Travel Blog – Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

Here are recipes from our hotel-hunting in the Blue Ridge Mountains: namely care of one of its best-kept secrets, a pastoral estate called Primland in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia…

This is a land where wild turkeys roam free, stargazers ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ from the observatory and where sybarites can spa themselves silly. While we were at this extra-special hideaway, we came across a couple of culinary delights that we felt it was our duty to pass along to you, dear readers. Watch and learn.

Time to trough. We’re picturing Pig Candy’s inventor stricken with a sweet-and-savoury craving in the middle of the night with only thick-cut bacon and sugar in the cupboard. Or maybe this kooky snack was dreamed up after a few glasses of moonshine on a cold winter’s night? Either way, we’re into it. And we’re tossing in this luxury resort’s take on fried pickles served with curried aioli. Delicious.

PIG CANDY
12 strips of thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon
57g raw sugar
57g maple syrup
57g cayenne pepper

1 Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2 Combine the syrup and cayenne in a bowl and set aside.
3 Coat both sides of each strip with brown sugar and lay them on a cookie sheet.
4 Bake for 15 minutes, then flip each piece over and brush with maple syrup.
5 Return the tray to the oven and bake for another five minutes, or until the sugar caramelizes.
6 Remove and let your Pig Candy cool for a few moments before serving.

FRIED PICKLES
3 to 4 large dill pickles, whole
1 box tempura batter mix
116g cornstarch
464g cake flour
24g baking soda
10g of kosher salt
Sparking water

1 Combine all dry ingredients and set aside.
2 Using a slicer, shave off paper-thin pickle pieces.
3 Mix three parts of the dry mixture to one part sparkling water.
4 Set the fryer to 350ºF.
5 Dredge the pickles through the batter and fry until golden brown.

CURRY AIOLI
478g aioli base or mayonnaise
2 1/2 teaspoons of curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
2 tablespoons of canola oil
1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
2 teaspoons of rice wine vinegar

1 Combine the curry powder, turmeric and canola oil in a small pot and heat carefully to combine spices.
2 Add the spice mixture to the aioli base or mayonnaise along with the rest of the ingredients; add water as needed to reach the desired consistency.

…And enjoy.

Don’t know your way around the kitchen? Visit Primland and let them do all of the culinary heavy-lifting. You’re also in a great location to savour some of Virginia and North Carolina’s prized eateries.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 26th, 2011 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Eating & drinking, New hotels, Travel tips, Uncategorized. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.