Quick meals - quick and easy recipes - page 139

Rémoulade is essentially a homemade mayonnaise loaded with flavor. The sauce was originally created in France, but we put a Creole spin on it with the addition of Louisiana-style hot sauce, Worcestershire, and bell pepper. Though it’s normally served with fried-fish dishes such as our Cornmeal Fried Catfish, we also like it with boiled shrimp or mixed into a potato salad. What to buy: Have all the ingredients at room temperature before you start—the rémoulade will come together better.

This is a milder and more accessible version of my first hot sauce recipe, Habanero Blood Orange Death Kick. When my dad (who grows his own Trinidad Scorpion peppers) said it was way too hot, I took his advice and left out the serranos to curb the heat a bit. I also used easy-to-find domestic oranges and limes. Spoon it over a breakfast frittata for a punch of heat.

This hot sauce gets its heat from hot paprika and cayenne pepper rather than chile peppers. To make it, throw boiled carrots, roasted red peppers, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, smoked and hot paprika, and cayenne into a blender. Serve this tangy, smoky sauce over grilled steak or stir it into hummus for an easy dip. Game plan: The hot sauce is ready to be served after 1 day, but the flavors will continue to meld for 2 to 3 days.

Add sweet cherry heat to your favorite recipes with this easy hot sauce. Just blend boiled carrots, roasted red peppers, and habanero chiles with cherry juice, vinegar, ginger, and a touch of sugar and salt. This sweet and spicy sauce is an awesome complement to pork dishes like cochinita pibil or Cuban-style rotisserie pork loin. Game plan: Habaneros are particularly spicy chile peppers, so we suggest wearing a pair of latex gloves when removing the seeds.

During his glory days, golfer Arnold Palmer drank a blend of iced tea and lemonade, a drink that became known, aptly, as the Arnold Palmer. This spiked version given to us by author and former Gramercy Tavern managing partner Nick Mautone substitutes citrus-flavored rum and limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur, for the lemonade. What to buy: If you don’t have citrus-flavored rum, you can use unflavored light rum, add freshly squeezed lemon juice and lime juice as desired.

This punch uses the flavors of pears, cinnamon, and brandy to create a cocktail that screams autumn. It’s slightly fizzy from the pear cider, has a touch of sweet spice from the cinnamon schnapps, and has a gentle bite from the Courvoisier. Serve it up or enjoy over ice at a Thanksgiving gathering or Christmas party.

This elegant, floral, blush-tinged cocktail is a great way to use up a bunch of grapes. Muddle fresh red grapes with pisco—a brandy actually made from grapes—shake with ice, and strain before topping with champagne and a lemon twist. What to buy: Pisco is a brandy distilled from South American white Muscat grapes. It can be found at well-stocked liquor stores or online.

Abigail Gullo, head bar chef at SoBou restaurant in New Orleans, celebrates the flavor of ripe figs by muddling them with elderflower liqueur and shaking them in a cocktail shaker with vodka, lots of lemon juice, and agave nectar. This floral, sweet-tart drink is a refreshing way to enjoy fresh figs.

This classic cocktail sauce is a tangy, slightly spicy mixture of ketchup, prepared horseradish, lemon juice, and Tabasco sauce. Serve it with poached shrimp for a traditional shrimp cocktail or on briny oysters on the half shell. Game plan: This recipe can be made up to 1 day ahead, covered, and refrigerated.

With a flavor somewhere between cocktail sauce and Thousand Island dressing, this tangy, versatile recipe starts with ketchup and mayonnaise as the base and is flavored with brandy, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and lemon juice. Use it as a dip for chilled seafood or french fries, or smear it on a toasted bun and proclaim it your secret house sauce for a bacon cheeseburger.

This recipe is a great way to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey when you just can’t eat another turkey-and-gravy sandwich. Mix diced turkey with tart apples, sweet grapes, creamy mayo, and crunchy walnuts and celery. Serve for lunch atop leaves of butter lettuce, or stuff it into delicate French pastry shells as an elegant appetizer.

This make-at-home version of a coffee-shop pumpkin spice latte gets bonus points for using actual pumpkin, plus it’s spiked with rum. Plan ahead and make a batch of Homemade Pumpkin Spice Liqueur. When it’s ready, brew some coffee, add the liqueur, and top with a dollop of brown-sugar whipped cream and freshly grated nutmeg. Serve steaming in mugs with Spiced Pumpkin-Pecan Pancakes to reach pumpkin brunch critical mass.

Instead of whisking the ingredients by hand or hauling out the heavy stand mixer, let the blender do all the work in this easy eggnog recipe. Blend eggs, egg yolks, and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved, then add milk, rum, and bourbon. Finish by blending in heavy cream, and then let the eggnog chill in the refrigerator for an hour so the flavors come together. Serve with ice and freshly grated nutmeg on top.

Herbal Yellow Chartreuse is shaken with orange liqueur, orange juice, and heavy cream in this frothy after-dinner drink. If you can’t find Yellow Chartreuse, you can use Galliano instead.

This classic after-dinner drink is said to be an adaptation of a gin-based cocktail named the Alexander. While both are shaken with crème de cacao and heavy cream, this version has brandy swapped in for the gin. Sip this creamy tipple after the holiday feast as you chat on the couch with friends and family.

This light, delicate cocktail combines the dry, salty flavor of manzanilla sherry with herbaceous gin and floral elderflower liqueur. Stir together a few of these for guests as an elegant after-dinner drink. What to buy: Manzanilla sherry, made in the coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in southern Spain, is a very dry sherry with a touch of saltiness from the sea. You can find it in the wine section of well-stocked grocery or liquor stores or online.