Al Dente

Rice Pasta Couscous (And Don't Forget Frogs)

After living in Barcelona for 12 years, Jeff Koehler is technically considered a resident. Luckily for us, the American food writer and photographer has retained the curious eye of the outsider, roaming his adopted home for recipes and stories.

We talked on the phone about his new book, Rice Pasta Couscous, a cross-cultural journey around the Mediterranean to see the similarities and differences of how people view these staples of family meals. Oh, and along the way, he shared the secrets for making perfect couscous without any special equipment. Here are some highlights from our talk: 

On how he wound up living in Barcelona: Her name was Eva. "We were in London. I was studying drama, and she was studying organic chemistry. We shared a kitchen...When she went back to Barcelona to do a PhD, I followed her." And that meant an introduction to her mother's weekly family gatherings over paella. "Everything goes through the paella. I met the family over the paella, and eventually we said we were going to get married over the paella. I saw this simple staple become this anchor of the whole family."

On how the book was born: Through those same weekly dinners, seen through other eyes. "My friends in Morocco, it's the same for them on Friday, after the mosque, to go to the mother's house for couscous...In Algeria, one of the guys told me, you can make other dishes, but couscous is obligatory, from birth to death, couscous is at every important milestone. My friends in Naples, the mother told me a meal isn't a meal without pasta." It became clear there was a story in the similarities and differences between these traditions.

On keeping it real: It's possible to find recipes in the book simple enough for a quick dinner, say, orzo with brown butter and cheese. But one of Koehler's chief goals was authenticity, "traveling around the nooks and crannies," and replicating what he found in kitchens from Lebanon to Catalonia. That means many more labor-intensive recipes, and some with unlikely ingredients, such as the traditional frog and eel stew he found in Croatia. ("How many frogs do you add?" I asked, taking notes on the recipe. "As many as you can catch.") 

He knows many people won't be able to cook the more unusual recipes, but some will.

"I definitely didn't want to avoid stuffed pigeon with liver, it's one of the great Egyptian dishes...Some people, they can find it. There are a couple people out there who will be very happy to do it." Even with pastas, he does include well-loved standards, but "there are so many great pasta traditions that have nothing to do with the classic Italian style of boiling and saucing."

On what "the Mediterannean" really is: A lot bigger than most people realize, and more than Tuscany and Provence. "Tunisia is 87 miles from southern Italy...You can have, in Tunisia, cuttlefish or squid sauteed with garlic, the same as in Italy, but with cumin, a completely different taste."

On researching: "You can say to somebody, I really want to talk about rice. They say, I don't know the history of rice. I don't want (to know) that. I want to know, how do you use it in your life? How does your mother make it? Then you get a four-hour answer."

On his next project, Country Cooking of Spain: A highlight will be how no food that can be used or preserved is thrown away. He'll include vinegars and oils and preserved savory foods and more. "There's a big chapter on innards and extremities."

On what to do if you don't own a couscoussiere: Don't worry about it. Real diehards will say it's the only way to make couscous, and there are recipes where "the couscous is being steamed in the vapor of the stew, and  so it does take, to an extent, some of the flavor"--but, Koehler said, using it all the time "for me is not reality, even though I have one and can get the real stuff and we make it." 

Using the boxed instant stuff is fine, he said, so long as you ignore the directions. Instead, he does it this way: Dissolve a teaspoon of salt in 2.5 cups warm (not boiling) water. Pour 1 lb couscous into a very wide, shallow dish and dribble the salty water over it. Mix with a fork. Let it sit for 10 minutes to absorb the water. Drizzle in 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil. Toss with both hands, lifting the grains and letting them fall through your fingers. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, transfer the couscous to an ovenproof baking dish, and bake, turning the grains from time to time, until steamy warm, 10 to 15 minutes. If you like, add a tablespoon of butter or smen (clarified and preserved butter). Fluff with a fork.

-- Rebekah Denn

Southern Living: Talking with Matt Lee and Ted Lee

With their debut cookbook, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, South Carolina siblings Matt Lee and Ted Lee swept the 2007 cookbook award season, winning two James Beard Awards, including Cookbook of the Year, and two IACP awards. With The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor, Matt and Ted continue celebrating Southern cuisine in a collection filled with easy, approachable dishes for home cooks. Matt and Ted are also the founders of The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, where Southern ex-pats can get their grits fix, and are contributing editors for Travel + Leisure and the wine columnists for Martha Stewart Living.

Full disclosure: I've been following Matt and Ted's byline for years and since their cookbook came out in 2006 I've been lucky to call them both great friends. We've cooked together and shared many meals together since then. I recently caught up with the guys, calling in from their Harlem office where they were gearing up for their book tour. Read on, or listen in to our podcast, as we talk about Southern food (naturally), quick pickles, how to win friends with a jar of sorghum molasses, entertaining tips (it helps to have live fire and/or a mystery guest), Lowcountry living, and what it means to cook "simple fresh Southern."

And check out Matt and Ted's recipe for Clams with Sweet Potato, Smoked Sausage, and Watercress.

--BTP

Amazon.com: First of all, what do you think is the biggest misconception about Southern food?

Matt Lee: Heavy, fried, overcooked, hostile to vegetables...

Ted Lee: Well, that's the first four! I think the fifth is that it's very difficult to make. In part because so many Southern meals are ones that sort of happen outdoors with a ton of people. People have come to think that every meal in the South is like a whole-hog barbecue--you dig the pit the day before, that sort of thing. Don't get us wrong--we love that. That is one of the great things about Southern food. What we wanted to focus on in the new book was kind of like the way we cook in the South from day to day. The way Matt and I cook in Charleston from day to day. We like to think it's a very vegetable-focused kind of cooking, wouldn't you say, Matt?

Matt Lee: Absolutely. The thing that people inherently know about the South and yet they seem to forget is that everything grows there. The climate is so favorable for growing vegetables, fruits, and things, so it's not a stretch to recognize that we do a lot of things with those fruits and vegetables and they become a part of our lives in a very meaningful way. Anyone who collects Southern cookbooks knows that and see that there are some great, classic dishes that involve vegetables. Everyday cooking in the South involves vegetables on a regular basis. The sexiness of our fried chicken and barbecue and long roasts get a lot of play but there are some exciting things going on in other parts of the grocery store, too.

Amazon.com: Can you break down the bullet-points for "simple fresh Southern." What does that mean to you and how do you want that translated to the home cook?

Ted Lee: I think the first word, "simple"--our notion of simplicity isn't bound by a five-ingredient book or recipes that are going to take less than 30 minutes. Those might be easy recipes but every recipe in the book was evaluated according to how easily it fit into the rhythms of the life of a busy person. So even though our whole roast chicken, which we cook in a skillet on a bed of vegetables, may take an hour it's very stress-free cooking time and at the end of it you have this amazing chicken and you have your side dish. That would be part of the whole notion of simplicity.

Matt Lee: And it takes place in a single skillet so there is a minimum of clean-up afterward. All those different factors of purchasing, cooking, and clean-up are very present in our minds at the time we were developing the recipes for our book.

Ted Lee: So the notion of simplicity is a very holistic notion of simplicity. And then secondly, "fresh." Fresh, in it's most literal sense--we don't use a whole lot of processed or canned ingredients or packaged goods. Fresh ingredients--we love them, we get a lot of them in Charleston, whether it's produce, shrimp, oysters, fish, that kind of thing--great pork, too. We also felt like fresh had a double-meaning in a sense, because in our last book we had some recipes in there that people did not recognize from the Southern canon. There was a lot of authentic recipes in there but some of them, like our butterbean pâté, for example, which was a simple spread--like a sandwich spread, or a dip made with butterbeans and mint.

Matt Lee: And parsley and lemon.

Ted Lee: And olive oil. That was sort of a riff on Southern ingredients that we love, sort of distillation of the Southern garden into a dip. In this book, with the fresh thing, we really wanted to focus on things like that, that may not be classics in the Southern canon, but are our riffing on getting excited about okra in a new way.

Matt Lee: And being inspired by the ingredients in the South. And to the point of the butterbean pâté, sort of the flavor of summer. We were channeling a lot of the different moments in a Southern calendar year that really inspire us. The fall for us is always oysters and oyster roasts. It's simple to do them and easy to cover but we thought we had neglected the wonderful soups you can make with oysters. So we developed this soup that's simple and emphasizes the fresher flavors. You put the oysters themselves in a bottom of a bowl raw, and then you laddle a hot soup over it that cooks it just enough. It's a cream-based soup and couldn't be simpler. We're going to reuse that word in this interview, aren't we? For us, a warm, comforting oyster soup channels the feeling of late October, early November in the South.

Ted Lee: As Matt said, what's original in that oyster soup seems to be the method of its preparation. The freshness and originality might express itself in a different way as a new use for a classic Southern ingredient. One example of that in our book is the buttermilk fresh cheese, which is sort of a ricotta-like cheese. We curdle milk with buttermilk and then strain it through a cloth. It just makes this really wonderful farmers' cheese that you can do a ton of things with. You can roll it up with country ham and blanched collards and make a sort of passed appetizer kind of thing. You can just put it on a plate with some crackers. You can dust it with all kinds of nuts--pistachios, pecans. And sometimes the freshness in the title also refers to our taking a classic Southern dish and then having fun with it. A classic example of that would be the mint julep panna cotta. A panna cotta is not exactly a Southern preparation. What's funny is that things in this day and age are so fluid that a panna cotta to us seems like the sort of gelatin salads, aspics, that sort of thing. It seems very Southern in texture certainly. We brought all the flavor and fun of a mint julep into a panna cotta and I think that's going to be one of the breakout desserts from the book.

Matt Lee: Ted, I think Giada pronounces it panna cotta.

Ted Lee: We're Southern, we say panna cotta.

A Look Inside the Steamy Kitchen

By the time I met Jaden Hair this year she already had a high profile in the world of food: A regular column in the Tampa Tribune, TV gigs, a blog with up to a half-million page views per month, a cookbook deal. That's why I was so stunned, talking with her about The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, to realize that this career started just two years ago, in 2007. In that time, she taught herself web design, food photography, how to succeed on TV, and more.

"I think the one talent I really do have is studying, and teaching myself," she told me in a phone interview. Well, shoot. Anyone working through her approachable, quick, and zingy recipes would figure she's also got a talent for cooking and teaching.

Another part of her that clearly comes naturally: In person and chatting on the phone, she's the same energetic, fun, best-girlfriend-like presence that she is on the page. Here are some of the highlights from our conversation, and a clip from the Bulgogi Burgers she cooked up on The Today Show:

On how the "Steamy Kitchen" blog began: It was just a way to keep her recipes safe. "I used to write my recipes on index cards, and then I'd lose the index cards. Then I'd write the recipes on my hard drive, and the hard drive would crash. Then I discovered people were writing online...It wasn't for the purpose of having an audience, even though I made my husband read it, and made my brother read it, and I think my mother-in-law read it because she was curious what I was cooking for the kids."

On how her audience grew: "The reason I think it happened so soon is because I really, really got into the community. I'd go around commenting on other blogs and making friends, and it was not for the purpose at all of getting people to my site. That's the biggest mistake I think some of the new bloggers make, "I'm going to your site, you have to visit mine." I was just so happy and thrilled to find other people who loved food as much as I did."

On how she got interested in sharing her knowledge of food: She moved from San Francisco to a small town in Florida, and the culinary transition was tough. It reminded her of her childhood in Nebraska, where Asian families and groceries were rare. With the move, "I lost all my ethnic grocery stores, and my really really good ethnic restaurants." Standing at a local restaurant called "Bangkok Tokyo," she heard a woman "wearing all her jewelry, perfectly made up, talking on her cell phone with perfect nails, "Oh, I'm having sushi at the Chinese restaurant." Oh, my gosh, I was cussing to my husband. I was like, "Bangkok Tokyo" is not China! There's something wrong with this!" Hair called up a local cooking school, told them she had no experience, and asked them if she could teach a class anyway. She wanted people to know the difference between fish sauce and soy sauce, the difference between Thai and Vietnamese food, how to start out in Asian cooking. The school took a gamble on her, and the class sold out.

On teaching herself food photography: "At first, all I did was use automatic settings and just click and rely on the camera. Slowly I went from automatic to semiautomatic. Then my friend Diane spent literally 15 minutes with me one day...and taught me how to use the camera on the manual setting, and it was so easy. Then I started practicing, practicing, practicing, starting to understand. With the food styling...I would take magazines and flip through them. Every time I stopped at a photo, (I'd ask), 'What makes this dish look so good?' or "Why do I not like this photo?'...I don't use any of the tricks stylists use, (like) shellac. I don't have tweezers. I use chopsticks and my hand. And all the food is edible. We eat my food after I take a photo."

On how she came to shoot the pictures for her own cookbook: It wasn't easy. "(Tuttle Publishing) said, we want to do a book with you, but your photography isn't good enough, not good enough at all. I said, Whaaaa? Then my ego kicked in." She sent in photo samples, and the company sent them back to show her how they would look on glossy cookbook paper, and what was wrong with the photo or styling. She adapted her style, and "finally, it worked, and they said, OK. You're ready now."

Want to catch Jaden on tour? Her schedule is here. And here she is cooking up Bulgogi Burgers with banchan.

-- Rebekah Denn

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Baking Kids Love and Halloween Meringues

Good books on cooking with kids are hard to find, and it's even more uncommon to see a "serious" chef take one on. I was so pleased to see pastry chef Cindy Mushet, who won acclaim with last year's Art and Soul of Baking, follow that book up with Baking Kids Love. Written with the kid-input of Mushet's daughter Bella, it's a fun, colorful, approachable--but real--guide. Instead of the usual genre mainstays of arranging fruit in smiley faces or hiding vegetables in brownies, this one brings kids into the real world of the kitchen. They proof yeast, they melt chocolate, they roll out pie crust. It's just the sort of book I wanted to use with my own 7-year-old, so when I heard Cindy and 11-year-old Bella were coming to Seattle on tour, I asked "Baking with kids? Can they bake with my kid?" 

That's how they wound up in my kitchen, pastry bags in hand, making Halloween-style "meringue crispies" with my boy. The treats were meringue cookies stretched out into the shapes of "rattling bones and fingers," decorated with almond fingernails and melted-chocolate rings. My son is a veteran of one-bowl mixes like chocolate chip cookies and banana breads (both of which have a place in the book), but I hadn't ever given him more complicated projects. I was afraid that if he failed, he'd lose some of the pleasure he takes in baking. 

Mushet kept such fears in mind for the book, thinking hard about what to include so that kids (and, not incidentally, parents) could find kitchen success. Butter cakes did not make the cut, for instance, because not every modern-day parent knows how to gauge when the butter and sugar are properly creamed. Instead, there's the pretty "chocolate celebration cake" on the book's cover, which uses oil. Mushet also knows, though, that kids can rise to the expectations of adults; she's seen even 5-year-olds safely wielding knives and whipping up goodies. "Because I believed it, they could do it," she said.

The book started out with the recipes that Cindy and Bella loved to make together, then Bella proved a good sounding board for which gaps to fill and which recipes to leave out. Which recipes did Bella say to chuck? "Whole wheat bread". Sure, she likes it, but "Do I love it?" No. Instead, the book has pretzels and pizza dough, cinnamon rolls and monkey bread.

Baking is such a science, with success riding so much on correct measurements, I had to ask whether it was risky to put the recipes in the imprecise hands of children. Mushet noted that the book stresses the importance of measuring properly and following directions. And she shared this tip from when Bella was very young: She let her youngster measure out each ingredient, but had already pre-measured the precise amounts herself in advance. The correctly filled spoons and cups were the ones that went into the mixing bowl.

And our own baking experiment, with my boy? It was a delight. Cindy showed him how to separate eggs, and he proceeded on his own without a single speck of yolk going into the whites. "You're a natural!" she told him. Bella showed him how to judge the stiffness of the whipped whites, then how to pipe them into scary bones and fingers. He needed no directions on the sprinkled sugars and other decorations -- or, of course, on the eating. He's now the designated meringue chef in the family. We're both brimming with pride. 

Here's the recipe:

No-Knead Bread Goes Whole-Grain

When I wrote about Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois's first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, I was promptly deluged in emails, which I passed on to the authors. A surprising number were from people asking how to translate the pair's no-knead recipes into whole-wheat or other whole-grain versions. And a surprising number, Hertzberg and Francois told me this week, were from people thinking they could just substitute whole grain flours for white flour, cup for cup. Sadly, baking doesn't work that way.

Hertzberg, a physician, and Francois, a pastry chef, have always jumped to answer reader questions on their blog, but now they're back in print to take on the issue in full, in 313 pages of recipes and commentaries and techniques. Their new book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day, translates their core concept (doughs that come together quickly, in large quantities, stored in the refrigerator to bake as you wish) into loaves and pizzas and pastries made with whole grains. There's plain old whole wheat flour, but also spelt, flax, barley flour, graham flour, and more.

The biggest requests they got from readers, they told me Tuesday before setting off on their book tour, was for whole grain breads, followed by requests for gluten-free breads (which they also included, consulting with Shauna Ahern and Danny Ahern).

After experimentation and testing, their secret ingredient? Vital wheat gluten, a product that's commonly used in industry baking, but has only in recent years become widely available in supermarkets. Whole wheat flour has less gluten than white flour, and it needs a boost from the added wheat gluten, which helps the bread rise and maintain an airier texture. Without it, they couldn't have made doughs that could be stored for so long. "Ten years ago, we couldn't have written this book," Hertzberg said, as they try to stick to ingredients that are easy to find.

"Healthy" bread is about more than whole grains, though. They added some information and advice on nutrition, and incorporated fruits and vegetables into some of their doughs, such as red beet buns and a zucchini flatbread. The federal government recommends eating nine servings of fruits or vegetables a day, Hertzberg noted. "I've got a friend who says he can't even name nine vegetables."

The book's breads are a homecoming of sorts for Francois, who grew up in a Vermont commune, eating whole grains and no refined sugars, before attending the Culinary Institute of America. "I went to culinary school to learn the food science, so I could adapt recipes for healthy desserts," she said, but instead she graduated eating white sugar. Now, she's gladly baking the pumpkin pie brioche she developed for the book, using honey and a mix of whole wheat and white flour, turning the dough into sandwich loaves and Indian spice donuts and caramel rolls.

"It took me all this time to kind of get to where I had originally wanted to be."

-- Rebekah Denn

The Canal House Cookbook: Home Cooking for Home Cooks

I received my copy of Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 2 (Fall & Holiday) a few days ago, and I can't help myself from sharing it with everyone I know. First I describe the concept, two former Saveur alums, one a photographer, the other an illustrator, both writers, who cook together every day, publish their favorite recipes throughout the year, according to the seasons.

Then I describe the cookbook, beautifully photographed, handsomely illustrated, lovingly designed. Each recipe has its own story. As for the recipes, it's hard to choose which to try first. Fried zucchini? Duck with apples and onions? Pear sorbet? Currant gingersnaps? I want to try them all. And why not? It's all "home cooking, by home cooks for home cooks."

When I read the story about the pumpkin soup that the Canal House Cooking authors, Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, made for visiting Chez Panisse chef David Tanis, I knew it would be the chosen first recipe.

I've been itching to buy one of those beautiful Cinderella pumpkins these last few years, I see them in the fall at our local farmers market, but could never justify paying the hefty price for a mere decoration. But if it's an ingredient...

At first glance, the pumpkin soup recipe may sound a bit daunting. I always thought cooking and serving soup in a pumpkin was a bit over-the-top. But after reading the recipe, the whole procedure seems pretty straightforward--and a whole lot of fun.

Pumpkin Soup with Pimenton and Preserved Lemon

Ingredients:
8-10 pound sturdy, thick-fleshed pumpkin, (preferably Rouge Vif d'Etampes, Cinderella, or Cheese)
Softened butter
Coarse salt and pepper
2 tablespoons pimenton
2 preserved lemon rinds, finely chopped
2 sliced garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
Chicken broth

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut out a lid around the stem-end of the pumpkin and set aside. Scrape out and discard the seeds and strings.

2. Put pumpkin on a baking sheet along with the lid. Rub the pumpkin flesh with lots of softened butter. Rub in coarse salt and pepper, and 2 tablespoons pimenton. Add the finely chopped rinds of 2 preserved lemons, a coupe of sliced garlic cloves and 2 bay leaves.

3. Fill the pumpkin halfway full with a good broth. Roast until flesh is soft when pierced with a paring knife. Take care not to puncture the skin. Replace lid for effect, if you like, and serve the pumpkin soup at the table, scraping the flesh from the bottom and sides into the broth then ladling it into bowls.

Serves about 8.

Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 2, Hamilton & Hirsheimer, 2009

--Tracy Schneider

A Halloween Hit: Gross-out Cakes

My daughter came across Gross-out Cakes earlier this year and was absolutely enthralled. My husband was quick to see the allure. Me, I think the whole book is disgusting. And that's just the point. Gross-out Cakes is a children's cookbook that definitely lives up to its name.

What kid could resist, after all, the likes of Barf Bars or Slime Mousse? And that's just the beginning. There are more than two dozen revolting recipes that are perfectly delicious for Halloween.

Now, how about a slice of Graveyard Cake?

Graveyard Cake

Ingredients:
1 chocolate cake mix (18.25 oz/454 g), plus ingredients
2 Twinkies
1 can chocolate frosting (15 oz/454 g)
1 package chocolate sandwich cookies (18 oz/510 g)
3 Milano cookies
Small plastic skeleton

Directions:
1. Bake cake in greased 9" x 13" pan according to package instructions. Let cool. Remove from pan and place on serving platter.

2. Cut off the bottom half of two Twinkies and place on cake for grave mounds.

3. Create a coffin out of graham crackers, stuck together with frosting. Set on cake.

4. Cut coffin-sized hole in cake. Remove extra cake and place coffin in hole. Make a coffin "lid" out of another piece of graham cracker and place into cake, ajar, next to coffin.

5. Frost cake, including Twinkies and lid.

6. Pipe R.I.P. on Milano cookies.

7. Crush chocolate sandwich cookies in a food processor or with a rolling pin.

8. Sprinkle crumbs over graveyard, with a larger pile next to coffin cover, as if dirt had recently been displaced.

9. Insert plastic skeleton into coffin. Serve.

Cookbook notes: the Graveyard Cake received a 2 for grossness, and a 4 for difficulty.

Serves 12.

Gross-out Cakes, Barlow and Schetselaar, Silverleaf Press, 2006

--Tracy Schneider

Amazon Exclusive: David Chang's Favorite Cookbooks

David Chang has a thing for cookbooks. In our recent interview with him he admitted: "The only person that has a bigger cookbook collection or is a bigger cookbook nerd than myself is Wylie Dufresne."

He also gushed about a cookbook that isn't even out yet, a mammoth collection by Nathan Myhrvold and Chris Young: "It's going to be a massive tome that's going to capture, I guess, everything progressive that's been cooking. I'm assuming it's going to be a modern-day Larousse. I'm really looking froward to it. I don't know how many people know about it or how many are going to be published but I think it's going to be about a 1,500-page, volume cookbook that will be the be-all end-all of cookbooks." Until that eagerly awaited tome lands on bookshelves, Chang was gracious enough to supply us with a desert-island roundup of his favorite cookbooks.

Chang's own debut cookbook, Momofuku, written with Peter Meehan, releases tomorrow.

--BTP

David Chang's Favorite Cookbooks

White Heat by Marco Pierre White
Why? Because Marco Pierre White is the man. That book is chip on your shoulder cooking at its finest. And it’s all about the photos--they were crazy then and they're still crazy today, gritty and glamorous and in your face before everybody and everything was trying to be that way. Marco was the first one to do it and White Heat was how he got the message out.

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal
Currently I hold it to be the greatest cookbook of all time. It is highly educational but also deeply personal--it highlights the humility and dogged perseverance of Heston’s approach to cooking and learning. I’m sure the cheaper soft cover version is great, but the big one is just too insane not to own

Everything ever published by Ferran Adrià and Albert Adrià
Ferran and Albert Adrià changed the whole game with their restaurant, El Bulli, in Roses, Spain. The books they have published are almost as revolutionary as the style of cooking they created and then constantly redefine. Their books document the relentless pursuit of creativity in painstaking detail and spell out exactly what it takes to be the best restaurant in the world. They are just hugely inspiring books.

Essential Cuisine by Michel Bras
Essential Cuisine, his second book, is what the title says it is: essential. If there ever were a question about Bras, and I don’t think there ever was, this book would have answered it, as it firmly positioned him somewhere between godfather and God in the pantheon of great chefs. Nobody ever plated food like he did before, and now you see his influence everywhere. He looked at food and cooking and ingredients from a completely different place than anyone else. I wouldn’t live without both, but Essential Cuisine is the one that best expresses Michel Bras’ naturalism in cooking, an approach to cooking that is as singular as it is significant.

Grand Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse
If you ever need a squab recipe--or a any recipe for anything, ever, done in the way a French master chef would do it--it’s between the covers of this book.

The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller
This book, in conjunction with Kitchen Confidential, changed the lives of a generation of American cooks. There hasn’t been, and will probably never be, another restaurant cookbook that distills and clearly presents the philosophy of a chef and a restaurant as well as this book does. It will be in print forever.

Mastering Simplicity by Christian Delouvrier, The Elements of Taste by Gray Kunz
I group these books together because they’re by two grand masters of New York City dining, both of whom helmed Lespinasse at different points in their careers. Those two men launched and influenced the careers and cooking of so many really talented cooks and chefs it would be impossible to count them all and, despite that and their individual accomplishments, I don’t think either chef gets the respect he deserves. I keep their books out and in view, like talismans, like memorabilia, in homage to two of the greats.

The Last Course by Claudia Fleming
The Last Course is one of the best pastry books ever written. People forget that Claudia Fleming trained just about every pastry chef for years--that for my generation, it all starts with Claudia. The pastry chef who works for you or works at your favorite restaurant might be two or three generations removed, but all roads in the pastry kitchen lead back to Claudia. Her recipes are classics.

The Whole Beast by Fergus Henderson
This nose-to-tail book shows that cooking doesn’t have to be complex to be interesting and that it can be simple without being easy. And it’s not just offal cookery for the sake of cooking offal—there’s something deep and resonant and resolutely honest about Fergus’s connection to organ meats and off cuts.

Great Chefs of France by Anthony Blake
A killer book from the 1970’s, with pictures, menus, and recipes from the restaurants of all the big guys behind nouveau cuisine: Troigrois Brothers, Chapel, Guerard, Verge, Thuilier. It’s a history lesson and a cookbook and a cool document of a really important time in French cooking. I was really stoked about how Heston talked about it in The Big Fat Duck Cookbook as one of the most important books in his life--it absolutely is in mine.

The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski
No other book captures the French culinary spirit and the history of it in the same way like this one, which tells the tragic story of Bernard Loiseau. And that’s just the western cookbooks. Or some of them.

Don’t even get me started on Japanese cookbooks…

Cookbook Causes and Broccoli-Cheese Soup

I've been cooking lately from a little cookbook with some big names behind it, benefiting a homeless shelter. I was so impressed with the caliber of the Seattle chefs and recipes in 40 Seasonal Soups that I decided to ask one --James Beard award-winner Maria Hines of Tilth-- how she decided to get involved. Beyond that, I also wondered, how does she choose between the dozens of good causes that hot chefs are asked to participate in each month? How do they decide where to donate their scarce free time?

Hines told me that she and chefs at other small restaurants sometimes joke about the endless requests: "Hey, why aren't they going to people who make money?" She also, though, appreciates that what she has is considered sexy enough to raise money for those in need. 

Multiple calls for donations come in daily, and Hines tends to help out if she knows someone affiliated with the organization, or if she knows someone who would benefit from the cause being championed, like the AIDS events she supports because of a friend with the disease. Fund-raisers for events she's personally passionate about, like PCC Farmland Trust and Chef's Collaborative, also get an edge.

And why support the 40 Seasonal Soups book? "That was easy," she said. Editor Elizabeth Kruse only asked for a recipe, not for donated gift certificates or food or time. Some chefs feel proprietary about their recipes; Hines is glad to share one for a good cause. (And, as it happens, she then also cooked up gallons of soup for the fundraising lunch that accompanied the book's publishing party.) 

Tilth's Broccoli-Cheese Soup was a huge hit at my house, as different from the canned version as home-baked bread is to Hostess. After shopping for the Grafton cheddar in the ingredient list, I also understood how a cup of soup can cost $9 at the restaurant: The cheese runs $22/pound. "It's so nice and sharp and nutty, it just brings so much flavor," Hines said. That's why she uses it for her own version, but she said you can feel free to substitute another aged cheddar for something more budget-friendly. Here's the recipe: 

Tilth's Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

for soup:

1-1/2 lbs broccoli
1 quart water, light chicken stock, or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon shallot, finely chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons lemon juice, divided
1-1/2 cups whole milk
 2-1/2 cups grated Grafton cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

for crostini:

4 slices baguette, cut on bias
extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, halved
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup Grafton cheddar, grated

Directions:

1. Trim broccoli and separate florets and stems. If stems are woody, peel skin off. Set aside a cup of florets. Roughly chop remaining stems and florets.

2. Bring water or stock to a boil in a large pot, reduce heat to medium and add broccoli. Simmer until tender, 7-10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat butter and olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallot and garlic and saute for 30 seconds. Add reserved florets to skillet and saute 2-3 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice to florets and set aside.

4. When simmering broccoli is tender, reduce heat to medium-low. Add milk and cheddar. Stir gently until cheese has melted and incorporated into soup. Add one teaspoon lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.

5. For crostini, preheat broiler. Rub the cut sides of the garlic on each slide of baguette. Drizzle with olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Place under broiler to toast until they start to brown.

6. Divide cheddar over tops of each toast, return to broiler until cheese melts. Remove from oven.

7. To serve, divide sauteed broccoli florets between bowls. Top with a cheddar crostini and ladle soup around broccoli and toast.

Serves 4

-- Rebekah Denn

The Momo Touch: Talking with Momofuku's David Chang and Peter Meehan

David Chang has revolutionized the culinary landscape of New York City and has influenced the tastes of a nation with his eclectic East Village eateries, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Ssäm Bar, the award-winning Momofuku Ko, Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, and the new Momofuku Midtown outpost (Ma Pêche) opening next month. Chang has also been honored as a Food & Wine Best New Chef, Bon Appétit Chef of the Year, GQ Man of the Year, and is the winner of three James Beard Awards. Chang's debut cookbook, Momofuku, written with Peter Meehan, is easily one of the most anticipated cookbooks of the year.

I recently caught up with Chang and Meehan to talk about their ambitious cookbook; the joys of bourbon, bacon, and fried chicken; a detailed history of Ssäm Bar's John McEnroe poster; why you won't find Christina Tosi's recipe for Compost Cookies in the book; tips for scoring a resy at Ko; and much more. Read on or listen to our podcast of our marathon chat, and stay tuned for more Momofuku as we count down to next Tuesday's publication date. We'll be highlighting featured recipes--with an exclusive, not-found-in-the-cookbook dish--and an annotated list of Chang's favorite cookbooks.

--BTP

Amazon.com: Gentlemen, I think I've read your book, cover to cover, three times now. It's really just fantastic. It certainly, as you'll probably hear, has more f-bombs per page than any other cookbook out there right now.

David Chang: [Laughs] Actually, I think we took some f-bombs out.

Peter Meehan: Yeah we did, I kept a few in.

Chang: I mean, I didn't know that was the only word I used--

Meehan: No, like every third word you use.

Amazon.com: I know that, with that infamous New Yorker profile of you there was some feedback that "he needs to clean up his language" and "he's not representing himself well," but that's just genuine "chefspeak"--

Chang: If you get into any normal kitchen, any kitchen that tries to do serious food, I guess, or tasty food. There's a lot of vulgar language... that's just the way it is. I don't know how else to describe it. It's one of the reasons why it's a tribute to the profession. You can act like a total buffoon--almost--but still work and cook and do your job. Unfortunately, for everyone around me, it's carried into my personal life.

Amazon.com: Tell us how you guys teamed up. I understand Mark Bittman played a role in your introduction.

Chang: Peter had reviewed us for the $25 and Under column he was writing for the New York Times and he gave us a review, but he didn't originally like it and we didn't get reviewed for eight months or so. Which is strange, because you usually get reviewed in the Times in your first three months. Later I found out it was because Peter really hated our restaurant.

Meehan: It was not a very good restaurant.

Chang: [Laughs] I don't blame him, I wouldn't want to eat there either. But after the review came out--

Meehan: I started going pretty regularly. Early on Noodle Bar was rough going--at the time it was six or seven months old. It was a great place to eat and I wrote a pretty glowing review of it. It's in the neighborhood I live in so I started going every weekend, mostly with Mark Bittman who I had worked with and worked for him before he came to the Times. We had kind of a standing lunch date. After five or six or ten or however many times we'd been there he kind of like, I'm not going to pretend--

Chang: I had done a couple of things with Mark Bittman for the New York Times, so Bittman came in for lunch one day and said, "Hey, this is Peter Meehan." And I was like... I think there were a few expletives. I was shocked that this guy, who I had recognized, was the food critic who had been coming in to our restaurant. So, that was it.

Meehan: And then we started hanging out and kind of became friends and I stopped writing about him for the paper. At a certain point he was getting hounded by book agents and cookbook writers to put together a cookbook. He asked me to do it, and I said yes.

Chang: I've always liked Peter's writing. Even if he wasn't a food writer I liked what he was writing and what he did. We had a lot in common--at least musically.

Amazon.com: Peter writes about that in the introduction--you talk about running into him at a concert.

Chang: Yeah.

Amazon.com: And you said to him, "Are we going to pretend like we don't know each other." I love that.

Chang: [Laughs]

Meehan: That was his pickup line.

Amazon.com: Seemed to work, right?

Meehan: It did, it did. I mean, he had a cold beer, we're at a concert, and it was either that or being able to write about him for the newspaper. In the end the cold beer sounded far more appealing.