saffron Archives - Hungry Travelers

saffron

2024 update on bringing food through US Customs

Posted on January 27, 2024January 27, 2024 by Pat and David

One of our earliest posts on HungryTravelers dealt with bringing food home from another country. It was mostly a cautionary tale about the many prohibitions back in 2009. But the rules at Customs and Border Control (CBP) have become much more nuanced in recent years, based more on state-of-the-art science and less on xenophobic suspicion of ‶unAmerican″ foods. We're still going to have a hard time bringing home Spanish jamón ibérico or Italian prosciutto and we'd never try smuggling Uncle Guido's homemade country sausage, but the revised regulations are much friendlier. They are, however, far more detailed. Food that's okay coming from some countries is prohibited if coming from some others. Moreover, the green-light and red-light lists change frequently. Declare and present The first thing...Read More

Our modest addition to the Christmas cookie canon

Posted on December 12, 2020December 11, 2020 by Pat and David

A plate of Christmas cookies isn't the same without some form of shortbread cookie. We love traditional Scottish shortbread and fondly recall Pat's mother's chocolate chip shortbread bites. But our personal favorite is the saffron shortbread we first concocted nearly a decade ago. We hope it could become one of your favorites, too. When we could travel, we often purchased saffron in Spain, which is one of the world's largest producers. This year we had to resort to mail-order. One good choice is the Afghan saffron from Vanilla Saffron (www.saffron.com) in San Francisco. The best buy is by the ounce (28 grams). We find the flavor virtually identical to Spanish, and the Afghan product from Vanilla Saffron is of the highest grade, with very few...Read More

San Marzano DOP tomatoes to the rescue

Posted on November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 by Pat and David

When our garden was hit with the first killing frost (and four inches of snow) on Halloween, we were lucky. We had harvested all our green tomatoes and a bucket of partially ripe cherry tomatoes before the mercury plunged. So we will still be cooking with fresh tomatoes for another week or so. But end-of-the-season tomatoes can't hold a candle to the sweet, juicy beauties of summer. Ditto the greenhouse tomatoes that we buy over the winter. Every year we talk ourselves into their virtues and overlook their faults. At some point great canned tomatoes are superior to just okay fresh ones. Finding the best canned tomatoes in the world We look for cans labeled ‶Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP.″ Sometimes it's a subtitle...Read More

Brilliant Sancerre boosts saffron & roasted-squash pizza

Posted on February 8, 2018February 22, 2018 by Pat and David

We have to admit that we prefer good Sancerre to the New World versions of Sauvignon Blanc—even the highly touted wines from New Zealand. The French take on the grape drinks well with cold-weather dishes. So when we pondered a pizza pairing for one of our favorite Sancerres, we remembered a hearty risotto. We often make a risotto with saffron and onion broth that is studded with bits of bacon, roasted butternut squash, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. It's perfect with a zingy Sauvignon Blanc. Surely those flavors could be adapted to a pizza. The Wine: Domaine de la Perrière Sancerre 2016 The pairing was perfect. This Sancerre is fermented cold with wild yeasts and ages on the lees about three months. The yeast notes from the...Read More

Relicatessen: heavenly products for earthly delights

Posted on October 1, 2017February 28, 2018 by Pat and David

Relicatessen in Barcelona solved a problem for us. When we're in Spain for any extended period, we enjoy seeking out the cookies, sweets, and other foodstuffs from the country's 38 monasteries and convents that make products for sale. Often that means placing money on a revolving window (called a retorno) and getting a box of cookies, a jar of jam, or a pot of honey in return. But we're not always in a town with a cloistered order that makes products for sale. Thank god (so to speak) that Francisco Vera opened Relicatessen (www.relicatessen.com) three years ago in stall 988 in the Mercat Sant Josep, better known as La Boqueria. Located right on La Rambla in a Modernista-style iron frame shed, the Boqueria is one...Read More

One more rave for 1,000 Foods

Posted on March 8, 2015March 15, 2015 by Pat and David

When Mimi Sheraton published 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (Workman, $24.95) late last year, she probably had much the same experience as Tom Sawyer did when he hid in the rafters at his own funeral. Not that she didn't deserve the praise, but she was variously lauded as the second coming of Brillat-Savarin, M.F.K. Fisher, and Julia Child, and every restaurateur to whom she ever gave a well-considered review hastened to return the favor. Mimi Sheraton earned all those accolades long before she wrote this book. 1,000 Foods really is something of a masterpiece, but we'd liken it more to Remembrance of Things Past than to any more analytical tome. It is a memoir of tastes enjoyed, repeatedly...Read More

Spanish orange & almond tart for Christmas

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Pat and David

Last year for the holiday season we made saffron shortbread cookies, and we were feeling bad that we didn't have a new holiday cookie this year. We got to thinking about winter sweets and some of our all-time favorite flavors, and the two sort of came together. Some of the quintessential tastes of Spain are almonds, saffron, and bitter oranges. Why not adapt our standard linzer tart recipe to reflect that different range of flavors? Instead of hazelnuts in the dough, we could use almonds. Instead of vanilla, we could use saffron. And in place of raspberry jam, we could use Seville orange marmalade. (OK, we know that the marmalade is more a Scottish than Spanish flavor, but it does use the bitter oranges of...Read More

Saffron shortbread cookies for festive season

Posted on December 22, 2013May 3, 2018 by Pat and David

Peggy Regan of Salon de Té le Gryphon D'Or (www.gryphondor.com) in Montreal is the absolute mistress of shortbread, which you can enjoy at her tea room or order through the mail. When she gave us a shortbread recipe for Food Lovers' Guide to Montreal (see SOME BOOKS), she casually mentioned how the recipe could be adapted to add other flavors. She had in mind flavors like maple and almond. We happen to love shortbread cookies as an accompaniment to Spanish sparkling wine, or cava. So we wondered how another signature Spanish flavor -- saffron -- might taste in shortbread. Since we travel often to Spain, we tend to buy saffron when we come across a good deal or when we're in Consuegra, the premier saffron...Read More