Ingredient: Anchovies

The odds are you hate anchovies. I don't have a formal survey, but anecdotally I suspect about 80 percent of Americans do. I did. When we think anchovy we think salty, salty, salty and fishy, fishy, fishy. And usually you're right. Salt is used to cure them and they tend to have a fishy — in the worst sense of the word — flavor and, when eaten alone, they're pretty bad. Or, at least those packaged for the American market suffer from these sins. But that needn't be the case.

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Technorati: Food | essay | kevin d weeks | cooking for two | ingredient

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Ingredient: Eggs

In this country we tend to think of eggs as the ultimate, or at least penultimate, breakfast food. We eat them scrambled, fried, poached, and soft-boiled. Less frequently we have soufflés for breakfast or we'll eat them coddled or shirred. And they deserve their place in our hierarchy of breakfast foods because they're an excellent source of protein and cook in mere minutes with a minimum of preparation. We include them as an ingredient in our pancakes and grab them on muffins, biscuits, or croissants at fast food joints on our way to the office.

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Technorati: Food | ingredient | kevin d weeks | cooking for two | eggs

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Ingredient: Crepes

Pancakes in the French Mode



Pancakes are among the simplest of breads — and crepes are just pancakes. At their most basic crepes/pancakes consist of flour and water. They are also found around the world made of corn flour by native Americans, buckwheat flour in Normandy, and rice flour in China. They can be used in savory dishes such as Scallop Crepes or sweet like the classical French Crepes Suzette and Crepes Normande.

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Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | ingredient

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Ingredient: Juniper Berries

Gin's Namesake



I don't recall when I first discovered juniper berries, but it was pretty much love at first taste. They are the key flavoring in gin, which was originally known as jenever ("juniper") and was developed in the Netherlands. They have a wonderfully piney taste — most like rosemary if you're looking for a comparison — but more resinous and with citrus overtones (so if you're subbing rosemary for juniper, add a bit of lemon juice too).

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Technorati: Food | ingredient | kevin d weeks | seriously good | juniper berries

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