I’ve never met a ceviche I didn’t like. Sometimes, nothing can stop a serious seafood craving like sushi, sashimi or ceviche. They require the freshest seafood and veggies you can get your hands on. And other than some fine chopping, they require little else. The acid in citrus juices basically “cooks” the seafood in a process very similar to applying heat, but when I use shrimp in ceviche, I place them in some boiling salted water first…although very briefly. This recipe is a great appetizer for you and your guests.   Crazy colored shrimp, thanks to blood oranges.   For the poachi ..read more

Fast food is a relative term. What we Americans think of as fast food is not what, say, the Italians think of as fast food. We think of drive-thru burger joints serving greasy, salty and fatty food. The Italians think fast food is something that simply doesn’t take all day to cook! If you can use the freshest of ingredients, and serve it in the time it takes to sip a half a bottle of wine while chatting with a friend, it’s fast food Italian-style. Years ago, we visited the island of Capri in Italy, and one of the dishes we enjoyed was an incredibly simple pasta and tomato dish called spaghett ..read more

It’s so easy to make your own mustard. And really good mustard. Mustard that hasn’t been sitting on the store shelf for a year. Mustard with real flavor. Once the mustard is made, you’re supposed to wait a few weeks before using, letting its heat mellow a bit. But I enjoy it right from the start. Feel the burn!   The great thing about this recipe is that you make it with your favorite beer, so use what you drink and you’ll have a mustard like no one else. I used Samuel Adams Boston Ale for this recipe. 1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds 1/4 cup brown mustard seeds 3/4 cup Sam Adams Boston Ale ..read more

Corned beef hash is actually a very simple thing to make. The most difficult part is the corned beef, especially if you’re curing it yourself. That process takes about three weeks…a long time to wait for a plate of hash!     If you have a package of already prepared corn beef that you bought at the supermarket, thaw it, and rinse it in clean, cold water. If you follow my corned beef recipe (I posted it a couple of weeks ago…you can search for it on my home page), do the same after three weeks of curing: wash the slab of brisket well, removing any seeds and spices that have wedged th ..read more

This is the most amazing fish sandwich I ever made.     There’s no other way to describe this sandwich, something that shouldn’t work in some ways and yet is absolutely perfectly crunchy and delicious. It starts with the cole slaw, ideally made a day in advance… 1 medium cabbage, sliced thinly 2 medium carrots, peeled, and finely chopped 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1 tablespoon Kosher dill pickle juice 1 teaspoon celery seed (not salt) You can use a machine, but I like to finely slice my cabbage with a chef’s knife, cutting as thin as possible. Place the chopped cabbage in a large bowl. For ..read more

Maybe you’ve seen the latest KFC creation that’s a worldwide hit. It’s called the “Chizza,” (rhymes with pizza) and it’s basically a pizza where the so-called “crust” is made from chicken. This was too good of an idea for me to pass up trying to copy at home!   In a previous blog, I posted my version of KFC’s original recipe chicken. I decided that I would use that seasoning mix as the basis for my chicken in this recipe. Then simply adding sauce, cheese and pepperoni to that would complete the treat! 2 cups all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons paprika 1 tablespoon celery salt 1 tablespoon dr ..read more

Our 5th annual BOYZ weekend has just come to an end, and it’s always a big deal. Three of us live in Rhode Island, two in New Jersey, and one in Florida, so getting together is no easy task, and it seems to get tougher every year. So we celebrate our friendship every year with excellent food and drink. This is a rich, delicious, and unusual surf-and-turf I cooked as the featured dinner, using heritage Berkshire pork belly and beautiful sea scallops. Berkshire pork is usually only found online, so substituting a regular pork belly from your local butcher will do. But the fat and flavor of Berks ..read more

Years ago, at Le Saint-Amour, a restaurant in Quebec City, the dish I ordered had these small strange-looking root vegetables sitting next to my roasted duck entrée. They resembled tiny twisted parsnips…or caterpillars! I needed to know what these things were, and so I asked my French waiter, who came back with a piece of paper that had the word “crosne” written on it. He said: “I don’t know how they say it in English.” Back at the hotel room, I went right to the laptop and started a search online and discovered that crosnes (pronounced crones) are also known as Chinese artichokes, and althoug ..read more

Our 5th annual BOYZ weekend happens next weekend, and so I’m sure we’ll have intellectual conversations as we sample my collection of bourbons and whiskeys, especially after we taste a few bottles! There seems to be a lot of confusion about the spelling of whiskey and/or whisky, but the use of the letter “e” (or the lack thereof) is not random. Here’s the best explanation I’ve found… The spelling whisky (plural whiskies) is generally used for those distilled in Scotland , Wales , Canada , and Japan. Whiskey (with an e; plural whiskeys) is used for the spirits distilled in Ireland and in the U ..read more

As much as I’m a fan of sourdough–or any great bread for that matter–pretzel bread has a special place in my heart. I found a pretzel bread recipe that uses baking soda, a much milder and safer alkaline alternative to lye (which is what many bakeries use) an ingredient that I could safely pour down my drain after using.     ½ cup water ½ cup milk 2 tablespoons butter, softened 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1 tablespoon yeast 2 teaspoons salt 1 egg, separated Cooking spray ¾ cup baking soda Kosher salt or pretzel salt for sprinkling Combine the water, milk and bu ..read more