z‑OLD-Derby in the Set

Abajo de la Mesa Hot Brown

The Hot Brown Sand­wich was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed at the Brown Hotel in Louisville by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. It is a vari­a­tion on the much old­er Welsh rarebit.

Recipe:

Start by mak­ing a loaf of Cebah’s quick bread — dis­solve a pack­et of dry yeast into a cup & a quar­ter of luke­warm water. In a large mix­ing bowl com­bine 2 cups of flour, 2 table­spoons of hon­ey, two table­spoons of melt­ed but­ter and a tea­spoon of salt. Add the yeast & water mix­ture and stir the mix­ture one hun­dred strokes. Add anoth­er cup of flour, mix it in well and form the dough into a ball. Leave it in the bowl, cov­er it with a kitchen tow­el and leave it to rise for 20 min­utes, if you have time, OR ~ punch the dough down and form it into a cylin­der. Place it on a bak­ing sheet sprin­kled with corn­meal or flour, slash the top with a sharp knife or razor, and let it rise 20 min­utes. Bake in a 450-degree oven for 20 min­utes, or until it is gold­en brown. Let it cool, at least some­what, before slic­ing.

Next pre­pare the chick­en breasts, (4) or turkey breast. If you choose the tra­di­tion­al turkey, cut the breast into 4 pieces. The pieces should be bone­less, skin­less, and of a size to grill eas­i­ly. Salt the breasts gen­er­ous­ly, and place them in a bowl to mar­i­nate briefly tossed in 1/3 cup of may­on­naise mixed with the grat­ed zest of a whole lemon and half of its juice. Grill the breasts just until done over a wood or char­coal fire and place them on a cut­ting board to cool.

Now make the Mor­nay sauce: In a sauce pan com­bine 3 table­spoons of but­ter with 4 table­spoons of flour and cook it over medi­um heat, stir­ring, until it bub­bles for 2 min­utes. In a sep­a­rate pan heat 2 cups of half & half, or milk, or a com­bi­na­tion of milk and cream until almost boil­ing. Pour the hot half & half into the flour and but­ter roux and stir it, cook­ing, until the sauce begins to bub­ble and thick­en. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of grat­ed Guyere, Swiss, or Parme­san cheese, a half tea­spoon of salt, or to taste, fresh­ly ground black pep­per, and a smidgen of grat­ed nut­meg.

Fry enough bacon to place 2 slices on each serv­ing.

For each serv­ing you will need an oven­proof plate or dish. But­ter and toast slices of the bread and place a slice or two on each plate. Slice the chick­en breasts, about a quar­ter of an inch thick, and cov­er the toast with the slices. Pour on enough of the Mor­nay sauce to cov­er. Slice a Chero­kee Pur­ple toma­to, or what­ev­er good toma­to you have, 1/4 inch thick and place one slice on each sand­wich. Sprin­kle a lit­tle sea salt on the toma­to slice. If you like a lit­tle heat, put on some round sliv­ers cut from the hot pep­per of your choice — we used a hot red banana pep­per.

Place the dish under the broil­er and broil it until the sauce begins to bub­ble and brown.

Remove from the oven and gar­nish the sand­wich with a chif­fon­ade of fresh basil and a few marigold petals and serve. Be sure to warn your din­ers that the plate is hot!

Benedictine Kappa Maki with Caviar

Bene­dic­tine was invent­ed in the ear­ly 1900s by Jen­nie Carter Bene­dict, a cater­er, restau­ra­teur and cook­book author in Louisville, Ken­tucky. Kap­pa are myth­i­cal Japan­ese riv­er mon­sters said to love cucum­bers, hence Kap­pa Maki are cucum­ber sushi rolls.

Recipe:

First make the Bene­dic­tine: In a bowl com­bine 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1/4 cup of fine­ly diced or grat­ed cucum­ber, a large pinch of salt, a table­spoon of may­on­naise, and 1/4 to 1/2 tea­spoon of wasabi (Japan­ese horse­rad­ish paste). If it is too stiff to spread eas­i­ly, add a bit more may­on­naise, or a dash of saki. 

Next make the sushi rice: In your rice pot wash 2 cups of sushi rice by swirling it in cold water and drain­ing it. Do this 3 times, until the water runs clear. Drain the rice and add 3 cups of water. Bring the rice to a boil at high heat, cov­er it and reduce the heat to low. Cook the rice for 12 min­utes with the lid on, then remove it from the heat, fluff it with a fork, replace the cov­er and let it sit for 10 min­utes.

While the rice is fin­ish­ing, make the sushi dress­ing. The word “sushi” means vine­gared rice, orig­i­nal­ly a gam­bit to help it keep in hot weath­er. In a small saucepan com­bine 4 table­spoons of rice vine­gar, 3 table­spoons of sug­ar, and one table­spoon of sea salt. Bring the ingre­di­ents to a boil and stir until the sug­ar and salt are dis­solved. 

Dump the hot cooked rice out into a large bowl. Either place the bowl in front of a fan, or have some­one fan the bowl like blazes as you driz­zle on the dress­ing. At the same time gen­tly toss the rice with a wood­en pad­dle or spat­u­la. The idea is to cool the rice as it absorbs and is glazed by the dress­ing. Use only as much as the rice will absorb. It should be slight­ly sticky, but not wet.

Place a sheet of nori (sea­weed pre­pared for sushi rolling) on a bam­boo sushi roller, or a kitchen tow­el. The lines impressed on the nori are guides for cut­ting it, so the sheet of nori should be arranged with the lines run­ning away from you. Wet your hands, pick up some rice and press it to cov­er an area of the nori 4 inch­es wide from end to end, about a 1/4 on an inch thick. It helps in the rolling to do this care­ful­ly, but it will taste great no mat­ter how you do it.

Spread the rice with a table­spoon or so of the bene­dic­tine, then make a row down the cen­ter of cucum­ber jul­li­enne and long sliv­ers of smoked salmon. 

That done, use the edge of the bam­boo roller, or kitchen tow­el, near­est to you to begin rolling the sushi, press­ing it care­ful­ly into a cylin­der as you go. Once you’ve rolled the whole sheet of nori round the sushi, place it seam side down on a cut­ting board. Repeat until you’ve used all the sushi rice.

Slice the rolls, fol­low­ing the inden­ta­tions on the roll, or into inch and a half pieces, and place them onto your serv­ing dish upright like lit­tle bar­rels. Top with a tea­spoon of spoon­bill caviar.

Gar­nish the indi­vid­ual sushi with a phlox blos­som, or the edi­ble small flower you have on hand, and a sprig of tar­ragon, or anoth­er deli­cious herb, and serve as soon as pos­si­ble.

Mint Julep

Mint Juleps are a pecu­liar­ly South­ern drink with a long his­to­ry, first men­tioned in a 1770 play, and con­sid­ered at least some­what med­i­c­i­nal in those days. Mint is a balm for diges­tion, so there’s your excuse. Hen­ry Clay, famed Ken­tucky Sen­a­tor, intro­duced the drink to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., at the Round Robin Bar in the famous Willard Hotel dur­ing his res­i­dence in the city.

Recipe:

Mint Juleps are tra­di­tion­al­ly served in sil­ver cups, so start by plac­ing your sil­ver cups, or ves­sel of choice, in the freez­er to chill.

Into the chilled cup put a gen­er­ous bunch of fresh mint and mud­dle it with a mud­dler or a spoon, or sim­ply bruise it with your fin­gers as you drop it in.

Add two tea­spoons of Elder­flower syrup for our ver­sion, or sim­ple syrup if you’re short on Elder­flower, or two tea­spoons of con­fec­tionary sug­ar — lack­ing that, two tea­spoons of plain sug­ar.

Fill the cup one-third full with bour­bon. We used Horse Sol­dier Bour­bon, which recent­ly announced plans to build a dis­tillery right here in Som­er­set, Ken­tucky.

Fill the cup to the top with shaved or fine­ly crushed ice, gar­nish with a sprig of mint and enjoy the Der­by, or what­ev­er you hap­pen to be cel­e­brat­ing!

Non-alco­holic ver­sion: If you want to enjoy this bev­er­age with­out alco­hol, sim­ply sub­sti­tute bour­bon with seltzer water, gin­ger ale or Ken­tucky soft drink favorite Ale‑8.

Derby Tart

Our ver­sion of “the most liti­gious con­fec­tionary in his­to­ry.”  The orig­i­nal pie was cre­at­ed in the Mel­rose Inn of Prospect, Ken­tucky, by Wal­ter and Leau­dra Kern. That recipe remains a fam­i­ly secret, thus pro­tect­ed by of a series of law suits. The dessert had no asso­ci­a­tion with the Ken­tucky Der­by until its name was cho­sen out of a hat by chance.

Recipe:

First make the tart crust: Com­bine 1 & 1/4 cup of all-pur­pose flour with 1/2 tea­spoon of salt. Cut in 6 table­spoons of cold but­ter and two table­spoons of cold tal­low or lard — (or 8 of but­ter) — mix with your fin­gers of a pas­try cut­ter until it has the tex­ture of coarse meal, with no lumps larg­er than a small pea. Stir in a cou­ple of table­spoons of ice water, plus a cou­ple more, if need­ed — just enough to gath­er the dough into a ragged ball. Put the ball in a plas­tic bag and press it a bit into a disc. Refrig­er­ate the dough for 15 or 20 min­utes. Flour your work­ing sur­face and roll it out into a thin round large enough to line your tart dish or pie pan. Trim the edges and chill it until you are ready to assem­ble and bake. 

Toast a cup and quar­ter of wal­nut halves or pieces on a bak­ing sheet in a 300 degree oven until they are gold­en brown.

In a mix­ing bowl com­bine 4 eggs, 1/2 cup sorghum & 1/2 cup corn syrup, 1 cup of brown sug­ar, 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of melt­ed but­ter, cooled, 2 table­spoons of Bour­bon, 1 tea­spoon of vanil­la, and a pinch of salt. Stir in the toast­ed wal­nuts.

Chop or grate 4 ounces of bit­ter­sweet choco­late and scat­ter it even­ly on the bot­tom of your chilled tart shell, pour on the wet mix­ture, and bake the tart at 350 degrees for 40 or 50 min­utes until the fill­ing is set and the top is browned. Serve with light­ly sweet­ened whipped cream, fla­vored with a dash of bour­bon or vanil­la, and gar­nished with a red rose petal.