Grilled pineapple is so very versatile because you can use it for savory or sweet, hot or cold dishes. Grill over indirect heat and the sugars in the pineapple concentrate bringing out a sweet and meaty fruit that is ideal for endless summer recipes.
6 Ways To Use Grilled Pineapple
Slice and serve with grilled pork or fish.
Cut into chunks and toss with salt and lime juice for a smoky fruit salad.
Muddle and use as the base for a sweet-savory cocktail.
Dice and mix with chopped cilantro and chiles for salsa.
Purée and spoon over vanilla ice cream or good Greek yogurt.
Top with ice cream or sorbet.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Wasabi is a rare and expensive root, primarily grown in Japan. It is difficult to grow because it requires a rocky stream or riverbed. The best sushi restaurants prepare it fresh. Once wasabi is grated it loses its complex flavor in just fifteen minutes. More often than not, it is replaced by either prepared wasabi paste, a mix of flavored powder and water, or dyed horseradish, a close relative.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Grilling season is officially here, although I grill all year round, and many are dusting off their grills. I grill everything from meats to fruits and vegetables, but I’m partial to grilling sausages.
The great thing about sausages is that the work is already done. It’s the quick cooking, preseasoned protein your dinner has been waiting for. Here are ways to use that beautiful & delicious sausage.
Potato Salad: Add lightly charred andouille to potato salad.
Burgers: Form loose spicy turkey sausage into patties, then cook. You’ll have instant burgers.
Kebabs: Skewer sliced smoked kielbasa for easy kebabs.
Tacos: Wrap grilled fresh chorizo in a tortilla with avocado and pico de gallo for instant tacos.
Sandwiches: Grill bratwurst with onions and peppers and throw it inside a roll.
Main Dish: Serve grilled merguez (North African sausage) with cucumbers and mint with a dollop of yogurt.
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“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Strawberries are the irresistible taste of spring. They’re juicy, refreshing, great for pies, excellent for picnics, and perfectly in season.
Strawberries aren’t truly berries, because of their seeds that are on the outside. An average strawberry has approximately 200 seeds. If you don’t want the seeds on your strawberries, you can gently peel off the outside with a paring knife.
Strawberries are known for sweet jams and tarts, but they are an excellent base for savory recipes as well, like spicy salsas, glazes for meats, and endless fresh green combinations in strawberry salads.
Ounce for ounce, strawberries have more vitamin C than an orange. They are also full of antioxidants. Consuming a serving a day (about 1 cup of sliced strawberries) will even boost your immune system. These same qualities make strawberries a great exfoliating face mask. Just mash 9 strawberries, mix in 2 tablespoons of honey, and apply over your face (avoid your eyes). Wash away the mask after 10 minutes and your skin will shine.
It’s so disappointing to buy strawberries and they end up having no flavor. Here are ways that you can tell if you’re buying the best strawberries.
The Smell Test! Strawberries that are ready for eating have a sweet, delicious scent.
Color Check! Look for a bright red color. That’s the best indication of flavor. A strawberry with too much white was not picked in its prime.
Bottoms Up! Most of the strawberries are hidden in the box interior. Check the bottom of the box will let you see if there are small pools of juice leaking and if any strawberries have been squashed.
After you’ve brought home your delicious strawberries make sure to keep them dry. Don’t wash them until just before you’re ready to use them. This will keep them lasting longer.
When hulling strawberries you may want to give this trick a try. Instead of chopping off the whole leafy top of a strawberry, poke a drinking straw into the bottom of the strawberry and push it all the way through to the other side, until the top pops off, or use a paring knife or teaspoon to scoop out just the green.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
If you’re preparing for an outdoor party or get-together set the stage ahead of time by purchasing disposable plates, cups, silverware, and napkins. Make sure to have trash bags, paper towels, and cleaning supplies on hand. Clear off the counters and dishwasher in advance, so you have an open work space. If you’re dining al fresco for two then, by all means, use real dishes.
During your party or get-together make sure to leave trash and recycling bins accessible to guests. Because you’re unable to monitor everything, recruit a few people to help you take charge of specific tasks like replenishing drinks and periodically clearing away trash.
For cleanup use large trays for transporting food and supplies back to the house. Pack up leftovers, using resealable bags instead of more bulky plastic containers. Soak pots, pans, grill tools, and dishes to make them easier to clean. Designate a family member to clean one section of the yard.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Just a few fresh berries add color and nutrients to a salad, cocktail, or mocktail.
Stock up on fresh berries, wash and freeze them in a single layer on a sheet pan. Then transfer to a freezer bag for future smoothies and baked goods.
Add a handful of berries to a parfait, with yogurt for breakfast or ice cream for dessert.
Gently fold berries into muffin and pancake batter. Cook a big batch and freeze some for easy breakfasts later.
Make into a savory salsa and serve as a dip or over grilled chicken or wild-caught salmon.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Make prep a snap with herb ice cubes, ready to toss in the pan.
Freezing herbs is an excellent way of preserving fresh delicate herbs that cannot be successfully dried. They will lose their fresh appearance and texture, but are still suitable for use in cooking. They should keep for up to 3 months.
To freeze chopped herbs, half-fill ice cube trays with chopped herbs and top up with water. Freeze, and then remove the cubes from the tray and place in freezer bags.
To use, add the appropriate number of frozen cubes to soups, stews, and stocks. Heat until melted. A standard sized ice cube tray will hold about 1 tablespoon chopped herbs.
Alternately, pack chopped herbs in plastic containers and freeze. Sprinkle them directly into soups and stews.
To freeze whole sprigs or leaves, place in freezer bags, expel any air, tightly seal and freeze.
Alternately, open freeze whole sprigs or leaves on trays. When the herbs are frozen, transfer them carefully to freezer bags, expel any air, seal tightly and return to the freezer until ready to use.
Delicate herbs that cannot be dried successfully, but that are suitable for freezing, include: basil, chives, tarragon, chervil, coriander (cilantro), dill and parsley.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserve
Basil derives its name from the Greek word basilikos, which means royal, because it was regarded as such a special herb that only the king was allowed to cut it. This delicate aromatic herb is widely used in Italian and Thai cooking. Basil has a sweet, slightly pungent perfume, which you will notice just by brushing the leaves. The flavor is elusive but distinct, adding its own particular stamp to a wide range of dishes. Basil has a great affinity with tomatoes and other Mediterranean vegetables such as eggplant and fennel and is the herb you are most likely to associate with Italian and Provençal cooking. Basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan and olive oil make up Italian pesto and its Provençal equivalent pistou. Besides the familiar sweet basil, there are numerous other varieties, many now available in most grocery stores. Purple basil has beautiful dark wine-red leaves, while handkerchief basil has particularly large leaves and Neapolitan basil has crinkly leaves. All varieties have a similar aroma and flavor.
When using basil, add it to dishes at the last minute or use raw, as cooking will destroy the flavor. The leaves bruise easily, so are best used whole or torn, rather than cut with a knife.
Thai basil (also known as Asian basil) has a more aniseed flavor than the basil that comes from around the Mediterranean, with a more pungent aroma. There are a number of varieties, and horapa (sweet basil) comes closest to the basil with which we are familiar, with glossy pointed leaves. Thai sweet basil is used in stir-fries, curries, and salads. Krapow (commonly known as holy basil) is another sweet basil, but with narrower leaves that tend to be dull rather than shiny. The leaves have serrated red or purple edges. Holy basil is the more pungent of the two, with a lemon scent and a peppery flavor.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserve
The labels of many chocolate brands now state the amount of cacao (which means cocoa beans or any part of the beans, including cocoa butter) in their chocolate. The higher the cacao content, the less sugar the chocolate contains. You will also see chocolate described as bittersweet or semisweet. The USDA puts all sweetened dark chocolate, with cacao with a minimum of 35 percent chocolate liquor (ground cocoa beans without any additives), in the same category. These designations vary from brand to brand: one manufacturer’s bittersweet chocolate can be another manufacturer’s semisweet.
The average supermarket chocolate has 55 to 60 percent cacao. Chocolate with more than 60 percent cacao has what is considered a high cacao percentage. You may appreciate its bracing bitterness for eating, but because it contains so much more cacao than traditional chocolate, it can cause problems in cooking. Some contemporary cookbooks include the desired cacao percentage for the chocolate called for in their recipes, a plus for users. Unless a recipe specifically calls for a high-percentage chocolate, you are safest with a chocolate labeled 55 to 60 percent cacao.
Unsweetened chocolate is 99 to 100 percent cacao with no added sugar (some brands add a miniscule amount of vanilla and the emulsifier lecithin).
Milk chocolate has a minimum 10 percent chocolate liquor and includes dry milk solids and additional sugar to make it extra creamy and sweet. The latest trend is toward a higher percentage of chocolate liquor than in the past.
The best white chocolate has a base of cocoa butter, with sugar and milk solids added. Inferior brands substitute other plant fats, such as hydrogenated palm oil, for the cocoa butter, and are labeled white confectionary coating.
Traditionally, chocolatiers wanting a tiny, delicate chocolate coating for their creations would use couverture chocolate, which has a minimum of 32 percent cocoa butter to help it melt more smoothly and increase its fluidity. This extra measure of cocoa butter separated it from regular eating chocolate. However, the standard of today’s chocolate has improved to the point where virtually all chocolate has enough cocoa butter to be considered couverture, so the term is falling out of use.
Use a serrated knife to chop chocolate. Actually, think of shaving the chocolate from the block rather than hacking at it. Start at the corner of the bar and work backward, moving the knife about 1/4 inch after each cut. When you’ve lost the point of the corner, turn the bar around and start at another corner.
It may sound like a time-saver, but don’t use a food processor to chop chocolate. The chocolate can melt from the heat generated by the friction.
Small chunks of high-quality chocolate (pistoles) are a great time-saver if you need to melt chocolate and want to skip the chopping step. Semisweet chocolate chips may look similar, but they aren’t a good substitute. They contain a high percentage of lecithin, which helps them keep their shape during baking, so they don’t melt.
Chocolate has two enemies, heat and water. Use gentle heat when melting dark chocolate, as it scorches above 120 degrees F (milk and white chocolates scorch at 110 degrees F and need extra attention). Keep all surfaces and utensils dry. If you use a double boiler to melt chocolate, never allow the water to boil. The resulting steam can get into the chocolate and thicken it irretrievably, which is known as seizing.
The traditional method for melting chocolate is in a double boiler. It melts at below body temperature, so very hot water works fine. Just bring about 2 inches of water to a boil in the lower pan of the double boiler, then remove it from the heat. Place the top pan with the chopped chocolate over the low pan, making sure the top pan doesn’t touch the water. Chocolate holds its shape even when warm, so stir the chocolate frequently with a rubber or silicone spatula while it melts to check its progress. Be careful not to overheat chocolate, as it can scorch easily.
A variation on the double boiler method is good for large amounts of chocolate. Put the chopped chocolate in a wide stainless-steel bowl. Now place the bowl in a large skillet of very hot water, taking care not to splash any water in the chocolate. With a larger surface area of the chocolate exposed to heat, the chocolate will melt more quickly than in a double boiler.
You can melt chocolate in a microwave oven, but you must be careful not to overheat it. Use medium (50 percent) power for 40 seconds, and then check the chocolate. If it has not melted, continue to melt it, checking it at 20-second intervals. When you take it out of the microwave, the chocolate may not look melted, but sometimes brief stirring will push all or most of it to the melted stage. If all the chocolate has not melted, return it to the microwave for about 15 seconds at medium power. Because of the wide variability in the power put off by microwave ovens, you will have to learn to judge how quickly your microwave melts chocolate.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
The orange carrot we know and love today came originally from Holland, but up until the Middle Ages, all carrots were purple. Gardeners often delight in such oddities, but you will be very lucky to find any purple specimens available in stores or supermarkets.
Carrots contain large amounts of carotene and vitamin A, along with useful amounts of vitamins B3, C and E. When eaten raw, they also provide potassium, calcium, iron and zinc, but these are partly destroyed with cooking.
Almost all vegetables have a better flavor if they are grown organically, but this is particularly true of carrots. If possible, buy organic ones, or look for the young, pencil-thin carrots that still have their feathery tops attached. These young carrots can be eaten raw, or steamed for a few minutes. Older carrots should be unblemished and feel firm. Carrots should not be stored for too long, but they will keep for several days in a cool airy place or in the salad drawer of the refrigerator.
The age of carrots is a guide to how they should be prepared. The valuable nutrients lies either in or just beneath the skin, so if the carrots are young, simply scrub them. Medium-size carrots may need to be scraped with a knife before cooking them and large carrots will need to be scraped or peeled. Carrots can be cooked or eaten raw. To eat raw, they can be cut into julienne strips and tossed with a dressing, or grated into salads and coleslaw. They can bee cooked in almost any way you choose. As an accompaniment, cut them into julienne strips and braise in butter and cider. Roasted carrots are delicious, with a melt-in-the-mouth sweetness. Par-boil large ones first, but younger carrots can be quickly blanched or added direct to the pan with a joint of meat.
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved
