Fig Balls with various nuts and dried fruits with warm Choco mousse.
Author: chefalice
Cretan traditional sweet delight pastry filled with white spearmint cream.
Cranberry beans have a delicate flavor and a creamy texture similar to that of pinto and cannellini beans. We wanted to create a dish that would highlight these beans using a gently spiced flavor profile. Since cranberry beans are rarely canned, we knew we’d have to start with dried beans. We sautéed aromatic vegetables along with tomato paste for depth of flavor; just a touch of cinnamon imparted a subtle yet distinct warmth. White wine offered acidity, and broth gave the dish a hearty backbone. Letting the beans cook through in the Dutch oven in a moderate oven ensured that…
Soupy beans are a staple at Mexican tables; the cooking liquid thickens slightly from the beans’ starches and the dish is as satisfying as any rich stew. One such iteration, known as drunken beans, cooks pinto beans in beer or tequila, which lends subtle, complex flavor to the pot. To make sure the alcohol didn’t make our beans boozy or bitter, we added tequila at the beginning of cooking (evaporating it to mellow its flavor) and beer partway through (so that its malty notes would be present in the finished dish). Brining the beans ensured they stayed tender, creamy, and…
Most barbecue joints serve ladlefuls of smoky, deep-flavored cowboy beans alongside slabs of ribs and mounds of pulled pork. We wanted to make those creamy-textured, saucy beans at home to accompany our own barbecue. To get there, we used navy beans. We found that bacon was a convenient substitute for smoky barbecued meat. We blended mustard, barbecue sauce, and brown sugar for sweet-spicy, deep flavor a fair amount of garlic and onion helped, too. But the real secret ingredient in this recipe: coffee. The roasted, slightly bitter flavor tied all the flavors together. Using a Dutch oven ensured that the…