Seasonal Eats: Apples

Did you know there are over 7,500 varieties of apples in the world?  Yep.  You could eat a different kind of apple every day of the year and not make a dent in the possibilities.  Right now, it’s Apple Picking Season, which means a flavorful spectrum of apples.   Sure, you can get those shiny Red Delicious apples all year round, but don’t even bother eating those ’til we’re deep into winter and this season’s juicy crop are long gone.

If you can’t get out of the city to go apple picking for the day, you can always head to the Greenmarket where they bring the apple farms to you.  The choices can be overwhelming, so we’ve set up a little guide here for the next time you’re trying to decide which to bake and which to eat.  If you’re in the mood for Apple Sauce, make your own in a food processor your choice of Pink Lady, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Braeburn, Honeycrisp or McIntosh, and a dash of cinnamon.  Baking a pie?   You’ll want to pick apples that keep their shape after cooking, like Mutsu, Honeycrisp, Gala, Empire, Cortland, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious.  One of our favorite, easy DIY snacks are apple chips: Just slice, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake until dry at about 350 degrees. We like to use Spartan, Jonathan, Honeygold, Honeycrisp, Gala or Empire apples for apple chips.   You can even make your own cider with mulling spices and a well-balanced blend of sweet and tart apples, like Galas, Fortune and Honeycrisp. Or, of course, you can just wash one off and eat it raw.  Our favorite to chew on our Fuji, Honeycrisp, Empire and and Braeburn.

Apples are at their best now through November, so seize the season and know how to pick ’em.    Regardless of what kind you’re buying,  look for firm and crisp apples, and the heavier the apple the better.  (Stay away from anything mushy and bruised.)  The thing about apples is that once one apple in the batch becomes overripe, the others will follow suit, so toss any bad apples to save the rest of the batch and  keep them somewhere cool, like the fridge or a dark cool cabinet.

And if you’re not in the mood to cook, there are plenty of terrific apple dishes to discover this fall.  Downtown vegetarian, ‘sNice, has an emblematic Autumn Salad with pears, apples, fennel and walnuts, cranberries and blue cheese.  Head to lunch on the Upper West Side for a cup of tea at Alice’s Tea Cup and a tea-inspired Lapsang Souchong Smoked Chicken Breast Sandwich layered with Granny Smith Apple slices and Goat Cheese or their Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich with Granny Smith apples, celery, tomato slices and red onion on golden raisin semolina bread.  Nothing says apples like dessert, and this one takes the cake.  Momofuku Milk Bar’s got a Green Apple-Cheddar Soft Serve, Balthazar’s got a classic Apple Tart Tatin with Creme Anglaise and Vanilla Ice Cream, and davidburke townhouse has a Warm Apple Tart with apple cider caramel, cinnamon streusel and tahitian vanilla ice cream.  One of our favorite discoveries this season is Salumeria Rosi’s Apple Tart with Taleggio Cheese Custard and a Fiji Apple-Rose Sorbet. Whether you’re eating a sandwich or dessert or making your very own applesauce, apples are the quintessential flavor of fall, so seize the season while it lasts!

Balthazar
80 Spring Street
(212)965-1414
www.balthazarny.com

Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto
903 Madison Avenue
(212)517-7700
www.salumeriarosi.com

Alice’s Tea Cup
102 W 73rd St at Columbus Ave
(212)- 799 – 3006
www.alicesteacup.com

‘sNice
45 8th Ave, at 4th St. 
(212)- 645 – 0310
www.snicecafe.com

davidburke townhouse 
133 E 61st St Between Park and Lexington Ave
(212) – 813 – 2121
www.davidburketownhouse.com 

Momofuku Milk Bar
251 East 13th Street
(347)577-9504
www.momofuku.com