Category: Food

Warm Strawberry Pretzel Salad

This is an excellent all-day project for when weather has you stuck in the house. No one part of this recipe is difficult or takes very long to complete, but there are several stages where you need to walk away and leave it so the magic can happen.

  • 6 1/2 ounces (185 g) small pretzel sticks
  • 2 1/4 cups (446 g) sugar – You’ll be using small amounts of this during different steps of this recipe, so measure the two and a quarter cups into a small mixing bowl.
  • 12 Tablespoons (a stick and a half) butter, melted
  • An 8-ounce package of cream cheese
  • 1 cup (227 g) heavy cream
  • A 3-pound bag of frozen strawberries – If you can find 3 pounds of frozen sliced strawberries, so much the better.
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Set the bag of strawberries out to thaw.

Spray a 9×13-inch baking pan with non-stick baking spray, or oil it liberally with vegetable oil.

Pulverize the pretzels. You can do this in a food processor, a blender, or a combination of a rolling pin and anger issues. Combine the pretzel dust, the melted butter and 1/4 cup of sugar thoroughly, then transfer the mixture to the greased baking pan. Tamp the pretzel mixture down with the flat bottom of a measuring cup or a rocks glass.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the pretzel base start to brown slightly. Remove from the oven, and set aside to cool for half an hour.

With a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and 1/2 cup of sugar for a few minutes, until it is fluffy and friendly-looking, then slowly drizzle in the cream, and beat the mixture until it has soft peaks. With a large spoon or a spatula, transfer the cream cheese mixture to the pretzel substrate, and smooth it out. Move the baking pan to your refrigerator, and let it chill for at least half an hour.

Put 2 pounds (2/3 of the bag) of strawberries in your blender or food processor, and puree them thoroughly, then strain the liquid into a large saucepan through a fine-mesh strainer. Add the salt and the remaining 2 cups of sugar, then cook the strawberry mixture over medium heat until it just starts to come to a slow simmer. You don’t want to cook the flavor out of the strawberries; you just want to get the sugar completely dissolved. If you bought frozen whole berries, slice the remaining ones. Mix the remaining berries into the puree.

Using a sturdy spatula, cut servings of the pretzel-and-cream mixture, and top generously with strawberry sauce. This can be served warm or chilled, and goes extremely well with plain seltzer.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Thoughtful tasting

Wine, cheese, chocolate and more

“I think restaurants need to be a little bit more than just a restaurant these days,” Elissa Drift said, “because anyone can go anywhere and get food at any time. And there needs to be a reason for people to come out nowadays.”

Drift is the owner of Local Street Eats, a Nashua restaurant that has been developing innovative events. Drift said that, for her, building customer loyalty has been rooted almost as much in promoting a fun atmosphere as in great food and innovative drinks. Part of that atmosphere comes from holding special events.

“What’s the point?’ she asked. “If you’re not having any fun, why do it? So honestly, these events are just like really a cool way to bring people together and have an experience beyond eating. I think anyone can go to a restaurant. And people like to do things and have some sort of tangibility to the experience. So, when they’re tasting and eating and drinking and everything like that, whether it’s something as simple as our Chocolate and Cheese Thing, we are guiding them. They love that because they can learn and people love to learn, believe it or not. They love to get tidbits of information in a not-so-school setting.”

The “Chocolate and Cheese Thing” refers to an event Drift has scheduled at Local Street Eats for Feb. 10, “A Sweet Affair: Chocolate, Cheese, & Wine,” which she described on the restaurant’s website as “a guided tasting experience led by a special guest, taking you through the ultimate night of sipping, snacking and savoring, with no pressure to share.” It is an event designed for female friends to bond over — a “Galentine’s Day” activity. (Although, she said, anyone is welcome.) Participants will taste five different pairings of cheese, wine and chocolate.

“I thought it would be a really cool way to just kind of like bring everybody together,” Drift said, “to have some really good cheese, have some really good wine, and chocolate, but also talk about why those items pair well, and maybe just taste some things that they haven’t tasted or pair some things together that maybe they would have never even thought about.”

Drift described the first tasting course as an example.

“I love prosecco,” she said, “so we’re going to start with a nice prosecco, a triple-cream brie, and a white chocolate with lemon. The brie is going to be really bright and creamy, and that prosecco is just going to be perfect with all the sparkly notes in there. Then, the prosecco is a little dry, so it helps that the white chocolate has a creaminess to it and then the tartness from the lemon. It’s going to be a fun pairing.”

By contrast, the final tasting course will also feature a sparkling wine, but the tasting profile of the pairing will be very different, Drift said. “[The wine is] a rosa regale; it’s a sweet red, but it’s sparkling. It’s really sweet so you kind of need to pair it with something that’s going to cut that so that we’re going to serve it with a blue cheese and a dark chocolate truffle. The dark chocolate will have [notes of] cassis and cherry and raspberries, so it’s going to play off that sweetness, but it’s going to have a bitter sweetness to it. I think those, the first pairing and the last one, are going to be my two favorites.”

Drift thinks this sort of guided tasting will be popular.

“I think chocolate, cheese, and wine are three things that basically everybody likes,” she said. “And if you don’t, I’m so sorry for you.”

A Sweet Affair: Chocolate, Cheese & Wine
When: Tuesday, Feb.10, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Local Street Eats, 112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com
Tickets: $45 each, available at eventbrite.com or through a link on the Local Street Eats website. Visit local-streeteats.com/events.

Korean BBQ and Hot Pot

The most personalized meals ever

One of the attractions of going out for Korean barbecue or hot pot is the ability to completely design your perfect dish — literally from soup to nuts. OBA Korean BBQ & Hot Pot on South Willow Street in Manchester, which opened in mid-December, sets its customers up to make fundamental decisions about their meals, from the ingredients in their dishes to how they are cooked.

According to OBA’s Francesca Cardeo, customers will select ingredients for their meals and cook them themselves at their table. Each table is fitted out with a grill for cooking proteins and recessed heating elements where each customer can cook their hot pot.

“Everyone gets to pick their own hot pot base, which is a soup base,” Cardeo said. “And everything is raw. You cook everything yourself. And so say I pick the tom yum [Thai soup base], it will come out to your table, you turn the button on the heating element and it will bring it to a boil, and then you cook all your meat in it, and then your vegetables. Everyone does it differently. Some of the heating elements are stronger than others, but I will say that last night they brought my hot pot out and it was boiling within two minutes.”

“When I take people’s orders, I see if everyone wants to pick their hot pot first,” Cardeo said, “because I like to get the broth out first and get it going, even though it doesn’t take that long. And then I like to bring them any meat they’ve ordered. And then I do the fish and the extra stuff, followed by the ramen and the vegetables. And then I’ll flip, and then I’ll do the barbecue stuff.”

Cardeo said this style of dining gives groups of people an opportunity to try new foods.

“I had a table earlier of six people and they all chose their own broth and they all tasted each other’s broth. Then they know the next time they come which broth they want.” She said sometimes everyone at a table will want to grill the same meat, then customize their meal afterward. “If it’s a large table, and if someone wants bulgogi [a Korean cut of beef], we’ll ask, ‘Does anyone else want bulgogi? And then I’ll put in the amount of people that I have at the table. Then, when the meat comes out, it will all be on one tray. And then everyone shares it.”

Cardeo’s favorite combination of ingredients would be difficult to order off a menu.

“My favorite for the hot pot is the beef belly,” she said. “Then I get fried tofu. I get shiitake mushrooms, I get rice cakes, and then tofu skin, bean curds, and bok choy. That’s my favorite.”

Even though most customers associate tableside grilling and cooking with beef or pork, there are dozens of protein options to choose from, from different cuts of meat, to Spam, to baby octopus, chicken, shrimp and other, more vegetarian-friendly, options. “We do actually have a lot of vegans, and vegetarians that come in,” Cardeo said, “and they have a ball with the tofu, and stuff and all the vegetables.”

OBA has been designed around the concept of personalization; while the focus is on grilling and hot pot, there are different side dishes to customize with as well.

“We have a hot spot at the buffet with egg rolls, crab legs and all different kinds of hot food,” she said. “And then we have salads, kimchi, seaweed salad, that’s all included, once you pay your base price. So you can either do just hot pot, you can either do just Korean barbecue, you can do both. We don’t do takeout, and we don’t let people take food home, though.”

OBA Korean BBQ & Hot Pot
Where: 371 S. Willow St., Manchester, 932-2168, obakoreanbbqhotpot.com
Hours: seven days a week from noon to 10 p.m., and until 10:30 on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Weekly Dish 26/01/29

• Cake and wine: Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host an Oreo Drip Cake Class and Wine Tasting, Thursday, Jan. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m.All tools, ingredients and decorating supplies are provided. In this hands-on cake decorating class, you’ll create a 6-inch Oreo drip cake with a bakery-style finish. To maximize decorating time, each cake will arrive pre-baked, stacked and crumb-coated, so you can focus on learning decorating techniques, the website said.Tickets include a wine tasting featuring four wines from around the world to enjoy while you work. Tickets are $71.21; 21+ only.

• New room for wine-tasting: Flag Hill Winery (297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com) will begin service in itsnew tasting roomin a soft opening Thursday, Jan. 29. Overlooking Flag Hill’s vineyards and grain fields, the new year-round tasting room features wine and spirit flights made from products produced on site, along with a selection of small bites to enjoy alongside tastings. Visit flaghill.com/newtastingroom.

• Days of wine and mochi: Join Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) for Sip & Savor: Wine Meets Mochi, a unique pairing event featuring handcrafted wines and vegan Issei mochi gummies — a modern, vegan-friendly twist on a centuries-old Japanese treat. Each guest will enjoy a customized flight of six wines, and every pour is paired with one of six mochi gummies in flavors like Strawberry, Mango, Tangerine, Sour Watermelon, Yuzu, and Peach — all vegan, gluten-free and gelatin-free. Tickets start at $35 through eventbrite.com.

• Viking romance: Viking-themed pub The Sunstone Brewing Company (298 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 216-1808, sunstonebrewing.com) will host a special three-course Valentine’s Day Dinner for two, including a choice of entrees, and a dessert by Van Otis Chocolate. The cost is $100 per couple. Follow Sunstone Brewing on social media for details as they develop.

Fog Cutter

Here is my take on this classic.

1½ ounces light rum — On this occasion I’ve used Captain Morgan’s Sweet Chili Lime, because I’m wacky that way.

1 ounce cognac

½ ounce London Dry Gin — We want some of that juniperish astringency in this drink to offset so many fruit flavors, so I’m going with a solid standby, Gordon’s.

2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

1 ounce fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice

½ ounce orgeat — This is a sweet almond syrup that punches up the fruitiness of a tropical drink

½ ounce dry sherry to float

Add ice to a cocktail shaker, then add the rum, cognac, gin, lime and grapefruit juices, and orgeat. Shake thoroughly while listening to a song about making bad decisions on the beach. I recommend “Una Más Cerveza” by Tommy Alverson. Or anything by Jimmy Buffet.

Strain over crushed ice in a Collins glass. As it happens, I don’t have an ice maker in the door of my refrigerator, so I am forced to crush it myself, like a savage. I wrap a handful of ice cubes in a tea towel and smash it with something heavy.

Pour a float of sherry on the top of the drink with a straw and a paper umbrella.

This is fruity and refreshing, but at the same time boozy enough to get your attention. It goes down easily, but not so easily that it raises any suspicions. One will lead to a second. When you start to make a third Fog Cutter, a responsible person might remind you that you have a big day tomorrow.

The key phrase to remember here is, “Tomorrow’s not the boss of me!”

Featured photo: Cornmeal crepes. Photo by John Fladd.

Like a park, but with cappuccino

Village Play Cafe offers a place for parents and kids to relax

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

The target demographic of Village Play Cafe in Manchester is a very specific one: parents of young children who haven’t talked to another grown-up in too long.

You can drink a latte and watch your child play in a safe, soft space, said Kristie Ranahan, owner and founder of Village Play Cafe,

“I always wanted to open a play cafe,” she said. “Eventually I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’ So I hired moms who needed a place to work where they could bring their kids. I had never been a barista before, so I signed up for a class in New Jersey for the SCA, which is the Specialty Coffee Association, and I got certified as a barista …”

One side of the cafe is set up with tables and chairs, as well as a counter to order drinks and pastries. The other half of the space is set up with mats, books and toys for children to play with.

The cafe’s menu is centered around breakfast and lunch items, Ranahan said.

“Everything is made pretty much in house. In the morning we have cereals, muffins, croissants, apple Danishes, that sort of thing. And then for lunch we do soups, salads and sandwiches. My soups are homemade. When I do birthday parties and tea parties and things like that, we’re baking everything.”

In addition to drop-in guests, Village Play Cafe will host birthday parties and special events, like tea parties, with a costumed character who greets the children, and a proper formal tea service for their adults.

“We’re trying to [hold] a character party once a month,” Ranahan said. “In December it was the Grinch.” For the adults, the tea and treats are served on china. “So with clotted cream, jam, and then you have different Danishes and pastries, depending on what I feel like making that week. Children get a take-home cup and two hours of play; parents get a full tea setup. And then we only sell 30 tickets total, including adults, to make it more an environment that is a little quieter, so there’s not too many children running around at one time.”

“We’re really just trying to make more of a community,” Ranahan said, “especially in the winter. The whole purpose is to give moms an outlet where they can meet other moms, socialize and get to help younger children.”

Village Play Cafe
Where: 589 Second St., Manchester (shares a parking lot with Burger King)
Hours: open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
More: 340-5362, villageplaycafenh.com
Frozen Tea Time with Elsa will take place Saturday, Jan. 18, from 2 to 4 p.m.

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