Vintage

I've debated for a while about releasing this recipe base.  Somewhere deep in the cockles of my heart, maybe even the sub-cockle area I've been envisioning going into the sauce business with his and the Precious Booty recipe.  I think I've finally decided that, for this recipe at least, that's not going to happen.   Not because it's not good, because it's difficult to scale up to commercial volumes. I've spent far more time on variations of this recipe for commercial kitchens than I have on imporoving the sauce  and that's just no fun.

 This recipe is so simple I surprised it placed in the hot sauce competition.  I literally threw it together in an afternoon.

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp. champaign vinegar
• 3 tsp. jolokia powder
  
• 8 cloves garlic
• Pinch of salt
• 2 habaneros
• 1 c. whole canned tomatoes (with juice)
• 12 oz. black currant jam (other jams work very well too)
  
• 9 oz. pineapple juice concentrate
• 4 tbsp. apple juice concentrate

Summer time is here and that means it's time to break out the grill.  This recipe, from the Culinary Institute of America, involves a bit of work but the end result is worth it.  If you're planning on making this for guests you'll want to make the black bean sauce the night before.  That way you can spend time with your company instead of futzing around in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

• Marinade:
• 8 fl oz apple cider
• 1 fl oz cider vinegar
• 1/2 oz minced shallots
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 tsp cracked black peppercorns 
• Chicken:
• 10 chicken breasts, boneles, skin on
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 16 fl oz barbecue sauce
• 20 fl oz Black Bean Sauce, warm

Way out in the middle of no where in north west Ohio there lies a magical place: "Uncle Rusty's Pepper Patch".  This place is a pepper lovers dream.  Other nurseries might have selections like jalapeno, habanero, and cayenne sitting on a couple of shevels.  Uncle Rusty's has an entire hot house devoted to peppers alone.  There's more varities of Jalapeno there then I knew even existed.

Yesterday I completed my second annual pilgrimage to Uncle Rusty's.  Last year during a visit with my girlfriend's family her father asked if I wanted to check out the place he bought his pepper plants.  That visit was a real eye opener for me, I discovered more varieties of peppers and tomatos then I'd ever dreamed of.

The plan yesterday was to pick up some Scotch Bonnet peppers, since I'd already planted some generic Habaneros I picked up from Anderson's General Store.  One look at the plants at Rusty's and I realized how pathetic the Habaneros I'd bought from Andersons were in comparison.  Apparently time had blurred my memory of the first trip.  For the life of I can't imagine now how I ever thought that those pathetic little pepper plants I planted last weekend were equivalent to what I had planted last year.

So instead of a handful of Scotch Bonnets I ended up with a full flat of Habanero goodness:

Aren't they beautiful?

This recipe comes my way via Bon Appétit.  It saddens to find that it was published three years ago, nothing like finding out you've been missing out on heaven for three years.  The wonderful thing about this recipe is it's simplicty.  There's 30 minutes MAX prep time and you're free to move on while it cooks.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Creole mustard
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 green onions, chopped, divided
• 2 8-ounce veal rib chops (each about 1 inch thick)
• Ground allspice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs made from crustless French bread

Years ago I was introduced to a wonders of the Scotch egg at a bar on High Street in Columbus.  They're about as unhealthy as they come: hard boiled eggs removed from their shell, wrapped in meat and deep fried.  Of course for me, this means nirvana.

The dish was invented by the London food shop Fortnum & Mason, in 1738. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a Scottish dish. Scotch eggs were traditionally a picnic food, designed to be eaten fresh. However, in the UK at least, they have acquired an unfashionable, downmarket reputation due to the preponderance of pre-packed, plastic-wrapped Scotch eggs sold at convenience stores and service stations.

Miniature versions of scotch eggs are also widely available in British supermarkets and are sold under the name 'savoury eggs', 'picnic eggs', 'party eggs' or similar. These contain a chopped, rather than whole, egg filling, sometimes combined with mayonnaise.

In West Africa, some fast-food restaurants offer scotch eggs alongside their other menu items. While this recipe came from an Indian cookbook