Category: Food

The Weekly Dish 22/12/01

News from the local food scene

• Food and brews for a cause: Join The Common Man Roadside Millyard (451 Commercial St., Manchester) for its inaugural Do Good Beer Dinner on Wednesday, Dec. 7, to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester. The festivities will kick off at 6 p.m., featuring appetizers, brewmaster tastings, a toy drive and a silent auction, followed by a five-course meal to be served at 7 p.m. Each course — including a charcuterie board, bacon jam scallops, butternut squash bisque, beer-braised pot roast and a special dessert pairing — will be paired with a beer selection from Manchester’s Great North Aleworks. The cost is $125 per person (21+ only) and reservations are required. Visit thecman.com or find the Eventbrite page for the dinner to purchase tickets.

• Greek eats to go: Get your orders in now for the annual baked lamb dinner from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Greek Church (1160 Bridge St., Manchester) on Sunday, Dec. 11, at noon. Ordering by Wednesday, Dec. 7, is requested, while supplies last — dinners are $20 per person and include lamb, rice, beans and salads. Visit stnicholas-man-nh.org or email Barb George at bitos1254@yahoo.com to place your order. In Concord meanwhile, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (68 N. State St.) is taking orders for its next boxed Greek dinner to go, a drive-thru takeout event, on Sunday, Dec. 11, from noon to 1 p.m. Now through Wednesday, Dec. 7, orders are being accepted for boxed meals featuring dinners of Greek vegetable medley with tiropita (cheese pita) for $20 per person. The event is drive-thru and takeout only — email ordermygreekfood@gmail.com or call 953-3051 to place your order. Visit holytrinitynh.org.

• Cooking with wine: The Winemaker’s Kitchen cooking with wine series continues at LaBelle Winery with holiday recipes classes, to be held at its Amherst location (345 Route 101) on Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 6 to 7 p.m. each day. Attendees will get to enjoy holiday dinner samples and discover recipes with wine paired or prepared with each item. Recipes will include candied kielbasa, deviled eggs with Seyval Blanc egg filling, red wine caramelized onion dip for vegetables and chips, and baked brie with a red wine fruit compote. General admission is $35 per person, plus tax. Visit labellewinery.com.

• Tea time: Enjoy holiday afternoon tea with The Cozy Tea Cart of Brookline, to be held at the Gatherings at the Colonel Shepard House (29 Mont Vernon St., Milford) on Sunday, Dec. 4, from 1 to 3 p.m. In addition to seasonal teas, there will be assortments of festive tea breads, sandwiches and pastries to be served. The cost is $39.95 per person and reservations are required. Visit thecozyteacart.com or call 249-9111.

• NHLC taps new wine sales specialist: The New Hampshire Liquor Commission recently named Justin Gunter its new wine marketing and sales specialist, according to a press release. Gunter oversees all aspects of wine sales, including purchasing and promotions, across the 67 New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlet locations statewide. He takes over for Lisa Gosselin, who had been in the position for six years and was with the Commission for more than two decades before her retirement. According to the release, Gunter joined the NHLC team in 2014 as a part-time sales clerk at the Stratham outlet, eventually moving up the ranks to retail store supervisor and later regional stores supervisor, leading to sales increases exceeding $100,000 annually in multiple markets.

Staggering toward 34th Street

There are two great scenes in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street:

“Hey, Lou! How many letters do we have to Santy Clause down at the Dead Letter Office?”

“I don’t know — there must be fifty thousand. Bags and bags of them comin’ in every day….”

Charlie — because I’ve decided that his name is Charlie — gets thoughtful for a second. The scene cuts to the courthouse, where things don’t look good for Santa Claus, or maybe Kris Kringle, who is defending his sanity in court. He doesn’t want to be institutionalized. The D.A. doesn’t actually want to institutionalize him and risk alienating his own children. The judge, who is worried about re-election, doesn’t want to fit Santa with extra-long sleeves on Christmas Eve.

Then Lou and Charlie and the other postal workers give them all a legal loophole and save Christmas. It’s a brilliantly cynical bit of emotional manipulation. I love it.

Even better is at the beginning of the movie, when it’s discovered that the Macy’s Parade Santa is soused and can’t finish the parade. How can that not have happened at least once in real life?

In that spirit, here are a trio of drinks to enjoy while you watch the parade this week.

Macy’s Parade

  • 1 ounce apple brandy – I like Laird’s Applejack
  • 1 ounce rye – I’ve been enjoying Knob Creek
  • ½ ounce cranberry syrup – see below
  • ¼ ounce Cynar – yes, the stuff with the artichoke on the label
  • 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Pour all ingredients over ice in a mixing glass. Stir gently.

Let rest 15 to 20 minutes, to let the ice chill and dilute this very authoritative cocktail.

Strain into a coupé glass, and drink while singing show tunes along with the lip-synching, float-riding Broadway stars with overly bright eyes. Do this until your teenage child threatens arson.

This drink, courtesy of Craig Eliason in Minnesota, is not a light, frivolous cocktail. It is sweet, boozy, and a little herbal, courtesy of the Cynar and the bitters. It stares you in the eye and dares you to get cynical about the parade.

“Don’t you dare make fun of Al Roker,” it tells you in a low growl.

Cranberry Syrup

Combine frozen whole cranberries with an equal amount of white sugar, by weight, in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, mashing the berries with a potato masher once they have thawed. By using frozen berries, you have forced ice crystals to stab through all the cell walls of the cranberries, encouraging them to give up their juice.

Bring to a boil, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved, then strain, battle and cool. This should last a very long time in your refrigerator, but the point is somewhat academic, because the odds are very good that you will use it all to make cranberry margaritas throughout the holiday season.

Parade Route

  • 1½ ounces rye
  • ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • ¾ ounce simple syrup
  • 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
  • 4 to 5 ounces sparkling rosé

Combine the rye, lemon juice, syrup and bitters with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and chill thoroughly.

Strain into a small Collins glass. Top with sparking rosé.

This is light and delicious. For reasons that defy mere logic, it turns out that rye and sparkling wine go really well together. The sweetness from the syrup takes the edge off the booziness, and the lemon juice keeps things from getting too sweet.

If you decide to double down, here’s your next stop:

34th Street Miracle

  • 1 ounce cognac
  • 1 ounce orange curaçao
  • 1 ounce orange juice
  • 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and chill.

Strain into a cocktail glass

The orange juice and orange liqueur go together extremely well in this drink — no surprise there. The cognac adds a boozy backbone to keep things from getting too orangey — not vodka or gin boozy, but something a little more gracious and civilized. The lemon juice keeps everything from taking itself too seriously.

At this point, when the Parade finally gets to Macy’s, is where you should weepily sing “Over the River and Through the Woods” in at least three different keys. Your family will encourage you to go take a nap. Everybody wins.

Soft sugar cookies

Welcome to eating season! I’m embracing it wholeheartedly with this cookie recipe. Who doesn’t want to bake cookies with cold weather and dark afternoons? There’s nothing like some freshly baked cookies to make the evening brighter.

Although I am a fan of traditional sugar cookies, where you roll out the dough and cut out shapes, I also have a fondness for this version. These cookies are incredibly tender and are best topped with a buttercream frosting. Consider them really short cupcakes.

Not only do these provide a moist and delicious cookie, but they also require less time and effort. There is no floured counter to prepare (or clean afterward), and you don’t have to worry about how thick or thin each cookie is. Just grab a small scoopful of dough, roll for a moment, and the cookie is formed.
Of course, you still can decorate these cookies to your heart’s content. Get the eating season going with a batch of freshly baked cookies!

Soft sugar cookies
Makes 36

Cookie dough
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
Frosting
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 Tablespoons milk
food coloring, if desired

Make the cookies
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl.
Beat for 2 minutes on low speed using paddle attachment or hand mixer.
Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined.
Add yogurt and vanilla, mixing until incorporated.
Add baking powder, soda, salt and flour. Mix on low.
Form dough into a ball the size of a walnut.
Place on a baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between cookies.
Flatten balls of dough slightly.
Bake for 12 minutes. (They will not be golden.)
Cool completely.

Make the frosting
Combine butter, 2 cups powdered sugar, and vanilla; mix well.
Add milk, as needed, 1 teaspoon at a time.
More sugar can be added if you prefer a sweeter frosting.
Frost cookies, as desired.

Featured Photo: Soft sugar cookies. Photo courtesy of Michele Pesula Kuegler.

In the kitchen with Alan Frati

Alan Frati of Derry is the co-owner and co-founder of Crack’d Kitchen & Coffee (327 S. Broadway, Salem, 212-1511, crackdkitchen.com), which opened its first New Hampshire location in his hometown of Salem in April 2021. Inspired by their love of breakfast sandwiches, Frati and business partner Danny Azzarello opened the first Crack’d Kitchen & Coffee in Andover, Mass., in 2019. The eatery is a fast casual concept specializing in locally roasted coffees, smoothies, bowls and eclectic breakfast options like loaded hash browns and egg sandwiches with creative toppings. A third location would later follow in Peabody, Mass., opening earlier this summer, in addition to a 20-foot food trailer known as The Yolkswagon — catch the trailer at a special Black Friday event at From the Barrel Brewing Co. (1 Corporate Park Drive, Unit 16, Derry) on Friday, Nov. 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A good sharp knife is kind of like the cornerstone of any kitchen. … Even though we’re primarily a takeout restaurant, one of the things we were founded on is that we cook real food, and so we’re cutting up all of our vegetables, slicing bread, things like that, so you need a good knife.

What would you have for your last meal?

A really good steak. I like my steak medium rare, and I think I’ve got to do a prime cut cooked over some really nice charcoal or hardwood.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I’ll give a shout out to my friends at a newer spot that opened up, Los Reyes [Street Tacos & More] over in Derry. They do some killer stuff over there, and they’re really good people.

What celebrity would you like to see eating in your restaurant?

I’d love to see my guy Bill Belichick come in and order. I think we would get a pretty big kick out of that.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

Honestly, I think all of our breakfast sandwiches stick out. I love the Live Free or Die, which is one of our signature sandwiches, and we call it that because we get our bacon from up at North Country Smokehouse. [It has] our house-made ketchup, a sharp cheddar cheese and we always use 100 percent cage-free eggs, and that’s on a nice buttery soft brioche bun.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire?

I think it’s the whole vegan and plant-based movement. I definitely see that way more now than I have in the past — people coming in and asking for egg substitutes, vegan cheeses, things like that.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

We’re those people that like to grill 12 months out of the year. We do a lot of grilling, everything from steaks and chicken to vegetables and starches. … We cook a lot of comfort food too. I have three kids now, so we’re not usually doing stuff that’s too fancy.

Maple turkey sausage
From the kitchen of Alan Frati of Crack’d Kitchen & Coffee

2 pounds ground turkey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon ground sage
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon paprika
2 Tablespoons maple syrup

In a mixing bowl, combine the maple syrup with all of the seasonings to create a paste. Add the ground turkey and mix thoroughly so that all the ingredients are well-incorporated. Form the turkey mix into 3-ounce patties and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten into ½-inch thick circles. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, ensuring that the turkey is cooked through. Serve as is or sear-cook sausage in a cast iron pan for a more caramelized flavor.

Featured photo: Alan Frati, co-owner of Crack’d Kitchen & Coffee in Salem. Courtesy photo.

Doughnut you know it

NH Doughnut Co. opens in Bedford, expands menu offerings

When Amanda Baril opened the first New Hampshire Doughnut Co. on Route 4 in Chichester in 2019, her concept was simple — an outlet where you create your own doughnuts, choosing from a variety of toppings to customize them not unlike how you might an ice cream sundae.

Fast-forward just three short years, and Baril’s business has since evolved in a big way, introducing two additional brick-and-mortar locations, delving into brewery collaborations, doughnut pop-ups and custom orders for weddings, and even converting a former horse trailer into a miniature food truck. Her newest shop, now open on South River Road in Bedford, has further expanded the menu to offer yeast ring and filled doughnuts, fritters and French crullers.

It’s quite the success story, as Baril’s husband Chad pointed out, when you consider that all of this took place amid a global pandemic. The original New Hampshire Doughnut Co. opened back in late August 2019, some six months before Covid would arrive in the Granite State.

At the time, the business started out with a basic vanilla cake doughnut and a completely customizable list of coatings, toppings and drizzles to choose from. But as Amanda Baril quickly came to find out, most customers would prove to have a hard time choosing their own.

“We ended up putting out a favorites menu, and we found that people were really just choosing from the favorites. So we started putting those out and ready to go and people would just be like, ‘I’ll take this, this and this,’” she said. “They wanted the variety, but they also wanted it ready for them.”

In February 2020, the Barils signed a lease to open a second shop in downtown Concord, in the space formerly occupied by the Capital Deli. It was around that time, Amanda Baril said, when they decided to shift to a weekly doughnut menu that would regularly change with new offerings.

“Every week we would update the menu … and it would be different, and people really loved that,” she said. “We had the key normal favorites but then we’d change up everything else.”

The pandemic’s arrival that March ended up delaying the opening of the Concord shop all the way to December 2020. It’s unique for only operating as a retail storefront — according to Baril, the plan was always to bake everything fresh in Chichester and ship to Concord every morning.

Special doughnut-themed weeks, such as Harry Potter, Disney and others, also entered the mix.

By the summer of 2021, the couple began looking for a new location in the Manchester or Bedford area; they signed a lease on the South River Road property by the end of that year. The buildout of that space was relatively quick, Amanda Baril said, but ongoing supply chain issues with their equipment delayed their opening to mid-September of this year. For similar reasons, they have also since shifted to a monthly doughnut menu.

Today, the Barils now have staff members wholly dedicated to all different aspects of the business, from the newly available crullers in Bedford to gluten-free and dairy-free doughnuts made in Chichester, which has since transitioned into a production-only facility. They recruited Vanessa Robinson as a baker — she formerly worked at Van Otis Chocolates in Manchester.

“I was like, ‘I need to find somebody with experience who knows flavors better than I do,’ and she has been fantastic,” Amanda Baril said. “I am so happy to have her on board because she really adds so much.”

New Hampshire Doughnut Co. even now has its own wedding division, regularly fulfilling catering orders for doughnut walls, doughnut buffets and other gatherings large and small.

Chad Baril added that they’ve begun partnering with local colleges for internship opportunities — a student even designed their current logo — and have worked with several breweries to host doughnut pop-ups. Some, for instance, feature homemade icings made with locally brewed beer — on Friday, Dec. 9, and Friday, Dec. 30, they are expected to return to Lithermans Limited Brewery in Concord.

While there are no plans to open a fourth location, Amanda Baril said she hopes to eventually find a larger available space in Concord where they can bake doughnuts.

“I think when we had it written on paper before we opened up in Chichester, it’s come full circle now, I would say,” Chad Baril said. “The creativeness of Amanda and her staff was kind of the awesome curveball that we got, but now it’s starting to get back into that community. … We want to touch people’s lives and create a kind of legacy, sort of like, ‘Look at what we did.’”

New Hampshire Doughnut Co.
Where: 410 S. River Road, Bedford, 782-8968; 2 Capital Plaza, Concord, 715-5097 (a third location, on Route 4 in Chichester, is now used as a production facility only — no walk-in service)
Hours: Both the Bedford and Concord locations are open Wednesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., or until doughnuts sell out
More info: Visit nhdoughnutco.com, email nhdoughnutco@gmail.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram @nhdohco

Featured photo: Photo courtesy of NH Doughnut Co.

Coffee, cocktails and community

Café la Reine opens second spot in Manchester’s North End

Nearly a decade after Saint Anselm College alum Alex Horton opened Café la Reine on Elm Street in Manchester, she and her team have expanded to a second location built on quality eats, great coffee and community. Café la Reine – North End, which arrived in the space of the former Blake’s Restaurant last month, is more than three times the size of its downtown counterpart, introducing a full-service breakfast and lunch dining experience in addition to craft cocktails.

It was March 2013 when Horton, a Methuen, Mass., native who has lived in the Queen City since her college days, opened the original Café la Reine. At the time, there were not a lot of places around like it, and Horton herself recalls as a student always looking for a place where she could order a cup of coffee and comfortably sit down and do her homework.

Over the years, the spot has added everything from sandwiches and salads to avocado toasts, oatmeal bowls and açaí bowls to its menu, and has become known for its live “Java Jams.”

Even pre-pandemic, Horton said she had been looking for a potential second location. She happens to also live in the North End neighborhood where Blake’s closed its Hooksett Road restaurant in early January 2021, a spot that had been open for nearly four decades.

“When Blake’s closed, I knew that it was going to be kind of a loss for our neighborhood,” she said. “I mean, my husband and I went here on the weekends for breakfast forever, or we’d walk the dogs down [here] and get ice cream from the window. We frequented this place a lot.”

Soon after the property went on the market, Horton — along with her general manager, Dominique Gibson — decided to inquire about potentially taking it over.

“I really wanted a second location that had parking, and I wanted to expand on my menu, because you can only offer so much in a 1,000-square-foot space downtown. It’s so small and our kitchen is so tiny,” Horton said. “And so, I wanted a spot that had a bigger kitchen so that we could possibly make things for both locations out of this kitchen here.”

A few aesthetics, such as the tables and the blue-colored booths, have been kept and may be familiar to those who frequented Blake’s. But Horton and her team still spent the last several months revamping the space, even recruiting Alexis Clark and Nicole Rocha of The Terracotta Room on Elm Street to help install the plants you see along most of the booths.

As you walk inside, you can immediately turn to your right and order coffee or food to go from a counter, or you can be seated at a booth or table. Horton said her team plans to utilize the takeout window for online orders.

With the exception of the açaí and oatmeal bowls, just about everything on the menu downtown is available at Café la Reine – North End. But that’s not to say that the new eatery’s menu is a carbon copy of its predecessor. A wide variety of items are exclusively available at this space, from pancakes and Belgian waffles to eggs Benedicts and hash brown bowls.

“We have a bunch of starters, like loaded fries with eggs and hollandaise on top, which is so good,” Horton said. “We have wings, boneless [and] bone-in, and then we have huge breakfast sandwiches … and your classic big breakfast where you get everything. … For lunch, we have tuna melts, avocado BLTs and then some burgers and salads, so it’s a pretty full menu here.”

Café la Reine – North End also differs from the downtown location in that there is a full bar, from which you can order mimosas, bloody marys, and what Horton calls Above Average Joes.

“They are our boozy coffee cocktails that we serve in a pint glass. They’re so good,” she said.

Horton said she soon hopes to host either open mic or weekend live music events at her new space. A side room directly to the left of where you walk in has also already been used for larger parties and gatherings, or for those who want to go and work where it’s a little bit quieter.

Reflecting on the last decade, Horton said she never thought she would eventually expand to this degree, but has nonetheless enjoyed the experience and the response from the community.

“I was so young when I opened downtown, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll be OK with this,’” she said. “But then, I guess it’s just been the excitement and adventure of opening new businesses, especially with people that you love to work with. I feel like it’s all of our projects because we all had a hand in it, and that kind of reflects in everything from the menu to the way it’s decorated.”

Café la Reine – North End
Where: 53 Hooksett Road, Unit 6, Manchester
Hours: Thursday through Tuesday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed on Wednesdays.
More info: Visit toasttab.com/cafelareinenorthend, find them on Facebook and Instagram @cafelareine.northend or call 782-5367

Featured photo: Photo by Ethos & Able Creative, eacreative.co.

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