Beverages

There are fruit people, and there are chocolate people. Even chocolate people will lick their plates clean when presented with a refreshing, lemony panna cotta strewn with wine-steeped peaches. Panna cotta makes a nice spring and summertime dessert because it’s not so rich that you leave the table feeling stuffed, and the lemon verbena adds a welcome, herbaceous tang. This dish is perfect for company because the panna cotta must be made ahead, and the peaches “cook” while coming to room temperature.

A cheese course for gin lovers, Ginepro is a sheep’s milk pecorino from Emilia-Romagna that is first rubbed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and then buried in juniper berries. It’s a salty, herbal cheese with an awesome tang. To complement the flavor and amp up the juniper, caramelize some pears and flame them with gin, then allow them to macerate to develop the flavor. With that much gin going on, pour a dry prosecco to drink with it.

Save this recipe for late February, when spring garlic first appears in markets. For this dish, it’s best to use larger heads, planning on one large or two small heads per serving. Piecing out the squab makes for much easier eating and allows you to cook the different parts perfectly, with the added bonus that the wings and body add incredible depth and flavor to the sauce. If you think your knife skills aren’t up to par, you can ask your butcher to do it for you, but be sure to reserve all the pieces. If your guests are big eaters, you might want to double the recipe to allow for one squab per person and serve as an entrée. Lentils would make a nice side.

After a rugged weekend of deer hunting, this is the dish I celebrate with . . . okay, not really. I buy farmed venison, just as you will. The nice thing, other than not having to don your camo and risk getting ticks, is that farmed venison is less intense than wild deer meat, with a rich, sophisticated flavor that is perfectly accented with a simple agrodolce. Forget about beef tenderloin and serve this instead—I promise the luscious texture and wild essence will win you over. As with tenderloin, though, make sure you serve the venison rare.

Think of this dish as the upscale cousin of that old standby, linguine with clams. Sparkling and oysters are a natural and festive combination, and here they combine to create a quick, fabulous pasta. This dish is almost a lighter version of an oyster stew, with the oysters poached just until done, the sauce brightened with prosecco, and then served over a fresh tangle of tagliarini. This would make a nice addition to a New Year’s Eve menu, or make any winter supper feel like a holiday.

This bright, sassy soup is full of big flavors—garlic, peppers, and lemon—that team up to accent the briny clams. The dish is then tamed, just a bit, with velvety Controne beans, one of my favorite Italian beans. Goat Horn peppers are red, slim peppers that you can find in Spanish and Italian markets, or in some upscale grocery stores. The preparation of this soup is fairly straightforward, and once you start cooking, the dish moves quickly. Have all of your ingredients prepared and ready before you begin.

My wife, Angela, loves mussels, especially the fat, tender Mediterranean mussels you get in summer and early fall. Consequently, we eat a lot of them—steamed, in salads, with pastas, you name it. Light enough for a summer dish, this terrific soup is also delicious in the winter months made with Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) mussels instead.

Banana pudding is such a Southern classic that I knew I had to include a recipe for it. At the same time, I wanted to give it a bit of a modern twist, and that’s how I came up with Banana Pudding Sliders. You have to learn the rules before you can break them, so here’s my favorite recipe for classic banana pudding—spiked with rum, layered with bananas and vanilla wafers, and crowned with meringue—followed by those sliders I dreamed up.

I substitute molasses for the usual corn syrup in this version of classic pecan pie. The filling is every bit as sticky as you’d expect, and the molasses and bourbon add a deep, almost smoky flavor. Serve with vanilla ice cream or a drizzle of eggnog.

These rustic half-moon pastries travel beautifully, making them one of my favorite picnic treats. Just wrap them in wax paper and you’re off!

When pineapple caramelizes, whether on the grill or in the oven, its bright, tart flavor mellows to something warm and sweet—a neat trick that has long been the calling card of traditional pineapple upside-down cake. My grandmother’s version, with its canned pineapple rings, was one of my dad’s all-time favorite sweets. It’s one of mine, too, but when I make it, I start with freshly grilled pineapple to double the caramelization effect and add a splash of bourbon to drive the point home.

In the summer, I like nothing better than to stand in the shade of my big, old fig tree and pluck the ripe fruit to a humming chorus of bees and scavenging birds. Figs are so short-lived—in terms of both season and shelf life—that you have to act quickly to enjoy them at all, so I always feel like I’ve done well when I come away with a jar or two of jam. A nip or three of brandy gives this version a smoky, complex flavor.

Sweet Vidalia onions are the perfect foil for the salty crust on these beer-battered onion rings, which make great party food along with Pimiento Cheese Burgers (page 187). Serve them in high street-food style by piling individual servings in handheld cones rolled from newspaper, brown paper bags, or butcher paper. Let the batter sit for the full three hours; this will allow deep, yeasty flavors to develop.

I grew up on this everyday pot roast, which each member of my family makes with his or her own special twist. My mom swears simple is best, with nothing more than meat and vegetables to flavor the dish. I, on the other hand, add wine, broth, and herbs to maximize the flavor of the meat, and I roast most of the vegetables separately so they get nice and caramelized on the outside and soft and sweet in the center.

In the cattle-ranching heartlands of Texas, barbecue usually means beef, not pig, and brisket—which comes from the animal’s lower chest—is hands down the most popular. A little patience and a few hours of smoking or braising transform this relatively tough cut into the most succulent, falling-apart-tender meat you’ll ever eat. Part of the trick is marinating the meat for several hours or even overnight prior to cooking, so be sure to factor in this additional “inactive” prep time. To avoid standing over the grill for six to eight hours, I start the meat on the grill for an infusion of smoky hickory flavor and then let the oven do the rest of the work.

Memphis is known for its dry-rubbed barbecued ribs, which are all about intense spices and the unadorned texture of low-and-slow-cooked meat. The two-step cooking process I use here—the meat is first slow-cooked in the oven, then finished over a hot grill—ensures succulent, crispy-edged, tender ribs every time, rendering sauce fully optional. Even so, sauce person that I am, I usually can’t help myself from cooking the meat in beer and basting it with vinegar-based barbecue sauce for a little added flavor and tang. You can try making these ribs with and without the sauce and decide for yourself. Either way, you’ll need to let the ribs marinate for at least two or three hours before cooking.

The assertive flavors of coffee, molasses, and balsamic vinegar meld and mellow in this sophisticated dish that is just the thing for winter entertaining. It is best served with simple sides, such as Mess o’ Greens (page 245) and Sweet Potato Spoon Bread (page 214), that enhance rather than distract from the sweet, rich molasses flavor of the pork.

I often serve this dish when I have guests because it makes for such easy entertaining—something you’d never know from the complex combination of flavors that emerges as the red wine and orange-spiked pepper jelly melt into a sweet and spicy glaze over the heat of the grill. Don’t forget to budget at least two hours of marinating time before firing up the grill.