A delicious spring salad. Photo courtesy
LearnToCook.com.

Make hay while the sun shines; ditto with the fleeting vegetables of spring.

What makes this a spring salad? Seasonal ingredients, including asparagus and green peas. The recipe, from LearnToCook.com, serves 4. The warm tomato vinaigrette can be used with any green salad, any time of the year.

RECIPE: FRESH PEA & ASPARAGUS SPRING SALAD

Ingredients

Preparation

1. PEEL thick stemmed asparagus about halfway up stalk. Otherwise, remove white/light portion at end of stalk.

2. SHELL the peas. Leave raw or blanch, if desired.

3. BOIL salted water in a large pot. When boiling, add the asparagus. Cook until just tender, about 5-7 minutes. Drain and immediately put asparagus into ice water bowl. Leave for a couple minutes and drain again. Lay on a dishtowel and dry. Cut the asparagus in half or in thirds. OPTIONAL PREPARATION: We steamed the asparagus in the microwave.

4. COMBINE the lettuces, chives and parsley in a large bowl. Pour up to half the vinaigrette over the greens. taking care not to drench them in dressing (less is more).

5. ADD the peas and asparagus. Toss with the salad. If needed, add a little more dressing; season with salt and pepper. Serve.
 
WARM TOMATO VINAIGRETTE

Ingredients

Fresh peas from the pod are heavenly, raw or cooked. Photo by Gaetan Lee | Wikimedia.

Preparation

1. HEAT the olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat and add shallots. Turn the heat to low and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes. Do not brown.

2. ADD ½ cup tomatoes and simmer 3 to 5 minutes. Add vinegar, garlic, wine, salt and pepper. Simmer another 15 to 20 minutes until reduced to a thick sauce.

3. SEASON to taste and stir in remaining tomatoes and capers.

4. SERVE warm on top of the salad.

The Gin Rickey. Photo courtesy Tanqueray
Gin.

The latest version of “The Great Gatsby” opens in cinemas today, begging the question, what did Gatsby serve at those wild parties?

We know from the novel that Gatsby was a bootlegger. In the summer of 1922, when novel is set, Prohibition was two and a half years old. (Read this delightful article on Jay Gatsby by Kevin Roose, who explores how Gatsby made his money and whether author F. Scott Fitzgerald may have attributed more wealth to him than he could actually have had.)

Aside from the Gin Rickey, the novel doesn’t mention what else people were drinking at those weekend-long extravaganzas. But given the popular cocktails of the Prohibition Era, Tthe Martini and the French 75 most certainly would have been on the menu.

So get your cocktail shaker ready and mix up your own Jazz Age cocktail menu for Mother’s Day. This is Part 1; Part 2 presents two more 1920s cocktails, the South Side and the White Lady.

GIN RICKEY RECIPE

Why did the Gin Rickey alone get mentioned in “The Great Gatsby?” It is said to have been the preferred pour of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s a wonderful warm weather drink.

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. Build in a highball glass with ice. Stir and top with soda water.

2. Garnish with a lime wedge.

FRENCH 75 COCKTAIL RECIPE

Made from gin, Champagne, lemon juice and sugar, the French 75 was created in 1915 by Harry MacElhone at the New York Bar in Paris (later called Harry’s New York Bar). It was said to have such a kick that it felt like being shelled with the powerful French 75mm field gun, also called a 75 Cocktail or a Soixante Quinze. The French 75 was popularized in America at New York City‘s famed Stork Club.
 
Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Shake ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

2. Strain into a rocks glass and top with champagne. Garnish with a lemon peel curl.

The French 75, a sparkler. Photo courtesy Tanqueray Gin.

FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE COCKTAIL RECIPES.

The Greek cousin of nachos. Photo courtesy Chobani Greek Yogurt.

Today’s tip looks at adapting popular recipes to other cultures. As an example, we’re giving Tex-Mex nachos a Greek makeover—a fresh spin on a party classic that uses feta and naan or pita crisps instead of Cheddar or Jack cheese and tortilla chips. It also adds some heartiness with ground lamb.

This recipe, from Chobani Greek Yogurt, makes 6 servings. Enjoy it with beer, wine or iced mint tea.

GREEK NACHOS RECIPE

Ingredients

For The Yogurt Salsa

For The Nachos

A delight for feta fans. Photo courtesy Chobani Greek Yogurt.

Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 400°F.

2. BROWN ground lamb in olive oil over medium heat until fully cooked; then drain oil.

3. RUB naan bread with small amount of olive oil, sprinkle with salt, cut into triangle wedges with pizza cutter and place on baking sheet. Bake for 5-10 minutes to desired crispness.

5. COMBINE yogurt, cucumber, onion, feta cheese, salt, and cumin in a food processor; process to desired smoothness. Add more onion, cucumber, and/or feta cheese as desired.

6. ASSEMBLE nachos by placing triangle wedges of naan on a plate, then fresh spinach, then ground lamb, yogurt salsa, olives, tomatoes, more feta cheese and italian herb seasoning on top as desired.

Find more recipes at Chobani.com.

Both the chocolate cake and yellow cake
are excellent. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

Along with hoards of other New Yorkers, we go cupcake crazy. Every time a new cupcake shop opens, no matter how far away the neighborhood, we go running into the subway with great enthusiasm—usually because of a rave review from a person or publication.

Most of the time we’re disappointed: The cupcakes taste like muffins, not cake; the chocolate cupcakes lack intensity of chocolate flavor; and the buttercream is too sugary. Let everyone else ooh and aah over such cupcakes: Our palate sets a higher bar.

House Of Cupcakes, a winner of Food Network’s Cupcake Wars program, has just arrived in Manhattan’s West Village.* House of Cupcakes gets it right.

Both chocolate and yellow cakes are excellent: light but full of flavor. The buttercream has just enough sugar, but not an overload. As a result, the cupcakes are spot-on and never cloying, despite the generous amount of frosting. There are also sugar-free and vegan cupcakes.

*It’s locared at 101 Seventh Avenue South at Grove Street (Sheridan Square).

House of Cupcakes makes more than 35 varieties of cupcakes, baked and decorated in-store daily. Mini-cupcakes, breakfast cakes, cookies, sugar cookies, push pops, cake pops and pull-apart sheet cakes (made from cupcakes) are also on the menu, along with custom and special occasion cakes (birthday, baby shower, etc.). A full line of hot and cold beverages is served.

The original House Of Cupcakes opened in Princeton, New Jersey in 2008. The overwhelming success of the store caught the eye of the founder of Party City, who helped the one-shop business develop into multiple locations and franchising.

He also cleverly snapped up licenses for Disney, Nickelodeon and Marvel characters, Barbie, Care Bears, Hot Wheels and professional sports teams including the New York Yankees, New York Mets, New York Giants, New York Jets and more in the works.

The net result: a cake and cupcake with wares that satisfy. Handsome gift boxes in Tiffany blue make a gift of these cupcakes a royal experience.

Every cupcake has festive decor. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

For more information on House of Cupcakes, visit HouseOfCupcakes.com or become a Facebook fan.

If you’d like your next career move to be a cupcake store, ask about a franchise and tell us when you open: We’ll be by for more cupcakes.

Whole espresso beans in high-design
packaging. Photo courtesy Filicori Zecchini.

Once upon a time, most of the espresso served in America was imported from Italy. In the 1970s, when coffee bean stores began to proliferate in the U.S., some people began to buy espresso that was roasted locally—from Don Francisco’s in L.A., Green Mountain Roasters in Vermont, Peet’s Coffee in Oakland, Starbucks in Seattle, White Coffee in New York, and numerous others.

Now, returning to the roots, a venerable Italian espresso roaster, Filicori Zecchini, is bringing its beans from Bologna, Italy, to tempt espresso-loving Americans.

The coffee has attracted fine restaurateurs in sophisticated coffee towns from New York to Honolulu. When restaurants pioneer, consumers follow.

So until a Filicori Zecchini café opens near you, you can buy the beans on Amazon. There are seven blends in whole beans and pods. Hopefully, they’ll soon be coming to a retailer near you. The company also sells fine teas, cocoa and other products, including the chocolate and mint sauces used in the recipe below.

So you don’t have to go to Italy for an authentic espresso experience; that experience has come to you. At a recent tasting at Rosemary’s restaurant in New York City, which features the coffee, we couldn’t stop drinking cup after cup of classic espresso and specialty espresso drinks.

As a treat for an espresso-loving friend, family member or colleague, can purchase bags online at Amazon.com, which carries several of the company’s seven blends.

The menu at Filicori Zecchini cafés is packed with tempting coffee drinks, all delicious. We particularly were attracted to this “Cialdino After Eight,” a special ice cream cone filled with espresso, chocolate and mint whipped cream.

Unfortunately, the cialdini—plural of cialdino, for the type of ice cream cone—is not currently sold on Amazon with the company’s other products. But don’t let that stop you from making this delcious drink in a conventional espresso cup or a small glass:

RECIPE: AFTER EIGHT COFFEE

Ingredients Per Drink

A memorable after dinner drink, the After Eight from Filicori Zecchini.

 
Preparation

1. POUR chocolate topping into cup or cone. Follow with espresso.

2. TOP with mint whipped cream.

3. GARNISH with chopped chocolate and mint leaves on the top. Serve with a side of After Eight mints or cookies.

MINT WHIPPED CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients

 
*If adding creme de menthe, substitute vanilla extract.
 
Preparation

1. USE a whipped cream dispenser or whip the cream by hand. To beat by hand…

2. CHILL the bowl, beaters and cream thoroughly before beginning. Using an electric mixer, whip the cream, mint extract and sugar in the chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Makes about 2 cups.

Learn more at FilicoriZecchini.it and follow the brand on Facebook: and Twitter.
 
WHAT IS ESPRESSO

Espresso is not a type of bean; it’s a type of dark roast applied to the raw bean, as well as a method of preparation, the coffee beverage produced by an espresso machine.†
 
Discover more about espresso and espresso drinks in our Espresso Glossary.

†Technically, espresso is a beverage made from 7 grams of finely ground dark roast coffee, that produces 1.5 ounces of extracted beverage under 9 bars of brewing pressure at brewing temperatures of around 190°F to 200°F, over a period of 25 to 30 seconds of brew time.

How bland would the fish and asparagus
look without the tomatoes? Photo courtesy
Galli Restaurant | New York City.

Did you ever wonder why some restaurants throw slices of hard, tasteless tomatoes into a salad? The simple answer is: to add color, which makes the dish look more appetizing.

No matter how delicious a dish may be, the presentation needs a hit of color—green, red, yellow—to give it a lift.

That’s the rationale for the ubiquitous sprig of parsley and the red berry and/or mint leaf atop rice pudding and vanilla ice cream.

Much of the food we eat is beige or otherwise earth-toned. So do a color check on everything you serve.

If it’s a sweetened food—from cereal to apple pie—add some color with raspberries or sliced strawberries, or fan a large strawberry to top a piece of pie or pound cake.

RED GARNISHES ROCK

For savory dishes, use cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes or diced red bell pepper. Sliced red jalapeño works if you like the heat. All can be marinated first, in a vinaigrette or flavored olive oil. In essence, the garnish becomes a mini salad.

If you buy sundried tomatoes, look for a bright red color and use them up relatively quickly. They oxidize to a blackish red over time.

Other red garnish options: radish slices (or the retro radish rose) or a sprinkling of red spice (paprika, chili flakes, pink peppercorns) along the rim of the plate.

Shredded red cabbage, with or without a vinaigrette, and shredded radicchio leaves are other options. If you’re near a good farmers market, look for amaranth and red chard.

 
MORE GARNISH IDEAS

There are dozens and dozens of everyday ingredients that can be used to garnish. Check out our article, Garnish Glamour.

And beyond nutrition, color is another reason to add brightly colored vegetables to your meals.

May 9th is National Butterscotch Brownie Day, a bar cookie better known as the blondie—short for blonde brownie. The batter—flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and vanilla—is yellow (blonde), as opposed to chocolate brownie batter.

Butterscotch brownies don’t need to have inclusions (chips, nuts); but today’s blondies typically combine butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.

According to Food Timeline, blonde brownies predate the chocolate version by about 10 years. Around 1896, a molasses-flavored bar cookie (no chocolate, cocoa or chocolate chips) called a brownie appeared. The name honored the elfin characters featured in popular books, stories, cartoons and verses of the time by Palmer Cox (the Eastman Kodak Brownie camera was also named after these elves).

After the later introduction and popularity of chocolate brownies, became known as a butterscotch brownie (history of the brownie). The name “Blondie” surfaces in the 1980s. It was not named for Dagwood Bumstead’s wife.

In this recipe. cookbook author Dorie Greenspan uses toffee bits instead of butterscotch chips. She also adds some coconut, which you can keep or omit.

The recipe is from Dorie’s book, Baking: From My Home To Yours (it makes you want to get an invitation to Dorie’s home, ASAP).

RECIPE: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

Ingredients

Photo courtesy LovinInTheOven.com.

 
*You can chop up any toffee you have on hand.

The blondie recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s
book, Baking: From My Home To Yours. Photo
courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Preparation

1. CENTER a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet. Prepare a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer and a large bowl.

2. WHISK together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. BEAT the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated.

4. ADD the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition; then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter.

5. STIR in the chips, nuts and coconut, using a rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best you can.

6. BAKE for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown color.

7. TRANSFER the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack right side up and cool the blondies to room temperature. Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2-1/4 x 1-1/2 inches.

FOOD 101: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUTTERSCOTCH & TOFFEE

Both start with sugar, butter and water. Then, it’s a question of the heat and any added ingredients.

Here’s the scoop.

You can celebrate May 9th, National Moscato Day, with a glass of Moscato: the slightly sweet white wine pairs well wherever an Alsatian Gewürtztraminer or Riesling would be at home (see the food pairings below).

But for National Moscato Day, we present two cocktail recipes, courtesy of Gallo Family Vineyards, one of our favorite Moscato makers.

MOSCATO DAY CELEBRATION PUNCH

Serves 6-8 people.

Ingredients

Try a Moscato-Tequila punch. Photo courtesy Gallo.

Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a punch bowl or large pitcher filled with ice.

2. GARNISH and serve.

A Gimlet made with Moscato instead of gin. Photo courtesy Gallo.

MOSCATO GIMLET

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a coupe glass.

2. GARNISH with lime wedge and serve.

ABOUT MOSCATO

Moscato is a lighter-style white wine, lower in alcohol (5%-8% ABV, about half the alcohol of other wines). It is popular with brunch, dessert or as an apéritif. It is grown around the world. The Italian bottlings, from Italy’s Piedmont region, are called Moscato d’Asti: named after the grape, Moscato, and the Italian town of Asti, the center of production. Asti Spumante is sparkling Moscato.

Straw-colored Moscato is known for its fruit (often peaches and tangerines, depending on region), its floral fragrance fragrance and its subtle sweetness.

PAIRING MOSCATO WITH FOOD

Don’t store Moscato: It’s meant to be drunk fresh and vibrant in the year it is vinified. Serve it with:

 
SEE ALL THE AMERICAN FOOD HOLIDAYS.

People regularly top plain Greek yogurt with fruit, granola and other sweet ingredients to create yogurt sundaes or parfaits.

But what about savory toppings?

When Pinkberry recently added conventional Greek yogurt to its frozen yogurt shops, among the fruit flavors were two savory yogurt sundaes:

 
We liked them, and they inspired us to use vegetables and other savory toppings on our plain Greek yogurt, as well as vegetable-fruit mixes. An ingredients template follows so you can do the same.

Pinkberry’s Tomato-Basil Yogurt Sundae. Photo courtesy Pinkberry.

Vegetables

 
Fruits

 
Sauces

Pinkberry’s Sunflower Cucumber Sundae.
Photo © The Wandering Eater | Flickr.

Toppings

 
SWEET YOGURT SUNDAES

We’d be remiss if we didn’t supply the recipes to Pinkberry’s sweet yogurt sundaes with Greek yogurt:

 
*Giardinera is a mixture of pickled vegetables, Italian in origin, that can include carrots, cauliflower, celery, onions, red bell pepper and zucchini, carrots and cauliflower, pickled vegetables in red- or white-wine vinegar. It is typically eaten as an antipasto, and is also delicious on sandwiches.

Since it was invented in the 1860s, Eggs Benedict has been a posh addition to the breakfast-lunch-brunch menu. It was created by the chef at a tony New York restaurant, Delmonico’s, for a wealthy customer, Mrs. LeGrand Benedict (here’s the history of Eggs Benedict).

The original recipe topped two toasted English muffin halves with round-cut slices of ham, poached eggs; and Hollandaise sauce. Over the years, the more conveniently-shaped Canadian bacon replaced the trimmed ham.

The ham substitutions continued, gaining momentum among creative chefs in modern times. Why not create your own reinvention of Eggs Benedict for Mother’s Day or other special occasion? Select your options from these categories of ingredients:

English Muffin Substitute

Classic Eggs Benedict. Photo courtesy American Egg Board.

Note: You need a type of bread that will soak up the egg yolk. Pita, for example, doesn’t work here. Steer clear of regular pancakes and waffles. They take what should be an elegant dish to McGriddles territory.

Ham/Bacon Substitute

 
What about everyday bacon strips? Eggs Benedict should be a special dish. By all means serve poached eggs with bacon—just not on an English muffin with Hollandaise sauce.

Similarly, fried eggs, sausage and gravy should remain their fine casual selves, and not be adapted into a Benedict-style variation.

Portabella Eggs Benedict, a vegetarian
option. Photo courtesy Mushroom Council.

Hollandaise Sauce Substitute

 
Consider how you can flavor a basic béchamel to match the ham substitute. For example, add dill to the sauce for lobster, horseradish and lemon zest for crab cakes.
 
Garnish

FOOD TRIVIA: THE HISTORY OF BRUNCH

The term, a combination of breakfast and lunch, was coined in the U.K. in 1895 to describe “a Sunday meal for Saturday-night carousers.” This first reference in print was an article in Hunter’s Weekly (source).

Brunch eliminated the need to rise early for breakfast. Instead of the conventional post-church early Sunday dinner, the new meal, served around noon, started with a course of toast, marmalade, tea. coffee and other breakfast foods before moving on to some heartier fare.

And the rest is delicious history.