Add a cornichon—along with an optional olive
or cocktail onion—to your Martini (photo by Elvira Kalviste | © THE NIBBLE.

Why aren’t these cute little pickles served with Martinis? People love pickles—and many people don’t like olives or cocktail onions.

Voilà: the Cornichon Martini.

Unlike gherkins, which tend to be sweetened for the U.S. market, French cornichons are tart and very addictive to sour pickle lovers.

You can buy cornichons in most supermarkets. The better brands include cocktail onions and add mustard seeds to the brine. The best brands imported from France (and found in specialty food stores) are Edmond Fallot and Maille. A jar, $11-$12 for top brands, makes a great gift for foodies and Martini fans.
 
 
WHAT ARE CORNICHONS?

Cornichon (core-nee-SHONE) is the French word for gherkin. These are not necessarily the West Indian gherkin, which is a naturally miniature variety of cucumber. Most are European cucumbers harvested at one to two inches in length.

You can also add cornichons to a relish tray, as a garnish for sandwiches and on an hors d’oeuvre skewer with an olive, cheese cube, cocktail onion and chunk of sausage or other meat.
 
 
MORE MARTINI GARNISHES

Don’t let olives and cocktail onions dominate Martini garnishes: Get creative with:

 
You can use a cocktail pick or cut a small slit in the bottom to rest the garnish on the rim. If you have oversize Martini glasses, get longer cocktail picks.

A pinch of heat enhances the taste of dishes from pizza and pasta (the classics are Pasta Puttanesca and Seafood Fra Diavolo) to dips, eggs, salads, soups and cooked vegetables. You can make barbecue sauce, hummus and salsa spicier to taste.; you can create spicy mashed potatoes, spicy rice and spicy yogurt.

Here’s a gadget for people who’d prefer a finer sprinkling than the conventional chunks of crushed red pepper. The find grind creates a more even seasoning:

The Trudeau Red Chili Pepper Grinder has a ceramic grinding mechanism designed for just for chili flakes. For $19.99, it’s an affordable gift for those who like their heat. You can pick one up at Amazon.com.

Grind chili flakes into a more delicate grain—just as with peppercorns. Photo courtesy Trudeau.

Chili flakes are made by roasting red chiles—generally cayenne or New Mexico chiles—then crushing them. The heat comes from the seeds, which contain the chemical capsaicin (cap-SAY-sin).

Check out our Chile Glossary to discover the history, different types of chiles, and why it’s inaccurate to call them “peppers” or chile “peppers.”
  

[1] Spumoni, an ice cream treat for the eye and the palate (photo © Lezza).

[2] Spumoni Baked Alaska. Just use the conventional spumoni flavors in any Baked Alaska recipe. Here’s the recipe for this one (photo © Taste Of Home).

[3] For an easy spumoni ice cream cake, layer the flavors in a loaf pan or terrine lined with parchment so you can pull the frozen loaf up by the parchment handles. Then, cover the ice cream with slices of your favorite cake, and re-freeze until ready to serve (photo © Buona Restaurants | Facebook).

[4] Spumoni cupcakes are a fusion of spumoni and ice cream cake, a miniature ice cream cake with spumoni’s multi-flavors. See how to do it below (photo © Hey There Cupcakes Shoppe).

[5] The easiest way to celebrate: a spumoni sundae (A.I. photo).

August 21st is one of the year’s 50+ ice cream holidays: National Spumoni Day.

Spumoni (spoo-MOE-photo #1) is Neapolitan specialty, with layers of three or four different colored and flavored ice cream: Chocolate, pistachio, and cherry are a popular combination, with vanilla as a fourth.

But you can use any flavors you like, and even throw in some sorbet.

There’s much more to say about this charming ice cream creation, but first:

> The different types of frozen desserts.

> The history of ice cream.

> The history of spumoni is below.
 
 
SPUMONI: ONE OF OUR FAVORITE FROZEN DESSERTS

It’s a fancy dessert that’s easy to make. While photo #1 shows four flavors (cherry vanilla, chocolate, and pistachio ice creams, plus raspberry sorbet) in a fancy design, you can make a simple spumoni terrine by layering chocolate, pistachio, and cherry ice cream (3 cups each).

 
 
RECIPE #2: SPUMONI ICE CREAM CUPCAKES

This spumoni cupcake has a cake base topped with three flavors of ice cream.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Slice the loaf cake in 1″ wide pieces, and use a cookie or biscuit cutter to cut circles that will fit on the bottom of the cupcake liners. Top

2. Scoop a round ball of ice cream atop each cupcake. Place in the freezer. Don’t garnish until ready to serve.

3. At serving time, garnish with your favorite sundae toppings: chocolate sauce, butterscotch sauce, whipped cream and a cherry. If you like, gild the lily with chopped nuts, mini chips, sprinkles or other favorites.

> There are more fun cupcake recipes below.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF SPUMONI

The predecessor of spumoni was a light Italian dessert called spuma (SPOO-mah singular, spume, SPOO-may, plural), meaning foam.

In the days before freezing ice cream was easy, fruit sherbet was stabilized (blended) with a large amount of Italian meringue (cooked, beaten egg white sweetened with hot sugar syrup) or whipped cream.

By the mid–late 19th century, pastry cooks were molding layered, semi-frozen “spumone napoletano” (Neapolitan, or “from Naples” spumoni), slicing it like a cake.

Spumoni means “big foam.”

The hand-cranked ice cream freezer had been invented in the U.S. in 1843, allowing the production of ice cream/gelato that was firm enough to mold.

The culinary pioneer of spumoni was Naples, in the region of Campania in southwestern Italy, followed by efforts Salento in the region of Apulia in the southeast.

The churned gelato was added to molds that were then placed in ice-and-salt freezers to set until firm enough to unmold and slice (a soft semifreddo† texture).

The colorful desert was made from three or four different flavors/colors of gelato, typically cherry, chocolate, pistachio, and vanilla as a fourth flavor.
 
 
Classic Additions

Often added were candied fruits (amarena cherries, citron, orange peel), nuts (pistachios, almonds), chocolate bits, a ribbon of liqueur (typically maraschino or alchermes, a cinnamon-clove liqueur), and/or layer of sponge cake.

As flavors of gelato increased, amaretto (almond), coffee, hazelnut (gianduja), stracciatella (vanilla with shards of chocolate), and strawberry were also used.

In the late 1800s–early 1900s, Italian immigrants brought their spumoni recipes to Argentina, Canada, and the U.S., where the frozen treat became a fixture in Italian bakeries and restaurants.

In the U.S., a simplified variation without the extra nuts and fruits was developed. The “Neapolitan” ice cream brick of layered chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream, available at grocers to the delight of children (and all ice cream lovers).

Today: Spumoni remains a holiday/special-occasion dessert in parts of Italy and a nostalgia dessert in North American Italian eateries. In the U.S. you’ll most often see the pistachio–cherry (amarena)–chocolate trio.

We don’t understand why more Italian restaurants that have a freezer for ice cream don’t offer spumoni, too.

It’s both elegant and fun. There are fine wholesalers who will deliver the spumoni ready-made to the restaurannt. Why the resistance?
 
 
MORE CUPCAKE RECIPES

________________
 
*It became possible to freeze ice cream at home in 1843 with Nancy M. Johnson’s patent for the first hand-cranked ice cream freezer. Her invention provided a practical and efficient way to churn and freeze ice cream by combining a metal cylinder, a crank-turned dasher, and an outer bucket for a mixture of ice and rock salt, replacing less efficient, labor-intensive methods.

†Semifreddo is called frozen soufflé in English. It may look like ice cream, but it isn’t ice cream per se. It is more of a frozen mousse, produced by combining equal parts of ice cream and whipped cream.
 
 
 

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Recently, NIBBLE writer Leah Hansen joined a group of journalists on a press trip to Belgium. She came back very excited about the country, and used her camera to capture tips from everyday life.

DECORATE DAIRY

For a cheese board or a buffet, use fresh herbs to decorate cheese—and butter, too.

Press fresh herbs or flowers into soft or semi-soft cheeses before serving.

Lavender (in the photo) and rosemary look pretty and add a layer of aroma and hint of herb flavor. Don’t limit yourself to these choices, though: Use your eye and your palate to find herb-cheese pairings that please.

You can turn cheese decorating into a party activity. Give each person or small group a Camembert or baby Brie to decorate. Provide some fresh herbs and whatever you have on the spice shelf. Serve the cheeses with fruit for dessert.

Use fresh herbs from the market to decorate butter and cheese. Photo by Leah Hansen | THE NIBBLE.

Switch out the mayo for some fresh,
unsalted butter on a ham sandwich. Photo by
Leah Hansen | THE NIBBLE.

In Belgium and France, butter is the condiment of choice on a ham sandwich.

The flavor of unsalted butter with ham on French-style bread (you need good bread!) is very elegant. Try it. We add a bit of Dijon mustard as well.

Plan your own trip to Belgium to enjoy the history, the cuisine, and lots of great beer and chocolate. These websites will get you started:

BELGIAN WAFFLE TRIVIA

In Belgium, there is no such thing as a “Belgian” waffle. Every region has its own style of waffle (called a gauffre, pronounced GO-fray or GAW-fray) based on two major styles: the Brussels waffle and the Liège waffle.

 
Check out all the types of waffles in our Pancake & Waffle Glossary.

We were inspired by this picture in the beautiful photo gallery of Chicken Fried Gourmet, a blog featuring the cuisine of Shreveport, Louisiana-based chef Michael O’Boyle.

An unusual concept today, pasta with greens dates back several centuries to Italian peasant fare. Meat was costly, greens were grown in the garden: Ecco! (That’s Italian for voilà.)

In addition to adding new flavors to pasta, piling on some greens is a way for the Greens Police to get the family to eat more (or any) greens. Greens tossed in sauce and sprinkled with cheese go down more easily with the resistance.

PASTA WITH GREENS RECIPE

1. BOIL. Cook ravioli, tortellini or a favorite pasta shape, along with your favorite sauce. You can use a red sauce, white sauce, clam sauce, or simply olive oil.

2. SAUTE. While the sauce is heating, lightly sauté baby arugula, beet greens, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach, chopped chard, kale or a mixture.

Tortellini topped with baby spinach. Photo and concept courtesy ChickenFriedGourmet.com.

3. TOSS. Drain the pasta and toss it in the sauce. Reserve some of the sauce and separately toss the sautéed greens in it.

4. GARNISH. Top the pasta with a layer of greens. Serve with grated cheese.
Let us know how you like the recipe, and any tweaks you devise.

Find more of our favorite pasta recipes.

Check out all the types of pasta in our delicious Pasta Glossary.