Category: Food

In the kitchen with Eric Alexander

Eric Alexander, Chef de Cuisine, Unwined in Milford, began his culinary journey in Rhode Island. Cooking in Newport, Eric embraced local ingredients and crafted dishes that were popular with both the locals and culinary circles. Then, at Johnson & Wales University, Eric dove into both the art and the practical side of gastronomy while polishing his cooking skills. He worked at Catalyst in Boston, Branch Line and Disney World, gaining experience in fine dining, large-scale culinary operations, seasonal ingredients and farm-to-table practices. Returning to New England, Eric continued developing menus and crafting culinary experiences as a personal chef before bringing his wealth of culinary knowledge to the Unwined team as Chef de Cuisine. His wife helps run a shelter and they foster and train dogs together, and have three dogs of their own. Seeunwinednh.com.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

My must-have tool is good spoons. They are useful for tasting, stirring, scooping food, and to help maintain consistent portioning.

What would you have for your last meal?

A Quarter Pounder with cheese, a 20-piece order of nuggets, a large order of fries and a chocolate shake.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Ansanm. Their food is incredible, and their plating is beautiful.

Who is a celebrity you would like to see eating at Unwined?

Comedian Dave Smith; he is a hilarious comedian and a smart guy.

What is your favorite item on your menu?

I like the rib-eye. Steak and potatoes is a timeless combination, and a good Bordelaise sauce is one of the best things there is.

What is the biggest food trend you see in New Hampshire right now?

Hyper-local sourcing is a trend that I am seeing. A lot of restaurants are trying harder to support their local farmers.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

My favorite thing to cook at home is whatever my wife wants.

Sumac Yogurt
From Eric Alexander

2 cups Greek yogurt
1 clove of garlic, microplaned or finely minced
1 Tablespoon sumac powder
juice of 1 lemon
zest of ½ lemon
salt to taste

Gather and measure all ingredients, then combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until combined.

Hippo Note: Sumac is a sour spice from the Middle East. This yogurt would be an excellent side dish to anything spicy or Mediterranean.

Perfecting gluten-free bread

Dishon Bakery crafts artisanal bread loaves without the wheat

Evan Lang described his perfect, platonic ideal of a loaf of bread.

Made of flour, water, yeast and salt, it “would have a thick crust to give it a little bit of character,” he said, “baked pretty dark — caramelized in a way that you get flavor also from the crust. “The crumb should be relatively open. It should not fall apart; it should stay together, and it should not be gummy, meaning if you take the knife and you cut into it, we don’t want anything stuck on the blade.”

One of Lang’s missions in life is to make that bread, but without any gluten. At Dishon Bakery in Manchester, he is doing it.

Gluten is a stretchy protein found in wheat and a few other grains that helps give conventional bread its texture. As yeast ferments various nutrients in wheat flour, it gives off carbon dioxide gas, which is trapped by the stretchy gluten fibers in bread dough, allowing the dough to puff up — what bakers call “rise.” Unfortunately, some people — those with celiac disease, for instance — can’t digest gluten, and others choose not to eat it for nutritional reasons, so for bakers like Lang the trick is to find a way of duplicating gluten’s stretchiness without the actual gluten.

“If you go to the supermarket and you check out the gluten-free bread there, it’s not great,” Lang said. “It’s either small or crumbly. And if you’re looking at the ingredients, it’s more like cake; it’s full of sugar, it’s full of starches. We’re creating a product that’s a little more artisanal — kind of like real bread.” The secret, he said, is a slow, cold fermentation, and high hydration — meaning that his dough has more water in it than conventional wheat breads.

“Traditionally, bread and pizza have different hydration percentages,” he explained, “from 60 percent up to 100 percent for really, really Neapolitan-style pizza. “Our breads are all over 100 percent hydration.” This means that Dishon’s bread dough has more water than flour in it. By fermenting it slowly, at a low temperature, Lang gives it time to completely incorporate all that water.

Lang’s dough starts with brown rice, sorghum and millet flours — all gluten-free grains — and potato and tapioca starch, then builds the dough up to the point where it can be treated much like wheat dough.

“We bake on a stone like regular bread,” he said. “Traditionally gluten-free bread is kind of like a batter. It’s baked in a tin and ours are baked free-form on the stone.”

Dishon Bakery started as a cottage business in New Jersey in 2022.

“We were selling in farmers markets, and we very quickly outgrew that,” Lang remembered. “We moved to Philadelphia and we were baking in a commercial kitchen there and doing a lot of wholesale, continuing with farmers markets and shipping online. We were doing a pretty good online business. People would order online, we’d package it up and ship it out. We moved up here and we re-evaluated what we were doing.” The Langs decided to focus more on face-to-face interactions with their customers. “Since we did have enough demand for the product, it made no sense for us to sell more [wholesale]. So we’re going to try here to exclusively do retail, direct to consumer.”

Many gluten-free bakeries produce mostly sweet products — cookies, cakes, pastries and so on — but Dishon focuses almost exclusively on bread products. Lang keeps a freezer case with other gluten-free products for customers who are looking for something less bready.

“We have sweets that are New Hampshire-based,” Lang said. “We want to give them an outlet here. None of them are based in Manchester. So this brings their product to Manchester and also allows us to fill the case with products that we don’t do and we don’t specialize in.”

Dishon Bakery
915 Elm St., Manchester
Open Thursday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Orders can be placed online at dishonbakery.com

The Weekly Dish 24/08/08

News from the local food scene

• Food trucks and muscle cars: Windham’s Recreation department will host aFood Truck Festival and Car Show on the grounds of Windham High School (64 London Bridge Road, Windham) on Sunday, Aug. 11. In addition to eats from local food trucks, there will be music and games of cornhole. For more details contact the Windham Recreation office by phone at 965-1208 or by email at [email protected].

• Dinner and a show: The Atkinson Resort & Country Club (85 Country Club Drive, Atkinson, 362-8700, atkinsonresort.com) will host Drag Me To Dinner, an evening of fine dining with a Tastes of Spain menu and drag entertainment, on Saturday, Aug. 10, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The event will be emceed by the duo of Kira Stone and Kris Knievil. Tickets are $65 through Eventbrite.

• Bubbles: August’s Brunch and Bubbles event at Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) will take place Sunday, Aug. 11, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. This month’s brunch menu will include sparkling Cayuga and a full mimosa bar with a farm-to-table brunch featuring mac & cheese bar, fresh pastries and fruit, quiches, frittatas and more. Tickets are $65 each, available through Eventbrite.

• International wine-off: Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host an Old World vs. New World Wine Class Tuesday, Aug. 13, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Participants will taste and compare wines. For example, how does a French Crémant stack up against a premium sparkling wine from California made in the Champagne method? The cost is $35 per person and the class is limited to 20 people. It includes six wines and light snacks. Reserve your place at Wine on Main’s website.

Caipirinha

The story goes that everyone in Brazil drinks caipirinhas when it’s oppressively hot. And because Brazil is on the equator, it’s oppressively hot pretty much all the time.

The ingredients for a caipirinha couldn’t be simpler: a lime, sugar, and a couple ounces of a Brazilian alcohol called cachaça, a sort of cousin to white rum. Most rum is made from fermenting molasses, a byproduct of sugar production. Cachaça is made by fermenting unprocessed sugarcane juice. It tastes like a slightly sour, faintly musky rum. That sourness plays extremely well off crushed limes.

Because the caipirinha — which is apparently pronounced “kai·pr·ee·nyuh“ — is so entrenched in Brazilian culture, it has inspired strongly held beliefs and heated disagreements. One of the most strongly argued caipirinha disputes is whether it needs to be made with granulated sugar, as caipirinha purists insist, or if it can be made with sugar syrup, like 95 percent of the sweetened cocktails in the world.

Because of my deep commitment to world peace, I decided to try the two versions side by side.

Here is the classic recipe for a caipirinha:

  • 1 lime, sliced into wedges
  • 2 teaspoons table sugar
  • 2 ounces cachaça – which is apparently pronounced “kuh-shah-sah,” which sounds like an obscure type of martial arts weapon. “This is no ordinary murder, Higgins; this man was killed by a cachaça.”

Muddle the lime wedges and sugar in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. There will be a lot of juice, so don’t smash the limes like you might normally with a muddler. Grind it down hard, for longer than you might normally, but make sure you don’t splash.

Add cachaça and ice, then stir thoroughly with a bar spoon and pour into a rocks glass. Some bartenders suggest garnishing it with a lime wheel, but there is so much lime in this drink already, that seems a bit like overkill.

The theory is that the sugar acts like an abrasive and helps strip citrus oil out of the lime peel. That seems unlikely; logic would suggest that the crushed lime produces so much acidic juice that the sugar is dissolved almost instantly and doesn’t have time to abrade anything. But let’s withhold judgment; sometimes Reality ignores Logic mercilessly.

OK, let’s set this aside and make a second caipirinha, with sugar syrup. Do everything the same, but add two teaspoons of simple syrup at the same time as the cachaça.

Crush, crush, crush, pour, pour, clink, clink, clink. Stir, stir. Pour/clink/gurgle. Let’s take a look at the two caipirinhas side by side.

They both look and smell delicious.

Taking a sip of the caipirinha made with syrup: **Raised eyebrows** This is a very solid cocktail. It’s a little sour and musky from the cachaça, just sweet enough, and a love letter to lime.

That’s going to be tough to beat. Let’s try the classic caipirinha: **Pupils dilate, ceiling opens up, the sound of angels singing fills the kitchen**

I realize that I’m still standing in my kitchen, but for just an instant I was sitting on a patio surrounded by tropical flowers while samba music played in the background.

The caipirinha made with sugar is better by several orders of magnitude. This is the real love letter to lime, written with a fountain pen, using sophisticated metaphors and a complex rhyme scheme. In comparison, the other one was a late-night text, asking, “U up?”

(I drank both versions, by the way; I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.)

I think I’ll open a summer-only pop-up bar called Cai-Piranha.

Featured Photo: Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Joe Savitch

In April 2024 Joe Savitch left his job of 10-plus years to start doing mobile street vending.

“We originally were looking at various franchise concepts and ultimately decided that that was still working for somebody else. So using my background in marketing and branding and web development and all the things that I had done for the last decade or so, we came up with this concept kind of through a series of just organic conversations,” Savitch said. “We ultimately decided to center our food around all kinds of things in cones — from snow cones to waffle cones. We put fun things like chicken and waffles and taco cones, which we premiered this year at the Taco Tour. We also make a handheld Japanese-style crepe cone. Our plan is to be creative and leverage our creativity as much as we’ll leverage the cones, and have some fun with our food.”

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A sharp paring knife. It is a simple yet versatile tool that can do many jobs and often goes overlooked.

What would you have for your last meal?

Probably chicken broccoli with ziti. My mom would make this for me as a kid and I haven’t had it in a long time. … And since carbs wouldn’t be of concern any longer, I’d probably have some cheesy garlic bread and a glass of red wine.

What is your favorite local eatery?

Tucker’s. … I always enjoy going to Tucker’s for their incredible creations.

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating at your food truck?

Alan Ritchson. This also was a tough one. My first thought was Anthony Bourdain or Tyler Florence, but I think Alan would be a lot of fun to see at the truck. I think he would place a big order. To maintain that Reacher physique, he’s got to get a lot of calories.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Chicken & Waffles — fried chicken in a waffle cone. This is one of the first items we conceived when working on this project. It is a non-traditional twist on a classic dish that everyone enjoys.

What is the biggest food trend you see in New Hampshire right now?

Authenticity — and freshness. With so many restaurants cutting back staff in favor of digital tablets and ordering, I see many customers just looking for an authentic interaction and ordering experience. On top of that, they are looking for fresh ingredients. Most customers are interested in hearing where we get our various products — the ice cream, maple syrup, soda, etc.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home? Why?

I love to make Thanksgiving dinner. I get to break out fun recipes from the past and look for new things to mix in every year. My kids help me make the snowflake rolls and my oldest has taken over pie duties. We get to work together and have fun. They may only end up eating the rolls and pie, but it isn’t about the eating; it’s about the cooking. —John Fladd

Chicken Broccoli with Ziti
From Joe Savitch

1 pound ziti cooked and drained
1 pound broccoli (can be frozen steamed or fresh steamed)
1 pound chicken breast chopped into bite size (1-2-ounce) pieces
flour
1 pint of half & half
salt and pepper for seasoning
oil

Prepare the noodles and steam the broccoli. Set aside.
Cut the chicken into 1- to 2-ounce pieces. Dredge in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Pan-fry in a little bit of oil. Cook the chicken until it browns on both slides, about 5-8 min.
There should be enough flour/oil to create a roux in the pan. If not, add a little more flour and butter (1:1 ratio) until there is a light roux formed in the pan. Add the half & half and heat until it simmers. If you want it to be saucier add some chicken broth.

Add the chicken, broccoli and noodles to the pan and heat through. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

Pup’s day out

Dog cafe prepares to open in Nashua

Ashyana Hall is in the final stages of launching Nashua’s first dog cafe, Pup In a Cup.

“It’s kind of a passion project that I started around two years ago,” Hall said. “I’ve been a dog trainer for about a decade and the biggest problem that I kept finding with my clients is they have nowhere to bring their dogs in the winter to practice socialization and be out with them. And especially this year, this year’s a great example of we’ve just been in a heat wave. They have nowhere to bring their dogs in the summer either now.”

Hall’s idea was to give dog owners a place to sit down with a snack, a cool drink or a cup of coffee, maybe meet some fellow dog people, and give their dogs a calm, vacuum cleaner-free space to relax.

“We’re going to have a full drink and snack menu for the dogs,” she said. “That’s mirrored to the human menu, so we make our own teas and smoothies and with that we have teas and smoothies that are dog-safe, dog-friendly and that are for them as well. The snacks look the same, or as close as we can get as possible. So you could go and enjoy a macaron or something like that with your dog.” The cafe’s baked goods will come from Lighthouse Local in Bedford. “They do a bunch of really cute doughnuts, they do cupcakes, and scones,” Hunt said. “So they do a bunch of different, just fun sweets and cookies. All the bakery goods for the humans are locally sourced from there.”

Pup In a Cup will also have two Quiet Rooms available for dogs, or even human children, who are still working on their people skills. Hunt sees them as a way to make the café more inclusive.

“As a trainer,” she said, “most — half if not more — of my clients were there for behavior modification, reactivity, things like that. You can rent [a Quiet Room] out for about 50 minutes and be out in public without your dog getting overwhelmed by there being too much going on because your dog’s not ready for it.”

At this point, Pup In a Cup is almost ready to launch. Human restaurants are inspected by the Health Department, but animal food — including food for dogs — has to go through the Department of Agriculture.

“The main thing that’s getting approved right now is the kitchen itself,” Hall said. “We’re essentially creating an airlock system [around the kitchen]. There is absolutely no direct access from the area where the dogs and people are to the kitchen. ” Hall said that she is excited to get started.

“I’m looking forward to the experience of it all,” she said.

Pup in a Cup
Pup In a Cup is expected to open in the second half of August.
295 DW Highway, Nashua, pupinacupcafe.com

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!