Green Tomato Frittata

I got a little crazy at the farmers' market last weekend and picked up 3 pounds of green tomatoes.  Alex shook his head at me, but I love green tomatoes.  I have only recently discovered all of the wonderful things that you can do with green tomatoes instead of just making more fried green tomatoes.  Who knew you could pickle green tomatoes, or make baked goods with green tomatoes?  I am really tempted to make a green tomato pie as well (like this one from honey & jam), but that would involve making pie and we all know my feelings on doing that at home.  Given the number of green tomatoes we found ourselves with I started fishing around for more green tomato recipes and ideas.  Once I saw a green tomato frittata on the NY Times I knew I was going to give that a try.  But the NY Times recipe was a little more labor intensive than I was really aiming for - it involved frying half of the green tomatoes and peel and dicing the others - so I decided to ignore that recipe and just make a really basic frittata.  I have to say that this recipe highlighted the tart flavor of the tomatoes themselves far more than any other green tomato recipe we have made.  I thought the little bursts of tart green tomato were fabulous with the rich egg-y frittata.  If you served this frittata with a nice little green salad, croissants and some fruit, this could be the unique centerpoint of a lovely brunch.

P.S.  I am a little behind on posts again due to work, but I have a number that should be coming in the next few days...  So stay tuned.

Recipe after the jump!

Hoe Cakes (and our visit to Cincinnati)

I would jump right into describing how much I enjoyed these hoe cakes, but there is a bit of a backstory that needs to be discussed first.  A few weekends ago Alex and I went to Kentucky/Cincinnati to visit his family.  We did a lot of things when we were there - we visited with family, saw some fireworks, made about a billion gallons of chili (vegetarian and beef in case you were curious), ate some really delicious upscale Mexican food at Nada in downtown Cincinnati, took lots of pictures of the pig statues that are all over downtown Cincinnati (see below - I was a little obsessed), sampled Graeter's ice cream and also visited a town in Kentucky called (I kid you not) Rabbit Hash.  We happened to visit Rabbit Hash during their Old Timers Festival.  There was live music and food, plus there was this guy with a hundred year old corn/grain mill selling freshly ground cornmeal and grits.  I couldn't resist - I bought two big bags (one of yellow cornmeal and one of grits).  Along with his cornmeal he offered two recipes, one for cornbread and one for hoe cakes.  Now I wasn't born and raised a good Southern girl like Paula Deen so I had never tried a hoe cake before, but I decided to give it a shot.  And they were awesome.  Speaking of Paula Deen, she has a whole post about hoe cakes (including several recipes) on her website.  Anyway, I  liked that the hoe cakes were texturally a cross between a pancake and cornbread.  I also liked that they were just slightly sweet and somehow manage to avoid the heaviness and sleepiness that pancakes always evoke.

While in Cincinnati I also shocked Alex's family members with my ability to eat spicy food by accidentally dumping a heaping amount of dried chili on a pizza and then eating it all.  Incidentally, my tolerance for spicy food can be blamed on my mother, although it really took living in China for me to embrace truly spicy food.  I grew up with hot sauce on the Thanksgiving table to be served with the turkey and a planter of Thai chilis in the backyard (which was discarded after my parents learned that having kids near Thai chilis when they can touch the chilis and then rub their eyes is a terrible idea - many tears ensued).  Alex's uncle John grows his own hot peppers and makes his own wonderful dried chili powders (we are currently in possession of tiny apothecary-esque bottles of dried Hungarian wax, hot and medium banana peppers, habanero, cayenne, jalapeno and a spicy blend of several different chili varieties.  We haven't figured out exactly what we are going to use them for (although we have a couple of ideas), so stay tuned for some spicy recipes in the near-ish future!  Thanks John!

Recipe and more pictures after the jump!

Pear, Basil and Pecorino Toscano Salad

Fall is here (or almost here)!  And with fall - apples, pears and the very beginning of squash season.  This is my favorite time of year at the farmers' market because you still have a lot of the great summer produce (although fresh corn and basil will be disappearing shortly), but honeycrisp apples and acorn squash are making their debut.  It is so exciting.  To celebrate I decided to make this pear salad for breakfast along with some hoe cakes.  There is a story that goes with the hoe cakes, but you are going to wait until we post them to hear that particular story.  Anyway, I thought this salad was really interesting - the juxtaposition of sweet pears and basil with salty, nutty cheese totally worked for me.  It made a really nice breakfast/brunch dish.  We made the pears with hoe cakes, blending an Italian salad with a very traditional Southern dish, but I think it totally worked!

P.S.  Alex pointed out that you can see the reflection of the building across the street on the plate in our picture.  Living in an NYC apartment means that we don't exactly have a lot of options for taking pictures of our dishes, particularly not when we want natural light.  Our choices are basically the windowsill (like this picture) or the coffee table.  But I think this is the first time that we caught a reflection like that!

Recipe after the jump!

Canteloupe Salad with Lime, Mint, & Ginger

Before I say anything about this recipe, I should say that I have made it in the past (back when I was in law school actually) and really enjoyed it.  But the melon I picked up at the farmers' market this time was strangely flavorless.  It was insanely juicy, but sadly lacking in flavor - almost like the juice of the melon watered down the flavor.  It was really weird.  Just judging from how much juice came out while Alex was chopping the melon I was worried that the melon would be overly ripe and too sweet.  It might have been a touch over-ripe, but it wasn't sweet at all.  And this salad needs some sweetness from the melon (in addition to the sugar and honey) to make it all come together.  Otherwise it doesn't quite come together.  You need the intensely sweet flavor of good ripe cantaloupe to contrast against the warmth of the ginger, the slight sour/floral flavor of the lime juice and zest and the freshness of the mint.  With all of that said, when you have a nice ripe melon this is a great dish.  You could mix it up with a combination of watermelon and cantaloupe (or stick to the recipe and just use cantaloupe) and serve alongside your typical breakfast spread for a lovely brunch.

Recipe after the jump!

Spanish Tortilla with Broccoli, Chorizo and Onion

You might not know this, but eggs are kind of my thing.  If you have read this blog at all in the past (or gone to brunch with me) then it should be fairly obvious.  Then again, Alex does try to curb my egg obsession so there aren't as many egg recipes on this blog as there might otherwise be...  So maybe it's not as obvious as I think it is.  Actually, I tried to add eggs to our dinner last night and Alex shot me down.  Anyway, I decided that I wanted to make this recipe to use the broccoli I picked up from Fairway last week along with the eggs from the farmers' market.  And for those of you not familiar with Spanish tortillas - they are essentially heavier frittatas with thinly sliced potatoes inside. used As we started to make the dish Alex told me that I had selected two of the things that we are worst at in life - flipping eggs and homemade mayonnaise (or aioli in this case).  We have tried to make mayonnaise three times in the past - once with the food processor, once with our immersion blender and once with the blender.  All three times we failed.  Epically.  We ended up with thin, runny, greasy messes each time.  And it happened again.  Apparently we really suck at making mayonnaise.  But this time we Googled how to rescue a broken aioli and found out that we are not the only people who have this problem.  There were several articles and blog posts citing Julia Child's method for saving a broken aioli or mayonnaise.  We used her method and it totally worked!  Hurray!  But our tortilla didn't flip too well...  It broke into a million pieces and chunks got stuck to the pan.  So we failed there too.  And there was really no rescuing it because it's not like you can put a frittata/omelet/Spanish tortilla back together.  But in the end it's the flavor that matters and the flavor was good.  It didn't really occur to me until we put the ingredients in the pan, but I think you should either add more eggs or cut down on the amount of broccoli and chorizo in the future.  The ratio of filling to eggs is a little off and the broccoli is heavy, which makes it hard to flip the tortilla successfully.  It was still pretty heavy (partially due to the ratio of eggs to filling and partially because of the combination of ingredients and flavors), but I knew that was likely to happen going in because Spanish tortillas always strike me as heavy.  I thought that the absence of potato would make more of a difference and make it taste a little lighter, but not so much.  Either way, it was a tasty dish and we finally made a (semi-)successful aioli!  Yay!

Recipes after the jump!

Squash Blossom and Zucchini Frittata

After the world's LONGEST absence from home-cooked meals, Alex and I finally had the opportunity to sit down and make a meal together.  Well, I made the meal while Alex tried to talk to Time Warner about our lousy internet speeds.  But that's really beside the point.  The point is, after a few weddings (one in Connecticut and one in Kentucky) and a bunch of really late nights at work, I finally got to cook something and eat it.  Yay!  So I did what I always do and wandered around the farmers' market picking up things willy-nilly until I decided on something to make.  This time I picked up some zucchini, fresh sweet corn, green beans, sun gold tomatoes (greenhouse tomatoes, but still delicious), fresh basil and parsley, cherries, peaches...  I'm really bummed that I ended up missing sugar snap peas, pea shoots and the end of fresh asparagus season due to work, but I can't be too upset that more amazing tomatoes and corn are just around the corner. 

Anyway, this frittata accomplished something that most restaurant frittatas don't - it was moist, tasty and fluffy, not dry and tasteless.  The last restaurant frittata I had was at a place on the UWS called Tarallucci E Vino.  It was one of the driest, most disappointing frittatas I have had in a long time.  It made me remember why ordering a frittata at a restaurant can be a recipe for failure.  I can only think of one frittata I have ever had that was truly satisfying and that was at Spotted Pig, where everything you order could possibly order is delicious.  The one thing that made my experience at Tarallucci e Vino one to remember was the scenery.  And by scenery I mean Matt Damon.  He's just as cute in person as he is in the movies.  To be honest I almost missed him entirely because I was too busy oogling his wife's black asymmetrical tank top.  I didn't realize it was him until I heard his voice.  And for the record, Alex's PLT (pancetta, lettuce, tomato and sunny-side egg) sandwich was pretty tasty.  While we were sitting on the couch and eating this frittata I told Alex that I would be perfectly happy to be served this frittata at any restaurant.  And I stand by that statement.  It was great.  It also made me sad about how much I miss eating at home, but I am hoping that work will slow down a little bit and I will once again be able to eat dinner at home...  Until then, I have the memories of this frittata to keep me happy.

Recipe after the jump!

Oeufs en Cocotte with Ramps

I love eggs.  I don't know why, but I really do.  My love affair with eggs is the reason that I love brunch so much.  I never order French toast at brunch and I rarely order pancakes (except for the macadamia nut pancakes at Boots & Kimo's in Hawaii - yum).  I order eggs - eggs benedict, baked eggs, fried eggs, etc.  I just love eggs.  So every weekend that Alex and I spend in NYC without brunch plans or visitors, I try to make eggs.  I generally can't convince him to go out to brunch with me so I bring brunch to us.  Usually I scramble the eggs but a few weekends ago I wanted to bake them to make use of the ramps I had picked up.  Baked eggs (or oeufs en cocotte if you're going to be all French about it) just feel so much more luxurious and indulgent than scrambled eggs.  When you cook the croutons in the eggs they soak up some of the eggs and crème fraîche and get all yummy, but retain some of their crunchy texture.  The croutons are my favorite part.  The ramps didn't provide as much flavor as I thought they would.  I really thought their flavor would pervade the dish, but it didn't.  That isn't to say that the flavor of the ramps disappeared entirely, but it certainly wasn't the dominant flavor here.  I tasted the tangy flavor of the crème fraîche and the creamy richness of the egg yolks, combined with the crunch and salty flavor of the croutons.  I'm not complaining.  It was just surprising because in the other dishes we have made with ramps the flavor has been much more distinct.  But as far as lazy weekend brunches at home go, this was a nice one.

Recipe after the jump!

Fried Eggs with Sauteed Ramps and Duck Bacon

Somehow (and this is truly shocking living in NYC) I have never had ramps before.  Every spring ramps pop up on restaurant menus all over the city and appear at the farmers' markets, where people buy them en masse.  Some of my favorite restaurants (including Momofuku) put ramps on the menu for the brief month that they are in season.  And yet, I never managed to eat any.  The other day when we were at the farmers' market I happened to come across a large pile of ramps at the table for Mountain Sweet Berry Farm and I snagged a few bunches to experiment with.  Incidentally, Mountain Sweet Berry Farm also makes these amazing homemade potato chips that they sell at the market in little paper bags.  You should definitely try them if you find yourself near Union Square on Wednesday or Saturday.  Moving on, never having cooked (or eaten) ramps before, I was at a loss for how to prepare them.  I know I have seem them on menus pickled, in pastas and on fancy-schmancy pizzas, but I wanted to know how best to prepare them at home.  The guy manning the Mountain Sweet Berry Farm table recommended sauteeing them or serving them in salads.  But I didn't know what to serve the sauteed ramps with.  I decided to turn to Google and stumbled across a bunch of recipes that referenced serving the ramps with eggs.  I had picked up a dozen eggs from the farmers' market too that day.  Perfect!  So we used a recipe from Serious Eats for guidance and made ourselves some eggs with sauteed ramps and duck bacon.

I had no idea that ramps would taste so garlick-y and onion-y all at the same time.  They reminded me slightly of garlic chives, only more intense.  Alex called this dish "ramps with cholesterol and more cholesterol."  I have to admit that he has a point - it wasn't exactly healthy.  But I thought it was pretty tasty.  And I thought that the flavor of the ramps paired really well with the runny egg yolk.  It did a pretty good job of cutting through the richness.  Mostly I'm just glad that I finally had the chance to cook and eat ramps!

Recipe after the jump!

Fluffy Baked Eggs with Roasted-Vegetable Hash

When I was initially conceptualizing this dish I was thinking about making sweet potato hash with runny egg yolks.  But then I started playing around online and came up with this dish.  It wasn't exactly what I was planning on, but it seemed interesting enough to alter my tentative meal plans.  So we hit the farmers' market to stock up on eggs and mushrooms to go with the sweet potatoes we already had in the pantry.  I'm not sure exactly what inspired me to buy sweet potatoes, but I decided some time ago to pick up a few in an attempt to mix things up a bit more.  I was planning on making a Vietnamese curry with sweet potatoes, but somehow that never came to be.  And then I thought about making roasted sweet potato fries, but that never came to be either.  So today for lunch we finally used our sweet potatoes to make this dish.  And it was lovely - very autumnal, but not heavy and greasy.  The eggs were fluffy and light.  And delightfully cheesy, but not overwhelmingly so.  Alex was actually amazed by how much the eggs rose/puffed up during the baking process.  They almost reminded me of a souffle, but not quite as airy and far less labor-intensive to prepare.  It's not a dish that I will be dreaming about for years to come, but I was very pleased with it.

Recipe after the jump!

Creamy Cheddar Grits

When I am feeling sick, there are a few basic dishes that I generally want - Vietnamese chicken noodle soup and pho usually top the list.  But I'm dealing with a sore throat right now and all I could think of was how great grits would be.  I guess grits are kind of like congee and cream of wheat, both of which I consider to be serious sick day food, so maybe my craving makes more sense than I first thought.  Anyway, I had been saving this Creamy Cheddar Grits recipe for the day when I finally have people over for brunch (which I have been talking about for years and we have never gotten around to doing) or when I finally make shrimp and grits at home (another thing I have been talking about forever but haven't gotten around to).  But grits sounded too good to pass up today, so I went ahead and made them.  And they were delicious.  Even Alex, who isn't generally a huge fan of grits, really enjoyed these.  Between the two of us we plowed our way through a heaping bowl of grits.  They are creamy and cheesy, with the bright oniony flavor of the scallions making the dish a little lighter than it would be otherwise.  Alex said that the scallions were the thing that really made the dish.  It has never occurred to me to add scallions to grits before, but it was really delicious.  The dish is still a bit of a gutbuster, but in the best way possible.  It's wonderfully homey and comforting.  And it was exactly what I wanted to help me get over feeling under the weather.

Recipe after the jump!

Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt

I love biscuits.  It's a seriously Southern thing that I picked up at Chapel Hill while I was there and one I plan to never give up.  Unfortunately, good biscuits are much harder to find here in NYC than they were in North Carolina.  Actually, some might say that it's nearly impossible.  So I have taken to making my own whenever I have a serious biscuit craving.  The only problem that biscuit-making makes a mess.  And when you're me, it makes a HUGE mess. I should take pictures of the kitchen after I engage in a bout of biscuit-making.  Today for example, I ended up with floury hand prints on our olive oil cruet and bits of biscuit dough decorating the floor.  I'm nearly certain that I have ended up with flour in my hair at least once, which begs the question of what exactly I am doing while making my biscuits.  I wish I could tell you, but I can't.

Anyway, I love these biscuits.  Love, love, love them.  I have been saving the recipe for some time now, but I always forget to pick up self-rising flour.  Luckily, Alex picked some up to make his crazy Dutch cookies so this morning when I woke up this recipe was the first thing I thought about.  Actually, first I thought about pizza.  At about 10:00 am I told Alex that I wanted some pizza and he told me that I'm an idiot.  Isn't he sweet?  But the second thing I thought about was this biscuit recipe.  So I toddled into the kitchen in my pjs and I made my biscuits.  OMG.  They are delicious.  They have a perfect flaky, yet very tender texture typical of really good homemade buttermilk biscuits.  Nothing against Grands biscuits out of the can, but they're never quite as crisp on the outside, and yet flaky and tender on the inside.  Instead they're basically buttery and tender all the way through, which is nice and all, but they're certainly not buttermilk biscuits.  So the texture is amazing.  Actually, I think that's the first thing I told Alex after my first mouthful of biscuit.  That the texture was perfect.  And they have loads of flavor from the black pepper and the scallions.  That was the first thing Alex said.  They are absolutely gorgeous.  I think Alex has already eaten four whole biscuits, which is a huge testament to how delicious these biscuits are because he usually has one biscuit and calls it a day.  I think these biscuits could very well be the best biscuits that I have ever made.  And I don't say that lightly.


Recipe after the jump!

Buttermilk Biscuits

I have been on the search for the ultimate biscuit recipe for years.  There are a few that I have discovered that I really enjoy, but none of them are plain buttermilk biscuits.  Instead they usually involve the addition of cheese and other herbs or seasonings.  And as much as I love these fancied up biscuits, I am always trying to find the PERFECT biscuit recipe that I can make for any occasion and serve slathered with white sausage gravy, just as easily as in a bread basket with dinner.  Today I stumbled across this recipe and in my neverending hunt for the perfect biscuit I gave it a try.  

So this biscuit recipe falls somewhere between a scone and a sweet biscuit that you would use for making shortcakes.  It's definitely not the savory biscuit that I was planning on when I first started baking.  It's probably my fault for not thinking the recipe through more clearly.  All I saw was a biscuit recipe that was very simple and only included ingredients I already had in the kitchen.  I didn't stop to think about it further.  But had I stepped back and thought about it, I would have realized that any biscuit recipe that contains 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of heavy cream brushed over the top of the biscuits would end up being more scone-like than biscuit-like.  So I might end up having the rest of these biscuits for breakfast slathered with jam and served alongside a cup of tea.  I think they will be delicious that way.  I also think that with a little extra sugar sprinkled on top that they would make a fantastic cobbler topping.  The hunt for the perfect biscuit continues...

Recipe after the jump!

Eggs "Benedict" with Asparagus and Prosciutto

While in Aruba I got in a conversation with friends about how I am intimidated by hollandaise.  I'm not really sure at this point why I stay away from hollandaise in my kitchen, I just know that I have yet to make eggs benedict at home, because it would require me to make hollandaise sauce.  I've always heard that hollandaise is hard to make - it breaks, you have to whisk it by hand over a saucepan of gently simmering water, etc.  Then I realized, if you're going the home cook version, you can also make hollandaise in a blender.  Genius!  But when I told Alex that we were going to make the hollandaise for our eggs benedict in a blender he shamed me into doing it the old-fashioned way.  Well, really he shamed himself into it because I refused to be the one standing over the saucepan of gently simmering water whisking away.  Instead, Alex had to whisk the eggs into submission while I commentated.  And for the record, the first batch of hollandaise we made broke.  So we had to start over.  See?  I had reason to stay away - hollandaise is finicky!  But in the end, particularly once you know what you are looking for, it's not hard to make.  Basically, we learned that the hollandaise goes from thin, to thick, to thickest - almost the consistency of aioli or homemade mayonnaise.  Stop once you get to that really thick point, otherwise your sauce might break and end up a buttery, liquidy mess.  It just requires some knowledge, babysitting and arm muscle.

I decided to top my eggs benedict with asparagus and prosciutto rather than smoked salmon, or the more traditional ham.  And I decided to serve it on toasted crusty sourdough from Amy's Breads.  Alex and I both agreed that we loved the sourdough in our version of eggs benedict.  It soaked up the runny egg yolks and the hollandaise sauce without getting mushy, and it gave the dish great flavor.  Also, this hollandaise was lighter (overall it was just less heavy and rich) and more lemon-y than most I have tasted.  I know a lot of recipes call for either vinegar or lemon juice and I have to say that with the asparagus I loved the noticeable lemon flavor of our hollandaise.  The proscuitto added just the right note of rich, salty, porky goodness - without it I think the dish would have been missing something.  As much as I loved this dish, I think we will probably only make it once every 6 months or so because it requires so many pots and pans and a good amount of effort.  But it was delicious.

Recipe after the jump!

Oeufs en Cocotte

Alex and I have one thing in common when it comes to brunch - we LOVE eggs with runny yolks, whether they are poached, fried, baked, coddled, whatever.  Otherwise he's more of a french toast person whereas I am all about eggs benedict, pancakes or a really nice frittata.  Oh and Belgian waffles.  I love me some Belgian waffles.  But we have been making versions of Oeufs en Cocotte (which are traditionally eggs baked in ramekins with some sort of cream) for years now.  Sometimes we do a spicy Latin combo of Mexican chorizo, scallions and cilantro, but sometimes we just throw in chives and some Parmigiano-Reggiano and call it a day.  Both versions are lovely, as are all of the others we have tried along the way.  I recommend serving these eggs with toasted baguette or other pieces of bread to soak up the egg yolk.  Sometimes I cut the bread into small cubes and add it to the egg mixture before cooking and they get all warm and juicy and happy baked inside the eggs, but sometimes I just serve them on the side for dunking.  Take your pick.

This would be a lovely (and easy) recipe to serve if you are having people over for brunch because you don't get stuck in the kitchen slaving over pancakes, waffles, or omelets.  You just have to throw everything in your little individual baking dishes before people get there and once you are ready to eat you can just throw them in the oven and call it a day!  In 10 minutes or less you will have piping hot eggy goodness for everyone and you can actually spend your time hanging out with your guests instead of flipping, baking, cooking, whatever!  Alternatively this makes a lovely light lunch or dinner when served with a simple side salad.

Recipe after the jump!

Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits

I know that I have referenced this recipe before in my post on Cheddar Biscuits, but I made a fresh batch last night and just had to share the pictures (and the recipe) with you all again.  I had a thing of buttermilk in the fridge fast approaching its expiration date and when I realized that I had all of the ingredients for these biscuits I knew I had to make a batch.  I briefly considered making this recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper and Sea Salt from Bon Appetit, but I didn't have any self-rising flour.  Maybe next time.  As I mentioned in my previous biscuit post, these biscuits do not have an overly traditional texture to them due to the addition of the cornmeal.  The cornmeal makes the crumb a little coarser and "grittier," although not in a bad way.  They just aren't quite as tender as a traditional buttermilk biscuit should be.  Instead they are wonderfully cheesy and savory, which is a trade-off that I am willing to make.  Alex and I think they are absolutely wonderful, but that's just us.  Let me know what you think!

Recipe after the jump!

Smoked Salmon and Goat Cheese Frittata

I woke up this morning to an almost unbearably dreary, rainy day.  It's the type of day that just makes you want to curl up on the couch in your pajamas with a nice steaming mug of hot tea (or hot chocolate) and a nice book to read.  And never venture outside.  On days like these, a bowl of cereal just doesn't cut it.  I seriously considered making homemade buttermilk biscuits, but somehow I just wasn't feeling it.  Then it occurred to me that I had some amazing Gaspe and Irish organic smoked salmon from Russ & Daughters sitting in the fridge.  Thus this smoked salmon frittata recipe was born.

I went through the fridge and started pulling out things for my frittata - eggs, creme fraiche, goat cheese, herbs, scallions, and the Irish salmon.  I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of adding cream cheese to a frittata, which is what most smoked salmon frittata recipes calls for, was just very strange to me.  I am a big proponent of cream cheese in frosting, on bagels, and in cheesecake, but somehow I cannot see using it in a frittata.  It's a quirk of mine that certain ingredients belong in certain places and it takes some pretty convincing proof before I can be swayed to believe otherwise.  Either way, I just prefer goat cheese to cream cheese anyway.  What's not to love about goat cheese?  It's creamy, tangy and just utterly delicious.  And I think it pairs incredibly well with buttery smoked salmon.

Recipe after the jump!