If you've only had hominy in pozole or other Mexican-inspired dishes, you're missing out. Hominy is corn that has been dried and then soaked in lime water to soften and puff the kernels. Simmering hominy in broth softens the kernels even further, resulting in dumpling-like little pillows just begging to deliver brown butter to your palate. At least that's how I think of them. They're darned good baked with cheese as well, macaroni-style, or gratineed with cauliflower, which is how chef JD Fratzke serves hominy at The Strip Club Meat & Fish.
All good.
This dish would be made better with cubes of roasted squash, which I meant to include, but forgot to grab at the market. So add squash! Or halved end-of-season cherry tomatoes, warmed through for a minute in the butter. Toss, toss. I've added a few slices of leftover grilled sausage and been glad, too. It's that kind of dish - fast, cheap, comforting, and highly adaptable.
As a side note, I'd like to advocate for the stand-alone beauty of fried sage. Oh my gosh so delicious. I always fry a few extra leaves to snack on while I make the rest of the dish.
As another side note, brown sage butter is incredible on popcorn!
Recipe for Hominy with Brown Butter & Crispy Sage at TC Taste/Minnesota Monthly Magazine.
Tender, egg-y challah bread is lovely on the Thanksgiving table. Not only is it pretty, but it harkens back to my mom's yeasty homemade crescent rolls, but for about one-tenth of the effort.
The honey-rosemary butter plays nicely with turkey, squash, and stuffing.
And everything.
Recipe for Challah with Honey-Rosemary Butter at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly Magazine.
Salty butter, one of my very favorite things. I humiliated myself a few years ago by confessing on Andrew Zimmern's then-radio show, Chowhounds, that I love few things more than a thin slice of cold Hope Creamery butter, no bread, just butter, oh yeah... Not moderate, I know, so I don't even keep it in my house (shucks), only buy it for holidays or parties. Or to try cool recipes like this one for dark salty butter caramel sauce (posted lately on The Kitchen Sink, recipe from The Smitten Kitchen), which I plan to give as a gift (if it turns out as nicely as I hope that it will). How perfect would salted Hope Creamery be for this sauce?
Well, I won't know, since Whole Foods didn't have Hope Creamery butter. So instead I grabbed this French beauty, Beurre D'Isigny, 80% butterfat and studded with coarse rock salt. Holy Hannah, where have I been? How have I never picked this up before? It's gorgeous to look at, rich yellow and literally sparkling with salt crystals. And the taste - slighty tangy, fresh-cream sweet, with a hint of crunchy salt, it's perfect.
If I ever make that caramel sauce, I'll let you know...
