The sauce is delicious, and a percentage of
sales do some good in the world. Photo
courtesy Bill’s Best BBQ Sauce.

Barbecue sauce is the number one product we receive over the transom. Living in an apartment with no outdoor space to barbecue, it’s not a product we used much—until it started to arrive in droves a few years ago.

The majority of the products we taste are perfectly fine, but not special enough to write about. Most are made from ketchup or tomato paste, vinegar, a sweetener (often high fructose corn syrup—HFCS), salt, onion powder and other spices (including cayenne or other chile), molasses and maybe some mustard.

Then Bill’s BBQ Sauce showed up.

Bill Fehon created the “secret family recipe” for what is now Bill’s Best Original Organic BBQ Sauce in the early 1990s. He gave jars to family and friends. The sweet and tangy flavor, combined with a mild kick, says Bill’s family, appealed to everyone.

Unfortunately, in the fall of 2009, Bill was diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration and was no longer able to do everyday tasks like making the sauce.

In his honor, his family now makes it and donates 10% of the profit to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. Learn more at BillsBestBBQ.com.

So if you’re looking for an inexpensive food gift that combines the spirit of generosity, consider this delicious barbecue sauce. Even if there were no story of hope, the sauce stands on its own.

As an organic product, it’s made with quality ingredients and has no HFCS.

An 18-ounce bottle is $6.99, with discounts for multiple orders, on Amazon.com:

 
Find more of our favorite barbecue sauces and recipes.

Versatile pistachio relish can be paired with
everything from crab cakes to dessert. Photo
courtesy Island Creek Oyster Bar.

Want to bring a special gift to your Thanksgiving hosts, or make something tasty to give to friends for the holidays?

Try this Pistachio Relish from Jeremy Sewall, executive chef of Boston’s Island Creek Oyster Bar. Chef Sewall follows the New England tradition of canning and preserves with house-made relishes and chutneys. They add a touch of vibrant fall flavor to savory dishes—and sweet ones, too.

He particularly enjoys this pistachio relish atop a crab cake:

PISTACHIO RELISH RECIPE

Yield: 1-2 quarts

Ingredients

*We don’t like sweet condiments on savory foods, so we reduced this to 1 teaspoon of sugar. You can eliminate it entirely.

Preparation

1. SWEAT garlic and onion in canola oil until translucent.

2. COMBINE the sugar and salt with the zest and juices from oranges and lemons. Simmer until the mixture has cooked down to a loose syrup. Remove from heat.

3. FOLD in the chopped pistachios.

4. COOL the mixture over an ice bath. Store in the refrigerator.

For gifting, pick up pretty jars and create a gift label with a use by date. Tell them to use the relish within 10 days, so you’ll get a thank-you call saying how delicious it is.

If you like the idea of food gifts, pick up a book of food gift recipes and ideas.

Other Uses For Pistachio Relish

This versatile pistachio relish can be used:

 
How would you use pistachio relish?
 
Find more of our favorite condiments and recipes.

Delicious beer mustard from Ringhand. Photo
by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

Occasionally, a particularly homespun product arrives at THE NIBBLE. Such was the case with a squeeze bottle labeled “Beer Mustard.”

The computer-printed label had only the ingredients,* a sketch of two steins of beer and, in tiny print in one corner, the words:

Ringhand’s Beer Mustard
Evansville, WI 53636
608-882-5819

There’s no website. An Internet search produced a bare-bones Facebook page with one photo, one post and a map highlighting the company’s location in Evansville, Wisconsin, some 24 miles south of Madison. No one has been searching for Ringhand Beer Mustard in Google.

More search yielded little except this description from Something Special From Wisconsin, the trade organization that provided the red sticker:

Homemade Beer Mustard, using Wisconsin produced beer and mustard (1/2 ingredients) blended to a tangy sweet-sour flavor.

Why were we so gung-ho to get the scoop about Ringhand’s Beer Mustard?

Because it’s delicious! Of all the mustards we try, it stands out. Instead of the typical one-two punch of prepared mustard, there’s a subtle layering of flavors. You don’t even notice the horseradish, but it adds something special.

And at $3.00 per 12-ounce bottle, we’ll be ordering cases of it as affordable yet special holiday gifts.

There’s one more note about Ringhand Beer Mustard: The artisan mustard maker is Wisconsin State Assembly Representative Janis Ringhand, a former mayor of Evansville mayor (population 5,012).

This grandmother of four worked for 17 years as a bookkeeper for family-owned Ringhand Meats—where presumably, the products were enjoyed with lots of mustard.

To get yours, call 608.882.5819 or email janis.a.ringhand@gmail.com.

MORE ABOUT MUSTARD

Mustard trivia: The squeeze bottle was in 1957 by Plochman’s of Illinois, which has been making mustard since 1852.

Here’s everything you need to know about mustard, including the many different types of mustard.

*Ingredients: water, vinegar, mustard seeds, salt, turmeric, horseradish, spices, beer, sugar.

With all the lovely apples piled high in markets, it’s time to make homemade applesauce. Homemade applesauce is so head and shoulders above store-bought, that you’ve got to try it at least once.

In the video below, the cook doesn’t core the apples. Instead, the apple cores, seeds and all, go into the pot.

 
WHAT TYPE OF APPLE SHOULD YOU USE?

It’s a matter of taste, and you can try different varieties. We prefer a tart apple for more complex flavor. But we like red skin to add color and flavor to the sauce, so we bypass the popular (and easy-to-find) Granny Smiths.

Instead, we look for Braeburn, Jonagold, McIntosh, Northern Spy, Paula Red and Stayman varieties.

You may like your homemade applesauce so much that you’ll consider giving it as holiday gifts. Applesauce freezes nicely.

Soffritto is a mixture of minced vegetables and aromatic herbs cooked in extra virgin olive oil. The name means “fry slowly,” although you might think of it as “yummy flavor.”

This healthful cooking ingredient enhances the flavor of many everyday dishes, and is waiting to be your new best friend in the kitchen. The basic recipe combines carrots, celery, garlic, onions, salt and sometimes a splash of white wine vinegar.

You can make your own soffritto and store it in the fridge (we’ve included the recipe in the full review). Or you can buy a jar of Nonna Iole’s Soffritto. It’s a quick, easy and delicious solution to amping up your food. It’s also a nice party favor, stocking stuffer and small ”thank you” gift.

In fact, you can buy boxed gift sets as well as individual jars on the company website. You’ll also find a store locator.

Check out the full review.

Soffritto: Your new friend in the kitchen. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

A pan of caramelized onions. Photo courtesy
Melissas.com.

What do you put on your grilled meat? Ketchup? Mustard? Steak sauce? Worcestershire?

Today’s tip is a delicious make-your-own condiment, red onion marmalade. It is an addictively good finishing touch to lamb, poultry, pork, steak or anything from the grill, including pizza. No other condiment is needed.

You can also serve it with breakfast eggs, on toast and on sandwiches—try it with grilled cheese. The marmalade is so good, you’ll be sorry you didn’t make four times the amount. And you can give it as gifts.

This recipe is courtesy Melissas.com, an unbeatable resource for gourmet produce and healthy gifts.

The difference between onion marmalade and caramelized onions is the added brown sugar, vinegar and wine. You may also enjoy this recipe for caramelized onions.

RED ONION MARMALADE RECIPE

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Melt the butter in a medium pan.

2. Add the onions and sugar and cook over a medium heat, stirring until soft and lightly caramelized.

3. Add the wine and vinegar and let cook for about another 10 minutes until all the liquid has evaporated and the onions are very soft. Season with salt and pepper. Serve over beef, chicken, lamb, pork or tofu.

4. Store leftovers in an airtight jar and use within two weeks.

WHAT IS MARMALADE?

Marmalade is a soft jelly, often citrus-based, that includes the flesh and often the peel of the fruit suspended throughout the jelly base. The sweetness of the jelly is offset by the bitterness of the peel.

Some products and recipes that are called marmalade—onion and tomato marmalades, for example—are actually misnamed jams and preserves.

Why? Perhaps because onion marmalade sounds tastier than onion preserves.

Anchovies get a bad rap in the U.S. They typically appear on “most hated foods” lists. That’s because many people were first introduced to cheap, oily, odoriforus, overly salty and “fishy” tasting examples on pizzas or in Caesar salads at the local diner. (One reason they’re so intense is that casual restaurants don’t take the time to rinse the anchovies, but just scoop them up from the oil.)

But in fact, these little fish can be truly delightful—still with a strong flavor, but one that’s delicious.

The 144 species of anchovies, a salt-water fish related to herring. They live in many of the world’s oceans and seas, including the Atlantic, Indian, Mediterranean and Pacific.

The good brands are things of beauty. Italians—who not only make some of the world’s best food, but as a society have among the most demanding palates—use them as a backbone in many recipes.

If you’re willing to try again—or if you’re already an anchovy fan—you can get absolutely delicious anchovies from Gustiamo.com, an importer of Italian delicacies.

Anchovies: quite lovely, actually. Photo by Kaan Tanriover | SXC.

The anchovies come from Cetara, an enchanting fishing village along the Amalfi coast, on the Gulf of Salerno. They are packaged by Nettuno, a family-run company. Production is completely by hand, using simple but precise traditions of local anchovy preserving.

The best anchovies are caught between March and July, when their flesh is at its most plump; Nettuno only fishes during this period. The fresh anchovies are immediately placed in oak barrels layered with water and sea salt and cured for about five months. The salt used by Nettuno is the exceptional sea salt that is hand-harvested in the salt panes of Trapani from, uncontaminated Sicilian waters.

The result: anchovies that are are soft, moist and plump. It takes only a few seconds to rinse them in cold water and then put them too use.

Get your Cetara anchovies here.

And if you’re a true anchovy lover, try a bottle of Colatura, a descendent of the favorite Roman condiment, garum.

RECIPE: PENNE PASTA SALAD WITH ANCHOVIES

This recipe is courtesy La Cucina Italiana and Chef Andrea Tiberi. It serves 4.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Heat oven to 200°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Drop plum tomatoes into water and boil 30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, remove tomatoes from pot (reserve water); drain, peel, cut in half, and seed.

3. Place tomatoes on baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Bake until tomatoes are partially dried and flavor is concentrated, about 3 hours.

4. Return water to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain, transfer to a large bowl, and toss with a drizzle of oil and pinch of salt. Set aside to cool.

5. Remove tomatoes from oven; transfer to a cutting board and finely chop. Add to bowl with pasta. Add greens, Piennolo tomatoes, 3 tablespoons oil, anchovies, capers, chervil and marjoram; toss to combine. Arrange on plates. Sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt and some fresh-ground pepper.

There’s so much over-sugared barbecue sauce for sale; we wonder why people don’t make their own. It’s easy and more nutritious—and it costs less, too. You eliminate the high fructose corn syrup and can moderate the level of sweetener you do use (agave, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup).

Your homemade sauce uses other superior ingredients, as well: sautéed fresh onions and garlic instead of onion and garlic powders, and crushed tomatoes instead of ketchup.

This video shows just one basic recipe; but if you like the results, you can make hundreds of variations, incorporating your favorite flavors—mustard, vinegar, horseradish, the works.

For expert guidance, pick up a copy of Steve Raichlen’s Barbecue! Bible: Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes.

But start with the simple recipe below. You can make it today with ingredients you already have in the kitchen.

Three of scores of different styles of
mustard. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

We get very comfortable with the brands we buy. Sometimes, we never venture farther than what our mothers bought.

But there are new discoveries waiting on every grocer’s shelf.

Take something as basic as mustard. There are scores of different type beyond the familiar American mustard (a.k.a. ballpark and yellow mustard, like French’s).

In the B’s alone, there are Bahamian, Bavarian, Beaujolais, blackcurrant, black mustard seed, Bordeaux, brown and Burgundy mustards. Varying widely in flavor, they—and many other mustard types—add panache to food.

So pick up something new, just in time for Memorial Day. You may discover a more exciting condiment for burgers, franks, potato salad and sandwiches.

You’ve never added a tablespoon of mustard to potato salad? Consider that second Tip Of The Day (and for starters, try Dijon mustard).

A standard plate of meat and veggies gets a sprinkling of glamour with pomegranate arils. Get the recipe at PomWonderful.com.

If you dine at fine restaurants, you may notice that garniture—the garnish on dish—makes a big difference in presentation.

Garnishes can improve any dish, savory or sweet, plain or fancy—a tuna sandwich, filet mignon, plate of pasta, dish of ice cream. As with fashion, the “accessories” take a look from now to wow.

Deciding in advance on the garnish is as much a part of our planning process as the basic recipe. It’s easy to choose the right garnish, as we show in this article.

The right final touch on the plate makes people take notice. In other words, it’s not just another bowl of tomato soup.

It’s easy to keep garnishes at the ready in the pantry and the freezer. Freeze extra chives, rosemary sprigs, berries and pomegranate arils and you’ll be prepared for most dishes.

Check out our article, Garnish Glamour, for an easy roadmap.