Photo by Jessica Leibowitz When I first started doing “Cooking Live” in 1996, Sue Fenniger and Mary Sue Milliken were co-hosting the Food Network’s “Two Hot Tamales.” I had been a fan of these talented chefs ever since I ate at one of their restaurants in the late eighties,…
I was plenty happy to meet rotisserie chicken, but now I have found rotisserie duck. Rotisserie duck, like rotisserie chicken, should be one of the home cook’s favorite cheating ingredients. It’s tasty and it’s good to go. If you don’t want to eat it heated, straight up, you can shred…
To get an idea about what rugelach means to a certain generation of Jewish Americans, there’s no better guide than Philip Roth. American Pastoral, his 1997 novel, begins with a reunion of the Weequahic (New Jersey) High School’s 1950 graduating class. At the end of the evening, everyone is given…
Makes 4 Servings Hands-On Time: 30 Minutes Total Preparation Time: 35 Minutes Ingredients 8 thin pancakes (see recipe below for Basic Crêpes) 4 medium scallions One 3-inch piece fresh ginger 3 garlic cloves 1/2 pound baby bok choy (2 or 3) or napa cabbage (about 1/3 head) 1 medium red…
Although none of us wants to devote more than 45 minutes to getting dinner on the table during the workweek, we still want to eat well. Now that children are back to school, time is even more critical. In Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, I included four quick family-friendly chicken…
Discovering the grating disk on my food processor many years ago was a eureka moment for me—ten minutes later I was grating and then sautéing every vegetable I could put my hands on. Talk about convenient! Baking a whole sweet potato takes about an hour, but sautéing the grated potato…
Makes 4 servings Hands-on time: 15 minutes Total preparation time: 30 minutes Ingredients 4 Pekin duck breast halves Kosher salt and freshly milled black pepper 1 cup seedless grapes, halved, plus 4 small bunches for garnish 3 large shallots or 1/2 small onion, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup) 1 tablespoon…
One evening I was making individual free-form meat loaves on Cooking Live when a viewer called in and said she used a similar recipe but always mixed up a double batch and then froze half in muffin tins. On evenings when there was nothing else in the fridge, she‘d just…
I often make these appetizer latkes from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home for special occasions when it’s just the four of us at home, because you can dress them up or down. Sam leaves the salmon and caviar alone in favor of the unadorned potato pancakes. Ruth also favors the pancakes…
Several years ago Cory Van Horn sent me this photo along with an e-mail saying “I made your ‘Summer Salad from Paris’. . . . This recipe is delicious! I loved how all the flavors scream summer.” You can find more of his work at www.culinarycory.com. Janis Adler is my…
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…
On a shelf in the kitchen at my parents’ old farmhouse in Northern Massachusetts are metal file boxes filled with recipes written by my grandmother Ruth Moulton. I plucked this gem from one of those boxes. Using regular old chocolate chips, Ruth somehow concocted a very dense essence of chocolate…
Servings: 4 Ingredients: 4 bone-in skin-on chicken legs For the salad dressing (or buy pre-made salad dressing): 2 shallots- minced 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon honey Salt and pepper (to taste) For the salad:…
This recipe improves on the traditional eggplant rollatini by calling for roasted, not fried, eggplant. Consequently, it is easier to prepare (no baby-sitting the slices in the pan) and easier on your waistline (roasting requires far less oil than frying). You’re welcome to stuff the eggplant with cheeses other than…
This is one of the recipes that is so popular every time I make it and I thought I would share it here in case you are planning a Mother’s Day brunch. AKA Biscuit Sticky Buns, it is based on my very quick and easy Cream Biscuits recipe. These are perfect…
Servings: 4 For the duck: 2 whole duck breasts with the skin (4 halves, about 2 lbs. total) 1 very ripe pear, peeled, cored and sliced ½-inch thick 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar 1 tablespoon honey 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/4 cup walnut oil 6…
This recipe is based on a Japanese dish called shabu-shabu, but I left out the kombu (dried kelp) and the tofu, then poked it here and pinched it there, so I can’t pretend that my version is even remotely authentic. But both recipes are built around poached beef. I’d almost…
Serves 2 to 3 as a main dish or 4 as part of a multicourse meal. Ingredients 1 cup brown rice 2 teaspoons plus 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil 2 large eggs, beaten 2 tablespoons minced ginger ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 cup ¼-inch diced carrots 4 ounces…
Makes 6 servings Hands-on time: 20 minutes Total preparation time: 55 minutes Ingredients Basic Pizza Dough (see below) or use store-bought dough Extra virgin olive oil for the dough One 5.2-ounce package spreadable garlic herb cheese, crumbled 1 cup chopped broccoli florets (cut into ½-inch pieces) an egg wash made…
Served with parmesan, watercress, and pickled onion salad Servings: 4 1 red onion peeled and sliced thinly ½ quart rice wine vinegar 1 clove garlic (chopped) drizzle of olive oil Salt and pepper to season 1 bunch scallions- with roots removed, washed and patted dry 1 cup Dijon mustard 2…
Ingredients 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 8 small sea scallops 8 medium shrimp, shelled and de-veined 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots 2 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 teaspoons) 3 plum tomatoes (about 8 ounces), finely chopped 1 cup white wine 1 dozen mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded 1 dozen littleneck…
One of our favorite neighborhood restaurants used to be Beppe, where Chef Cesare Casella had created a menu bursting with the big sunny flavors of his native Tuscany. He made a mean lemony fried chicken, succulent spareribs in tomato sauce, and French fries fried with fresh herbs. But I was…
Makes 4 to 6 Servings Hands-On Time: 40 Minutes Total Preparation Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes Accompaniment Tomato salad with sprouts Ingredients ½ recipe Basic Butter Pastry (see recipe below) or store-bought pastry for a single crust pie 3/4 pound small boiling potatoes, such as Yukon gold or Red Bliss…
My husband Bill has been telling me about his aunt Rifka and her asbestos hands for as long as we’ve known each other. He claims there was no pot so hot she couldn’t pick it up barehanded. (This amazing ability seems just slightly less amazing to me since I went…