The Bitten Word

Traditional Swedish Gravlax with Mustard Sauce

 

The real reason we wanted to make gravlax actually goes back to New Year's Eve a few years ago.

Picture it: Dec. 31, 2011. Rhinebeck, N.Y. We had driven up to ring in the new year with our friends Ingela and Anders -- and half a dozen other folks -- at Ingela's parents' house in the beautiful upstate town of Rhinebeck.

As you might not be surprised to learn, given their names, both Ingela and Anders hail from Swedish stock. And they like to celebrate New Year's with a full-on traditional smörgåsbord. That means herring, boiled potatoes and pickled vegetables. It means sharp cheeses and sausages. It means made-from-scratch meatballs in a warm, creamy gravy.

And it means gravlax. (It also means many, many shots of akvavit accompanied by rounds of traditional Swedish songs. Of course we didn't know any of the words, but the akvavit made us not seem to mind.)

The gravlax was a highlight, the perfect balance of salty and sweet, shot through with that great, bracing dill flavor and served with a tangy mustard sauce.

It was an epic night. Here's a photo of us vamping with Ingela at some point in the evening:

Anyway, when we had our disappointing gravlax experience last week, we knew just who to call to set us straight with a traditional Sweish recipe for gravlax. 

We set up a phone date with Ingela's mom, Paula.

 

Carla Hall's Last Supper Buttered Tarragon Peas

Carla's Comfort Foods

Is Carla Hall the most flat-out enjoyable person in the food world right now?

In our book: Yes.

A friend invited Clay to join him to see Carla discuss her new book, Carla's Comfort Foods, here in DC last week. The Top Chef competitor, co-host of The Chew and District of Columbia resident utterly charmed the crowd with her Padma Lakshmi impressions, tales of cooking under pressure and just overall Carla-ness (Hootie hoo!).

But it was the disucssion of peas that grabbed Clay's interest. Peas are one of Carla's favorite foods (ours too, Carla, call us!). She told the crowd that a recipe she'd made on Top Chef, for Buttered Tarragon Peas, was left out of her first cookbook. Since then, it's been the most requested recipe she gets from fans of the show. 

With a new book out, it was time for Carla to fix the peas omission.

We love the idea of serving these peas for an Easter brunch or lunch, so we thought we'd give them a spin.  

Holiday Whiskey Punch

Garden & Gun (December 2013)

Sure, chicken is in our holiday survival bunker.

But so is whiskey. And it's already come in handy this year. 

For Thanksgiving last week, we stayed in D.C. Our friends Trevor and Owen offered to host, and a crowd of nine of us gathered for dinner. We were asked to bring cocktails and dessert. We considered a second run at the pumpkin-y Pilgrimage Cocktail, which we had liked very much. But we always love an opportunity to try a new recipe.

So we chose this Holiday Whiskey Punch from Garden & Gun.

First, let's talk about the magazine. How is it, exactly, that we haven't yet talked about Garden & Gun with you?? 

We made mention of it over a year ago, and haven't quite circled back to it yet. If you haven't seen an issue before, the content is a mix of food, sport and Southern culture. There's not quite as much food in each issue as we might like (which is perhaps one of the reasons we haven't cooked from it before). But the magazine is beautiful and the photographry is absolutely georgous. If you have someone on your holiday list who loves magazines but might enjoy something a bit more unusual, give them Garden & Gun. Seriuosly. We have so many friends who have subscribed in the past few years, and they all love it as much as we do. 

Don't worry, though -- there are no guns in this punch. Let's talk about it. 

Baked Winter Squash Soup

The New Basics

Back in July, we got a note from Margie, a reader who's been with us since nearly the beginning.

For years we've traded emails back and forth, with recipe recommendations and tips and such. 

Margie doesn't live far from us, and this year she had a little gardening adventure, planting Marina del Chioggia squash.

Turns out Margie's squash were extremely productive. So at the end of August, Margie asked if we'd like to have one. Would we? Of course! Margie's daughter kindly dropped off a big ol' winter squash on our doorstep so we could play around with it. 

Big is the operative word here. Here's a look at the squash itself. Want to guess how much it weighs? 

Red Velvet Cake

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook

Last week was our friend Jim's birthday!  And our friends Tara and Brian had a really wonderful idea: Throw a surprise dinner party for Jim, totally themed around his favorite cookbook: The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook. (Sidenote: How great an idea is that?? We're totally stealing that sometime.)

So that's just what we did. Fifteen friends secretly gathered at Jim's house in Baltimore while Tara took Jim to brunch. People came from far and wide: D.C., New York, Salt Lake City, North Carolina. Jim was genuinely surprised when he walked in to his house -- decorated with streamers and filled with his friends preparing an amazing dinner.

 

We had volunteered to take on dessert (a cunning ploy on our part that meant we got cook early and then show up at Jim's and sip on gin and tonics while other people scurried around preparing dinner). Brian and Tara were the leads on dinner itself. The meal started with Fried Green Tomatoes with a Buttermilk-Lime Dressing, followed by Macaroni and Cheese, Slab Bacon Grits, Succotash Salad, and Grilled Ham Steaks with Chow Chow.  

Everything was slap-your-mama delicious. 

But we need to talk about this cake.

We generally like a red velvet cake. It's got a nice, mild chocolate flavor and a sweet cream cheese frosting. It's totally Southern and a tad bit tacky -- in the best way possible. Our favorite description ever of a red velvet cake was from a New York Times story back in 2007: "The color, often enhanced by buckets of food coloring, becomes even more eye-catching set against clouds of snowy icing, like a slash of glossy lipstick framed by platinum blond curls." That feature also refers to red velvet as the "prom queen of the bakery case." 

But when it comes to this red velvet cake in particular, we have to say, we weren't really huge fans.

Making Meringues

Sometimes we marvel at the smallest things in the kitchen. 

Last week, we had an occasion to make meringues -- a new baking endeavor for us. 

Meringues have very few ingredients -- they're mostly sugar and egg whites. But this mere combination of sugar and egg whites can transform so easily and quickly into something else altogether, that we found ourselves literally in awe in the kitchen. 

We love that feeling, spurred by a moment of cooking when you know you've really witnessed something interesting. Or that you've learned to do something for the first time. 

The Buckeye State Ice Cream

Getting older is a gift.

And today, Clay is getting older. (Well, technically, we're all getting older today, but it's actually Clay's birthday.) 

We celebrated last night by having four friends over for dinner. There was wine and salads and grilling and much laughter. 

But there was also ice cream. And not just any ice cream. Homemade ice cream. With chocolate and peanut butter. From Jeni's. 

What to say about this Buckeye State Ice Cream? 

It's smooth and sweet. The peanut butter flavor is deeply rich and creamy, and perked up by occasional bits of salt. The chocolate is right at home. It's all immensely satisfying and indulgent.

It's....perfect. 

Like birthdays, this ice cream is a gift. 

Bo Ssam with Ssam Sauce and Garlic-Scallion Sauce

Momofuku, via The New York Times

There was a time when the thought of serving dinner for 16 would have scared the daylights out of us.

But that's just the challenge we faced last weekend, when through a series of circumstances we ended up hosting a large group of our friends for dinner (well, part of a dinner, but more on that below).

We needed a dish that would easily serve a group on a Saturday night, and we didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen.

We decided to go with this Bo Ssam served with two sauces, a Ssam Sauce and a Garlic-Scallion Sauce.

Bittens, are you sitting down?

We hope so, because this dish is about to BLOW. YOUR. MINDS.

This dish is, in a word, epic.

The Last Scene of Summer: Makers-and-Coke Cake

Here's how summer ended for us. 

We spent Saturday on the beach in North Carolina with 5 friends. It was a perfect day. Jumping waves in the ocean, bobbing along and waiting for the next big one. Sitting on the sand, each of us with a book in hand, trying to get through them before sundown. And talking about the fall, what we're looking forward to, what we're excited about, and, of course, what we look forward to eating. 

It also happened to be our friend Ralph's birthday. To celebrate, we decided to bake a cake. The drink of choice among our friends is Makers Mark bourbon from the great state of Kentucky, mixed with either a Coca-Cola, a Diet Coke or soda water.

The two of us were both quiet familiar with "Coke cakes," having grown up with them at countless church potlucks and family gatherings.

So in honor of Ralph's birthday, we thought, why not try a Makers-and-Coke Cake?

Chinese-Style Eggplant

Adapted from The Yangshuo Cooking School

We're awash in eggplant right now. 

Our CSA is having a bumper crop of eggplant. In a given week, we can easily receive three to seven pounds of eggplant. In a household of two, that's a lot of aubergine. (If you're unfamiliar with CSAs, we have a post that explains what a CSA is and how it select one.)

But we were eager for eggplant season to start this year. And we were ready. We have old standby dishes like this Eggplant Parmesan recipe (we've already made it once this month). And earlier this year we found another eggplant recipe that we loved, with these Soba Noodles with Eggplant and Mango (and it's on the docket to make again). 

But we were especially excited for eggplant season because we've been waiting to use this recipe we learned back in November when we were traveling in China. During a visit to Yangshuo, near Guilin in Guangxi Province in the Southern part of the country, we spent most of one day in a cooking class. We made five great dishes, but this eggplant was a standout.