Today’s the day for a good Irish stout. Photo
courtesy CabotCreamery.com.  

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (responsibly) with the best Irish beer.

Irish beer has a relatively low profile in the beer world, where Belgians, Germans, Czechs and our own American microbreweries tend to take center stage.

The exception is Dublin’s Guinness. It’s ubiquitous, but it hardly leads a vanguard of the best Irish beers.

In the opinion of many, award-winning O’Hara’s Irish Stout, from a 10-year-old Irish brewery, makes a richer, smoother, more complex stout than the ubiquitous Guinness. It pairs well with everything, including seafood (we even continued to drink it with our dessert, apple pie).

Read our review of Irish beers and see how Guinness compared with Harp Lager, Fuller’s, Smithwick’s Ale and O’Hara’s.

Learn more about beer in our Beer Section.

If you enjoy cooking with oregano, try it fresh instead of dried. While some people prefer dried oregano to fresh because the flavor is more powerful, the beauty of the fresh herb adds a lot to the visual presentation as well as the aroma.

Oregano is a more pungent relative of marjoram—oregano is also known as wild marjoram. If you’re out of one herb, you can substitute the other. Oregano is a relatively new top spice in America: According to one source, it became popular when soldiers returning from World War II posts in Italy wanted more of it. It’s also a staple of Greek cuisine.

Oregano has the highest ORAC value of the seven super spices. As a historical note, Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, used oregano as an antiseptic (it does have excellent antimicrobial properties) and a cure for stomach and respiratory ailments. Some homeopathic practitioners still use oregano to soothe a sore throat.

A dynamic duo of Mediterannean and
Mexican oregano, available from WhiteflowerFarm.com.

As with all produce, there are different varieties that grow in different areas. Italian, Greek and Mexican oreganos, the most common, are used in similar ways. Mexican oregano, or “hot and spicy oregano,” has a more intense, powerful flavor that pairs well with chili, salsa and other Mexican dishes.

You can buy fresh oregano in the produce section of your market, but it dries out quickly and is often just a few steps removed from what you can buy in a jar. Try growing it in a pot at home. Then, don’t be shy—snip those leaves and get cooking!

While it’s most familiar in Italian dishes (the green, earthy flavor balances the acid of tomatoes), chefs use oregano in egg dishes, salads (a must with a Greek salad!), grilled vegetables, and to season lamb, beef (meatballs!) and poultry. Add some to a lemon-olive oil vinaigrette. Try it on grilled cheese sandwiches and of course, in tomato sauce and on pizza. Add oregano at the beginning of cooking (while browning onions or beef, for example) to allow time for the flavor to blend with other flavors in the dishes.

Culinary history: Manhattan Clam Chowder is actually an Italian clam soup, arriving on these shores with Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. The oregano in the recipe comes from its Italian heritage.

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/11/tip-of-the-day-herb-pot-of-oregano/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/06/tip-of-the-day-herb-pots/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/06/tip-of-the-day-herb-pots/#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:59:05 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=11302

It won’t fit on the windowsill, but a French
herb pot from WhiteflowerFarm.com
organizes five different herbs.  

If you don’t have a window herb box (or pots of herbs), it’s time! Once you start snipping fresh herbs, everything you serve will taste better.

We fill flowerpots with basil, chives, rosemary, thyme and tarragon. The plants are beautiful, fragrant and easy-to-grow (rosemary is hardy and can grow into quite a large household plant, and spawn cuttings for all of your friends). We snip fresh herbs into eggs, salads, on pizzas and sandwiches, use the fresh leaves as garnishes for everything—even sorbet.

You can grow your own herb pots from seed, or invest more and buy small pots of herbs that will quickly grow to meet your cooking needs.

This is the beginning of a week of fresh herb ideas. For more flavor ideas, click here to visit our Salts & Seasonings Section.

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/06/tip-of-the-day-herb-pots/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/03/tip-of-the-day-sake-sangria-infused-sake/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/03/tip-of-the-day-sake-sangria-infused-sake/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:59:55 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=11199

Sake “old school.” For a new take, combine
it with sangria. Photo courtesy
Tedorigawa Brewing Company.  

Saké and sangria are currently hot beverage trends. What if you combined them?

Make saké sangria for a party, barbecue or an afternoon break. This recipe is courtesy of Riingo, a Japanese fusion restaurant in New York City.

This is a sophisticated sangria—not your typical party punch.

Recipe For One Cocktail

1. Combine 2 ounces rosé wine, 1-1/2 ounces infused saké, 1/2 ounce peach liqueur, 1 tablespoon mixed fresh fruit (apples, blood oranges, blueberries), a splash of pomegranate juice and a splash of orange juice.

2. Place ice cubes and fruit in large wine glass. Add the remaining ingredients, stir and serve.

Another idea for saké lovers:

Fruit-infused sakés are growing in popularity. You can buy them or make your own.

As with vodka, you can infuse saké with any fresh or dried fruit (we used fresh pears) by steeping it for 2 to 3 weeks in an airtight jar. Keep the jar in a cool, dark place, then use a funnel to decant the saké into the original saké bottle. Serve chilled saké with ice in a wine glass and garnish with the type fruit you infused (not the fruit from the jar—that needs to be tossed).

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/03/tip-of-the-day-sake-sangria-infused-sake/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/02/tip-of-the-day-peanut-butter-makes-great-desserts/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/03/02/tip-of-the-day-peanut-butter-makes-great-desserts/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:29:15 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=11154

Peanut butter cake with malted PB ice cream….and some caramelized peanuts, candied bacon and white beer foam. You can do it! Photo courtesy PB&+Co.  

If you love peanut butter, enjoy it in more than sandwiches, satay and PB cookies. Challenge culinary school students to create gourmet desserts with it.

That’s what Peanut Butter & Company did. Celebrate National Peanut Month by making one (or all) of these award-winning peanut butter desserts:

Find more peanut butter dessert recipes in our Desserts Section.

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Panna cotta with raspberry coulis. Photo
by Kelly Cline | IST.  

March is National Sauce Month.

What do you think of when you hear the word “sauce?” Pasta sauce? Mushroom sauce? Worcestershire sauce?

How about dessert sauce?

From coulis to Crème Anglaise to hard sauce to zabaglione, take a look at all the different types of dessert sauces in our Dessert Sauce Glossary.

Then plan some saucy desserts to celebrate National Sauce Month.

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Instead of generic “wine and cheese,” serve
different wines (or beers) in the same
category and turn your event into a “tasting.”
Photo courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.  

Last week we proposed 10 “Best Picture Cocktails” as party fare for your Oscar party.

But what if your friends prefer wine or beer?

Instead of making a random selection at the store, focus on selecting bottles for a beer or wine tasting.

Pick up to a dozen different kinds of a single beer (amber ale, IPA, stout, chocolate beer and ale) or wines from a particular region (New Zealand, South Africa) or a particular grape varietal (zinfandel, shiraz, semillon).

Guests not only enjoy the Academy Awards, but discover new favorite beers or wines in the process.

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/28/tip-of-the-day-oscar-party-tasting/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/24/tip-of-the-day-have-a-water-tasting-party/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/24/tip-of-the-day-have-a-water-tasting-party/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:38:09 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=10990

It can walk the walk on the grocery shelf, but
can it “taste the taste?” Have a mineral water
tasting party to find out. Photo courtesy
Antipodes.  

Whether you’re looking for a zero-calorie way to get through the Academy Awards or a great way to entertain adults and kids in general, water is the way.

Have a mineral water tasting, comparing domestic and imported waters to your local tap water and club soda (with sparkling waters).

It can be a formal sit-down or a walk-around event, open or “blind”—where you mask the water bottles in wine bags so tasters aren’t biased and you reveal the results at the end.

Select up to 12 waters—perhaps six still and six sparkling—and a great time will be had by all. What should tasters look for? See our article, How To Evaluate Water.

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/24/tip-of-the-day-have-a-water-tasting-party/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/23/tip-of-the-day-eat-the-bloomy-rind/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/23/tip-of-the-day-eat-the-bloomy-rind/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:12:30 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=10961

Eat the rind! Photo of Brie courtesy Whole Foods Markets.  

White rinds on cheese—called bloomy rinds—are meant to be eaten. If you’ve been cutting them away, try them. Connoisseurs consider the rind part of the unique character of the cheese.

The bloomy rind category of cheese refers to those cheeses with snowy white, downy rinds and soft, creamy interiors. Along with fresh cheeses, it comprises the soft cheese category.

On a bloomy rind cheese, the rind is composed of one of the greatest cheese molds, Penicillium candidum, which grows naturally as the cheese ages (the antibiotic penicillin is derived from the same family of mold—it was discovered by accident by Sir Alexander Fleming, who found that a penicillium mold growing in a petri dish had killed the Staphylococcus in the dish).

The bloomy rind is produced by spraying the surface of the cheese with Penicillium candidum before the brief aging period (about two weeks). The mold grows on the outside of the cheese, breaking down the protein and fat inside, making it soft, runny and more complex.

The rinds of all cheeses are edible, but some are best left to other purposes. These include hard rinds of aged cheeses (which can be used to flavor soups and stews) and bandaged-wrapped cheeses: You don’t want to eat the cloth!

]]> http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/23/tip-of-the-day-eat-the-bloomy-rind/feed/ 0 http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/22/cherry-tip-of-the-day-toast-to-george/ http://blog.thenibble.com/2010/02/22/cherry-tip-of-the-day-toast-to-george/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:59:21 +0000 admin http://blog.thenibble.com/?p=10898

It’s the birthday of the Father of Our Country (George Washington, to those of you who didn’t attend grade school in the U.S.).

Washington was quite a fan of egg nog and devised his own recipe that included rye whiskey, rum and sherry.

Toast to Washington with egg nog: He loved
it! Photo courtesy Chefs.com.

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