Everett brewery crafts sour ‘pickle beer’ ahead of Boston Pickle Fair

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By:Kristin LaFratta

Mass Live

(Photo/Down the Road Beer Co.)

Pucker up for some Pickle Beer !

Everett’s Down the Road Beer Company is very ready for the Boston Pickle Fair: the brewery announced its newest beer, Sam-Sam The Pickle Man, will debut at the fair this weekend.
Beer-makers describe their newest concoction as a “spicy dill-pickle sour with real pickle brine,” brewed in collaboration with Boston’s Grillo Pickles.
The original brew will make its first public appearance at the Boston Pickle Fair at the Innovation and Design Building on Saturday, June 23. Following the festival, the beer will be on draft at Down the Road’s Everett taproom and in purchase takeaway cans.
Tickets for the Saturday event, which boasts having all-things pickle, are already sold out, but organizers say a limited amount of tickets will be sold at the door.

As craft breweries continue to be pop up around Massachusetts, a growing trend of sour, tangy and fruity beers is on the rise. That promising trend, combined with an upcoming June pickle fair in Boston, inspired an innovative creation from Down the Road brewers.
“We crafted an American kettle sour with dill-spiced brine from our friends at Grillo’s,” Down the Road founder and brewmaster Donovan Bailey said in a statement.

The can illustration on Sam-Sam the Pickle Man includes more signature artwork by Montana-based artist Nikki Rossignol, who designs mythological scenes and characters on Down the Road’s cans. Similar colorful artwork can be seen on the walls of the company’s taproom in Everett as well.

Bailey opened a physical space for the brewery in Everett just last year, located in an area he described as once being an “industrial wasteland.” The result was a casual, comfortable and spacious place to drink craft brews — and play vintage pinball. A row of restored classic pinball machines line the walls of the taproom.

 

Trader Joe’s Popcorn In A Pickle Is A Must-Have Staple For All Pickle Fans

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By:Callie Tansill-Suddath

Bustle

Trader Joe’s Pickle flavored popcorn

Photo By :Trader Joe’s

 

 

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Popcorn — that’s how that old tongue-twister goes, right? OK, maybe not. But thanks to Trader Joe’s briniest item on its extensive lineup of snack foods there might just be the need for an updated riddle. Move over caramel corn, a saltier snack is here to claim the spotlight: in case you didn’t already know about it, or need some reminding now that summer is here, Trader Joe’s Popcorn in a Pickle is the perfect side dish for the upcoming barbecue season.

Yes, Trader Joe’s has had this offering around for awhile, but the magic of Instagram is bringing it back into the limelight so we don’t all make a mistake and sleep on it this summer. Michigan-based Instagrammer JunkFoodMom, who documents her interesting supermarket snack finds, recently posted about the snack and put it back on the internet’s radar. She posted a photo of the large bag, and a handful of popcorn displayed in the foreground. Her accompanying caption reads: “TJ’s popcorn with the ‘bite and tang of dill pickles.’ I’m not a huge fan of pickle flavored snacks but found this strangely addicting. Dill oil is used to make these perfectly picklelicious.”

If you’re on the fence about tasting, perhaps JunkFoodMom’s assessment will sway you. If not, maybe you’ll be enticed by the darling anthropomorphic pickle displayed on the bag. The little leaf even looks vaguely like a hat.

If there is one thing hipster grocer extraordinaire Trader Joe’s has mastered, it is combining flavors in unexpected ways — and making it work beautifully. In fact, Bustle has rounded up a whole slew of unexpected Trader Joe’s combos that sound sketchy, but are actually delicious, from the Roasted Garlic & Onion Jam to the Mashed Cauliflower.

And pickle fans, fear not: although the TJ’s offering isn’t new, there are in fact countless pickle-flavored edibles to add to your summer lineup. Pickles, it would appear, are taking over the snack table this summer. Almost every food you can think of is being reinvented with a pickly twist. If you’re tired of cloyingly sweet summer sips, and bored of classic snacks, be a little adventurous in the coming months and add some add some pickle to your repertoire. It goes without saying the options aren’t limited to the vegetable.

In the meantime, let this either be your PSA or reminder that Popcorn in a Pickle is available at Trader Joe’s, and your taste buds deserve it.

Pickle-Brined Fried Chicken

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By Abby Reisner

Tasting Table 

Check the pickleback at the door and use that brine for a new take on the classic sandwich

Photo: Eric Wolfinger © 2018

 

Chris Kronner knows burgers. In fact, he’s made a name for himself off of them. And in his new cookbook, A Burger to Believe In, Kronner shares tips, tricks and recipes for making the perfect burger. Now, the classic is always reliable, but his burger knowledge goes beyond beef—like for these chicken thighs that are marinated in pickle juice and buttermilk, then fried until golden and topped with a black pepper slaw. The recipe takes a bit of forethought; you’ll want to make sure you have enough time to marinate for maximum tenderness. But the effort is mainly hands-off and the results more than worth it.

Pickle-Brined Fried Chicken
Reprinted with permission from ‘A Burger to Believe In: Recipes and Fundamentals,’ by Chris Kronner with Paolo Lucchesi, copyright © 2018. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

 

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes, plus overnight brining
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the Chicken:
4 boneless chicken thighs (skin-on or skinless)
3 cups dill pickle juice
3 cups buttermilk
For the Slaw:
½ head green cabbage, cored and sliced
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon Urfa, Marash or Aleppo chile flakes
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the Sandwiches:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
Kosher salt
8 cups rice bran oil, for frying
4 pain de mie buns
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Directions

1. In a large bowl or jar, fully submerge the chicken thighs in dill pickle juice. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or up to 24 hours.
2. Remove the chicken thighs from the pickle juice, and then fully submerge them in the buttermilk in a second large bowl or jar. Cover and refrigerate. Let the chicken soak for at least 1 hour, or up to 12 hours.
3. Make the slaw: On the day you fry the chicken, put the cabbage in a large bowl. Add the vinegar, honey, salt, chile flakes, and pepper and toss until combined. Let sit while you fry the chicken.
4. When ready to fry the chicken, stir together the flour, cornstarch, pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Remove the chicken from the buttermilk, then dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, turning it to completely coat.
5. In a Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat the oil to 345°F over high heat. (If you’re a beginning fryer, it’s probably best to fry one thigh at a time; once you get the hang of it, you can try doing more at once.) Fry the chicken until it’s golden brown or it reaches an internal temperature of 165°F, about 6 to 8 minutes. Adjust the heat as needed to maintain the temperature at 325°F. Using a spider skimmer or other small strainer, remove the chicken from the oil and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt as desired.
6. While the chicken rests, toast the buns. Heat a cast-iron skillet or similar surface over high heat. Slice the buns in half horizontally. Smear the butter on the buns and place, butter side down, on the hot surface, working in batches if necessary. Toast until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes.
7. Place a large handful of the coleslaw on a bottom bun and top with a chicken thigh. Be sure not to put a mountain of slaw on the sandwich; you want just enough to add some crunch and acid to the fried chicken. Cap it off. Repeat with your other sandwiches. Eat immediately.

 

 

 

For That Final Flourish, a Flavored Olive Oil

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By:Florence Fabricant

New York Times 

 

Credit:Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times

Crushed lemon and jalapeño add zest and spice to products from McEvoy Ranch

 

Last year, McEvoy Ranch released a well-received olive oil seasoned with crushed lemons local to its Petaluma, Calif., location. This year, they’ve added a companion, an oil made with jalapeños. For both, the lemons or chiles are crushed with the olives. The jalapeño oil has a delightfully grassy, vegetal allure, with moderate heat. The lemon oil gets a boost from black pepper. Both are seasoning oils, to gloss and flavor a dish just before serving.
McEvoy Ranch Lemon and Jalapeño Olive Oils, $25 for 375 milliliters, mcevoyranch.com.

Party snacks: cheesy churros with a spicy salsa

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By Susan Jung

Post Magazine 

Cheese Churro with a red pepper and jalapeno salsa . Photo by: Johnathan Wong

 

These cheesy, slightly spicy churros make a good party snack. They taste best the day they are made but, if needed, can be reheated in the oven (at 180 degrees Celsius for about five minutes) to crisp them up. While they are delicious as is, they are even better with this roasted red pepper and jalapeño salsa, which can be made a day or two in advance.

Cheese and piment d’Espelette butter churros with roasted red pepper and jalapeño salsa
It’s hard to say how much egg you’ll need for this recipe. It depends partly on the size of the eggs (because “large” can vary in size) but also on how long you cook the mixture on the stovetop after adding the flour.
For the churros:
120ml water
60 grams piment d’Espelette butter
75 grams plain (all-purpose) flour
2-3 large eggs, at room temperature
80 grams aged comté
Oilor the roasted red pepper and jalapeño salsa:
1 red bell pepper, about 200 grams
1 jalapeño chilli
50 grams ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes (I use the local pear-shaped variety sold by fruit vendors)
1 shallot, about 25 grams
The finely grated zest of half a lime
About 15ml fresh lime juice
Fine sea salt, for frying

Make the salsa first. Char the bell pepper and jalapeño by putting them directly on the high flame of a gas stove. Turn them over as they blister and burn so they cook evenly. When the bell pepper and jalapeño are charred, put them in a bowl until they are cool enough to handle, then strip off the blackened skin. You can do this easily by running the bell pepper and jalapeño under a thin stream of running water. After skinning them, blot them dry with paper towels. Halve the bell pepper and jalapeño and remove the core, seeds and stem.

Halve the cherry tomatoes and chop the bell pepper, then put them in a blender or food processor and process to a rough purée (you don’t want it to be completely smooth). Mince the jalapeño and shallot and mix them into the purée. Add the lime juice and zest, then season to taste with salt. Refrigerate for about an hour, or longer, if you like. Taste the salsa just before serving it. Add more salt and lime juice, if needed.

Make the churros. Put the water and butter into a sauce­pan and bring to the boil. Turn the heat to low then add the flour all at once and immediately start stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. The mixture will ball up around the spoon and come away from the sides of the pan. Continue to stir constantly over a low flame for a minute or two.

 

Put the dough into the bowl of an electric mixer and stir on low speed for a couple of minutes to dissipate the steam (if you don’t have a mixer, stir by hand with a wooden spoon). Mix in one of the eggs, stirring until fully incorporated. Whisk the second egg, then add half to the mixture and stir well. Add in more egg as needed, using the rest of the second egg and some or all of the third, until the mixture is glossy and smooth, and forms a soft peak when you touch it with your fingertip. Finely grate the cheese (preferably using a rasp-type grater, such as a Microplane), then stir it into the dough. Scrape the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized star tip.

Pour some oil to the depth of about 3cm into a shallow pan and heat to 170 degrees. Pipe the churros mixture directly into the hot oil. Don’t make them too long (I like them about 3cm-4cm) and don’t worry if they are curled. Fry the churros until they are a medium golden brown on both sides then remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Serve hot, warm or cool with the salsa.

What is a pickle? Texas couple suing over the definition of this savory snack

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By: Erica Chayes Wida

TODAY

Texas couple in a bit of a Pickle .

(summitted Photo)

A Texas law about pickles has left a sour taste in the mouths of one couple — and they’re doing something about it to help fellow farmers around the state.
Anita and Jim McHaney moved to a 10-acre farm in Hearne, Texas, after retiring in 2013. The fields were fertile so the McHaneys were able to bring their produce to the local farmers’ market every Saturday to sell. It was their retirement dream fulfilled.

One of the best ways the couple tried to supplement their income was to pickle leftover items like beets and okra, particularly in between market days and during the hot Texas summers. But when the McHaneys went to a class to ensure they were doing everything right when it came to farming and selling their wares, they realized their little Berry Ridge Farm was facing a big problem … at least when it came to pickles.

The Texas Department of State Health Services enforces the Cottage Food Law, which allows some types of home food production to be “exempt from the requirements of a food service establishment.” The law enables mom and pop businesses and farmers to make and sell certain food items without having to abide by commercial kitchen regulations.

While the law was updated in 2013 to include a myriad of farmers’ market friendly items — from baked goods to roasted coffees and dehydrated fruits — its definition of a “pickle” included only one vegetable: the cucumber.

“Pickles are seen as a value-added product. In Texas, we love our pickles. We eat all kinds of pickles. When we read this, I said, ‘You’re going to tell everyone in Texas that pickled jalapeno peppers aren’t real?’ Excuse me,” Anita McHaney told TODAY Food. Texan-pickle pride aside, the language set forth by health services means some farmers like the McHaneys, who can’t grow cucumbers due to sunlit, sandy soil, will miss out on income. Anita told TODAY that selling only fresh produce at the Saturday markets does not allow them to break even, and pickling is a common solution. “We know a lot of people who make and sell [cucumber] pickles and they are inundated with people at the market who say ‘Where are the pickled beets, where’s the pickled okra?’ And the [farmers] have to tell them they’re not allowed to sell those,” Anita said.

If purveyors sell pickled vegetables that aren’t cucumbers at farmers’ markets, The Texas Monitor reported they can face fines up to $25,000.
Rather than forgo lucrative farmers’ market sales, the McHaney’s sought the help of Institute for Justice in Austin, Texas. The couple filed a lawsuit against the State Department of State Health Services on May 31 with the law firm Drinker, Biddle and Reath, which took on the case pro bono.

“We’re pretty conservative people,” Anita told TODAY Food. “When we see a law is wrong, we don’t just break it. We try to get it changed to be rational. That’s what we’re trying to do here.” Anita said she believes a change to the law could help a lot of Texans — especially single moms or stay-at-home moms who can easily pickle produce and make “a little extra cash.” According to The Institute for Justice, women represent 83 percent of cottage food producers in the United States.

One of the McHaneys’ attorneys, Nate Bilhartz, told The Associated Press that the state’s narrow pickle definition ignores “recent Texas Supreme Court precedent upholding the right under the Texas Constitution to earn an honest living free from unreasonable government interference.”

Jalapeno’s celebrates 25th anniversary

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By: Caroline Lobsinger

Bonner County Daily Bee

 

(Courtesy photo) A few of the Jalapeno’s staff pose for a group photo. The iconic Sandpoint restaurant recently celebrated its 25th year in business.

 

SANDPOINT — Good food and good times combine at Jalapeno’s.

It’s easy to see why, then, that the restaurant recently celebrated its 25th anniversary in business.
Jalapeno’s got its start when Chad and Shari French started the now iconic restaurant in mid-April 1993, first on Cedar Street in the old Bootery building and then adding a second location on First Avenue, where Starbucks is now located. When they bought the old Elks on Second Avenue with partners in 1998, splitting the property with the Frenches remodeling the left half of the building, they closed the first two locations and combined everything into the new property.

When the couple was looking to sell the restaurant in 2013, Chet French approached local restaurateur Justin Dick after hearing he was looking for a new project. Dick was, in fact, looking for a project to do with friend Dave Vermeer, who was then managing the Coldwater Creek wine bar.

French wanted to sell Jalapeno’s to someone local who would continue what the couple had built — a restaurant dedicated to both good food and the community.
“The opportunity presented itself and they wanted to sell it to somebody local so it worked for us to take that on and kind of continue their legacy,” Vermeer said. “That’s what we all really wanted to do.”

Vermeer, who had been in the beer and wine business for 20 years, and Dick, the owner of several other area restaurants, took over Jalapeno’s on Jan. 1, 2014.
Until they were approached by the Frenches, the pair had never considered the possibility. However, as soon as they heard what he had to say, they knew it was a perfect fit and were immediately on board.

“Being able to buy an iconic Sandpoint restaurant, to be a part of it and to carry on the legacy of what they’d built has been amazing,” Vermeer added.
When they bought the restaurant, the pair hired all the employees already on staff. They didn’t want there to be a transition and, having both been involved in the industry for a number of years, they knew the value of a great staff. Initially, they kept the menu exactly as it was — in part because it was a successful menu and because folks made a point of approaching them in the store and letting them know how much they liked Jalapeno’s and hoped it wouldn’t change.

“Getting all that local feedback, we just really, really tried to not change the menu at all,” Vermeer said. “But over the last three or four years, we’ve definitely started to introduce new items and I guess more creative type items. The menu was very set and it’s got all the classics on it but there wasn’t a lot of new or fun things on it so we’ve started adding those.”
Among those items — which are quickly becoming classics on their own right — are the Juan-tons, packed with cheese, bacon and roasted serrano peppers. “They’re like a jalapeno popper but better,” Vermeer noted.

The menu has its origins in Jalisco, Mexico, as well as San Diego, Calif., where the Frenches were from. The serrano pepper is a key part of the region’s flavors and offers a more consistent pepper flavor as well. It was natural then — and now — to base the menu on that region.
It’s amazing to think that Jalapeno’s has been open for 25 years, Vermeer said, quick to give the credit to the restaurant’s employees, many of whom have been with them for years, and to the community for making a spot for them in their hearts.

“For a restaurant to make it, we feel it’s really incredible but we couldn’t make it without Sandpoint,” he added. “We want to really thank the customers and employees who have been with us for so long.”

It’s important for the pair, said Vermeer, to be a good community partner and, as a result, they contribute regularly to various fundraisers and events.
They also recognize it is important both evolve the menu, adding it fun new trends like the Juan-ton and recognition of the community’s diverse palates, ensuring the menu has something for everyone, from beef, chicken and seafood to vegetarian and gluten-free fare.

“We have a big menu and it’s complicated but everybody has something that they like and we want everyone to be happy,” Vermeer said.
While they’ve only been a part of the Jalapeno’s story for 5 years of so, Vermeer said he and Dick feel a responsibility to carry on the traditions and legacy started by the French family.
“We’re carrying on something that was started before us and they trusted us,” he added. “We feel responsible to keep doing it right.”

Information: Jalapeno’s, 314 N. Second Ave.; phone, 208-263-2995; online, sandpointjalapenos.com; or Facebook, facebook.com/JalapenosMexicanRestaurant