Our Flavor Bibles

Posted by Lendy Hensley on

Our last blog post got a few questions about how we make food pairing decisions. Good news, we have two book suggestions for you: The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg,  and The Flavor Matrix, by James Briscione and Brooke Parkhurst . We happily use these resources as jumping off points for flavor combination ideas or when we are stuck with a dish that needs… something.
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Sister Carol's Mustardy Cauliflower

Posted by Lendy Hensley on

We took our favorite mustard by Sister Carol and paired it with cauliflower. Our inspiration came from Yotam Ottoleghi’s Cauliflower Cheese recipe and we gave it a Bite Society Spin. 


 

Sister Carol's Mustardy Cauliflower

Cauliflower 1 large  broken into roughly smaller florets
Butter 2 tbs
Onion 1 small, finely diced
Fennel powder 2 tsp
Sister Carol's Mustard 1 tbs
Jalapeno 1, de-seeded and finely diced
Heavy cream 3/4 cup + 2 tsp
Aged cheddar 6 oz, coarsely grated
salt

1. Steam cauliflower over boiling water for 5 minutes until just softening and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 Degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Butter your casserole dish.
4. In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, saute onion until light browning begins (about 8 minutes)
5. Add jalapeno and cook for another 4 minutes.
6. Put steamed cauliflower in buttered casserole dish.
7. Add fennel powder, Sister Carol's Mustard and heavy cream and let this reduce for 1 minute.
8. Add half the amount of cheese (3 oz), Stir until combined.
9. Pour sauce over cauliflower dish and top with remaining cheese.
10. Bake for 8 minutes and pull out to cool for a few minutes before serving. It will be very hot but delicious!

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More Lamborghini…less Riunite

Posted by Lendy Hensley on

When I say Lambrusco, what do you think? Oldest cultivar of Italian wine? Refreshing summery wine of the people? Or “Reunite on ice, so very nice.” (Perhaps not the best ad campaign for Italy’s most popular wine.)
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This Carrot is Really Easy to Dance To

Posted by Lendy Hensley on

I listen to Sticky Notes. It is described as the podcast for anyone who loves classical music, or is just getting ready to dive in for the very first time. One of the things I enjoy most about the podcast is the explanation themes in the music: Repetitive elements that literally play against each other. It always makes me think about food. What makes the perfect bite? What makes one dish sing while another whimpers? Like music it is the play between themes that the Food Network has made us all so familiar: Salty & Sweet, Crunchy & Creamy, Spicy & Cool.

At Bite Society we make a LOT of food. Our background as caterers makes us natural dish creators and developers. When we started Bite Society, we looked back at a lot of our old recipes. We wondered how they would fare packaged for retail. We remembered the quick pickled carrots that we put as the base for a passed hors d’ oeuvre and pondered how they would work as a jarred pickle (spoiler alert: AWESOME). After twenty years as cookie makers, how could we turn our favorite shortbread into a preservative free cookie with a shelf life that was loaded with flavor? Add orange and fennel, silly goose.

Along the way, we tasted many iterations of these recipes and so many more. Some were elusive and others were instant winners, but in every case, we were searching for the yin to the yang of what we had just made. Harissa in the carrot brine brought a smokey spicy counterpoint to the carrot. Winner! Orange and Fennel went together as well in a cookie as they did in a Winter salad. We kept testing and tasting our Salsa Macha as we balanced heat, sweet, crunch, and smooth. We can honestly say that you can eat it by the spoonful, because we did.

As I listen to my podcast about music, I think about the attention-getting top notes of sweet or tangy and how they can be balanced by smokey, spicy or nutty. We recently asked our chef, Bob what his favorite Bite Society bite was, and he was stumped. Like a parent picking his favorite child, he recounted the process of making so many of our goods and how each challenge held a different triumph or struggle. We will get no help from Bob. We will just have to eat them all.

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Dilly Queens and Bathtub Beans

Posted by Lendy Hensley on

Sometimes I google when I should be doing other things. You know, work things. I am thinking about green beans, and the fact that they are going to arrive in the kitchen on Friday from Imperial’s Garden Farms, and we are about to go full-on Dilly with the first crop of fresh Northwest Green Beans. I get a little curious about the history of Dilly Beans, and then I see the headline: Dilly Queens.

Thirty minutes later, I am buying a subscription to the New Yorker so I can read an article from July 2, 1960.

Apparently, two school teachers, Sonya Hagna and Jacquelyn Park, who were born on the same day in 1934 and coincidentally met at Columbia University in 1952, fell in love (oops, I may have made that up). They got an apartment together and got busy… making Dilly Beans. The recipe belonged to Ms. Hagna’s mother, and the duo started making Dilly Beans in their bathtub, with the assistance of their students, whom they paid with a nightly dance party.

The girls moved from Jersey to DC figuring that if they could sell them in Washington, there'd be no stopping their Dilly Beans. (Cue the Dillytini with a pickled green bean swizzle stick, and the rest is food history.) For those of you who are dorks like us, here is a connection to the original articles. Unfortunately, the Dilly Queens seem to have disappeared after their initial success. If you happen to be sitting at work doing the googling thing, let us know what you find.

Bob, our Dilly King, asked that I make this clear: we don’t make our Dilly Beans in a bathtub. We save that for the gin.

Check out the link to the Times article here: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/03/04/issue.html

 

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