Savoring Kentucky » Recipes and Guides

Perfect Blackberry Pie: Summer’s Dark Glory

Rona — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:38:56 +0000

Sometimes what we want, and what we need, is a perfect recipe that produces food that tastes just the way it should. One essential in my house is a blackberry pie recipe that does magic with a slightly caramelized/sugary/buttery crust and the dark/sweet/hidden essential bitterness of the cooked blackberry.

Here you go: this Lattice-Top Blackberry Pie from the July, 2000 (late, lamented) Gourmet Magazine tastes like the wild blackberry pies my mother and aunts made without recipes. The linked Pastry Dough recipe for the crust works, too, although it makes YOU work, so use your own tried-and-true recipe if you wish.

I have not tried this recipe with the huge cultivated blackberry fruits for sale at Lexington Farmers Market right now. Based on what cooks say in the 37 unusually positive online reviews of this recipe, juiciness is a big variable. Juiciness varies based on whether the berries are wild or cultivated, whether the year is dry or wet, whether you are using fresh or frozen fruit. Cultivated, wet year, and frozen berries all are likely to hold extra juice.

With this year’s Kentucky berries, both wild and cultivated, seem particularly fat and juicy. With this year’s fruit, especially if you are using cultivated berries, you may want to take several cooks’ advice and add one extra tablespoon tapioca.

But! Let’s say you get a really, really juicy blackberry pie – aaaaaah. Serve it in bowls, use spoons, slurp the sublime stuff. The juice is the elixir. Juicy pies, like “failed” fallen cakes with a sublime moist core, stand out in the memory as special, wonderful to the tastebuds in spite of not conforming to a cookbook ideal.

Similarly, if your pastry gives you trouble and the lattice-making seems like work instead of food sculpture/play, either use a full top crust (cut at least 8 steam vents in it) or just roll out some pastry pieces and lay them on top of the berries. The taste will be amazing, and the look will say proudly homemade.

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The world is coming to visit central Kentucky this year for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. To help our visitors know more about Kentucky’s food and food ways, Savoring Kentucky is rolling out 116 Savory Kentucky Bites, one for each of the 100 days before WEG begins, and 16 for the days during WEG, September 25 – October 10. Today’s Savory Bite is number 43.

Missy’s Pies — Especially Butterscotch Meringue — Suhweeet!

Rona — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:10:00 +0000

Although food and meals (and smells, particularly) pull up memories and can remind us of meals past (and people and places past), I almost never find myself nostalgic for particular foods. The great foods that surrounded our working farm and country church community as I grew up are not locked back in the past. They are available today: homegrown vegetables, fruits, meats and poultry. Dairy is a sticking point, one so complex and politicized I’ll just ignore it for now. But for the most part, if I loved a food in childhood — fresh peas, homemade baked beans, pork roast, homemade ketchup, green beans, sliced tomatoes, cherry pie — the ingredients grow in our urban garden, or a wonderful farmer brings them to a farmers’ market in Lexington.

For the most part. A few foods stand out in memory because of the skill of the cooks, or the recipes they had perfected. Today, as I often do, I remember the excellence of Myrtie Elam’s butterscotch meringue pie. This pie, when it appeared at church dinners, organized my entire plate and my approach to filling it. I fear the awareness of the pie’s presence may have even influenced my waiting-in-line behavior, not in a sweet direction. In any case, the pie sang to me, and butterscotch, caramel, burnt sugar flavors sing to me still.

I have seen Myrtie’s recipe for her pie, in her own handwriting, in my parent’s house, but I don’t have a copy. I doubt my abilities to reproduce the pie even if I had the recipe, because some people have the Pastry Gift, and I don’t. I can make credible cakes and cookies, but pies — I flail, then I fail.

Perhaps Ramsey’s Diner owner Rob Ramsey was thinking of people like me when he launched Missy’s Pies in 1988. Missy’s started with Peanut Butter Pie and Brownie Pie, but saw the light and began making meringue pies (and much more) soon afterward.

Missy’s butterscotch pie is not Myrtie Elam’s, but it is credible. It is close enough to fill what would otherwise be a little vacancy in the catalogue of foods I like to eat. Missy’s butterscotch pie filling tastes like a homemade, flour-thickened butterscotch pudding, and the meringue tastes like meringue. This is a home-y, tasty slice.

Perhaps you are a better pastry cook than I am, and you would like to make this awesome dessert. Although I don’t have Myrtie’s recipe, here are a few options you can consider:

An about.com recipe for Butterscotch Pie flavored with brown sugar, thickened with flour, a two-egg version; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is something like Myrtie Elam’s recipe, though not it exactly
A cooks.com recipe for a 10-inch Butterscotch Meringue Pie thickened with 2/3 cup cornstarch (yikes!) and using SIX eggs, which means the six egg-white meringue must approach skyscraper stature
Aunt Jimmy’s Butterscotch Meringue Pie, from the Food Network, which puts the Scotch in butterscotch with the addition of two naughty tablespoons of Scotch whisky.

About the crucial pie crust, each of the recipes above takes the cowards way out, blithely recommending either using a commercial crust (anathema!) or “your favorite pie crust.” Right.

Crust is a tender matter. The crust is where finesse and the Pastry Gift particularly come into play. I am giftless, and will assert, even so, that a far-from-perfect homemade crust will top a bought crust in appeal and flavor every time.

Here’s a detailed recipe for Basic Flaky Pie Crust from epicurious.com that received quite a few positive reviews. This crust relies on some techniques that those of us without the Pastry Gift can adopt to help us through the trickier pastry challenges.

Or, if you live near Lexington, you can always buy a slice or a whole pie at Missy’s, at these locations.

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Cold Tomato Soups: Chill Thrills

Rona — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:31:36 +0000

Nope – not gazpacho. That’s a scary summer soup. When others serve it, I sometimes have to strengthen my resolve and simply eat some of whatever happened in their kitchens. Gazpachos are often too something. Too raw onion-y, too peppery, too acrid, too raw-tasting, too texturally icky.

The 2010 Tomato Avalanche may threaten to bury us all, but put a cool finger on your blender and prepare to reduce some tomatoes to a pulp while keeping full control over how the resulting soups taste and feel.

The good options begin with a soup a friend described as we baked in the waiting area before marching in Lexington’s July 4 parade. I couldn’t help but wish some of the kind people coming around with plastic bottles of water would say instead, “Chilled Marinated Heirloom Tomato Soup for you, ma’am?”

My friend sent me the recipe and source. (Thank you, DC.) I’ll share those with you, and follow with a few links to more cool tomato soups.

Marinated Heirloom Tomato Soup

from Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate

by Patricia Wells

1-1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and quartered (do not peel)

1/2 cup tomato paste

1 tablespoon celery salt

1 teaspoon ground piment d’Espelette or dried Anaheim chili

(or ground mild chili pepper)

2 tablespoons best-quality sherry-wine vinegar

(red wine vinegar works)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

20 fresh basil leaves

Combine all the ingredients with 1-2/3 cups water in a food processor or a blender and purée to a smooth liquid. Taste for seasoning. The soup can be served immediately, but the flavors will benefit from ripening for 3 to 24 hours, refrigerated. At serving time, reblend the soup. Serve in chilled soup bowls. Serves 4 (large bowls) or 8 (small cups).

Rona’s note: I tried this delicious, thick (!) soup as recommended, with the tomato skins and seeds included, but reduced to a finer texture by the blender. I also tried forcing some of the soup through a medium sieve to remove some of the seeds and fibers. I liked it sieved best, but not enough to do the relatively hard work required for a regular meal. Perhaps if I were cooking for friends, I might sieve-and-serve.

A neighbor told me recently she finds the whole notion of cold soups…chilling. Just flat wrong. She said perhaps a new label is needed, something like “cooler,” something more likely to be drunk from a glass than eaten with a spoon. That’s the notion behind this Spiced Tomato Cooler, intended to be served in a glass and sipped.

A friend told me about The Wednesday Chef, Luisa Weiss’s blog devoted to descriptions of dishes she prepares from recipes she clipped from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times across more than a decade. (Thank you, JS.)

Weiss lives in Berlin, which had its own heat wave recently, so Weiss gave a thought to cooking a 1991 Barbara Kakfa recipe for chilled Moroccan Tomato Soup. Being an excellent, experienced home cook of the “use what’s available” persuasion, Weiss made a somewhat different soup, which also sounds delicious. More than that, she makes the point I also like to make: ”Some days, a recipe is just there for inspiration.”

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Blueberries Swing Both Savory and Sweet

Rona — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:02:37 +0000

Blueberry season came early in Kentucky, like all the produce seasons, but some producers grow multiple types to stretch the season long. Farm stands, farmers’ markets, Reed Valley Orchard, and Good Foods Market still have fresh local blueberries. Freezing them for year-round local eating is this easy: Drop the berries into a plastic bag or freezer box, seal, and put in the freezer.

Consider savory as well as sweet uses for these powerhouses of taste and nutrients. Laura Vozzella of the Baltimore sun offers recipes for Local Blueberry and Chard Sauté with Honey and Bacon, and Blueberry Onion Marmalade.

Kentuckians are not all that familiar with blueberries, I’ve noticed, although the woods in some parts of the state produce delicious huckleberries, a close cousin to blueberries. So we may not know about sweet preserves like Blueberry Butter (think of a sibling to cherry butter or apple butter – a preserve with no butter pats involved.) Here’s a Slow Cooker Blueberry Butter recipe.

Debbie Snook of the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently published a series of berry dessert recipes, including Panna Cotta with Berries and Anise Brittle. Blueberries, blackberries, or late season raspberries all would work well here.

Blueberries star in an early classic rock song, but they might fit better in the world of swing: from immediate pleasure to frozen winter wonders, and from classically sweet to impertinently savory. Let’s enjoy them every which way.

For current Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about blueberries, blueberry dishes and recipes, blueberry sources, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 27 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Hoot Owl Holler Farm: Food That’s Both Artful and Delicious

Rona — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:58:47 +0000

Like many other wonderful central Kentucky growers, Sharon Stratton and Lonnie Wilson bring homegrown, hand-tended food to the Lexington Farmers Market every week from their Hoot Owl Holler Farm. Hoot Owl Holler stands out, for me, because of the care Lonnie and Sharon take to make their products beautiful as well as delicious.

Tender squash blossoms; herbs like sculptures

Lonnie must be a fantastic cook. I bought my first Kentucky fennel from Lonnie years ago, and I asked “How would I cook this?” He told me several ways he uses fennel, including draping salmon filets with fennel fronds before grilling. That proved delicious.

This morning when Lonnie and Sharon showed me their beautiful, fresh, pale gold squash blossoms, I asked, “How do you cook them?” Emphasis on you. I didn’t mean, “How does one cook squash blossoms,” because I had a feeling Lonnie would know from experience what really works.

Lonnie said, “Stuff them with cheese, dip in a batter, and deep fry.” Oh yum! Well, actually, he may have said, “Roll them in meal” or “Roll them in flour,” but I heard “batter,” because I made an instant assumption that Lonnie is the kind of guy who whips up a batter without a recipe, and fries crispy bites perfectly in fresh oil without raising a sweat.

And then the talk went on, about whether stuffing is needed at all, about how Dudley’s may use mushrooms as stuffing (oh, really, yummmmm), and so on. If you and I are thinking alike, we’re thinking we might need some recipes for squash blossoms. Here are a few you may find appealing — and be sure to use your squash blossoms the day you pick them [male blossoms only] or buy them from a grower.

Squash Blossom Risotto, from New York Times Diner’s Journal
Five Squash Blossom Recipes from seasonalchef.com: Battered (stuffed and unstuffed), frittata, quesadilla, hush puppies (!) and soup.
Five [more] Ways to Eat Squash Blossoms, from thekitchn.com, including Orangette’s Pappardelle with Zucchini Blossom Sauce

For current Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about Hoot Owl Holler Farm, squash blossoms, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 25 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

A Fine Cornbread – Not THE Cornbread

Rona — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:43:13 +0000

When Mother made cornbread — usually corn sticks and corn muffins — my response was “Yippee.” Cornbread was a treat, not a staple, at the table on our hard-working farm. Mother’s cornbread belonged squarely in the southern/mountain/Appalachian “no sugar, no flour” species of the larger cornbread kingdom. I resisted sweet cornbread and corn muffins for years before I finally admitted the facts: Sweetness and cornbread can coexist peacefully, even delightfully, in the hands of the right cook.

Before I dig around in the meal bin of cornbread history just a bit, two things: Cornbread and summer vegetables like green beans and tomatoes make marvelous meals. Some wine advisors tout the wine-friendliness of corn in general, and certainly cornbread and light sparkly wines like Prosecco have won a place in my list of favorite wine-food pairings.

Hungry? If you are in a hurry, here is a recipe for cornbread in the traditional Kentucky black skillet style, moist and crusty, with no sugar and no flour.

Now for a bit more from the well-equipped larder of research and writing about corn, cornmeal, and cornbread. It turns out cornbread plays a pivotal cultural role in Kentucky’s food history. I’m no historian, and this is not an academic website, but a crunchy bite or two may be interesting to you.

Cornbread supported self-sufficiency on small farms. With seeds, labor, decent land, and good luck with weather and pests, farm families could grow and process their own corn for their own bread year-round. Cornbread and other corn-based dishes made from dried, crushed or ground corn, could keep both humans and their work animals alive without a lot of help from the outside world.

Cornbread fit in farm women’s work days. For a couple of centuries, a working woman on a small Kentucky farm worked with crops and animals, reared children, milked cows and managed the milk, grew enormous vegetable gardens, maintained an orchard, canned/dried/salted/pickled foods for winter, did laundry and made soap outdoors, and carried out who knows what other tasks necessary for sustaining life. That busy woman could leave the potato field in mid-morning, rebuild the fire in the wood cookstove by stoking the embers left from pre-dawn breakfast, make cornbread from ingredients the farm provided in about the time it took to heat the skillet, and have hot, fresh nourishment on the table before noon. Even before families had homes, stoves, and kitchens, cornbread could be cooked on a hoe over an open fire.

American Studies professor Elizabeth Engelhardt offers interesting comparisons of the social meaning of cornbread and wheat-based breads, especially beaten biscuits, in our part of the world. Her theories, and the evidence she offers for them, won’t fit neatly here, but one aspect may be summed up as “Cornbread is the traditional food of people who are poorer and blacker; biscuits and wheat breads are the preferred foods of people who are whiter and had more wealth.”

Ahhh, cornbread. Easy and good in whole grain versions, easily gluten-free, easily adaptable to include ingredients ranging from blackberries to habañero peppers, cheap, quick, forgiving, delicious, and even nutritious. I’ll take you every time.

Good book resources: All the Southern Foodways Alliance “Cornbread Nation” collections of writings about southern food, and particularly Cornbread Nation 3: Foods of the Mountain South, edited by Ronni Lundy, which includes Elizabeth Engelhardt’s “Beating the Biscuits in Appalachia: Race, Class, and Gender Politics of Women Baking Bread.” (Tip of the rotary egg beater to LC for reminding me about this resource.)

Crescent Dragonwagon’s cookbook-and-more, The Cornbread Gospels, offers an open-armed approach that embraces many different shapes and types of cornbread and includes recipes from around the world.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 22 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Kentucky Heirloom Tomatoes and Feta = Heaven

Rona — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 19:22:50 +0000

Can you believe we eat these things? These gnarly, cracked, “cat-faced” and “ox-hearted” and not entirely red incredible heirloom tomatoes that don’t look much like the supermarket ideal? We eat them, and we love them enough to compare them to a symphony, because of their marvelous tomato flavors.

One of the constants in summer meals at our house is Tomato Feta Salad. I like it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. As the recipe suggests, the basic salad has four ingredients and takes three minutes to prepare. From that fine foundation, you can embroider in many directions, most of which add no more than another couple of minutes to the preparation.

Lexingtonians, try this salad with Bleugrass Chevre’s goat feta. This is a summer-only salad, something we may get to eat for six weeks at most. Make it with the best ingredients central Kentucky has to offer.

For current Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about tomatoes — heirloom and otherwise — or other matters related to tomatoes and feta, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 20 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Sun Gold Tomatoes: Summer’s Best Candy

Rona — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 22:20:52 +0000

Not every greatest-tomato-in-the-world is an heirloom, though most are. Heirlooms are so intriguing and numerous I’ve given a thought recently to starting a lifetime book, as birders’ do, noting each time I spot and taste a new type.

Sun Gold tomatoes are a golden orange cherry type, and they are hybrids. Hybridization is honorable enough, and it involves no genetic modifications. It requires a breeder, though, and buying fresh seeds or plants annually, since hybrid tomatoes will not necessary come back true to type if grown from seed.

Enough beating around the tomato bush. My advice is this: Grow your own Sun Gold tomatoes, or if you forgot to plant these prolific bearers for this growing season, find them at a farmers’ market or roadside stand. Sun Golds split easily, so they do not ship well. They are the epitome of local-only products. Several growers at Lexington Farmers Market had Sun Gold for sale this morning.

Perhaps Sun Gold are super-local. In the years we have grown Sun Gold, I estimate no more than 30 percent of the harvest ever travels more than about one arm’s length from the tomato bush. I treat Sun Gold tomato plants as treat dispensers, and can stand at a loaded bush for 10 minutes, eating every sweet, fruity golden globe I can find. Sun-warmed Sun Gold tomatoes may be my favorite summer taste.

If the sun’s warmth is not quite enough for you, try Mario Batatli’s exceedingly simple pasta topped with Sun Gold tomatoes and garlic, heated together in olive oil: Babbo’s Bavette with Sun Gold Tomatoes.

The recipe calls for two pints of Sun Golds. Buy at least four, because once you start eating them — and never mind the other people at your house — you will find it hard to leave the two pints untouched long enough to toss them into your skillet.

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This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 18 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

It’s Drying Time Again

Rona — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:37:07 +0000

Some of the best foods require very little prep time, but benefit from hours of slow cooking. Dried fruits and vegetables aren’t exactly cooked, but they need several hours in a warm, dry spot so some of their fluids can leave the building. I have only recently learned the wonders of what’s left behind: chewy, intensely flavored bites that seem a lot more exotic than their origins.

Dried apples and dried green beans — shucky beans — are delicious parts of Kentucky’s food heritage and its present. Dried tomatoes, though – those came to me as a bolt of red lightning.

Becca Self, Education Director for Seedleaf, Inc., passionate advocate for preserving local food for year-round local eating, first clued me in to the delights of home-dried tomatoes. Becca says she keeps a dehydrator going round the clock during the peak of summer, because the people in her household eat dried tomatoes as if they were candy.

I bring this up because it’s time to be drying. Fruits and vegetables are maturing earlier than most people can ever remember this year. While flavor is at its peak — that’s drying time.

I tried drying tomatoes for the first time last year, and my whole yield lasted until, maybe, November. It is hard to stop eating them, just as Becca reported.

I don’t have a dehydrator, and it turns out a slow oven works, too. In fact, by googling around, I learned that people have a wide range of approaches to drying tomatoes, and that pretty much all the approaches lead to success.

The process is so simple it feels almost foolish to break it into steps, but I needed guidance, so you may, too. Most of the steps involve doing something else while the tomatoes dry.

Choose dead-ripe tomatoes from your backyard or a local market. Any size or type will work; plum or paste tomatoes make the most meaty/chewy dried slices.
Turn your oven on to its lowest temperature. For my oven, that means 170 degrees F. A lower temperature would be fine, and people report success at 200 degrees, too.
Wash your tomatoes, and pat them dry with clean cloths.
Line flat sheet pans with parchment paper or silicon baking sheets. The lining helps you remove the tomatoes once they are dry, and helps some with clean-up.
Cut your tomatoes into halves, if small, or quarters, if larger.
Place the sliced tomatoes on the lined pans, cut side up. (Or cut side down – either way works.)
Put the pans in the oven. Fill the oven as full of pans of tomatoes as possible to make best use of the energy you will use.
Close the oven door, and go have fun or be useful (or both) for six hours. Set an alarm if needed.
Check the tomatoes. The aim is to have chewy but not brittle or dried-out slices — essentially, tomato leather. If the tomato slices still have soft, wet-looking spots anywhere, return to the oven for an hour, and check hourly after that. Sometimes I yield to the temptation to turn some soggy tomatoes over before returning the pans to the oven. Some tomatoes seem to need turning, and most do not.
Once your tomatoes are dried to your satisfaction, let them cool completely.
The simplest storage system involves putting the dried slices in gallon-size plastic bags and freezing them. You can also use clean, dry glass jars that have close fitting lids. If possible, keep these cool. Tomato slices that still contain moisture can spoil at room temperature.

For Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about tomatoes, drying tomatoes, drying other fruits and veggies, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

This is Savory Kentucky Bite number 15 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Sublime Summer Slaw

Rona — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:41:23 +0000

Tender early season lettuces have yielded to full-blown summer veggies now for our salads. In restaurants that make wonderful salads (Dudley’s on Short and Alfalfa are two favorites), servers must surely notice we nearly salivate when we look at their salad offerings.

At home, too, summer salads seem to slake both hunger and thirst when the heat index goes skyscraperish, as we’re experiencing in central Kentucky right now. In the heat and humidity, our Campsie kitchen developed a new, seasonal obsession over the past 10 days: crunchy slaw with a vinaigrette dressing that nods a bit eastward, topped with toasted seeds.

Fresh local cabbages are in all the farmers’ markets now. We are also finding local young carrots, the first peppers (sweet chili and sweet banana, for example), and many fresh herbs to invigorate this cool, crunchy dish.

Slaw is a flexible, forgiving dish that hardly needs a recipe, since many of us simply use what we have. Yet for new cooks, a guide to approaching summer slaw may prove useful. Items in ALL CAPS below are ones we particularly like this summer.

To make a slaw worth of turning into an obsession at your house as well, collect good cabbages, other crisp veggies like these:

Green and purple CABBAGE
Carrots
Sweet peppers, and hot ones too, if you like
Fennel or celery if you have some
SCALLIONS
Fennel fronds

Clip or buy fresh herbs such as these:

Fresh CILANTRO
Lovage
Tarragon
Mint
CHIVES

Before you begin chopping and slicing, put about 1/3 cup of raw PUMPKIN SEEDS, sunflower seeds, walnuts or pine nuts in a skillet or toaster oven, and toast over low heat until they change color slightly and you can smell them. Set your toasted crunchy topping aside to cool as you make the slaw.

Now sliver about three pounds of the hard veggies and put them in a large bowl. We use the “fine” slicing blade on a food processor attachment. This slivering yields a more pleasing texture for a mixed vegetable slaw than the more traditional grating, which releases a lot of juices, which take some flavor and crunch with them into the bottom of your bowl.

Chop the herbs in small pieces with a sharp knife and add them to your bowl. Bruising does not add to herb’s flavor or appeal, so quick, decisive cuts with your sharp knife work best.

A note about herb leaves and stems: Traditionally, herb leaves are removed from their stems for uses like this, and the stems are discarded. That works well, but it is not the only way. If you have a favorite herb and its stems are tender, experiment with chopping them fine and adding them to the slaw.

Now make a vinaigrette. We are working on a recipe that captures the dressing we have enjoyed most this summer. I’ll share the latest iteration, and you can offer suggestions and tweaks.

Mix together well in a small glass jar or measuring cup: (baby bartender whisks, something like these, work perfectly for all the stirring in this vinaigrette)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon sea salt
Ground black pepper to taste; red pepper flakes and other peppers could be added to taste as well

Add and stir well to blend thoroughly:
1 teaspoon light sweet sorghum (or honey, maple syrup, or organic sugar)
1 teaspoon Tamari, soy, or Bragg Liquid Aminos
1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Add and stir thoroughly to thicken and perhaps even emulsify:
1/2 cup neutral oil (we used grapeseed oil, my personal favorite for such things)
Juice of one lime, plus enough rice vinegar to yield 1/4 cup total acid

Put a well-stirred drop in a spoon and taste; adjust seasonings. The dressing should taste slightly too salty, as the saltiness needs to cover a large amount of vegetables.

Assemble your slaw. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and herbs in your bowl. With your hands or salad spoon and fork, toss thoroughly and separate all clumps so the ingredients are more or less evenly distributed. Add your crunch topping to the top (yep) and serve. Applause all around!

Eight more slaw notes:

Vegetables that have a slick texture, like avocados and many cucumbers, can decrease the textural satisfaction of slaw.
Slightly chewy, grilled corn kernels could be wonderful additions.
Some people like to add golden or dark raisins to slaws. And some of THOSE people like to use dry roasted peanut as the crunchy topping. You may like this combination – I do.
Grated fresh beets, sweet potatoes, or crisp apples are good in some slaw combinations.
Experiment with adding up to 1 cup of cooked, cooled, chewy grain like whole brown rice or wheat berries.
Go easy on all the herbs, particularly cilantro, and alliums (scallion, onion, chives). You want a community of flavors, not a dictatorship of a single dominating taste.
Your slaw leftovers, if there are any, will keep in the refrigerator for about four days before becoming a bit too wilted to enjoy. Your crunchy topping will lose crunch but the slaw itself will be cold and refreshing each time you scoop some out and eat it.
If you are following along the whole series of these 116 Savory Kentucky Bites, you may notice that only one day ago, in Savory Bite 11, Savoring Kentucky touted the wonders of adding a small bit of Blue Moon Garlic Pesto to a vinaigrette. Yabut not this vinaigrette! Try this French vinaigrette for that purpose.

For Savoring Kentucky email subscribers: Please go directly to the post to comment and share information about slaw, summer salads, or other topics of interest to Savoring Kentucky readers.

This is Savory Kentucky Bitenumber 12 of 116 Savory Bites created in honor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.