The Key Ingredient

Food Series / 3 Seasons

Renowned food writer and cooking teacher Sheri Castle celebrates local ingredients, tracing their journeys from source to kitchen. Sheri introduces us to local farmers, growers, fishermen and chefs and shares approachable home cooking recipes and tips.

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Deviled Egg Salad | Kitchen Recipe

4m 37s

Sheri Castle whips up a delicious deviled egg salad recipe that’s sure to impress. Crumbling the eggs rather than mashing them into a paste gives this salad a fabulous texture. Plus, the flavor is robust, similar to top-notch deviled eggs.

Lemon Angel Pie | Kitchen Recipe

6m 39s

The egg clearly comes first in Sheri Castle’s “oh so lovely” lemon angel pie. This old-fashioned recipe with Southern roots dates back to the days when home cooks who kept chickens might have more eggs than flour for baking.

Fresh Fig, Orange and Bourbon Crostata | Kitchen Recipe

5m 55s

Figs reign supreme in Sheri Castle’s inventive fresh fig, orange and bourbon crostata. This recipe takes inspiration from the flavors of a classic Old Fashioned cocktail, which go beautifully with the natural jammy sweetness of fresh figs.

Trudy’s Ocracoke Fig Cake | Cook Along with Trudy Austin

6m 5s

Sheri Castle joins Trudy Austin in the kitchen and learns the secrets to her prize-winning Ocracoke fig cake. Figs are so important to Ocracoke life that the town hosts an annual fig festival that includes recipe contests, including a traditional fig cake category, which Trudy Austin (a ninth-generation Ocracoker) has won more than once.

Seared Chicken Thighs with Fig Pan Sauce | Kitchen Recipe

6m 22s

Sheri Castle shares a perfect pairing of pan-seared chicken thighs with a fig pan sauce. This combination of pan-seared chicken thighs and a quick pan sauce featuring fresh figs is simple yet elegant enough to serve to guests.

Preview | Figs Galore

30s

Sheri Castle visits Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks to find one of the world’s greatest diversity of fig trees. She shares recipes for pan-seared chicken thighs with a fig pan sauce as well as a fresh fig, orange and bourbon crostata. On the island, Sheri learns the secrets to a prize-winning fig cake and shares a helpful hint on a way to quickly roast figs.

Red Rice with Shrimp and Smoked Sausage | Kitchen Recipe

6m 3s

Sheri Castle shares her recipe for Low Country–style red rice with shrimp and sausage. Made with long-grain white rice, this dish takes its name from the deep red color it gets from the tomatoey shrimp stock used as the cooking liquid.

Preview | The Nice Thing About Rice

30s

Sheri Castle shares recipes for Low Country–style red rice with shrimp and sausage as well as rice and garden peas in Parmesan broth. She visits Lee’s One Fortune Farm to see how it grows heirloom rice in the mountains, and then cooks with chef Ricky Moore for his “church lady good” rice and summer-squash gratin. Sheri also shares a tip on how to select the perfect rice for a recipe.

Rice and Garden Peas in Parmesan Broth | Kitchen Recipe

5m 2s

Inspired by the Italian dish “risi e bisi,” Sheri Castle’s creamy rice and garden peas in Parmesan broth shows just how impressive and comforting a simple rice dish can be.

Granola Porridge with Blueberries and Cream | Kitchen Recipe

6m 38s

Sheri Castle’s recipe for granola porridge with warm maple cream is as easy as it is decadent. A big scoop of nutty granola adds a welcome crunch, and the warm maple cream is the perfect topper.

Fresh Blueberry Pie | Cook Along with Johnny Burleson

6m 5s

Sheri Castle joins Johnny Burleson of Old Orchard Creek Farm to bake a classic blueberry pie. This timeless dessert is made from a handwritten recipe by Swansie Shepherd, a member of the family who once lived on the land and planted the blueberry bushes.

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