Sriracha Mayonnaise and Crispy Baked Apples

No, not together.  Although they could be part of the same meal, those two things do not belong on the same plate.  Just being clear.....

Everyone has (or should have) Sriracha sauce in their pantry.  If you don't, go get some. Now. It's useful in oh, so many ways: drizzled on scrambled eggs, added to soups and stews to offset blandness, mixed with things like mayonnaise or ketchup as a condiment, dabbed on ordinary cheese before it turns into a grilled cheese sandwich, on and on. It's spicy, (made from chilies) but it has a lot of flavor layers that makes it a great addition when you just need a little hit of heat.  

A week or so I was out to dinner, eating a corn fritter and dipping into a delicious sauce.  I asked what was in the sauce and was told it was a "sriracha aoli."  In other words, sriracha mixed with mayo.  Zut alors!  It makes a perfect dipping sauce for fritters or for those frozen onion rings that you just had to cook for dinner.  Or french fries, or fish sticks (do they still make fish sticks?) or cold chicken or a hard boiled egg.  Try it.  You'll like it.

Crispy Baked Apples:  you know all those apples you have hanging out in your kitchen, the ones that seemed so full of promise when you picked them from your neighbor's tree or said "Yes!" when asked if you wanted a bag full?  (Substitute the word "pear" for apples, the over-abundance is the same.)  You could make applesauce, or you did and you still have apples left.  You could make an apple pie, which would be delicious, but a lot of work and then you have to invite friends over to eat it and you really aren't in the mood for company right now and you have no vanilla ice cream in the freezer and what's the point of apple pie with out ice cream, you ask yourself.  Apple crisp: same thing, yummy but too much work.

Solution:  Crispy Baked Apples. Four ingredients, one small bowl, one baking dish.  Cut apples (or pears) in half.  Core.  Put in baking dish, shaving a teeny bit off the bottom if they are wobbly.  In a small bowl, combine about a half cup raw almonds that you have chopped as fine as you can.  This will mean some pieces are the size of small peas, some the size of grains of rice, some even smaller.  (You can do this in a food processor but then you have to clean it and I hate that part, so I use a knife and a cutting board.)  To the finely chopped almonds add about 1/3 cup sugar and a scant half cube of melted butter.  Mix up.  Add a pinch of salt and you could add a little cinnamon if you wanted.  Smush it onto the apples, tamping it down a bit, so it covers the top of each apple, like you were covering it in clay, molding the topping onto the apple with your hand.  The topping should be compacted on top of the apple, not just plopped on.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, until the topping is lovely golden brown and apples are tender.

That's it.  You could serve these warm with some of that vanilla ice cream that is missing from your freezer.  I mixed a little honey into some plain yogurt and used a little of that and it was perfect, not too sweet.  The topping on the apples is crisp and crunchy, which is perfect with the softness of the apple.  Even refrigerated until the next day the topping stays crunchy, more than you can say for an apple crisp.  A perfect way to use up some of those apples before the fruit flies build a condo in them.

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