Food news antipasto

File this under everything old is new again: deviled eggs are the latest trendy menu item for restaurants. Of course, chefs are all putting their own spin on the classic, but the basic recipe still provides the underpinning. A few factors are driving the surge including affordability and customer interest in retro dishes. Bistro Freddie’s head chef, Anna Sorgaard says “It’s about flavour but aesthetics, too. We’re an English-French bistro and you don’t get more classic than eggs mayonnaise. It’s fun, light, salty and savoury.”

Bread is often called ‘the staff of life’ and some form of grain-based baked good is present in nearly every culture across the globe. Everyone has a favorite, and you might find yours in CNN’s listing of 50 of the world’s best breads. The list proceeds in alphabetical order by location, starting with bolani from Afghanistan and ending with malawach in Yemen. France’s entry is the baguette, the US has biscuits, the UK gets crumpets, and Australia is on the list with damper bread.

Few flavors are as divisive as licorice – it seems that people either love it or hate it. If you are among the latter, brace yourself for an onslaught, as it soon may be appearing on a drink menu near you. It’s not just bartenders adding the flavor to cocktails; baristas are getting in on the action too. Why the sudden interest in licorice and related flavors like anise and fennel? Bartender Gina Hoover has a theory: “I really think this is a COVID silver lining. When the bars shut down, people got tired of drinking whatever they knew how to make and took the time to invest in furthering their palates,” she told Food & Wine.

If you hate throwing away the rinds of lemons after you’ve squeezed them, chef Tom Hunt suggests throwing them in the freezer and once you have a assembled enough to fit in a canning jar, make preserved lemon rind. It’s a twist on traditional preserved lemon and it makes sense since most of the time people throw away the flesh from preserved lemons and use only the rind. “The flavour is just as intense and delicious as traditional preserved lemon,” says Hunt.

Is your pantry overflowing with bags, boxes, and jars of half-used items? Do you have to wade through several packages before finding the ingredient you want to use? Silvana Franco of Good Food (Aus) found herself in that situation recently and decided to overhaul her pantry and revamp recipes in the process. She shares her eight-step routine, including a handful of recipes that take advantage of common pantry items.