Cara Cara oranges take their name from their Venezuelan birthplace, Hacienda Cara Cara. These plump, seedless pink-on-the-inside oranges have a sweet tang and a heady fragrance uncannily reminiscent of a grade school cafeteria. A winter-only citrus treat, jam makers would are wise to lay in a store of Cara Cara marmalade now. Why pineapple you ask? This tropical mash-up … [Read more...]
READERS’ CHOICE: 2012 BEST READ AND MOST LOVED RECIPES
Here at Spectacularly Delicious we strive to present a little bit of something for everybody -- in the USA and the big wide world beyond. With our 2012 readership growing in such far flung reaches as Fiji, Laos and Azerbaijan perhaps, just maybe, we are inching along toward that goal. So let's close out the year with a look at the most popular stories and recipes visited by … [Read more...]
CROWN ROAST OF HOT DOGS
Long has the Crown Roast of Hot Dogs haunted my culinary imagination. It first caught my eye ages ago in my hometown paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; the recipe and photograph clipped but never actually prepared. Years later this refrigerator magnet found its way into the kitchen with the vintage photograph depicting a most glorious version, nestled in a ring … [Read more...]
THANKSGIVING: TRADITION WITH A TWIST! TURKEY WONTONS, BAMBOO-SMOKED SESAME NOODLES
How did our Thanksgiving menu end up featuring cold sesame noodles, ghost pepper hot wings, turkey wontons, toasted ravioli, onion rings, turkey oven-roasted and turkey deep-fried, Wana's hamburger stuffing, wild cranberry and orange sauce, pumpkin muffins and chocolate-butterscotch fondue? It started with this sweet email from our 12 year old niece: "I cannot wait for … [Read more...]
IACONO FARM FRIED CHICKEN
There's no secret to this recipe for fried chicken -- it's the quality of the bird. East Hampton's Iacono Farm has been raising chickens in clapboard coops since the Truman administration. They (the chickens, not the Iaconos) spend their days scratching the dirt for bugs, blithely maintaining the pecking order under the sunny skies. Happy, healthy, delicious birds. The … [Read more...]
COCK-A-LEEKIE
I've got a confession. I find many of the classic stewed meats in broth recipes rather lack-luster, even insipid. Apart from the odiferous hot mess of a corned beef and cabbage boil up, I find France's Pot-au-Feu, Italy's Bollito Misto, even Japan's Shabu Shabu... meh. Who'd a thunk the Scots would be the ones to create a superlatively satisfying melange of … [Read more...]
ROASTED KERRY SALMON WITH PRAWNS
Corned beef is nice and all, especially served steaming hot with slippery cabbage and soft potatoes and carrots, a smear of sharp Colman's mustard to cut the fat. That said, Ireland's patron saint deserves to be celebrated with something finer. St. Patrick drove out the snakes! He spoke Latin! His feast day is a holy day of obligation in the old country and a day of parades and … [Read more...]