You might need to be just as old as I am, or to be blessed with a particularly fine memory, but hands up all those who remember a recipe we featured in our 1994 Christmas supplement for Cuban Festive Turkey.
If you cooked it, you will not have forgotten just what a smart and accomplished recipe it was. But what you might have forgotten with the passage of years was the source of the recipe. I discovered it in a wonderful book, Miami Spice, written by a bloke I had never heard of before, Steven Raichlen.
Since 1994, I have cooked many recipes from Miami Spice, and discovered that Raichlen is the best kind of culinary company. He is witty extremely well informed, and someone you can trust to deliver the goods in the most delicious way. He's the best type of cook: he loves food, simple as that.
Since then, I have sought out his books, which have been award-winners in the US (both Miami Spice and 1998's Barbecue! Bible) and always found them provocative and absorbing. He loves strongly flavoured food, as you would expect of someone who loves Latin and Caribbean food, and this is a preference which his newest book, Barbecue! Bible Sauces, Rubs and Marinades, drives home with a vengeance.
Now, I know what you are thinking: "A barbecue book in October? Get real!" but its arrival now is just one of those quirks of international publishing: the book appeared in the US in May, just in time for the barbie season.
To be honest, it doesn't matter a jot, for this book is packed with so many ideas that are applicable to all manner of cooking that it will see a lot of action indoors, especially if you have an indoor grill, before you bring it outside late next spring when the Weber is being dusted down for another bout of grilling. Basically, this book is all about creating the sorts of rubs, marinades, seasonings and sauces that can give great flavour to food.
It opens with a chapter on salt and pepper, which is worth the price of the book alone. Writing about kosher salt (a variety which is rarely found here but which US cooks love, it is made by slow gentle boiling of rock salt to produce salt crystals), Raichlen writes : "Because kosher salt doesn't melt right away, you get pointillistic bursts of flavour when you bite into a grilled steak or fish fillet".
The book is full of such sharp writing - as when he talks about buffalo mop: "October 30, 1964, may not be a red-letter day in history. No rocket ship blasted off for the moon, no landmark presidential speech was made, no Internet stock went public. But human happiness was immeasurably enriched on that fateful day, when Teressa Belissimo, owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, invented buffalo wings". Brilliant.
Here is Teressa's recipe, followed by another superb recipe - where you use a wok to make smoked salt. Yep, smoked salt! Use this for seasoning in the cold winter months - it will remind you of summer.
Buffalo Mop
8 tablespoons salted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons tomato paste half cup dry white wine 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar quarter to half cup tabasco sauce (depending on your tolerance for heat)
Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant but not brown, 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes. Add the wine and vinegar and bring to a boil, whisking to dissolve the tomato paste. Add the tabasco sauce and remaining butter and simmer for 2 minutes.
Raichlen advises marinating the chicken wings in half the mop in a covered baking dish in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Use the remainder of the mop for basting, but don't start mopping until the outside of the chicken is cooked.
Smoked Salt
2 tablespoons hardwood sawdust 2 cups coarse salt (sea salt)
Wok method: Line the bottom of the wok with aluminium foil (a 6-inch square will do) and place the sawdust on top. Set a round wire cake rack in the wok. Spread the salt in a thin layer in an aluminium foil pie pan and place on the wire rack. Place the wok over high heat. When you start to see wisps of smoke, reduce the heat to medium, tightly cover the wok, and smoke the salt for 20 minutes. Cool the salt to room temperature, then transfer it to a jar, cover, and store away from heat and light.