In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When my mother, who had been raised on kosher half-sour pickles, first tried bread-and-butters, she was immediately overwhelmed. For someone who was used to the tart flavor of Northeastern dills and half-sours, the Southern sweetness of the bread-and-butters were an absolute delight.
Through a combination of compliments and guile, she managed to get hold of our friend Millie's recipe. From that year on, we had a huge picklefest every summer, when we'd spend two or three days putting up bread-and-butter pickles.
While these are extremely sweet pickles, I have kept the recipe almost exactly the way my mom made it. This is partly due to the necessities of pickling, and partially due to a sense of tradition. Mostly, though, it's due to the fact that I regularly swap these pickles out for gherkins or sweet pickle relish.
Get the recipe for bread-and-butter pickles after the jump.
Hydrox is one of the ingredients. Photo: Chazz Layne/flickr
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When I was a kid, Creme de Menthe was a pretty big deal. A local restaurant used to make parfaits that were loaded with the stuff, and the mix of vanilla ice cream and super-sweet mint liqueur soon entered my pantheon of top childhood delights.
When it came time to update my Aunt Evie's recipe for Grasshopper Cake, I played with the idea of kicking it up a notch, but higher level mint liqueurs and Godiva chocolate liqueur seemed excessive, like putting truffles on a hamburger. In the end, half of the joy of this boozy, sweet concoction lies in the humble nature of its ingredients.
While my family traditionally made this dish in a pie plate, I opted to go for a springform pan. The crust, which I deliberately left uneven, rose and fell to reveal the bright green filling, and the crumbled cookies on top offered a coarse yet tantalizing finish. Needless to say, this one disappeared pretty quickly!
Get the recipe for Grasshopper Cake after the jump.
Roasted marinated tofu makes a tasty snack. Photo: Bruce Watson
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
In general, tofu is usually a little too bland for my tastes. A few years ago, however, I discovered the joys of marinated, roasted tofu. When well seasoned and cooked, the flavorless white mass becomes a dense dish with the texture of cheese and the taste of ... well, whatever you want to add!
Not long after I started marinating tofu, I decided to try it with a modified version of my mom's Korean barbecue sauce. It was the perfect mix: Simultaneously spicy, sweet and garlicky, the "Tofu-Goki" was great as a hot or cold snack, and made a perfect basis for many Asian dishes, including the Napa cabbage salad that I made last year.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When I was a kid, pea season was a mixed blessing. On the bright side, it meant that we would get fresh sweet peas on the table. Whether from our family garden or from a local farmers' market, the just-harvested peas were invariably sweet, crunchy and delicious. On the other hand, our regular servings of fresh peas translated into hours spent on the porch shelling the bright green pods. Even under the best circumstances, it was dull, tedious work.
My mother's pea salad recipe, which combines the sweetness of peas with the light flavor of dill, tended to overshadow the peas with a heavy helping of sour cream, mayonnaise and scallions. My modified version, included below, lets the flavor of the peas shine through, but retains the original's cool summer flavors.
Get the recipe for dilled pea salad after the jump.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
Over the last few years, Korean barbecue has gained fresh relevance in the United States. Whether served on hot dog buns in Manhattan, tortillas in Los Angeles or rice in Korean restaurants around the country, the sweet, oniony flavors of bulgoki, japchae and galbi are incredibly delicious and increasingly popular.
When I was a kid, bulgoki (also spelled bulgogi, pulgoki, pulgogi and any number of other ways) was a staple in my house. My parents, who lived in Korea before I was born, loved the stuff and would cook it on an electric griddle at our dinner table. As my sisters and I got older, we got involved in the fun; some of my first cooking experiences involved flipping bulgoki with a pair of bamboo tongs.
I've played with amounts and ingredients, but my mother's basic bulgoki recipe is fantastic. In fact, my only major change is in the dipping sauce: while my parents used light soy sauce with a sprinkle of pepper, I prefer a more traditional garlic/vinegar sauce, which I've included below. Get the recipe for bulgoki after the jump.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When I have access to fresh produce, cucumber season becomes one of my favorite times of the year. Although it runs from May to August, the wonderful green beauties won't reach their full flourish until later in the summer. Still, it's hard to resist the cool, summery flavor of the first cukes of the season. With that in mind, I decided to flip through my family cookbook in search of some great cucumber recipes.
My Aunt Renie's cucumber salad manages to halve the distance between sharp and smooth, sweet and sour, creamy and intense. In my adjusted version, I cut back on the onions, switched in Greek yogurt and tossed in some fresh dill.
The final version had the soothing coolness of a traditional cucumber salad, but also retained a nice vinegar tang that keeps me on my toes. This is great by itself, or as an accompaniment to barbecue or any other strongly seasoned dish.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
Beets are funny: while they are among the hardiest of winter root vegetables, their gorgeous color brings to mind the energy and exuberance of early summer.
In our family cookbook, my Aunt Evie tipped her hat to this weird dual nature with her recipe for pickled beet dip. Filled with the earthy flavors of winter vegetables, the dip's brilliant pink color suggests the joy of Easter eggs, cotton candy and sunsets. Pairing the coarseness of winter with the energy of summer, it's the perfect spring food!
While most dips tend toward blandness, this one has a nice kick. It goes well with crackers, but really shines as the centerpiece on a tray of crudite. Although the ingredients may sound odd, they blend nicely and the finished product is one of those rare beet dishes that even avowed enemies of the dark red vegetables will love. One warning, though: be sure to let everyone know that it's beet dip. Given the color, some people will assume that it is a cherry or raspberry dish!
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
When I came across a recipe for "Swiss Squares" in my family's cookbook, I got excited. Although the dish seemed like a basic chocolate cake recipe, it used sour cream for leavening. As this is a pretty uncommon choice, I wanted to see its effect on the product.
Overall, I found that the bars were a bit richer than expected, with a nice moist crumb. In my finished version, I massively increased the chocolate and dolled up the frosting. Still, at its heart, this is a recipe for a rich chocolate cake. Then again, even the simplest cake can be pretty profound!
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
In my family cookbook, there is a recipe for "Mabel's Spinach Spread," a gelatin-thickened dip that was developed by one of my Aunt Evie's foodie friends. Although the original concoction contains a startling quantity of mayonnaise and a lot of added salt, the basic idea of a molded-gelatin dip was somewhat compelling. Gelatin, after all, is basically a fat-free, sugar-free protein that is, allegedly, great for hair and fingernails. Best of all, it can help a dip to stiffen up without the introduction of cream cheese or some other dense fat.
This recipe combines a basic spinach spread with some Greek flavor notes. The yogurt base is creamy, yet fat free, and the feta greatly reduces the need for added salt. Best of all, the fresh flavors of this dip make it a great, easy-to-prepare snack for long summer afternoons. The recipe after the jump.
When it comes to food and travel guides, some are known for their frugality, others for their edginess and still others for their humor. Frommer's could perhaps best be described as "Old Reliable," with picks that rarely stray far from the well-trodden path and are somewhat on the pricey side. Instead of budget-friendly options and spontaneity, Frommer's devotees could bet on an authentic, safe and somewhat luxe travel experience.
That's why it's surprising that the hot-off-the-press new book "Frommer's 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers" offers an incredibly wide array of options for every budget. Sure, it tips its hat to the traditional institutions that one would expect from the venerable publisher, but it also offers some down-market choices that should give adventurous gourmands a run for their money. Within its pages we spied Coney Island's Totonno's Pizzeria, with some of New York's most-buzzed-about pies in spite of its location on a scuzzy stretch of Neptune Avenue, and old-school Frank Pepe's pizzeria in New Haven, Conn.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
Looking back on my childhood, I can remember few potluck dinners that didn't feature some version of Jell-O. While my mother somehow missed out on this particular 1970s cultural phenomenon, every one of our neighbors and friends had some unique, idiosyncratic method for serving the famous gelled fruit dessert. Moreover, since I didn't get it at home, every bizarre concoction was an exciting culinary thrill for me.
Searching through my family cookbook, I was pleased to find what I am now convinced is the ultimate Jell-O dessert. The creator, Karen Mono Little, wasn't a blood relative, but her close friendship with my Aunt Evie (and amazing kitchen wizardry) gained her a place in our collection of family recipes. Although my updated version of her dessert is more naturally flavored and has much less sugar, I have to admit that it also lacks some of the savage, addictive intensity of the original. After the jump, I've included Karen's recipe as well as my own. Enjoy!
In the 1970s the handy little ovens we now use to reheat leftovers and frozen dinners experienced a brief golden age, with folks employing them for cooking everything from turkeys to cheesecake. This recipe dates from the glorious reign of microwaves.
Like many of Aunt Evie's recipes, her microwaved sweet-and-sour chicken is easy, convenient and surprisingly flavorful. However, it relies on hard-to-find, annoyingly coarse-textured pickling spice and employs an unnecessary amount of margarine. For the modern incarnation we selected only certain pickling spices and ground them up, resulting in a far more evenly flavored and pleasantly textured dish.
This was an interesting experiment with the tiny oven: Microwaving, which essentially cooks meat from the inside out, didn't really yield chicken that has fully absorbed its sauce (or its savory flavor). Consequently, this recipe yields meat that is tender but bland. With that in mind, stove-top directions are at the end of the recipe. Regardless of which cooking method you use, this is a fun, easy and surprisingly tasty dish. Go, Aunt Evie!
Although the film adaption of "Julie & Julia" isn't coming out until August, Julia Child fans are already excited at the prospect of seeing America's most iconic cooking superstar served up onscreen. Following last weekend's sale of the film's props, your devoted Slashfood staff has been searching for images of the upcoming film.
Everything about Julia Child was outsized, from her flamboyant cooking style to her rich, fluttering falsetto, to her famously dry humor. This, after all, was the great chef who started her professional life as a purported spy in the OSS during World War II, became one of the few women to attend Paris' Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, and ended up spearheading a home-cooking movement that transformed American cuisine with her TV show "The French Chef."
Given Child's impressive height (she was 6-foot-2), it's perhaps unsurprising that the majority of her imitators have been men. The most famous was probably Dan Aykroyd on "Saturday Night Live." His repeated exhortation to "Save the liver!" captured Child's forceful personality and occasional tendency toward self-parody. An even better tribute was offered by John Candy, with a spot-on impression of Child boxing with Fred Rogers in "Battle of the PBS Stars" on "SCTV."
As winter yields to spring, farmers' markets teem with bright produce and blooms shed their pollen, allergy sufferers experience the first sneezes of the season. While over-the-counter and prescribed drugs offer some level of comfort, they also come with a hefty price tag and slew of side effects.
Though science is far from conclusive on this front, many homeopaths think there may be another (edible) option. Some allergy battlers have found that an old folk remedy of eating local honey can help reduce the severity of their reactions. The logic goes like this: bees in an area collect nectar from the same plants that cause allergies, and honey produced from that nectar contains microscopic quantities of the allergens. By consuming small amounts of the honey, sufferers may be administering a form of homespun immunotherapy.
Others dispute the effectiveness of this treatment, and even its supporters acknowledge that honey isn't an instant fix. Traditionally, allergy sufferers consume small amounts of it every day for an extended period of time in order to build up resistance to allergens. (Some even warn that local honey can actually set off reactions. Be sure to check with your doctor if you are considering this method of handling allergies.)
This is all a long way of saying that we have a delectable honey liqueur recipe for the allergic and the resistant alike. Krupnikas, a delicious Eastern European liqueur made from spices, honey and grain alcohol, makes an aromatic, golden-hued tipple that can be drunk warm in the fall or on the rocks in the summer. With a spicy flavor and bright glow, it is a great way to celebrate the arrival of (a hopefully sneeze-free) spring.
In our search for the perfect cheapcoffee -- being devoted caffeine freaks, we also cover it here -- Slashfood decided to give Café Caribe a shot. Look at that muy tropical can; who wouldn't?
The brand indulges in similar identity politics to its competitor (and current frontrunner) Café Bustelo. The label is printed in both English and Spanish and proudly proclaims "Café Para El Gusto Latino: NUESTRO CAFE," or "Coffee for the Latin taste. OUR COFFEE." In the Bronx (the New York City borough this writer is proud to call home) Dominicans and Puerto Ricans take a lot of pride in their coffee, so we can see why Café Caribe is taking such a direct marketing approach.
Beyond that, Café Caribe is also among the cheapest coffees in the store. At $2.59, it's a dollar less than Bustelo and about one third of the price of Medaglia D'Oro.
The biggest draw, though, was the can. With bright colors, cartoonish writing and a cute little drawing of a hacienda amid palm trees, it is incredibly cheering. Over the last few weeks we've had a lot of gray days and the explosive yellow can has provided a lingering gleam of sunshine.
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
In this weekly series, home cook Bruce Watson works his way through a decades-old family cookbook, adapting the best recipes exclusively for Slashfood.
As winter yields to spring, farmers' markets teem with bright produce and blooms shed their pollen, allergy sufferers experience the first sneezes of the season. While over-the-counter and prescribed drugs offer some level of comfort, they also come with a hefty price tag and slew of side effects.
In our search for the perfect 
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
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