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.
  

Here’s a tribute to aspic: a savory, gelatin-like food made from meat or fish stock. A classic French dish created centuries before the day of commercial gelatin* it was very difficult to prepare. In the beginning, cooks relied on the natural gelatin found in the meat to make the aspic set. In modern times, unflavored gelatin is used to ensure success.

*Gelatin was made in ancient times by boiling the bones; powdered gelatin was invented in 1682 by Denis Papin. The concept of cooking it with sugar to make dessert dates to 1845 and an inventor named Peter Cooper.

Recipes dating back to the Middle Ages show that clarified meat broths were turned into transparent, savory jellies. To make aspic, beef, fish, pork or poultry is cooked slowly to make a dense consommé, which is strained and clarified with egg white until it is clear. The clarified broth is then molded, can be served sliced or diced, served with a salad or as a garnish with meat and fish.

In the days before refrigeration, aspic covering boned meat or fish kept the proteins from spoiling: The gelatin keeps out air and bacteria.

Vegetables, herbs, slices of meat or fish, sliced hard-cooked eggs and pieces of cheese can be added. Like the pretty Jell-O fruit molds that came much later, aspic was an opportunity for the cook to show off his or her creative skills.

There are also vegetable aspics, the most popular of which is tomato aspic, made with tomato juice and gelatin. Unlike regular conventional aspics, tomato aspic is opaque.

Aspic became popular in the early 20th century. Wealthy people had cooks who could spend the time to create them. Aspics were de rigeur on a buffet table.

But with the wane of heavy French cuisine in the 1960s, in favor of California cuisine and International fare, savory aspics faded away.

Make A Savory Aspic Or A Sweet Gelatin Mold

You can find recipes and create a classic recipe, but most Americans prefer sweetened gelatin molds. Try this classic, made with orange juice, pineapple juice, lemon juice, chopped oranges and shredded carrots—plus unflavored gelatin, sugar and salt. We like to add diced cucumber, celery and sliced radishes for crunch and reduce the sugar for more of a sweet-savory balance.

Gelatin molds are retro fun, and a cool dessert or snack in this hot weather. You can also serve it on the side with a green salad, or mound the salad on top of the sliced gelatin, as we showed in yesterday’s tip.

For classic savory aspics, take a look at:

UPDATE: Dang it! Two days after we published this post, the orange-carrot recipe was removed from circulation—can’t imagine why! Here’s a similar recipe: