THE NIBBLE BLOG: Products, Recipes & Trends In Specialty Foods


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GOURMET GIVEAWAY #1: Inspired Cuisine Crème Brûlée Mixes

Enjoy this delicious dessert at home. Photo courtesy Inspired Cuisine.

 

National Crème Brûlée Day is July 27th, but if you keep your pantry stocked with Inspired Cuisine Crème Brûlée Mix, you can enjoy the rich, creamy French custard any day. With these mixes, the custard is easy to make at home in a fraction of the time versus crème brûlée from scratch. No kitchen torch is required because the crispy top can be made under the broiler.

What’s the difference between crème brûlée and other custards? See our Custard Glossary.

  • THE PRIZE:Ten winners will each take home two boxes of crème brûlée mixes to make at home. Make the delicious dessert by itself, or pair it with a nice liqueur like we did in our Grand Marnier Crème Brûlée Recipe. Approximate retail value for each two-box prize: $11.00.
  • To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway:Go to the box at the bottom of our Gourmet Desserts Section and click to enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, August 2nd at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
  • To find out more about Inspired Cuisine, visit InspiredCuisine.com.

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TIP OF THE DAY: Low Carb Burger Salad

We made reservations (a week in advance for an 8 p.m. slot!) at Five Napkin Burger in New York City’s theatre district. We arrived, wended our way through the packed room to our table, perused the list of burgers and placed our order.

Before our (delicious) ahi tuna burger and bacon cheddar burger arrived, the duo at the next table received their order: large salad bowls filled with bell peppers, celery, chopped greens, cucumbers, green beans, radishes, red onion slices, tomatoes and Roquefort cheese—topped with burgers. We asked to see the menu again. There it was, in the salad column: Burger Salad.

The burger salad from L.A.’s O! Burger. Photo
courtesy OBurger.net.

When our burgers arrived, on thick, white-flour buns, we were filled with carbohydrate remorse.

While we ate every bite of our buns, we can’t wait to go back to have a burger salad. It’s available with any of the burger choices (which also include an Italian turkey burger, lamb kofta burger and veggie burger).

On the opposite coast, O! Burger, an organic burger restaurant in West Hollywood, has two burger salad options. The large mixed salad bowl on the menu—baby greens, chick peas, cucumbers, napa cabbage and tomatoes—can be topped with one or two beef, turkey or veggie patties. There’s also a “Super Bowl”: two patties with grilled vegetables.

While diners and other casual restaurants have long offered a “diet plate” of a bun-less meat patty with a side salad, in the hands of chic burger emporia it seems a treat, not a deprivation. The higher quality of meat and salad fixing has a bearing on this, of course.

The best-of-both-worlds burger salad gives you the burger you pine for, while replacing the largely high-carb and nutrition-free bun with a choice fiber- and vitamin-filled salad, tossed with a fine vinaigrette.

For those who don’t want that many veggies, Five Napkin Burger restaurant also serves an Inside Out Burger: a ground chuck patty and pickles wrapped in lettuce leaves with tomatoes and special sauce—no bun.

Burger salad, inside out burger and super bowl deliver low carb nutrition and high palate enjoyment. We’ve started making them at home (with the amazing Built Burgers). The effort is minimal, and it beats trying to get a reservation.

 

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PRODUCT: Mango Vodka

It tastes like mango juice mixed with vodka.
Photo by Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

There are a number of mango-flavored vodkas on the market: Absolut, Finlandia and Van Gogh, among others.

We recently sat down with a bottle of Three Olives Mango Flavored Vodka, made with natural mango flavor. Drinking it in shots was pure pleasure, like a mango cocktail in a bottle—but far more enjoyable for us than any sweet, gussied-up cocktail.

For those who do enjoy sweet cocktails, there is a vast selection of mango cocktail recipes—mixed with mango nectar or other fruit juice such as apple, orange and pineapple; with coconut milk; with other spirits including curaçao, rum, tequila, apple and watermelon schnapps; and laden with fresh fruit—bananas, mango and strawberries, for starters.

While some cocktail recipes are simpler—mango vodka and Sprite, garnished with mango cubes, for example—who needs the Sprite when the vodka tastes this good?

For our second shot, we floated a piece of sweet-and-hot Cowboy Candy—a circle of candied jalapeño—atop the vodka. Next time, we’ll have fresh jalapeños on hand.

We must set forth: We don’t drink to get a buzz. When we want a fruit drink, we’ll have a smoothie, a glass of juice or a Diet Snapple (when we’re counting calories). When we want alcohol, we want to experience the taste of the alcohol.

And who needs the sugar calories of juice, mixers and sweeteners, be they sugar or agave? At 69 calories per fluid ounce, two shots of Three Olives Mango Vodka fit into any calorie plan.

Flavored vodkas are a very individual experience. As much as we didn’t care for the Three Olives Grape Vodka we tried last week (again, neat; it would be better in a recipe), the Mango Vodka was a home run.

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Best Rice Pudding Recipes, With A Gourmet Twist

August 9th is National Rice Pudding Day. Here are five ways to raise your rice pudding recipe to fine-restaurant status.

Try all of them to decide what you think makes the best rice pudding recipe. And as a bonus, check out the rice pudding recipes below.

1. Soak the raisins in Armagnac, Grand Marnier, or other favorite liqueur.

2. Think beyond raisins: Create a medley of small dried fruits that includes raisins as well as dried blueberries, cherries, cranberries, currants and sultanas (golden raisins).

3. Try a different rice such as elegant, long-grained basmati and jasmine or short, oval arborio (used for risotto).

4. Use coconut milk with black rice or red rice for a Thai rice pudding.

5. Serve the pudding in a Martini glass or other glam dessert dish.

Cold and creamy, rice pudding is fine hot-weather fare and great year-round comfort food.

You can order great rice pudding online from Rice To Riches.
 
 
MORE RICE PUDDING RECIPES

  • Blue Rice Pudding Colored With The Butterfly Pea Flower
  • Brown Rice Pudding For Breakfast
  • Dulce de Leche Rice Pudding
  • Gourmet Rice Pudding
  • Hungarian Rice Pudding
  • Layered Rice Pudding Bars
  • Rice Pudding Brûlée With Passionfruit & Rum
  • Rice Pudding Cooked In Oregon Chai
  • Rice Pudding With Leftover Rice
  • Rice Pudding Toppers (Garnishes)
  • Rich Rice Pudding With Quinoa Toffee Topping
  • Thai Rice Pudding With Black Rice
  • Tofu Rice Pudding With Rhubarb & Thai Basil
  •  
     
    FOOD HISTORY

  • The History Of Rice Pudding
  • The History Of Rice
  •  
    [1] If you haven’t made rice pudding lately, try these gourmet twists. If you need a garnish, try a cinnamon stick or some whipped cream.

    Grand Marnier
    [2] A sophisticated addition: Soak the raisins in orange liqueur (photo © South Beach Liquor Store).

     

      

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    White Chocolate “Creamsicle” Bonbons With Blood Orange Ganache

    In the days before air conditioning, it wasn’t easy to sell fine chocolates in the summer. Cocoa butter, one of the major components of chocolate (the one that provides the creamy, luscious mouthfeel), melts at 93.4°F to 98°F.

    Hot weather can make a mess of a chocolatier’s hard work.

    To beat the heat, many chocolatiers made special “summer chocolates” out of what consumers called “white chocolate,” but was actually a product called confectionery coating, a product that substitutes vegetable oil for the cocoa butter.

    Confectionery coating is melt-resistant, but without the cocoa butter it doesn’t taste like chocolate—in fact, if you have a good palate, it may not taste good to you at all. Some chocolatiers still use it. It’s easier to work with and it’s much less expensive than real chocolate.

    If you like milk chocolate but don’t like white chocolate, chances are you may have been eating confectionery coating instead of the real deal.

  • Tip #1: Confectionery coating is stark white in color (like a piece of white paper); real white chocolate has a creamy color with a hint of beige.
  • Tip #2: The ingredients list includes the words “chocolate-flavored” and/or “vegetable oil.”
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    A beguiling summer bonbon, the Blood Orange Creamsicle (photo © Bespoke Chocolates [now closed]).

     
    In today’s air-conditioned world, which includes overnight shipping in ice packs, you can enjoy your chocolate even when it’s too darn hot outside.

    One of our favorite pieces is this Blood Orange “Creamsicle” Bonbon from Bespoke Chocolates: a creamy, top-quality white chocolate shell with a tart-sweet blood orange ganache.

    It’s available for a limited time only, so don’t dawdle. But the company’s spectacular Pretzel-Covered Sea-Salted Caramel, which gets our vote for one of the top 10 bonbons in America, is available year-round. Order as many as you can afford.

  • Call to order: 1.212.260.7103, Eastern Time
  • Read our review of Bespoke Chocolates, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week
  • Visit the company website
  • Find more of our favorite chocolates using the pull-down menu in the right column.
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