A terrific combination of flavors. Photo
courtesy Melissas.com.

Sweet-tart grapefruit, tasty fennel, and tangy olive flavors come together with super healthy spinach leaves and grapefruit segments.

 
RECIPE: SPINACH & GRAPEFRUIT SALAD

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. CRUSH the fennel seeds with a mallet or the back of a large spoon.

2. COMBINE the vinegar and fennel seeds in medium bowl. Gradually whisk in oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. TOSS the radicchio, spinach and olives in bowl. Add grapefruit segments and dressing to coat. Serve.
 

Find more of our favorite salad recipes.

May is the month for delicious ramps. Their season is fleeting: late April to early June. They are worth seeking out.

Ramps (Allium tricoccum) are wild leeks—also known as spring onion, ramson and wild garlic. In French, they are called ail sauvage, wild garlic, and ail des bois, garlic of the woods, because of their combined garlic-onion flavor. They look like a more exotic scallion.

Ramps don’t take to cultivation, so for a brief period each spring, they are picked in the wild. The entire plant is edible, from the broad, smooth, green leaves that look like daffodils to the scallion-like bulb.

Wild ramps can easily end up in one’s yard—where they are typically pulled out and thrown away (as our family did), not only because of their long leaves but for their strong garlic aroma. If you notice a plant by this description, take it to the kitchen instead of the trash can.

The name is of English origin, attributed to a folk name, “ramsen,” the plural form of hramsa, an Old English word for wild garlic. Early English settlers of Appalachia—a prime ramp region—saw the hramsa growing. The name later became shortened to ramp.

How To Enjoy Ramps

 
Join Alex Guarnaschelli of the Food Network in the video, as she shops for ramps.

FOOD TRIVIA: The city of Chicago is named after ramps: The plant was called Chicagou in the language of local native American tribe. Seventeenth-century explorer Robert Cavelier came upon a thick growth of ramps near Lake Michigan. When he asked the locals what it was called, he was told: Chicagou.

While our friends were getting ready for Cinco de Mayo parties—a.k.a. “how much tequila can you drink in one evening, in a small New York City apartment or cramped Mexican restaurant?”—we were enjoying the lovely view from THE NIBBLE’s conference room while sipping memorable tequila with the international business director of Tequila Herradura.

While some 1,300 different tequila brands are produced by Mexico’s 146 distillers, only a handful are exceptional. If your palate demands the best—the smoothest and most complex—look no farther than Herradura. It is so well made that the blanco (silver)—the unaged expression that is typically recommended only for mixed drinks—is a beautiful sipping tequila.

In the case of Herradura, which ages its tequilas twice as long as government regulations require, in new American oak barrels, even the typically unaged silver/blanco is aged for 1 and a 1/2 months (this imparts a slight yellow tinge to a type of tequila that is usually clear). It’s one of the practices that makes a great tequila.

RECOMMENDATION: Get yourself a bottle (it retails for about $35) and start sipping snifters of fine tequila. Using a snifter instead of a shot glass focuses the wonderful aromas. Point your nose to the middle of the snifter top.

We enjoyed all four expressions of Herradura tequila. We started with the silver (or blanco, aged 45 days; enjoy with appetizers), and each expression got better and better: the reposado (aged 11 months; enjoy with fish and chicken), the añejo (aged 2 years; enjoy with moles and other sophisticated dishes) and the extra-añejo (Selección Suprema, aged four years; enjoy sipping, like a fine Cognac or aged rum).

When tequila makers take shortcuts to get their products to market faster (in order to get paid faster), the resulting practices create tequila headaches:
1. Not waiting a full 7 years for the agave plant to mature.
2. Not trimming all the leaf parts away from the piña (the heart of the plant that is used to make tequila), thus incorporating bad juice from the leaves.
3. Using chemicals for faster fermentation.
4. Cooking the piña too quickly (think of it as microwaving a steak instead of grilling it).

It goes without saying: You’ll never get a headache from Tequila Herradura, just happy memories.

A fresh-picked, healthy gift.

Last month we wrote about California Avocados Direct, a business started by a fourth-generation California farm family.

The plump Hass avocados are fresh-picked to order and shipped that day, along with a note from the farmer about when they’ll be at peak ripeness (in about 10 days, so there’s plenty of time to plan how to serve them).

We sent some gift boxes to family members as a Cinco de Mayo surprise, and got such enthusiastic thanks that we’ve added the avocado gifts to our new gourmet gift store, TheNibbleGourmetMarket.com.

Avocados are a perfect gift for healthy eaters, anyone with allergies (gluten, lactose, etc.), vegetarians and vegans. And since fresh fruit and vegetables are de facto kosher, we’ll be sending them as gifts to kosher friends as well.

Check out these lovely avocado gifts, and think of them as a healthy and nutritious present for Father’s Day (Sunday, June 21st). Shipping is included in the price, and your gift supports family farming in America.

You may have enjoyed a bag of plantain chips—we love them. But a batch of hot fried plantains is its own delicious experience.

While yellow-brown, brown and black plantains can be peeled like a banana, it is much more difficult to peel a green or yellow plantain.

Instead, take a paring knife, slice off the ends of the plantain and slit the skin lengthwise. If the plantain is very long, you can cut it in half or in thirds before you slit the skin (photo #3).

Then, simply slide your thumbnail under the slit and pry off the skin.

What to do with your plantains?

If you like French fries and fried zucchini, make fried plantains.

> Check out the history of plantains, below.
 
 
RECIPE: FRIED PLANTAINS

For the best fried plantains, choose plantains with skin that is dull yellow with patches of black, or completely black. This is when the plantains are at peak ripeness.
 
Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. CUT the plantains into 1/8″ slices. Add vegetable oil 1-1/2 inches deep in a large skillet and heat to 375°F.

2. FRY the plantains for 1 minute or more on each side until golden and crisp on the outside, but soft on the inside, for a total of 2-3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

3. SEASON as desired and serve while hot.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF PLANTAINS

Plantains are believed to have originated in Southeast Asia.

Archeologists have focused on the Kuk valley of New Guinea around 8000 B.C.E. as the area and time where man first domesticated the banana or the plantain—they are the same species and the subspecies can’t be determined.

The fruit was also domesticated in other areas of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific between 8000 B.C.E. and 5000 B.C.E. Here’s the path of its journey around the world.

Plantains and bananas are now grown in Africa, the American tropics, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the islands of the Pacific.
 
Not A Tree, But An Herb

Although they look like trees (photo #4), banana and plantain plants do not have a woody trunk.

Their base is made of huge leaf stalks—a conical false “trunk” formed by the leaf sheaths of long spirally arranged leaves.

They are technically giant herbs!

These giant herbs spring from an underground stem, or rhizome. Most varieties grow 10–33 feet tall (3–10 meters).

The fruits grow in bunches, and like bananas, are green when picked and ripen into yellow, then brown-speckled yellow.

Plantains are a staple in many areas of the world. They are in the same genus (Musa) as sweet bananas.

Globally, plantains account for about 85% of all banana cultivation worldwide [source].
 
Cooking Bananas (Plantains) Vs. Dessert Bananas (Sweet Bananas)

Sweet bananas are referred to as dessert bananas, while plantains are referred to as cooking bananas.

[1] Fried plantains, a delicious side instead of potatoes (photo © Panther Media | Bhofack2).

[2] Serve them as the starch component of meals (photo © Picha | Pexels).

[3] The trick to peeling plantains is to cut a long slit and pull the peel apart (photo © Melissas’s Produce).

[4] It may look like a tree, but plantains are a giant herb (photo © Esperanza Doronila | Unsplash).