We recently dined at a wonderfully creative new restaurant in New York City, Frevo.

A cheese course is typically served before dessert, or instead of it. Quite a few connoisseurs prefer to end dinner with cheese instead of something sweet.

Our cheese course consisted of Comte cheese, shaved into pappardelle-size ribbons (fettuccine size works, too), drizzled with honey and topped with a frico of Comte.

Alas, we don’t have a photo of the ribbons of cheese drizzled with honey. They’re hidden under the fricos in photo #1.

You can use any cheese that can be grated into ribbons. These are typically any semi-hard cheese: Cheddar, Colby, Comte, Gouda, Manchego, Provolone, and others†.

If you enjoy fine cheese, don’t wait until your next dinner party. Start pairing sweet condiments with cheese ASAP. In the words of Nike, just do it!

You don’t have to grate it or top it with a frico.
 
 
WHAT’S A FRICO?

A frico (FREE-co) is a delicate, lacy baked cheese thin that originated in Italy*.

The only ingredient in frico is cheese unless you want to add herbs or spices. The grated cheese is scooped onto a cookie sheet and baked until crisp.

You can bake your own, with your cheese of choice and a grater and an oven. Cheese is the only ingredient unless you want to add herbs or spices.

Or, purchase them from Parm Crisps, plain or with different flavors, including Jalapeño and Sesame (photo #5).

But the reason we created this article is not for the frico, but for what Frevo did with it.

It was perhaps the most delightful cheese course we’ve ever had.

They drizzled honey over it, and added a side of honey mousse (photo #1), leading to today’s tip:
 
 
PAIRING CHEESE WITH SWEET CONDIMENTS

The idea is pretty conventional outside of the U.S., although some cheeseboard ingredient lists recommend it.

And in the American South, hosts have long topped a block of cream cheese with preserves or pepper jelly.

So we begin with a selection of sweet condiments that you can serve with your next cheese plate.

 
The condiments can be added as a drizzle over the cheese, a dollop on the plate, a circle of polka dots near the edge of the plate, or your own creative approach.
 
 
OUR FAVORITE PAIRINGS

If these seem bizarre to you, they are time-honored pairings among cheesemongers and connoisseurs. Try it before you judge it!

Why do they work? The flavor combinations are salty plus sweet, mild plus savory, sharp plus fruity.

 
But the wonderful thing about pairing cheese with sweet condiments is that you can mix and match until you find your own heavenly cheese course.
 
 
>>> THE NIBBLE’S GUIDE TO CHEESE CONDIMENTS <<<

[1] Our delightful cheese course at Frevo in New York City. Shaved ribbons of cheese are mounded and drizzled with honey, then topped with the fricos. The side condiment is honey mousse (photo © Frevo Restaurant | New York City).

[2] Frevo has a special device to make long ribbons, but we used our Microplane ribbon grater and made short ones like these from Cheddar, which we mounded on each plate (photo © Microplane).

[3] Black cherry confit with Manchego cheese. Shave the Manchego into ribbons (photo © Murray’s Cheese).

[4] Honey is a delicious condiment pairing with most cheeses. If you don’t have a honey drizzler a.k.a. dipper like the one in the photo, freestyle with an implement you do have. Savannah Bee sells a honey blended specifically for cheese (photo © Savannah Bee).

[5] Parm Crisps are bite-size fricos (photo © Parm Crisps).

*In the Italian region of Friuli, frico refers to a dish of heated cheese and other ingredients, such as potatoes. It is baked in a round pan, is soft, and served in slices (like pizza). There is also a thin, crunchy version, similar to the frico described above, which is used as an appetizer or a garnish. While the first version has been made for centuries,the crunchy version is more recent.

The cheeses in the Semi-Hard category include a broad range of textures, from semi-firm to very firm; and from cheeses that are only weeks old to those aged up to several months or more. Because these cheeses contain less moisture than the soft and soft-ripened types, they hold their shape much better. Examples include young Asiago, Cheddar, Colby, Edam, Fontinella, aged Gouda, Manchego, Provolone and Queso Blanco. The difference between semi-hard and semi-soft cheese is one of moisture: Semi-soft cheese contains more than 45% water, while semi-hard cheeses contain 30% to 45%. A cheese can start as semi-soft, then move to semi-hard via aging, which evaporates the moisture.

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[1] Bake your own Irish soda bread with this recipe. Photo © The Baker Chick.

[2] Turn a loaf of Irish soda bread into French toast or bread pudding. This recipe from McCormick has both raisins and caraway seeds. (photo © McCormick).

[3] Irish soda French toast, for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dessert. The recipe is at right (photo © The Shannon Rose).

[4] Irish soda bread pudding. The recipe is at right (photo © The Shannon Rose).

[5] Some Irish soda bread recipes have caraway seeds, some have raisins, some have both and some have neither! These caraway beauties are from Silk Road Spices (photo © Silk Road Spices).

EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to health concerns, most of us won’t be running out today to pick up Irish soda bread. We’d planned these two recipes that use Irish soda bread to make dessert.

We’re sending them anyway, with hopes that they’ll be of use—if not now, then next year.
 
 
We love Irish soda bread so much, that we buy extra loaves to slice and freeze, to extend our enjoyment for a month or two longer.

But if you end up with too much soda bread and not enough space in the freezer, here are two ways to use them the next day or the day after (the bread can be stale, but not rock-hard).

These recipes are courtesy of Shannon Rose Irish Pub, with two locations in New Jersey.
 
 
RECIPE #1: IRISH SODA BREAD DESSERT FRENCH TOAST

Do you really need to top French toast with caramel sauce and powdered sugar?

If you’re serving it for dessert, sure.

For breakfast, brunch or lunch, conventional maple syrup is the way to go.

Ingredients Per Serving

 
For The Batter

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 450°F.

2. WHISK all the batter ingredients together. Heat the butter in a pan.

3. DIP each slice of soda bread into the batter and place into the pan. Cook each side for 3 minutes, until the color is golden brown.

4. REMOVE from the pan and place on a sheet into a 450-degree oven for 3 minutes. Remove from oven and slice each piece in half (at an angle like a sandwich, if the slices allow it).

5. PLATE the French toast and top with strawberries, caramel and powdered sugar.
 
 
RECIPE #2: IRISH SODA BREAD PUDDING

This recipe requires preparation a day (or evening) in advance.

Ingredients For 6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. GREASE a 9″ square pan or a large rectangular pan (e.g. 11″ x 7″) and set aside.

2. CUT the soda bread into 1″ cubes.

3. WHISK the other ingredients together in a mixing bowl and pour the mixture over the the soda bread. Toss.

4. POUR the mixture into the greased pan, cover with foil and let sit overnight.

5. BAKE: Preheat the oven to 300°F and bake the covered pan for 40 minutes. Then turn the oven up to 350°F, remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool.

6. SERVE hot or cold.
 
 
>>> CHECK OUT THE HISTORY OF IRISH SODA BREAD <<<

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

If you have clear juice glasses or anything similar—and some extra time on your hands—you can make these clever egg crêpe omelets.

This recipe takes a bit more preparation than a conventional vegetable omelet, but it’s fun to serve.

How do you eat it? With a fork or spoon, from the glass.
 
 
RECIPE: EGG CREPE CONES

Ingredients For 6 Cones

 
Preparation

1. PREPARE the vegetables. Peel the sweet potato and slice it into thin strips and rub with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Lay the strips on a sheet pan, season with salt and bake at 400°F for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooked through. Set aside.

2. PEEL the asparagus with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and salt; roast on a sheet pan at 400°F until they just start to soften. Set aside.

3. BLACKEN the outside of the red pepper over a gas flame* on the stove. Once black, wrap in plastic wrap and put into a container†, let sit for two minutes. Then remove and rub off burnt skin, remove any seeds, cut into long strips, set aside.

[1] Food fun: The recipe is by Chef Paul Sletten of Abreo in Rockford, Illinois.

[2] Each cone requires two eggs (photo © Karen Andrews | Free Images SXC).

5. ADD the goat cheese, thyme, rosemary and fennel seed to a small bowl. Mix together until combined.

6. HEAT the remaining olive oil in a sauté pan and gently sauté the garlic until soft but not brown. Add the spinach and cook until the spinach has just wilted. Season with salt and set aside.

7. ASSEMBLE: Warm all the ingredients and place the six crêpes in front of you. Imagine each one has a large V in the middle of the crêpe and stack your vegetables in the V (so they’ll be in the right place when you roll the cone). Start with a few slices of sweet potato per cone, followed by some strips of red pepper, then three asparagus spears, next some spinach, two sun-dried tomatoes per cone, and finally, one-sixth of the goat cheese mix.

8. STARTING from the left side, roll up the crêpe in a cone shape with vegetables sticking out the top of the cone. Cut parchment paper circles to wrap around your egg cones and place them into the individual glasses or other containers.

When we made the recipe a second time, for lunch, we used a toothpick to spear the middle of the cone, and served the cones on a plate with a mesclun salad.
 
 
>>> CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF EGGS <<<
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*If you don’t have a gas grill, you can char bell peppers under the broiler. Turn them every few minutes until the skin is blackened.

†We used a quart-size takeout container.

[1] Mirepoix, the basis of much French cooking. In addition to carrots, celery and onions, other aromatics, including garlic, herbs and spices, can be added (photo © Good Eggs).

[2] In addition to carrots, celery and onions, other aromatics, including garlic, herbs and spices, can be added (photo © Good Eggs).

[3] Stocks and broths get much of their flavor from mirepoix (photo © Good Eggs).

[4] Toss mirepoix into scrambled eggs. Here’s the recipe (photo © Just Clean Food).

[5] Julia Child’s roast chicken with mirepoix. Here’s the recipe from Food & Wine (photo © Food & Wine).

Why are meal delivery kits so popular? One reason is that all the ingredients come chopped, measured and ready to cook.

People who want to prepare their own dinners save the time and mess of prepping.

On the other end are people who make their own stocks. They typically freeze raw vegetable ends along with bones for making stocks and broths.

Here’s a third approach:

The next time you’re slicing carrots and celery, onions, bell peppers and other vegetables for one recipe, chop up double or triple the amount and freeze the extra for the next recipe(s).

Just a mini-tip for freezing: Use a heavy-duty plastic freezer bag.

 
Then you’ll be ready the next time you want to cook:

 
 
START COOKING WITH A MIREPOIX

In French cuisine, many recipes begin with a mirepoix (MEER-uh-pwah), also known as aromatics: a combination of chopped carrots*, celery and onions.

Professional chefs refer to it as “The Holy Trinity.”

These vegetables, along with optional ingredients like garlic, herbs, spices and additional vegetables are cooked butter or are added raw or cooked—roasted or sautéed—to sauces, soups, stews and stocks.

In non-butter-based cuisines like Mediterranean cuisines, olive oil is the cooking medium.

Cooking the aromatics helps to release their flavors and aromas, creating a deep flavor foundation for the recipe that follows.
 
How To Measure Your Mirepoix

Recipes will tell you how much to use; but if you’re free-styling, the classic mirepoix ratio is 2:1:1 ratio of onions, carrots, and celery.

How large should your dice be?

It depends on the cooking time. The smaller the dice, the faster they cook.

 
In France, a side dish called matignon, very similar to mirepoix, is cooked and served along with the dish, as a side vegetable.

 
THE HISTORY OF MIREPOIX

Though the browning of aromatics as a base likely dates back considerably, the word mirepoix comes from 18th century France.

The name derives, as do numerous other names of French dishes, from the wealthy employer of the cook credited with establishing and stabilizing it.

In this case, it was Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix (1699–1757), from a lineage that began in the 11th century. The ancestral base, Mirepoix, is a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France.

While historians believe that the aromatic mixture existed long before then, they surmised that he was responsible for naming it after the family and making the preparation popular.

As was common nomenclature, the preparation was named for his employer (as were Beef Stroganoff, Charlotte Russe, Soufflé Rothschild, and many more—others named after celebrities).

Also as was common, alas, unless he was a celebrity chef, the names of the chefs who created these dishes were rarely identified.

The Term “Mirepoix”

The term mirepoix did not appear prominently in French culinary texts until the 19th century. We don’t know exactly what a dish à la mirepoix was like in the 18th century.

Printed recipes appear as early as 1814; the famed chef Marie-Antoine Carême published one in 1816.

There are variations with added ingredients, from garlic, ham or pork belly, even Madeira wine.

Combinations in both the French culinary repertoire and other European cuisines may include bell peppers, chiles, ginger, various herbs, leeks, mushrooms, parsnips, shallots and tomatoes, depending on the preferences of regional cuisines.

The Spanish sofrito, soffritto in Italian, often contains parsley. In Cajun and Creole cuisine, a mirepoix or (jocularly so-called) “holy trinity” is a combination of onions, celery, and bell peppers.

A neighbor on our apartment’s floor cooks with a mirepoix almost every night. The minute we get off the elevator and inhale the heavenly aroma, we want to knock on the door and invite ourself to dinner.

It’s just our fantasy; although we have told her how much we enjoy it.

 
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*For white stock, parsnips are substituted for carrots to keep the color pale.

March 12th is National Baked Scallops Day.

This delicious seafood pasta dish tops lemony linguine with sea scallops that are coated in panko breadcrumbs and baked.

It’s an easy weeknight dish.
 
 
RECIPE: BAKED SCALLOPS WITH LINGUINE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. Rinse the scallops and pat dry. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2. BEAT the egg in a small bowl. Place the flour in a small shallow dish. In a separate bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, grated cheese and garlic.

3. COAT each scallop in the egg, then the flour and then the breadcrumb mixture. Once coated on both sides, place the scallops on a baking sheet.

4. BAKE for 12-15 minutes or until the scallops are opaque and firm and the breadcrumbs have browned. Meanwhile…

5. BRING a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving 1 cup of pasta water.

6. MIX together the lemon zest, juice, olive oil and garlic in a large bowl. Add the hot cooked pasta into a pan with the lemon mixture; stir to coat. Add the hot starchy pasta water to thin the sauce, as desired.

7. DIVIDE the pasta into individual bowls or plates and top with the scallops. Garnish with the fresh parsley and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SCALLOPS

The fossil record shows that scallops were thriving more than 200 million years ago. The earliest known records of true scallops (those with a ctenolium) can be found from the Triassic period [source].

Today, there are more than 300 living species of scallops. All are members of the Pectinidae family, and are bivalves, with a hinged shell.

Scallops are found around the world, deeper salt water.

Unlike mussels and oysters, the scallop cannot close and seal its shell completely. Some species can actually swim!

The edible portion of the scallop is actually the bivalve’s adductor muscle, which it uses to open and close its shell. It uses this function to propel itself through the water [source].

Like most seafood, scallops are a healthy food: low in calories and rich in protein.

They are a very good source of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B12, and a good source of important minerals such as copper, iron, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.

Here are two of our favorite scallop recipes:

 
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*Mornay sauce is a béchamel sauce with added Gruyère cheese, shredded or grated. Variations can include different combinations of Gruyère, Emmental cheese, or white Cheddar. While Mornay sauce is generally associated with a more elegant dish, Mornay sauce made with cheddar is commonly used to make macaroni and cheese (homemade, not prefab).

[1] Celebrate National Baked Scallops Day with this delicious linguine-and-scallop dish (photo © DeLallo).

[2] Raw sea scallops (photo © Citarella | New York).

[3] When you grate a wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano, the flavor is so superior to pre-grated cheese (photo © Y. Yang | iStock Photo).

[4] Scallops in the shell. The white muscle, the edible “meat” portion, is removed for consumption. The red portion is the roe, called coral. It is edible, but has a stronger flavor.