The Bitten Word

Easter: Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits

Gourmet (January 2008)

We both have Southern grannies who can crank out a batch of biscuits faster than you can say "batch of biscuits," so we've always been a little disappointed with our biscuit efforts.  Without fail, our biscuits over the last few years have been too thin, too small, or too crunchy.   Mr. Scott Peacock has shown us the error of our ways. 

Easter: Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad

Martha Stewart Living (April 2008)

When planning our Easter brunch, we knew that we needed a few dishes to "lighten up" the menu.  With eggs, ham, biscuits, and gravy already on the menu -- not to mention carrot cake for dessert -- salads were definitely in order. 

We decided on a fruit salad and also a new recipe from Martha Stewart Living, a Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad.  Our search for a light but delicious salad was over. 

Easter: Planning a Brunch

It had been a while since we had invited a group of friends over for a meal, and we thought Easter was the perfect time to invite friends.  There are a few things we did that made the event easy and not overwhelming.  So here are a few brunch tips from The Bitten Word.

1.  Lists:  We made three lists that helped us keep track of everything: who we like, who we hate, and what we were wearing. 

Just kidding. 

Our three lists were:  (1) Who was coming, (2) Ideas for dishes to serve, and (3) Ingredients we needed for those dishes. 

Maybe those are common sense, but it helped keep us focused. 

2.  Plan your serving dishes: A smart lady we know (Z's mom) taught us this trick, which helps since we don't have that many dishes:  match your serving dishes with the food you plan to serve prior to the day of the vent. 

We simply wrote the names of our brunch dishes on index cards, and dropped them into serving platters or bowls.  It helped us know if we had enough dishes, or if we needed to make an emergency run to the Crate & Barrel Outlet (which we did the day before this brunch). 

St. Patrick's Day: Chocolate Stout Cake

Bon Appétit (September 2002)

We'd been craving a rich, gooey chocolate cake for a while. Our St. Patrick's Day dinner gave us the chance to try this amazingly delicious Chocolate Stout Cake, which we found in an old back-issue of Bon Appétit.

To cut to the chase, this should be your go-to chocolate cake from now on, regardless of the season. The stout adds this fantastically dark, malty earthiness to balance the sweetness of the sugar and chocolate. And the stout helps the cake stay rich and moist.

In short, drop everything you're doing right now. Run to your home. Make this cake.

St. Patrick's Day: Irish Soda Bread with Raisins and Caraway Seeds

Bon Appétit (October 2002)

**Check out our 2009 Irish Soda Bread post**

Though this isn't a new recipe from Bon Appétit, it seemed appropriate to stick with the magazine for an accompaniment to our Irish Corned Beef and Vegetables.  We have virtually no experience baking bread, and therefore had assumed that making Irish Soda Bread would be a difficult task. 

We were very wrong.

St. Patrick's Day: Homemade Irish Corned Beef and Vegetables

Bon Appétit (March 2008)

**Check out our 2009 Corned Beef and Cabbage post**

St. Patrick's Day already seems like a long time ago, even if it was just last week. We decided to go full on Irish this year (or, at least, uh, American-Irish) with corned beef and cabbage. And we accepted the Bon Appétit challenge of brining your own corned beef.

But let's jump ahead to the moral of this story:  Brining our own beef for eight days produced disappointing results. 

Before we get to that, though, let's talk about attempting to find Insta Cure #1.

Bon Appétit's recipe for corned beef is very straightforward. It essentially goes as follows:  Brine for four days, flip, brine for four more days, boil until tender.  Simple, right? 

From the recipe, we learned that an additive called Insta Cure #1 is used in most corned beef to give the meat its notable pink color, and to prevent the meat from turning gray.  Gray meat doesn't make for good photos, so we began our search looking for Insta Cure #1 in Our Nation's Capital. 

Corn and Bacon Pie

Bon Appétit (February 2008)

We were dying to try this Corn and Bacon Pie for three reasons: corn, bacon and pie. I mean, how can you go wrong?

Turns out, you can't. Basically a quiche with a cornmeal crust, this pie is a very tasty dish, perfect for a lazy Sunday morning at home.

Lamb Chops with Dried Cherries and Port

Bon Appétit (April 2008)

A word of caution about this recipe: You might want to eat it alone. Otherwise, it could be kind of embarrassing when you tilt the plate up at the end of your meal to lick it clean.

Seriously, it's that good! The balance of the gamey, spicy lamb with the sweet cherry-and-port sauce is absolutely perfect.

Chicken in Riesling

Gourmet (March 2008)

   

We've roasted dozens of chickens but have little experience butchering whole ones. So attempting to "French-style" cut a whole chicken was terribly educational.  Being so hands-on with meat is intimidating -- but also sort of thrilling.  It's fascinating to find the various pieces, and learn how and where they can be separated. 

With little idea of where to begin, we consulted both How to Cook Everything and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Both include instructions on cutting up a whole chicken, but both are somewhat vague in their descriptions (or seemed vague to this chicken-cutting novice). 

Next time, we'll go straight to YouTube, where an abundance of how-to videos are available.  Just don't take lessons from this kid.

Oven Roasted Salmon with Grapefruit and Basil Relish

Cook's Illustrated (March/April 2008)

This salmon, with its puckery, citrusy jolt, may not be the most appropriate dish for a late-winter meal. The grapefruit-and-basil relish might seem more at home adorning a fish straight off the grill on a warm summer night (and that would be delicious).

But you shouldn't wait for summer to try this clean, refreshing twist on oven-roasted salmon.