Featured Recipe
Creamy Lime Corn Soup with Cumin Salted Tortilla Strips
Here is a luxuriously thick soup that is very low in calories, especially if you leave out the tortilla chips. You really boost the corn flavor by adding cobs to the broth. Indeed, anytime you have leftover cobs kicking around, especially at the end of the summer, you might want…
Tomato, Basil, and Cheese Tart with Pancetta Crust
I developed this tart in the mid-eighties for a column in Gourmet magazine called “Gastronomie Sans Argent,” which loosely translated means “eating well on a budget.” It was for an August issue, and the theme was tomatoes. Not a tough assignment; I can’t think of a cheaper and more satisfying way…
Summer Salad
I think of this recipe as the perfect backyard cooking for a crowd summertime salad because it features three of the shining stars of summer—corn, tomatoes, and basil—and because all the parts can be prepared ahead of time and tossed together at the last minute. When I’m in the country…
Fresh Corn Spoon Bread with Broccoli and Sharp Cheddar
I have always loved Southern spoon bread—that creamy, airy cross between cornbread and a soufflé. I have added sharp Cheddar cheese and broccoli so that it becomes a substantial breakfast for dinner. One cup of any cooked vegetable would work here—cauliflower, peas, carrots, green beans, spinach, and so on—and three…
Mexican-style Street Corn
Grilled corn slathered with mayo and coated in grated cheese is a well-loved staple of Mexican street fare. Several years ago Gourmet magazine ran a recipe for this tradition using shredded cotija, a crumbly aged-cured Mexican cheese. At the time, it occurred to me that it might be a hit…
Corn and Jalapeño Cakes with Goat Cheese
When I made the first batch of these corn cakes and topped them off with a slice of tomato and goat cheese, they were so substantial they reminded me of a burger. The fresher the corn the tastier these cakes will be, because the minute you pick an ear of…
Smoked Chicken or Turkey Salad
This is an adaptation of a smoked chicken salad recipe sent to me by Mary Collette List of Kalamazoo, Michigan—a frequent visitor to my Web site—who tasted it for the first time at a friend’s potluck dinner and then went home and figured it out. I added the option of…
Sparkling Watermelon Lemonade
Makes 6 drinks Ingredients 4 cups cubed fresh watermelon (seeds removed) 5 to 6 tablespoons superfine sugar or to taste 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice seltzer, well chilled Fresh mint sprigs for garnish Directions In a blender combine the watermelon, sugar and lemon juice. Puree until very smooth. Taste and…
Smoky Fish Chowder
There are two things that my dad makes, one is scrambled eggs (especially on Christmas) and the second is fish chowder which he must have learned from his Mom, Ruth Moulton, who was a wonderful ye olde New England cook, or possibly from a guide on one of his fishing…
Tonnato-Stuffed Eggs
One of my husband Bill’s favorite dishes is Vitello Tonnato. Cold sliced veal with a tuna sauce. It is an Italian version of surf and turf. Trying to imagine another recipe on which to use this tasty sauce, I thought of eggs. I love stuffed eggs. My mom has never…
Stuffed Zucchini Greek Style
Throughout the Mediterranean, vegetables stuffed with various fillings, including meat, often fill the role of entrée. But when I tried to sell my meathead American husband on this recipe at any early stage in its development—the lamb then thoroughly camouflaged by bread crumbs—he squinted at it and, without venturing to…
Mom's Meatball Stroganoff
This was one of my favorite dishes as a kid. It is a less expensive version of the classic dish created and named for a Count Stroganoff in late-19th-century Russia. Very popular in America during the sixties and seventies, the original recipe for Beef Stroganoff called for thin slices of…
Cream Biscuits
This is a recipe I developed while working in the Gourmet magazine test kitchen. It is so easy and versatile that I use it as the basis for any biscuit-related recipe I make. See Apricot Scones (p 302) and Biscuit Sticky Buns (p 303) in Sara Moulton Cooks at Home,…
Pork Cutlets with Spanish Olives
This technique of pounding boneless pieces of meat or poultry to make them thin, coating them in seasoned flour, sautéing them quickly, and making a sauce with the drippings can be varied to create dozens of different quick and easy dishes. 1 pound pork scaloppine cut from the leg or…
Sofrito Clams or Mussels with Prosciutto
Getting to know Jean Anderson in the early eighties was one of the most important breaks in my life. The fabulously knowledgeable cookbook author and food and travel writer began to mentor me about 10 minutes after we first met, quickly hiring me as her assistant on foreign assignments to…
Chicken Tarragon
This is one of the “four quick chicken recipes” that I included in Sara Moulton Cooks at Home. It is a simplified version of a relatively sophisticated dish that used to comprise the whole of my brother Peter’s culinary repertoire. Whenever he confided that he was making Chicken Tarragon for…
Chicken Piccata
Although none of us wants to devote more than 45 minutes or so to getting dinner on the table during the workweek, we still want to eat well. In Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, I included “ four quick chicken recipes” that all start with the same easy prep and…
Grilled Polenta with Mushroom Ragout
It seems to me that mushrooms must mean to vegetarians what steak means to carnivores. They are both stick-to-your-ribs, center-of-the-plate comfort foods. These days our supermarkets always boast a huge selection of mushrooms, many of which were terribly exotic a generation ago. My advice for this hearty vegetarian entree is…
Baked Whole Fish with Rosemary, Olive Oil, and Lemon
Fish, like meat or poultry, has more flavor when it is cooked on the bone. But many people are daunted by the prospect of cooking a whole fish because they have no idea how to fillet it. In fact, if you wait to fillet your fish until after it’s cooked,…
Miniature Goat Cheese Cakes
These are great make-ahead hors d’oeuvres because they reheat so beautifully. They require mini-muffin tins (also known as gem tins), and if you don’t already own some, you may want to buy them. They’re really a worthwhile investment. Suddenly everything you used to make big you will think about making…
Chicken Liver Pâté with Port
A couple of years after I graduated from cooking school I apprenticed at a one-star restaurant in Chartres, France. My apprenticeship lasted for only two months but it was pretty intense nonetheless. (Certainly it didn’t help that I was the only woman in the kitchen.) Still, I learned a ton,…
Mini-pumpkin Soup with Toasted Pumpkin Seeds, Shaved Parmesan, and Fried Sage
For the longest time I thought those cute little pumpkins–no more than 3 or 4 inches in diameter–were nothing more than happy little fall decorations. There they’d sit on the side of the road at farmers’ markets and at well-stocked grocery stores, bright orange banks of mini-pumpkins bearing such ridiculous…
Escarole Soup with Meatballs
I was working at the Harvest Restaurant in Harvard Square in the late seventies when Peter Vezan, one of the managers, steered me to a little trattoria in Boston’s North End. It wasn’t much more than a hole in the wall, but it boasted some of the best down-home Italian…
Crispy Broccoli with Capellini in Broth
Once you have your pasta water at a boil and your broccoli cut into florets, this dish—a perfect weekday quick comfort meal—takes no time at all to prepare. The star here is the crispy broccoli. You create that crispness by allowing your pan and oil to get a lot hotter than…