Archives for July 2009

Grilled Peach Salad

July 26, 2009 by Charles 1 Comment

Summer is a good time for fresh fruits and vegetables. But it’s not the best time to spend stuck in your kitchen, laboring over a hot stove. The perfect summer salad solves this potential paradox.

The grilled peaches took me outside for a few minutes, and provided a sweet taste and a vibrant color for the salad. After that, I laid some arugula down as a base, topped it with roma tomatoes, feta cheese, toasted pecans, and a homemade vinaigrette. The salad was ready in fewer than five minutes – which left me plenty of time to enjoy a sunny Sunday stroll in Saint Louis.

Incidentally, if you’re looking for more salad ideas, …

Homemade Vinaigrette

July 26, 2009 by Charles 2 Comments

A simple vinaigrette requires no more than four ingredients and can be whisked up in a matter of seconds. The simple rule for a vinaigrette is vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil, with the olive oil to vinegar ratio at 2:1. A little Dijon mustard helps emulsify the combination.

But since you’re making this at home, there’s no reason to settle for simplicity. You can add diced shallots, roasted garlic, grated ginger, dried oregano, or wild honey to your vinaigrette, tailoring it to the tastes and dishes before you. A homemade vinaigrette will typically …

Tomato Gazpacho

July 16, 2009 by Charles 4 Comments

Tomato gazpacho is not redundant.

Gazpacho got its start in Andalusia, the southern-most province of Spain, sometime between the 8th and 12th centuries – long before the tomato arrived on European soil. Owing to its origins and its meaning – gazpacho comes from an Arabic word meaning “soaked bread” – some food historians believe the Moors brought the dish to Spain as a sophisticated field ration.

Other food historians trace the dish to the early Romans, who soaked their stale bread…

Melon Granita

July 12, 2009 by Charles 2 Comments

Granita siciliana, as the name suggests, is a granular, semi-frozen dessert with Sicilian origins. (Granita means “grained” or “granular” in Italian). Granita is a simple dessert, usually made from pureed fruit and sugar. The mixture is then frozen, and periodically scraped to give the dessert its granular texture. Indeed, breaking up the ice crystals is essential: it gives the dessert its signature crunch, and works to enhance the flavors within the dish.

The sugar and alcohol in the recipe help prevent the mixture from getting too solid. Beyond that, it helps to …

Classic Hamburgers

July 8, 2009 by Charles 2 Comments

Jeffrey Tennyson, an artist and satirist, once remarked that the real American icon is not apple pie, but the hamburger. And Tennyson would know; he spent a good part of his life writing about the hamburger and collecting hamburger memorabilia. When it opened in 1993, Tennyson’s memorabilia formed the core collection of the now-defunct Hamburger Hall of Fame, in Seymour, Wisconsin.

Seymour, Wisconsin, according to some, is the birthplace of the hamburger. In 1885, Charles Nagreen stuck a meatball between two slices of bread, and served the sandwich at the Seymour fair, giving rise to what would later become the modern burger.

Meanwhile, in New Haven Connecticut, Louis Lassen was busy grilling the leftover trimmings …