Recipes
Cool Summer Drinks
It’s summertime, the sun is blazing, and, if you’re lucky, you’re sitting on the beach or by the pool. But wherever you are, city or country, there’s one thing you want more than anything else: an ice-cold drink. Three of my favorites appeared in Sara Moulton Cooks at Home and…
Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad and Slaw
One of my favorite dishes is Buffalo chicken wings, that irresistible combination of deep fried chicken wings tossed in hot sauce with a side of blue cheese dipping sauce and celery sticks. I’m also crazy about veal Milanese—veal dipped in egg and Parmesan breadcrumbs and then sautéed—especially when it’s topped…
Turkey Burgers with Tomato Corn Salsa
Hamburgers are so central to American culture that messing with them can seem almost sacrilegious. And it’s kind of perilous to boot. Replace the beef with low-fat turkey, as in this recipe, and you risk creating a drier, less flavorful burger, a burger unworthy of the name. Here I’ve countered…
Seared Hanger Steak with Mustard Basil Butter
Known as onglet in French, hanger steak is sometimes called butcher’s tenderloin in English because there is only one of these delicious cuts per animal and butchers tend to hog it for themselves. In other words, it is not something that is regularly stocked in the supermarket meat case, so…
Serrano Ham and Manchego Cheese Roulade
An egg roulade is sort of like an enormous spongy omelet. It is a big rolled-up container for just about any tasty ingredients. From an entertaining point of view, the beauty of an egg roulade is that you can make it the day ahead, chill it overnight, and then fill…
Crispy Soft-shell Crabs with Country Ham Butter
The first time I ate soft-shell crabs was at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Looking back, I can’t imagine where I found the nerve to try them. I didn’t even like fish. But try them I did, and I was knocked out by the sweet crabmeat and that…
Asparagus and Goat Cheese Souffléed Omelet
Perfect for a springtime brunch or a quick dinner, this is a cross between an omelet and a soufflé and doesn’t take too much work as long as you have electric beaters. Make sure you beat your egg whites just to soft peaks; otherwise they won’t fold properly into the…
Red-Wine Braised Beef Brisket with Aunt Rifka's Flying Discs
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…
Red-Wine Braised Beef Brisket with Aunt Rifka’s Flying Discs
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…
Mushroom Enchiladas
Funny thing about mushrooms: although they’re about 80% water to begin with, they have the spongelike ability to soak up a bunch more liquid besides. In this meatless recipe, the mushrooms start by absorbing a very flavorful lime-and-cumin marinade. Then they’re charred under the broiler along with tomatoes, onion, and…
Warm Chocolate Cheesecake
Although I’m not a fool for traditional cheesecake, I’m very partial to this chocolate version, especially when it’s eaten warm. It is deeply chocolate and it boasts the slight tang of cream cheese. Its texture changes completely, depending on when it’s eaten: It’s creamy right out of the oven and…
Spring Soup with Bread Dumplings
photo by Jamie Tiampo First things first: This is a spring soup. It’s meant to be made when asparagus and fava beans are in season. Just because you can find these items in the supermarket in November, when they have been flown in from the other half of the world,…
Red Beans and Rice Soup
Red beans and rice is one of the signature dishes of New Orleans, a city rich with the influences of Latin America and the Caribbean. Indeed, that’s why Louis Armstrong, New Orleans’s pioneering cultural ambassador to the world, used to sign off his letters, “Red beans and ricely yours….” Now…
Giant Chocolate Turnovers with Orange Custard Sauce
Looking for something decadent and chocolate for a special dessert? These enticing treats from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home couldn’t be easier. Good frozen puff pastry and quality chocolate are both readily available throughout the country these days. I find that the key to success with puff pastry (homemade or…
Salma and Savannah’s Salsa
This recipe comes from my friend Sally Villagomez. Many years ago I taped a holiday special with her family for my show “Cooking Live,” on the Food Channel. We spent a whole day making the most delicious tamales which are featured in my first cookbook, Sara Moulton Cooks at Home…
Oven-baked Rosemary Potato Chips
In the late eighties, when I left Gourmet’s test kitchen to become chef of Gourmet’s dining room, I walked into the ideal situation for a chef. The dining room was small–I never had to make lunch for more than 16 people at a time–and I had no budget restrictions. I…
Chorizo Chicken Wings
Game-time snacks are going to be in high demand for the next few weeks, so I am going to share some of my favorites right here. Several years ago we invited the viewers of Good Morning America to compete in a “Cut the Calories” contest. The winning entrée was Oven-Fried…
Crispy Zucchini Sticks with Olive Dip
In the early eighties I worked as chef tournant at La Tulipe, a three-star temple of French gastronomy in New York’s Greenwich Village. One of our best-loved–and most unlikely–appetizers was fried zucchini. I know it sounds déclassé: fried zucchini at a three-star restaurant? But Chef Sally Darr took this typical…
Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Chorizo and Greens
This is a very substantial and satisfying soup, perfect for these last cold days of winter. Thickened by pureed cauliflower and potato, it is luxuriously creamy without any cream. The sausage, greens, and paprika give it heat, and the cauliflower florets give it crunch. Serve this soup with garlic bread…
Raspberry Almond Rugalach
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…
Reuben Pizza
When I was just getting started on this book, I asked Jennifer Day, my chef de cuisine at Gourmet, to put on her thinking cap and pass along her best recipe ideas. She and her husband, Matt, cook dinner at home almost every night, and they’re always experimenting with new…
Shredded Root Vegetable Latkes
Here is my latest recipe for latkes from Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners. Sometimes in the fall I buy a bunch of root vegetables for a particular recipe and fail to use them all up. Suddenly there’s a lone parsnip or turnip hanging out in my vegetable drawer. How to…
Creamy Baked Polenta
I have recently been getting a lot of requests for this recipe from Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals. The cornmeal mush known as polenta, one of the national dishes of Italy, emerged in its original form as the field ration of the Roman soldier. Although pulmentum was made of millet…
Thanksgiving Hens
Rock Cornish Game Hens, a cross between a White Rock Hen and a Cornish Hen, are underrated. Maybe it is because ounce for ounce they are a little more expensive than chicken or perhaps it is because they are a little scary for people who are used to chicken in…