Tasting Table's Winter 2012: Sweet Relief Menu
Sugar takes a savory break
This month, we're turning sweetness on its head.
For our March dinner party, we packed savory dishes such as baby back ribs and roasted chickpeas with an element of sweetness in every flavorful bite.
Start with our honey-and-hot-curry butter. Skimmed across baguette slices, it offers just the right amount of spicy-sweet, especially when paired with a citrusy Campari-beer cocktail. (Be sure to also visit our Facebook page for two additional savory-sweet butter recipes.)
The main event commences with mole-glazed pork ribs served alongside roasted chickpeas. The slow-roasted ribs are coated in a dark red, spicy-sweet mole glaze laced with dried chiles and Mexican chocolate. The complex flavors pair seamlessly with crisp chickpeas tossed in cinnamon, cumin, brown sugar and lime.
While we concede that serving cake for dessert leans more toward sweet than savory, we folded saffron and olive oil into the pistachio-flecked batter for a unique take on the evening's final bite.
Step aside sweet nothings, we've got something on you.
A pan of chickpeas being roasted.
Brushing mole glaze over the pork ribs.
Toasting the evening with a Bittersweet Shandy cocktail.
Cinnamon, cumin and brown sugar chickpeas.
Honey curry compound butter to start off the meal.
Saffron olive-oil cake.
A sweet finish to the meal.