The julep is a classic example of a cocktail with history. It is thought to have been created on a horse farm in the late 1700s. Farmwork was very laborious and took a toll on the body. There were no over-the-counter pain relievers at the corner drugstore back then, but there was a lot of whiskey. The whiskeys at that time didn¡¯t taste as good as they do today. So, with the help of a little sugar and mint, the ¡°medicine¡± went down easier. The muscles would relax and it was then time to get back to work. They called this remedy a ¡°Morning Bracer.¡± At the end of the day, one would also need an ¡°Evening Bracer.¡± The cocktail then went on to become a refined drink of the South, now synonymous with the first Saturday in May and the running of the Kentucky Derby.
Fiddle-dee-dee! Nothing says ¡°Southern¡± like the combination of peaches, iced tea, and bourbon. All you need is a front porch. The peach brings out the fruitiness of the bourbon and adds a delicate sweetness.
Lemons, olive oil, basil... the only other ingredient needed is sun.
In hindsight, stuffing a meatball with a tot seems like an obvious idea, but I couldn¡¯t find any evidence of it being done before! After testing the merits of precooking the tots to add an extra dimension of brown flavor and crispness, my tasters unanimously agreed that the uncooked tots worked better. This is because browning the tots essentially seals them inside a crust, keeping them separate from the meat surrounding them. But when you wrap the thawed tots in meat, they really become one with the meatballs and the delicious pork flavor permeates the tots.
Why have a burger with some tots on the side when you can just build a burger with tots as the bun! These mini tot sliders are first and foremost insanely cute. Believe it or not, they are actually pretty easy to make, too. But most important¡ªthey are extremely delicious. If you serve your friends these sliders when they come over for the big game, they will lose their minds!
The herbaceousness of butter lettuce lends itself perfectly to panna cotta. There is a gentle bitterness that cottons to the fat in the cream here. Then come the strawberries and their bright sweetness. A finish of olive oil, and this truly wows.
Nordic palates prefer beets to be pickled. No wonder, the flavors of this sweet, earthy vegetable shine with a kiss of vinegar and herbs. Be patient: it takes about a week for the spices to marry. The longer you wait, the better these beets will taste.
Make this salad at the height of summer, when heirloom tomatoes look like they¡¯re about to burst open with flavorful juices. You can use any small, freshly dug potatoes, but try to get a mix of colors.
Japanese noodles and edamame serve as the bed for cubed mango, scallions, basil, cashews and grilled Halloumi cheese. Drizzle the entire tangle with the cilantro-coconut dressing and dive into this summery dish.
Baked goods do something peculiar when boiled with milk: they dissolve and become stretchy and elastic. Throw the mixture into a blender, and this strange concoction becomes velvety and thick, like pudding. I first encountered this magic trick at a restaurant full of them, called Alinea. There, a pudding made by boiling brioche and cream was served with raspberries for an elegant ¡°toast-and-jam¡± bite. Since then, I¡¯ve applied the same principle to just about every other kind of bakery treat I can get my hands on¡ªlike gingerbread or devil¡¯s food cake. Most recently, I¡¯ve been reducing glazed donuts to a velvety pudding to flavor ice cream.