Corn fritters are a delicious side or first
course. Photo © Monkey Business | Fotolia.

December 2nd is National Fritters Day: Fry up whatever you’d like.

If you’d like to try pumpkin fritters, here’s a recipe.
 
 
CORN FRITTERS RECIPE

Ingredients For 4 Servings

Preparation

1. BEAT the egg yolk until thick. Add corn kernels, chives and tomato/red pepper.

2. SIFT together and stir into the corn mixture: flour, baking powder, salt and paprika.

3. BEAT the egg white until stiff and fold into corn mixture.

4. DROP the batter from a tablespoon into oil heated to 370°F. Cook until a delicate golden brown, turning once. Drain on a paper towel.

It was a revelation—so creamy and luscious. We kept going back for more. The following year, Mario Battali kindly published The Babbo Cookbook, providing us with the recipe (below).

If you don’t have time to make it, try pouring extra virgin olive oil over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Make sure it’s top quality and fresh (oil begins to oxidize when the bottle is opened, so if you don’t use it often, buy small bottles).

Create a sundae by adding shaved chocolate* (more elegant than chocolate chips) or other garnishes (berries, candied nuts, chopped brittle, toffee pieces or whatever catches your eye). We often add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt.

Why is this recipe called gelato instead of ice cream? How do they differ?

The simple answer is that gelato uses more milk than cream, and is more dense (less overrun, or air, is beaten in than with ice cream—but you can’t control the overrun with a home ice cream maker). Here’s the full scoop on the difference between gelato and ice cream.

Ingredients For 2 Pints

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the egg yolks and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Use the whip attachment to beat them for 5 minutes on medium speed, or until the mixture is thick and very pale and forms a ribbon when the whip is lifted.

2. CONTINUE beating and drizzle in the olive oil; beat for 2 more minutes.

3. ADD the milk and cream and continue to beat until all ingredients are combined.

4. FREEZE in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

5. PLACE in the freezer in a covered container until frozen, about 4 hours or overnight.

6. SERVE plain, with a garnish (see above), or à la mode with your favorite cake, pie or brownie.
 
 
Here’s an Olive Oil Ice Cream recipe with shaved Parmesan cheese.

Affogato is a coffee lover’s delight. It’s a scoop (or more) of vanilla gelato, topped with a shot of hot espresso. In Italian, the word means “drowned.” You can drown the gelato further with a flavored syrup or a shot of liqueur.

Depending on how you make it, affogato can be a beverage—think iced espresso with a scoop of gelato—or a dessert.

In this cooking video, Giada Di Laurentiis makes the dessert version. She tops vanilla gelato with homemade sugar syrup flavored with gingerbread spices and hazelnut liqueur, then adds the hot espresso.

 
What’s the difference between gelato and ice cream? Find out!

[1] Tapioca pudding (photo © J. Java | Fotolia).

[2] Cassava root, the source of tapioca. It’s poisonous when raw (photo © David Monniaux | Wikipedia).

Tapioca pudding used to be as popular as rice pudding and was served in school lunchrooms. While its popularity began to wane some 50 years ago, it’s still popular with people who like creamy puddings.

Modern processing of tapioca began in the second half of the 19th century. As an easily digestible starch, tapioca pudding was often prescribed for children, the elderly, and the infirm.

> But you be the judge. A recipe is below, along with the origins of tapioca.

> The year’s 24 pudding holidays are also below.
 
 
WHAT IS TAPIOCA?

Tapioca is a starch derived from the root of the cassava (pronounced kuh-SAH-vuh, also called manioc, arrowroot, and yuca—not yucca), a woody shrub native to South America that is cultivated for its starchy, tuberous root (a major food source, cooked like potatoes).

Tapioca is also a thickener. Add a tablespoon of arrowroot (dried ground cassava) or two tablespoons of quick-cooking tapioca pearls to berry pies or other pie recipes known to be runny. The arrowroot or tapioca will “thicken the sauce” as the pie bakes.

Raw tapioca is poisonous because it contains naturally occurring forms of cyanide. The milky, bitter liquid (yare) squeezed out of the pulp was used to make poisonous darts.

In the Tupi-Guarani* language, the processed cassava is called tipioca. Tipi means residue and ok (not O.K.) means to squeeze out. This describes how the starch is produced—by steeping the crushed root fibers in water and squeezing out the liquid.

Spanish and Portuguese traders inadvertently transposed the word to tapioca.
 
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*The Tupi-Guarani are one of the main indigenous ethnic groups of Brazil. It is believed that they first settled in the Amazon rainforest, but spread southward beginning about 2,900 years ago to gradually occupy the Atlantic coast of what is now Brazil.

This recipe couldn’t be easier. Just bring the ingredients to a boil and let stand for 15 minutes. The recipe, made by our mom, is adapted from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. BREAK the egg into a medium saucepan and beat with a fork (just enough to blend the white and yolk).

2. ADD the tapioca, sugar, salt, and milk. Stir over moderate heat until the pudding boils.

3. REMOVE from heat; let stand for 15 minutes. The pudding stiffens as it cools.

4. STIR IN the vanilla and pour the pudding into a serving bowl or individual ramekins or goblets. Refrigerate for several hours or until ready to serve.
 
Variations

 
 
THE YEAR’S 24 PUDDING HOLIDAYS

Custard holidays are also included here. Custard is a specific type of pudding that is thickened with eggs. Puddings can be thickened with starches like cornstarch or flour, in addition to eggs. So, while all custards can be considered puddings, not all puddings are custards.

Mousse, on the other hand, is not a pudding. While both are creamy and served chilled, they are made differently and have different textures. Mousse is light and airy due to the incorporation of whipped ingredients like egg whites or cream, while pudding is denser, typically thickened with cornstarch or eggs, and cooked.

> Here’s how American pudding is different from British pudding. Both types are listed.

> Have a pudding party! Here’s how to set up a pudding buffet.

 
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*A British pudding is a steamed cake or other dessert.

†The Yorkshire pudding holiday is celebrated twice a year: the first Sunday of February in the U.K., and October 13 in the U.S. and everywhere else.

‡Why two tapioca holidays? June 28th is a broader National Tapioca Day celebration, July 15th celebrates tapioca pudding specifically. Tapioca is also used as a gluten-free flour, as a thickener, and in different cultures for noodles, crepês, and crispy snacks. There’s no clear explanation for why there are two similar days so close to each other.
 
 

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Matcha is the Japanese ceremonial tea. It’s shade-grown green tea. The leaf is deveined and then stone ground into a fine powder. The bright green powder is whipped into water that is heated to just before boiling. The result: a smooth, vegetal sweetness with no astringency.

Matcha is the type of green tea used to make the popular green tea latte. You can purchase it at most tea shops and tea departments of fine food stores, or online.

You can enjoy your matcha latte hot or iced. Given the weather, let’s start with the iced. Thanks to The Republic of Tea for this recipe. You’ll find a link to a hot green tea latte recipe at the end of this post.

If you hold the whipped cream, you’ve got a healthy drink: antioxidants from the tea, protein and calcium from the milk and sweetness from agave nectar, a low-glycemic yet delicious sweetener (our favorite).
 
 
FROZEN MATCHA (GREEN TEA) LATTE RECIPE

Ingredients For One Drink