From the monthly archives:

March 2009

Sunday Gravy

March 30, 2009

Dishes like these make me wish I was Italian-American.  Not just any Italian-American but 1940’s New Jersey or Upstate NY Italian-American.  I wish I grew up on a suburban street lined with houses packed with Italian-American famiglias.  I wish those houses were fronted with porches that on Sundays held old men and women listening to [...]

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Pizza Pizza

March 25, 2009

This picture is the perfect pie.  The dough’s construction  didn’t rely on a recipe, and was made with a stand mixer.  I oscillated between adding flour and water till the consistency was right, and then topped my perfect pie with provolone mozzarella spinach and roasted garlic.  I think I finished it with parm and some [...]

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On Browning Meat

March 22, 2009

Pot roasts.  brown them.  brown the living heck out of them.
I’ve been playing around with simple stocks a lot lately and noting how subtle variations  in technique make big differences in the final product.  Chicken stock for instance can start with chicken and vegetables covered with cold water, and simmered till done.  The resulting stock [...]

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Pushing to be a better cook

March 18, 2009

Just when I said chicken is everywhere, I wake to find it plastered all over the Post…
If you’re actually reading this blog, you may think that I’ve been obsessed with birds lately.  I’ve posted on them a few times, and I’ve been cooking chickens in countless quantity.  Sometimes it gets a little tedious, and sometimes [...]

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Roast Chicken Redux

March 17, 2009

Chicken is everywhere, and I’ve been cooking a lot of it lately.  My last chix post detailed a recipe on oven roasted birds, but only alluded to a stove top technique I’ve been honing lately.  I borrowed it from a class taught at DC Coast that used the same technique to produce ridiculously crisp skin [...]

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A Hash With History

March 11, 2009

While researching this story on corned beef hash, I stumbled on some interesting history.  The Historic American Cookbook Project’s Feeding America website has done an excellent job at not only preserving historic texts, but making them available online via PDF.  Check out Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cookbook for the historic hash recipe I’ve pasted below.  Throughout [...]

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Batones Para los Preguntones

March 10, 2009

I love the cool stories we tell while we cook.   Watching a pot simmer for hours can be like watching paint dry, so it’s nice to have a tale to tell to pass the time.   While hashing out an upcoming article for the Post I was afforded some time with Will Artley, the Executive [...]

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On Roasting Veg.

March 9, 2009

A recent article by Melissa Clark has me thinking about how I prepare all my veg.  While tweaking a recipe for cauliflower Clark says…
Normally, when you see recipes for cheesy cauliflower, the vegetable is boiled. I wanted a deeper flavor, so I roasted the cauliflower, adding the peas to the pan during the last few [...]

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Broon – wah!

March 1, 2009

Garnish is so much more than a sprig of parsley or a sprinkle of minced chives.  At least it is for me lately.  Michel Richards Happy in the Kitchen details an innovative technique using Japanese mandoline to produce the cut quickly and in quantity. If I worked in a restaurant I’d likely never look back.  [...]

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