Recipe arrives for Kentucky Hot Browns
Good morning, good company. Our city grows more and more diverse — well, perhaps just onemore diverse. Two readers, recent exports to the area, are longing for the food of their native countries: Ecuador and Germany. So, can you tell them where to purchase food from either cuisine, either prepared food or favorite brands and food items? And if you cannot, how about an authentic German or Ecuadorian recipe or two?
Girl Scout cookies, as you may have read in this newspaper on Sunday, are selling their wares as usual this year, but not the new Raspberry Rally cookies. There seems to be a supply-chain problem. And that is a problem, because cookies are the best of comfort foods. So here’s a request, from B.L., who thought “it might be nice to give readers a DIY option for a homemade substitute.” Raspberry Rally cookies are described as thin, crispy, infused with raspberry flavor and dipped in the same chocolatey coating as a Girl Scout Thin Mint.
Failing that, Ms. L. wonders if local bakeries sell something similar.
HOT BROWNS
The request for a Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich brought two replies, the first from Anne Braly, who wrote about this best sandwich ever in her Christmas Eve column in 2014. If you were otherwise occupied on Christmas Eve morning that year and didn’t see the recipe, here it is as first printed by Ms. Braly. In that column she confessed that her own attempts to replicate a Hot Brown Sandwich paled in comparison with the authentic version you read here.
Original Hot Brown Sandwich
1 1/2 tablespoons salted
butter
1 1/2 tablespoons
all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup Pecorino-Romano cheese, plus extra for garnish
Pinch of ground nutmeg Salt and pepper to taste 4 slices Texas toast, crust removed and sliced in half diagonally 14 ounces roasted turkey
breast, sliced thick 2 Roma tomatoes, halved 4 slices bacon, cooked
crisp
Parsley
Paprika
In a 2-quart saucepan, melt butter and slowly whisk in flour until combined to form a thick paste or roux. Continue to cook roux for 2 minutes over medium-low
heat, stirring frequently. Whisk heavy cream into roux, and cook over medium heat until cream begins to simmer, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove sauce from heat, and slowly whisk in Pecorino-Romano cheese until sauce is smooth. Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.
To assemble: For each Hot Brown, place 1 slice of toast in an oven-safe dish, and cover with 7 ounces of turkey. Take the halves of Roma tomato and 2 toast points and set them alongside the base of the turkey and toast. Pour half the sauce over the dish, completely covering it. Sprinkle with additional cheese. Place entire dish under a broiler until cheese begins to brown and bubble. Remove and cross 2 pieces of crispy bacon on top. Sprinkle with parsley and paprika, and serve immediately. Makes 2 sandwiches.
BBQ SAUCE, SLAWS
Nancy Ruby today offered three recipes fit for your next barbecue meal. She began with a barbecue sauce that works on meat and also in the slaw that goes alongside. Second recipe: the two-ingredient slaw. And finally, she sent a no-mayonnaise slaw that contains the interesting ingredient of Rotel tomatoes with green chilies.
This is serious North Carolina barbecue talk. You get the picture.
North Carolina Barbecue Sauce
This can be used on barbecue as well as in the slaw that accompanies it (see the simple recipe that follows). Those of us from North Carolina also call this dip.
2 cups apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon salt 1 tablespoon ground white pepper
1/2 to 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes (Start with ½ tablespoon and add more to taste.) 2 tablespoons granulated sugar ¼ cup brown sugar ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ cup ketchup
Mix all ingredients together, and let sit at least 10 minutes or up to several weeks in the refrigerator. The longer the sauce sits, the hotter it gets, since the heat from the red pepper flakes is brought out by the vinegar.
Norh Carolina Barbecue Sauce Slaw
1 small head of cabbage, chopped
1 1/2 cups North Carolina Barbecue Sauce
Mix, and serve with barbecue.
Red Slaw
1 small head cabbage 1 green pepper
1 onion
1 can Rotel tomatoes and green chilies, or diced tomatoes, with juice Sugar
Apple cider vinegar Salt and pepper
Chop cabbage, green pepper, onion and tomatoes in a food processor. Season with equal amounts of sugar and apple cider vinegar to taste and salt and pepper to taste.
MORE SLAW, PLEASE
To complete today’s slaw conversation, Betty Domal remembers a vinegar slaw that a friend brought to church potlucks “and everyone liked it. I’m not really a fan of slaw, but if I eat one, I like it with vinegar.”
All this talk of vinegar — including a prescription of 2 tablespoons in the almond flour applesauce muffins that just emerged from my oven — reminds me of the purported healing properties of apple cider vinegar. Got any opinion on that, you people?
And while you’re at it, Ms. Domal also mentioned that the recipe that follows “is pretty much like poolroom slaw.”
Pool players, got a recipe?
Vinegar Slaw
1 large head of cabbage,
chopped
1 teaspoon salt
3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped 1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon horseradish 1 teaspoon dry mustard
Mix cabbage and salt. Let stand 1 hour, then drain. Add remaining vegetables. Combine vinegar, sugar, horseradish and dry mustard. Bring to a boil, and pour over the vegetables. Refrigerate until serving. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. Yield: 10 to 14 servings.
This came from the Tennessee Magazine from August 2003, published by the Duck River Electric Co. in the area where I live.
As always, you have seasoned this repast with both sugar and spice. Please come back for seconds, and then some, next week.