Posted by Lucy Baker, May 12, 2008 at 2:15 PM
When it comes paring food with wine, cheese is just the beginning. All over Europe, in cities like Seville, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Athens, wine bars match native grapes with small dishes made from local ingredients. Perfect for afternoon or after-work, these plates are straightforward, robust, and meant to be shared.
In Wine Bar Food, this week's Cook the Book selection, Cathy Mantuano and Tony Mantuano, award-winning chef of Chicago's Spiaggia, show you how to recreate these rustic Mediterranean dishes in your own kitchen, and offer tips on choosing interesting, affordable bottles. Don't worry if your supermarket's international aisle leaves much to be desired—these recipes are more about fun and flavor than exacting authenticity.
Pour yourself a glass and get cooking!
Win 'Wine Bar Food'
We'll be excerpting a recipe every day this week from Wine Bar Food. In addition, you can enter to win one of five copies of the book. Just tell us in the comment section below: what is your favorite thing to eat while drinking a glass of Champagne?
Comments will close Monday, May 19 at noon ET. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 16, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Kathryn Matthews in Portfolio discusses how small plates mean big business for restaurants: "At first glance, the concept seems customer-friendly: With these appetizer-esque portions, you can mix and match and taste and graze, and each serving costs less than a main course. But there’s a little secret: Serving less can mean selling more, thereby boosting a restaurant’s bottom line."
I love small plates, but only when I'm eating in a group of four or more (three if everyone likes to eat as much as I do), otherwise as the piece points out, the tab can get surprisingly huge if you've ordered what I consider to be a reasonable variety of tasty things. [via The Food Section]
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 6, 2007 at 4:04 PM
Sheryl Cababa of Crispy Waffle visited the Canary Islands recently and shared her favorite culinary souvenir:
The food preparation that most captured our attention was mojo. Not mojo like Austin Powers, but mojo-- pronounced 'mo-ho'-- as in a sauce. It is basically the Romesco sauce of the Canaries, and comes in different incarnations: red mojo (the most common), green mojo, goat cheese mojo, etc. It is apparently used on nearly everything, but most commonly found on papas arrugadas, or 'wrinkled potatoes'. These are small potatoes boiled in their skins in sea water then cooked dry until they gain a wrinkly appearance. Mojo is then poured on top and it is served as the most common tapa in the Canaries. I bought a bottle of the mojo picon, the red pepper mojo, but decided to just try to make my own at home. After going through various recipes (in Spanish and English!) here's what I came up with.
