive oil to baste the lettuce. (But since the dish is mostly leaves, it still counts as healthy, right?) Dress your bacon-grilled lettuce with a balsamic vinaigrette mixed with dried thyme, parsley, oregano, and a touch of Dijon mustard. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Roasted Chickpeas and Tomatoes
Floating Kitchen
While your grill is heating up, turn to your oven to roast some tomatoes and chickpeas seasoned with cumin and paprika. Then dress your lettuce with this veggie blend and a tahini-chive dressing. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Hearts with Figs, Pear, and Manchego
Kitchen Sanctuary
You can always count on fruit to take your summertime salad game to a new level. Beyond the fruits and cheeses, this dish is garnished with walnuts and a honey balsamic vinaigrette. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Cherries, Feta, and Roasted Pine Nuts
Simply Scratch
Move over, sundaes. This medley of unexpected flavors may redefine your image of the “cherry on top!” Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Strawberries and Fennel Vinaigrette
Get Inspired Every Day
Though they don’t get top billing, this recipe also features asparagus and red onion, which you can cook on the grill right beside your lettuce. Get the recipe.
Grilled Romaine Salad with Blueberry, Avocado, and Lemon Tarragon Vinaigrette
Tasty Yummies
Could you imagine anything more summery? Get the recipe.
— Head photo: flickr.
