Mouthing Off

© Fredrika Stjärne

What do you want to be eating more of in 2013? Right now, in the midst of my post-holiday food hangover, my answer is “nothing.” My follow-up answer is “anything that’s associated with the word cleanse.” But I’ll get over that. So I looked in the crystal ball we have lying around at Food & Wine in anticipation of moments like this, and I discovered five foods and one kind of drink that will be on fire in 2013. On to the must-try foods. »

Photo © Stephanie Meyer.

January in Minnesota. End of story. We know a thing or two about cold-weather comfort food, especially a one-pot rock star beef stew that will warm you from the inside out. This is “food with a hug” at its best. On the technical side, it’s simple. Resist the temptation to fussy it up until you’ve made it a few times, then you can do what you want with it. SEE RECIPE »

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The chocolate cookies soften as the cake chills overnight for a perfectly
moist, “cheater’s” cheesecake. // © Con Poulos

Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.

I've had such a blast working on these three-ingredient recipes. I really liked the challenge—it forces me to think in a clear and direct way, which is kind of great in the kitchen, especially when your pantry or wallet is limited. This icebox cake was superfun because the ingredients are completely accessible and not at all elevated: cream cheese, Hershey's chocolate syrup and Nabisco's Original Chocolate Wafers. The texture is like a very light chocolate cheesecake, but it looks more like a five-layer chocolate-buttercream cake.

My first test was with mascarpone instead of cream cheese, but it was a bit problematic because the particular brand of mascarpone I used (though delicious!) always breaks when whipped. Cream cheese is much more sturdy, almost too sturdy, so I had to thin it with a little water (I'd have used milk, but that would have put me over the three-ingredient limit). The chocolate syrup needed to be a thin, pourable kind. Though I'd have prefered a bittersweet hot fudge sauce, I really needed the viscosity and sweetness of the Hershey's. After sitting in the fridge overnight, it came together beautifully and was way more than the sum of its parts. Now all I can think of are all the cool variations: passionfruit juice, cream cheese and Nilla wafers; raspberry jam, cream cheese and chocolate wafers; apricot preserves, cream cheese and gingersnaps; espresso shots, cream cheese and chocolate wafers...Crazy! SEE RECIPE »

Related: More Chilled Chocolate Desserts
Amazing Cheesecake Recipes
Brilliant Three-Ingredient Recipes

Cocktail Cartoon by Adam Bernbach.

Most people who order a cocktail just by its name might not realize they’re being pretty vague. “I’ll have a Manhattan,” we’ll say, then go back to our conversation, leaving the nuances of each drink up to the person behind the bar. Bourbon? Rye? Dolin vermouth? Angostura bitters? That’s handing over a lot of decision-making power to the bartender. At the spectacular cocktail spot Proof, in Washington, DC, bar manager Adam Bernbach is helping guests discover exactly how different a drink can be, depending on the answers to these sorts of questions.

“There’s a certain handwriting to cocktails,” Bernbach says. “Your handwriting is slanted in a certain direction, your L’s curl a little more than somebody else’s, your P’s are a little straighter than others. In the same way, when you’re making a daiquiri, maybe you choose to use a South American rum and you might add a touch more lime juice because your preference is for something a little bit more tart.”

This month, Bernbach is exploring this mixology philosophy during his weekly Remastered Editions. For each Sunday (aside from the 20th, because of Inauguration Day insanity) he’s selected a classic cocktail and is presenting it using four different recipes. Last week, he did a study of the Manhattan. The fan favorites that night were the ones made with Eagle Rare bourbon, Cocchi vermouth and Angostura bitters; and another with Templeton rye, Carpano Antica and a combination of Angostura and Regan’s Orange bitters. On Sunday, January 13, daiquiris are in the spotlight. The varying styles of rum—Spanish, English, rhum agricole from the French West Indies—and the vast assortments of sweeteners that can be used in the classic, from Demerara syrup to simple syrup to plain sugar, give Bernbach a lot of flexibility. “I think the sweet, herb, spice quality of the rhum agricole will be very visible to guests. And I think the funkiness of the Jamaican Blackwell rum will be really obvious.”

To drive home this idea of the personalized nature of these cocktails, Bernbach has handwritten each of the menus and even made a little drawing (above) for each week. For the final installment of Remastered Editions, Bernbach will tackle the whiskey sour—including one drink that involves a whole egg yolk and that intriguingly tastes like, in Bernbach’s words, “lemony nut cake.” Perhaps it’s time to book a seat on the Acela, destination: Washington, DC.

Related: 50 Best Bars in America

Courtesy of Florida Cookery at The James Royal Palm

From mild anchos to seriously hot Scotch bonnets, chile peppers add nuanced flavors and, at times, lip-numbing sensations to cocktails. MORE >

© Wendell T. Webber

F&W Executive Food Editor Tina Ujlaki applies her incredible cooking knowledge to explaining what to do with a variety of interesting ingredients.

For centuries, Southeast Asian cooks have relied on deeply savory fish sauce as a primary seasoning in many of their dishes. Here, in the past couple of years, fish sauce, like so many other uniquely ethnic ingredients, has wandered into the universal pantry and is now used as a seasoning in non-Asian dishes as well. Red Boat has been my favorite brand of fish sauce because it’s fresh tasting, vibrant and light, and unlike some brands, there’s actually nothing fishy about it. Now, Red Boat has teamed up with the artisans at Michigan-based Blis Foods: They start with Red Boat’s finest 40*N fish sauce, which has already spent a year aging in wooden barrels, and age it for another 17 months or so in proprietary bourbon barrels previously used to age Blis maple syrup. Between the smoke from bourbon and wood and the mellow sweetness from the maple, the fish sauce becomes a rich-tasting, deeply nuanced condiment that’s as delicious in aioli and vinaigrette as it is in the classic Vietnamese condiment called nuoc cham.

Here are some great ways to use it:

Pok Pok Fish Sauce Chicken Wings
Fish Sauce Caramel
Grilled Rib Eyes with Mushrooms and Fish Sauce

Related: How to Cook with Fish Sauce
Delicious Southeast Asian Recipes
More Chicken Wings Recipes

Courtesy of Sierra Nevada

Few issues in the world are truly black-and-white. Cats, for instance. Some people think they’re nice pets; some people think they’re furry little narcissists who’d happily dine on your face if there were ever a complete collapse of civilization due to a nuclear apocalypse.  But one thing that can be divided into simple, black-and-white categories is winter beers. Basically, there are the ones that taste like something your grandmother would bake, and the ones that don’t. Here, six great winter beers.>>

Courtesy of Let's Pizza

In Singapore, you can press a few buttons and receive mashed potatoes slathered in gravy quicker than the time it takes to utter the words "instant mashed potatoes slathered in gravy." Here, more international vending machine triumphs.>>

This witty take on a breakfast staple stirs delicious
herbed croutons right into soft, creamy scrambled
eggs—eliminating the need for a side of toast.
© Stephanie Foley

Food & Wine's senior recipe developer, Grace Parisi, is a Test Kitchen superstar. In this series, she shares some of her favorite recipes to make right now.

I managed to squeak in a 12-mile run this morning before work (yeah, I’m just about an hour late…oops!). I’m a few weeks away from a big race and I thought it would be fun to kill myself before I have to stand on my feet all day and cook. A consolation is that I have a gigantic pantry at work, which means there’s always something to make for breakfast (my favorite meal of the day!).

Nothing beats eggs and toast for an immediate dose of savory protein and carbs. This one is a particular favorite of mine, in that it’s all combined in one dish. I fried bread cubes with herbs and a garlic clove (the garlic gets discarded), then added them to very soft scrambled eggs and cooked everything together for about a minute. All of which I devoured while sitting down, thankfully. Divine! SEE RECIPE »

Related: Savory Bread Pudding Recipes
Egg Breakfast Recipes
Breakfast for a Crowd

Photo © Stephanie Meyer.

This salad might not be the healthiest way to start off a New Year’s weight-loss resolution, but it’s a step in the right direction. I created this bacon-and-egg dish when I was a chef at a French bistro in Minneapolis in the early ’90s. Within a week or two it was a massively popular lunch special and our best seller at brunch. It’s hard to beat the contrasting combination of salty and sweet, hot and cold, soft and crunchy. SEE RECIPE »

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