Homemade burger buns.
 
 
TWO BURGER BUN RECIPES

King Arthur Flour has two recipes:

RECIPE #1: Sesame Burger Buns

Baker after baker commented on the website that these are “the best” burger buns (photo #1).

Soft, gold yellow from the butter and egg, with a hint of sweetness, the flavor may remind you of King’s Hawaiian burger buns.

Use them for burgers or any sandwich. You can switch the sesame for onion or garlic.

Here’s the recipe.
 
 
RECIPE #2: Cheesy Burger Buns

The light cheese aroma of these alluring buns (photo #2) comes from adding grated cheddar or parmesan cheese to the no-knead dough.

In fact, the light cheesy aroma and flavor create what you can bill as “double cheesy cheeseburgers.”

Here’s the recipe.
 
 
MAKE AS MANY AS YOU LIKE. YOU CAN FREEZE ANY EXTRAS.
 
 
SPECIAL BURGER ROLL PAN

This pan (photo #3) was commissioned exclusively by King Arthur Flour to make baking hamburger buns easier. Each pan bakes six large (4-inch) buns.

It’s a versatile pan: Use it for individual pies or cakes, oversized scones, muffin tops, individual frittatas or miniature pizzas.

The nonstick pan is $29.95 at King Arthur Flour.
 
 
WHO CREATED THE FIRST HAMBURGER?

It started with the Tatar armies of Ghenghis Khan!

[2] Add an extra hit of cheese to a cheeseburger by baking it into the bun.

[3] Make perfectly-shaped buns with this special pan from King Arthur Flour.

The Tatars (no “r”) were a Chinese nomadic tribe (ta-ta-er) conquered by Ghengis Khan.

Tartar (with an “r”), the term used by Europeans, comes from the Greek Tartarus, the underworld.

When Ghenghis Khan and his successors pillaged western Europe, the populace (a.k.a. victims) called them Tartars, meaning people from hell. The word referred to all Mongol invaders (no doubt, the nuances of tribes didn’t communicate over the maruading and murder).

Coincidentally, this word was similar to Tatar, so the two were (and are) confused. Over time, the words became interchangeable in use [source].
 
 
TOMORROW: HOT DOG BUNS!
  

[1] Close-up on a school of sardines (photo courtesy AP | Ventura County Star).

[2] Cleaned, cooked and canned by BELA Brands (photos #2, #3 and #4 courtesy BELA).

[3] Our favorite brand, Bela from Portugal.

[4] Open the can and…

[5] Dig in (photo © Food52).

[6] Easy tapas, with tomato or pimento on a baguette slice at Nomad in New York City.

Often, those undesirables weren’t even sardines, but sprats—a different genus, Sprattus in the same family as sardines. They are less tasty cousins of sardines.

To add to the confusion, sprats are sometimes called brisling sardines, after a canned variety from Norway.

The sought-after European sardine, also called the pilchard sardine (photo #1), is species Sardina pilchardus Walbaum. You won’t find those words on a can: You have to know the best brands.

Now we’ve become a foodie nation, and grocers are offering the world’s best. In sardines, that’s the BELA brand. They’re a boon for Mediterranean and Paleo Diet followers, as well as for anyone wanting a quick meal with quality protein.

Check out the way we enjoy them, below.

And did we mention they’re just $3 a can?
 
 
BELA SARDINES

The premium quality “gourmet” sardines from Bela Brands (photos #2, #3 and #4) have found their way into many foodie homes.

The company also sells premium canned mackerel fillets and skipjack tuna in jars; but given the number of words in this article alone, we’ll have to feature them another time.

BELA Brand Seafood is a family-owned business which has been sustainably fishing the southern coast of Portugal, the Algarve, for generations.

The large, juicy, delicious Portuguese sardines have been the main crop in this region for centuries. BELA lays claim to be the best canned sardine there is:

 
And, you get to choose your flavorings, except in the spring water option. Otherwise, the sardines nestle in seasoned organic olive oil:

 
 
HOW WE ENJOY BELA SARDINES

You can eat them at every meal of the day.

_On a grilled vegetable sandwich, with optional mozzarella.
_A sardine Cobb salad, in addition to, or replacing, the chicken.
_A Niçoise salad, in addition to or replacing the tuna; spinach salad with hard-boiled egg.
_Chirashi-style, on a bed of sushi rice or regular rice, with an assortment of vegetables (raw, cooked or pickled, sliced radishes, seaweed or what you feel like. Photo #7, below, adds an egg for a super-protein bowl.
_Place the fillets on top of the salad, or the salad on top of the fillets—for example, under a crown of arugula, mesclun or watercress.
_On pizza: Who needs anchovies?

 
A can of sardines is also a grab-and-go protein boost for backpacking and other energy-sapping pursuits.

Sardines are small, oily fish within the herring family of Clupeidae, ray-finned fishes, important, nutrient-rich food fishes comprising, among others, herrings, sardines, shads and whitebait.

They are also important for fish oil and fish meal—and as food for larger marine denizens.

Sardines are found around the globe today, although all sardines originally came from somewhere in Europe.

The name “sardine” first appears in English in the early 15th century. Some historians say it may be named for the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which sardines were once abundant.

There are four genera of sardines, the two most important of which are:

 
They are commonly found canned, tightly packed in—leading to their metaphorical use to describe a space where people or objects are crowded together.

Canned sardines were a staple of millions of soldiers fighting both world wars. They sustained thousands of workers—the fishermen and packers of Cannery Row in Monterey, California, during the worst years of the Depression [source]. Similarly, they provided important fish protein to ravaged parts of Europe.

Canning is a relatively recent innovation.

In 1795, Nicolas Appert, a Parisian chef and confectioner, began to experiment with conserving foods, without altering their flavor or texture. He ultimately developed a process using a glass jar, similar to boiling the contents in a Mason jar.

In 1810, British inventor and merchant Peter Durand patented his own method, using a tin can [source]. So, canned sardines have been available to export for a bit more than 200 years—and they very high quality and expensive: “gourmet” fare.

But with the Industrial Revolution (from the mid-18th to the mid-19th centuries) things began to change. Fishing grounds became polluted, and some business practices—like labeling sprats as sardines—transpired to create those less-than-pleasing cans of sardines.

Good news: The Portuguese Algarve has no industry, and the ocean waters are clean. That’s another reason BELA sardines taste so good.

Here’s more on the history of sardines.
 
 
WHERE TO GET BELA SARDINES

Check our local markets, or head online to:

[8] Sardines in tomato sauce, chirashi style, from Kitchen Gidget.

[9] Spaghetti and sardines (photo © Taste | Australia).

The Portuguese sardine season runs from May through October (sardines from other waters have their own seasons).

In season fresh sardines even more wonderful, grilled, pickled or smoked. Grilled sardines fresh sardines with potatoes, bread and a salad are a popular summer meal in Portugal—and will be a revelation to you if you keep an eye out for them.

Sushi lovers: head to the sushi bar! Raw sardine nigiri is a treat!

[1] Lots of trimming to come (photo courtesy True Food Kitchen). [2] Stock, ready to use or freeze—or season it and enjoy a cup of broth (photo courtesy Good Eggs). [3] Plan B: Instead of stock, turn those trimmings into a purée of vegetable soup (photo courtesy Botanica | LA).

That’s how it’s been through history, except in affluent homes in affluent countries, whose denizens weren’t scraping for every bit to eat.

Modern cooks who want to minimize waste know that they can add flavor to homemade stocks by saving the carrot peels, celery leaves and trimmed ends, the last scrap of onion before the root, parsley and other herb stalks, wilted herbs, sprouted garlic and onions, the tops of scallions, and many vegetable trimmings.

Consider anything that isn’t rotten or moldy, or on the “Avoid” list below.

Limp vegetables? Stock. Herbs that have begun to yellow? Stock.

Wash and trim the vegetables as usual. Then set the trimmings aside and let them dry a little bit to remove moisture before you bag them.

Toss the ends, leaves, peel, roots and stalks into the same freezer bag—and feel good about not wasting money or contributing to a landfill. (If you’re planning to use them in a week, store in the produce drawer with the air pressed out of the bag.)

When you’re ready to make stock, plan for 2 cups of trimmings per quart of stock from vegetables.

And note that the venerable chef Jacques Pépin, an instructor at French Culinary Institute in New York City, always checks his students’ waste bins to see what they’ve thrown away. For him, scraps are more about flavor and less about thriftiness (although his wife has blocked the process at home; it drove her bonkers).

SAVE THESE TRIMMINGS

 
AVOID: COMPOST OR TOSS THESE TRIMMINGS

What not to use: vegetables with very strong flavors:

*That being said, we once cooked a ton of beets and had lots of leftover red “beet water.” We reduced it and used it to cook white rice. It was fun.

PLAN A: READY TO MAKE VEGETABLE STOCK?

The difference between stock (photo #2) and broth is that broth is seasoned and ready to consume. Stock is left unseasoned, to provide flexibility for different recipes.

You can use vegetable stock in braises, poaching, sauces, soups, stir fries and stews etc. We use it to cook rice and grains, including risotto: half-and-half water and stock (or all stock, if we have too much).

Season it for udon or other Asian-style noodle soup.

Substitute for cream in mashed potatoes, add to the vegetable steamer to infuse flavor, and many hundreds of other ideas.

Ingredients For 2 Quarts Of Stock

 
Preparation

1. HEAT the oil in a stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the vegetables and herbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, 3-5 minutes or so.

2. ADD 4 quarts cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the stock is reduced by half. This should take about 1-1 1/2 hours.

3. STRAIN the stock through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl and discard the solids. Let cool.

4. USE immediately, or transfer to pint or quart containers (or freezer bags, if you prefer), portioning it based on how you think you’ll use it. Ideally use frozen stock within three months.

[4] Trimmings cooked, pureed and turned into a sauce (photo courtesy Vital Choice). [5] This cookbook has delicious recipes for every part of vegetables (photo courtesy Ten Speed Press_.

Make soup. Cook the trimmings (in stock or broth) and turn them into a puréed vegetable soup, like the one in photo #3.

You can also turn the pureed vegetables into a sauce (photo #4).

Good news: Plan B lets you use all the cruciferous vegetables. All those broccoli stalks and cauliflower stems: delicious! We cook them even when we aren’t making soup.

Cook, taste and season. Dilute as desired with stock or milk and voilà: Your trimmings are now a tasty soup.

And you’ll feel good about that!

 
MORE FEELING GOOD

There’s an entire cookbook devoted to using every part of the vegetable (photo #5): From Root To Stalk.
  

[2] One of our favorite ways to serve hummus: topped with salad ingredients and, as a lunch dish, with a hard-boied egg (photo © Shaya Restaurant | NOLA).

[3] Woo hoo, Hope Foods’ chocolate hummus, shown here topped with blueberries.

[4] A hummus sandwich with Israeli salad. Check out these 20 ways to garnish a hummus sandwich (photo © Panera).

May 13th is International Hummus Day.

Over the last two decades, hummus has evolved from a mezze at Mediterranean restaurants to the hottest, most nutritious dip and spread at supermarkets nationwide. It’s the darling of nutritionists, nutritious and versatile, and a better-for-you snack.

Hummus is Arabic for chickpeas. The more long-form name for what we refer to as hummus is hummus bi tahina, chickpeas with tahini. Tahini is a paste made of toasted, hulled sesame seeds, which can be joyed as a dip on its own.

The recipe for hummus is simple: chickpeas, tahini, and seasonings (including garlic), mashed and puréed*.

> The history of hummus is below.

> So are 18 delicious hummus recipes.

> What are mezze?
 
 
THE HUMMUS RENAISSANCE

Two decades ago, the hummus available in the U.S. was the classic: plain. If you didn’t order it at a restaurant or live near a neighborhood with an international market that carried it, you made your own the recipe is easy, once you found a store with tahini).

But since the hummus renaissance, stores have been sagging under the weight of so many brands and so many flavors. We’ve counted more than two dozen flavors among different brands. Our two personal favorites are horseradish and black olive, which we found at Trader Joe’s.

But, we like everything. So we were very pleased to receive samples of a new brand from Hope Foods. If you head to the website now, you can enter to win a year’s supply of hummus.
 
 
HOPE FOODS ORGANIC HUMMUS

There are 11 flavors of hummus. We tried three of them, all especially delicious.

First, the consistency is wonderful, like well-mashed homemade hummus.

While we enjoy the ultra-smooth texture of big brands like Tribe, we welcome the return of toothsome texture, like Grandma used to make (if your grandma’s ancestry was in the eastern Mediterranean).

Second, the flavor selection is a bit more interesting, with black garlic, Thai coconut curry, and spicy avocado hummus (the most popular flavor).

The line is preservative-free, certified Gluten-Free, Non-GMO Certified, OU kosher, and USDA Organic. There’s a store locator on the website.
 
 
HOPE HUMMUS FLAVORS

Currently, the line of hummus includes:

 
Plus Dessert Hummus

 
While we haven’t had Hope’s chocolate hummus, we have had other brands: Thumbs up!

The company also makes guacamole, which we look forward to trying.

“Spread” the word!
________________
 
*Some brands also add olive oil.

THE HISTORY OF HUMMUS

Chickpeas, sesame, lemon, and garlic have been eaten in the Levant† for millennia. Though widely consumed, chickpeas were cooked in stews and other hot dishes. Puréed chickpeas eaten cold with tahini do not appear before the Abbasid period (750 to 1517 C.E.) in Egypt and the Levant.

The earliest known recipes for a dish similar to hummus bi tahina appear in 13th-century cookbooks from Cairo.

Some food historians believe the dish appeared a century earlier, prepared by Saladin, the first sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty (1174–1193). (If so, it was more likely created by a cook in Saladin’s kitchen, the idea of the warlord Saladin-as-cook being tough to swallow.)

Recipes for cold purée of chickpeas without tahini, but with vinegar, oil, pickled lemons, herbs, and spices (but no garlic), appear in medieval cookbooks; as do recipes with nuts vinegar (though not lemon), with many spices and herbs. [source]

Whomever and however, we’re grateful that it came to be part of our [almost] daily diet,

________________

†The Levant is an English term that first appeared in 1497. It originally referred to the “Mediterranean lands east of Italy.” The historical area comprises modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Among other popular foods, Levantine cuisine gave birth to baklava, falafel, kebabs, mezze (including tabbouleh, hummus, and baba ghanoush), pita and za’atar, among other dishes that are enjoyed in the U.S. and around the world.
________________

 
WHAT IS/ARE MEZZE?

Mezze (MEH-zay) or meze is the singular form for a number of small dishes served in the Middle East to accompany drinks (add an “s” for the plural form in English). In some countries, an assorted mezze plate is served as an appetizer.

Each country has its favorites. The ones most often found in the U.S. are:

[5] A delicious mezze plate: babaganoush, feta, hummus, olives, pita and a local touch, pickled carrots—all of which you can purchase ready-made (photo © Good Eggs).

[6] Hummus itself is gluten-free, but not the pita. This gluten-free hummus plate created by Glutino Foods has gluten-free pretzels and crackers instead. You can find gluten-free pita and recipes to bake your own online (photo © Glutino Foods).

 
They are typically served along with Greek-style olives and pita, or other flatbread.
 
 
MORE HUMMUS RECIPES

[1] A beautiful layered salad in a wine tumbler (photo courtesy Riedel Japan). [2] Riedel’s O series tumbler for red wine (photo courtesy Riedel). [3] How many different ways can you use them? See our list (photo Riedel | Facebook). [4] A classic layered salad (photo courtesy Kraft). [5] The most recent layered salad trend: in a Mason jar (here’s the recipe from the California Avocado Commission).

Yesterday’s tip was to use salad as a soup garnish.

Today we’re taking a slightly different turn.

Serve an elegant layered salad in (photo #1) a wine tumbler, like Riedel’s O Red Wine Tumbler (photo #2).

In fact, when you’re not drinking wine from the tumblers, you can variously use them:
 
At Breakfast

 
At Lunch

 
At Dinner

 
 
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WINE TUMBLER & A WINE GLASS?

Like its entire line of fine glassware for wine and spirits, Riedel’s wine tumblers are sophisticated glassware engineered for different grape varietals, to deliver the maximum flavors and aromas. The shape of the bowl and mouth direct the wine to different areas of the palate.

Now, to the stemmed wine glass that has been around for many centuries. It is meant to be held by the stem, not by the bowl.

Stemware was created for elegance, so the heat from one’s hand didn’t warm the wine in the bowl, and so one’s sticky fingers didn’t leave grease marks on the glass.

But, with the increasing casual that has developed over the last 30 years, few people know or care about etiquette, and most people hold their stemware by the bowl.

If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em; so Riedel, the world’s greatest wine glass maker, decided to give people what they want: a bowl with no stem.

The O Stemless Tumblers line did so well, that Riedel has added lines with etched designs and colored bottoms.

They’re an affordable gift. Check out the choices at Amazon.

THE HISTORY OF LAYERED SALAD

Try as we did, we couldn’t find a detailed reference to layered salad before the 1970s. A 2000 article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel refers to a seven layer salad as a fat-laden salad that “helped give salads of the 1950s a bad name” [source].

Ingredients are layered in a glass bowl, with the varied layer colors and textures providing eye appeal. Made for barbecues, parties, picnics, potlucks, it was/is assembled ahead of time and is easy to transport. It can feed a crowd, and was very popular with said crowd.

The layers—as few or as many as the cook desires—commonly include:

 
The original dressing may have been mayonnaise-based or a mayo-sour cream combination. Depending on the cook, bottled Italian or ranch dressing can be employed.

Personally, we skip the shredded cheddar and use a mayo-sour cream-chunky blue cheese dressing.