Articles in the Food Category
“I don’t like carrot purée,” says Jane. “Why not?” I say. “I just don’t.” “Okay. I’ll make some for myself and regular carrots for you”. I go off and cook dinner. I’m determined to make a carrot purée she’ll like. Rosemary chicken, with roast asparagus and the carrot purée on the side. “So how’s the carrot purée?” I ask. Jane concedes, blushing, “It’s pretty good. Are you going to publish the recipe?” Admittedly, this isn’t just carrot purée, but it’s mostly carrots. Adjust the amount of butter and cream to …
Rich and chewy, this gelato is incredibly easy to make. Use really ripe bananas and a good-quality dark rum for the best results. Once the gelato has frozen, place in an airtight container and freeze for an hour to firm it up a bit.
While in Maui recently, we were excited about the types of fresh seafood available, but had to exercise caution, as Jane is still nursing Emmet, and she must carefully watch her seafood intake due to mercury contamination in most large fish. Fortunately, shrimp are generally considered “safe to eat” for nursing mothers if wild-caught, and we found a store that had a large selection. We considered making Shrimp Scampi, but I was out of garlic. Fortunately, I had some sweet Maui onions and created this variation. We both agreed it …
I really like the chocolate sorbet by Double Rainbow ice cream (a San Francisco company, by the way), but as I was hovering over the freezer case at Trader Joe’s, I thought to myself–I can make this at home. I had a chocolate sorbet recipe that came with my ice cream machine that I liked, but it was only good, not great, so I went hunting for a new one. And then I came across this one in David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. It uses both chopped chocolate and cocoa …
This recipe was discovered after a search for something to cook in a brand-new Staub cast-iron pan I picked up at a steal from Amazon. The little recipe booklet that comes with the pan has a great many photos of whole chickens being roasted inside, but the recipes all in the end called for chicken parts. Staged photos indeed! Fortunately, I ran across this fantastic recipe from the site Meathenge for “Wet Roast Chicken” perfect for my cast iron pot. Here is the recipe with minor modifications, and many thanks …
It’s been a while since I made sodas at home, and the first one I tried was inspired by some fresh ripe organic fruit picked up at the Alemany Farmer’s market. It’s a cross between a regular cream soda and a pear soda. We drank four liters of it in less than a week. The directions here are somewhat terse. For more complete information on equipment used, try the book Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop by Stephen Cresswell.
As part of our bi-weekly box of farm-fresh produce from Mariquita Farms, we ended up getting a significant amount of red peppers. Unsure exactly what to do with this bounty, I did a little research ad came up with this recipe. It’s incredibly quick, and the results are very delicious.
I had never paid much attention to this recipe in Richard Sax’s Classic Home Desserts until one day, I run across it while reading through a Nigella Lawson cookbook. She reprints it, exclaiming how wonderful it is. Figuring it must be a good recipe for one chef to reprint it in their own cookbook, I had to try it. And Nigella is right. It’s a great, flourless chocolate cake that’s not too heavy. Don’t skip on the whipped cream topping–that definitely adds a necessary piece to the overall mixture.
There is no better sandwich than a French Dip. Making one requires a well-cooked roast beef, with a dark flavorful “jus” in which to dip the sandwich. Growing up, Ingo would often ask his dad to make the roast beef, slice it thinly, and then pile it high on two slices of San Luis Sourdough bread for a special French Dip treat. This recipe for roast beef comes by way of the Culinary Institute of America’s The New Professional Chef. The method is fairly foolproof, and yields a good roast with a large …
This is a very old and incredibly easy method of preserving fruit. We couldn’t resist the amazing organic peaches, nectarines and plums at the awesome Alemany’s Farmers Market, but soon had to face the realization that there’s only so many fruit tarts and chutneys we could eat. If you love preserves with fresh fruit flavor, but are not ready to commit to canning at home–try this, there’s no cooking involved. The resulting spread can keep for several months in the fridge.
This recipe comes from the David Rosengarten cookbook, It’s All American Food. We’re big fans of this book, and it seems strangely underrated (I bought my copy in the clearance area of a bookstore), despite winning a James Beard Foundation Award. The basic premise of the book is to be an overview of the most popular and loved of American dishes, grouping them by the original ethnicity, but including the tweaks that make it the “American” version. You can find nearly any dish in here, from Coq Au Vin to …
Kaiserschmarren is a thick, souffle-like pancake, first created for the Austrian Emperor, Francis Joseph I. Oma and Opa Muschenetz grew up in Czechia, an area under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and full of Viennese influences. The dish was a “company-over-for-breakfast” kind of recipe in the Muschenetz household–a fancy treat that was unusual for American palettes and fun to eat. Light in texture, you could have seconds or thirds of it without feeling guilty.
Ingo’s mom, Karen remembers ordering Kaiserschmarren during a hike in the Austrian Alps. Traditionally served swimming in butter, Karen has adapted this …
Couscous is a simple, fast-cooking grain that goes particularly well with Middle-Eastern dishes like lamb. Often, we’ll cook couscous, saute some vegetables and toss the vegetables and couscous with some herbs, and cheese. This is one of the more successful combinations we’ve made.
We recently picked up a package of frozen lamb chops from Trader Joe’s and tried this recipe. It was a definite winner. The tart cherries, balsamic vinegar and port combined together to make an exceptionally tasty dressing. The sauce is not complicated, and the whole dish comes together relatively quickly.
This dish is inspired by a recipe from Tyler Florence on a show featuring one-dish meals. It’s very easy to do, relatively quick to prepare, and requires only a single pan. We use cipollini onions, but shallots work just as well. You can use any mushrooms you like for the recipe. We’ve tried crimini, shitaki, and chanterelles. If changing mushrooms, you may wish to alter the fresh herbs to suit. Rosemary can overpower chanterelles, so thyme might be more appropriate.
This is a light, Asian influenced salad dressing. It works equally well spilled onto a simple bed of lettuce leaves, or a more compex salad. Salad lettuces are especially fresh and abundant in the summer –thus the name.
In America, we think of blintzes as crepes filled with cheese served best in old-fashioned Jewish delis. In Russia, the word blintz refers to the crepe itself. A traditional meal at any Russian table, blintzes are a special treat that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways, whether served by themselves, paired with caviar, or filled with a sweet or savory stuffing. This recipe takes a traditional chicken stuffing and adds an ingredient our family discovered in California, the “Mexican Turnip” or jicama to add a nice texture to …
There are many different ways to make an omelet and two ways to spell it. This way, taken from a recipe by Tyler Florence, makes it easy to get a nice, fluffy specimen. The spelling of omelet vs. omelette comes out to a tie –evidently the latter is more common in Britain.
This is a colorful and healthful soup made with butternut squash. It doesn’t have any added cream, but it certainly tastes creamy. You can substitute other hard squashes in place of the butternut–we’ve had good success with soup pumpkins as well.
Kompote is a pleasant lightly-sweetened fruit drink, best served cool as a summertime refreshment. In Russia, it’s made with apples, pears, plums, and berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, but never raspberries–they were too precious a luxury). In the summertime, fresh fruits were used, and dried fruits in the winter. Compared to juice, it’s a bit thicker and reminiscent of the fruit that made it, but not as forceful a taste.
Bella Veitzman learned this colorful, joyful recipe from her mom and aunt in Ukraine. It was served (vegetarian-style) at her wedding. Bella’s special trick is to use buckwheat rather than rice for a fluffier stuffing with a wonderful taste.
This cheese was a large part of the Veitzman diet in Ukraine, but there was no need to make it regularly, since it was readily available. Unable to buy the kind of Farmer’s Cheese they were accustomed to once the Veitzman family came to the United States, making it has become a staple around the family household.
Resembling ricotta in texture, it can be used in a similar fashion. You can whip it into a smooth paste with a food processor, or use it as a stuffing for blintzes, pastas or …
We’ve tried many different doughs for pizza. Quick ones, ones that sit in the refrigerator for a day or two and ones in between. This recipe, taken from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking just comes out best. Made with the proper flour, and cooked in a hot oven, it makes a very tasty and crisp crust. The best part is that it’s very easy to make, and only needs a few hours of advance preparation.
Julia Child was a childhood icon of mine–I used to watch her cooking show “The French Chef” religiously when I was young, which some would say was a harbinger of things to come. After living many years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she moved to Santa Barbara, California. She loved to frequent a small taco stand called La Super-Rica Taqueria just a bit further down Highway 101 from Santa Barbara. We’d often stop at Super-Rica on trips between San Diego and San Luis Obispo. When eating Mexican food, I sometimes find it …
The world’s simplest recipe, but a favorite one from Ingo’s childhood. His mom would make this when friends came over or for special breakfasts. The short time in the blender enhances the frothy head and makes especially orange juice concentrate taste just a bit closer to fresh.
A Radler is a typical summer drink for Women and children in Germany. It is also known as a “Kaputes Bier” or “Ruined Beer”
This is the first ice cream Ingo made than Jane called “perfectly made.” She, however, could have used more burnt sugar flavor, so decide how long you wish to burn the sugar yourself.
There are three ways I like eggs, depending on how they are used. If I’m making an egg sandwich on a croissant, then it’s scrambled eggs for me. If it’s rather an egg sandwich between two pieces of bread (like an English muffin), then it’s an egg over easy, cooked just so that the interior of the egg oozes enough to leak a little on the bread, but not onto your hands. Otherwise, it’s eggs prepared this way, the way my dad prepared them. It’s very similar to sunny side …
As a young kid, Ingo would often make this pancake recipe. It’s so named as it came out of the “Mickey Mouse Cookbook.” It is not necessary to shape the pancakes like Mickey Mouse’s head, but it helps.
As a kid, I loved these huge, bigger-than-my-head, eggy pancakes, which my Oma would cook for me after a cold morning tromping through the snow. My favorite topping is melted butter with a little honey, but they can be topped like normal crepes. You’ll want to serve them immediately out of the pan with a knife and fork to cut them into squares.
Weißewurst are traditional Munich sausages, supposedly eaten “very fresh”, that is to be eaten the morning they are prepared.
These are the Nuernberger bratwursts Ingo’s dad would make. These are truly a “family recipe.”
Olive oil, onions and cinnamon are an unusual combination for an American marinade, but they provide a great background flavor without being overpowering. This marinade is inspired by one in Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. These flavors are very good on chicken, but would work equally well with lamb.
A different form of knödel, this one made with potatoes. There are many different types, some made totally with raw potatoes only, some made with half raw potatoes, half cooked, and some made with only cooked potatoes. This is the 50-50 type.
When Ingo is in Germany, this is one of his favorites. Note, this recipe has not been tested yet, but appears promising and seems like the right method.