Roasted Chestnuts in the Fireplace
Roast Moulard Duck with Kumquats and Salt-Cured Chiles
Turnip and Mustard Greens with Smoked Bacon and Vinegar
Slow-Cooked Black Kale with Stewed Garlic
Colcannon with Scallions and Greens
Steamed Black Cod and Potatoes with Pounded Parsley, Garlic, and Mussels
Crispy Chicken with Rye Bread, Mustard, and Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage
Honey Frozen Custard with Honeycomb Candy
Jalapeño and Red Onion Escabeche
Turnip Soup with Rosemary and Black Pepper
Sautéed Savoy Cabbage with Speck and Lemon
Roasted Japanese Turnips with Honey
Onion-Braised Overnight Brisket
Roast Chicken with Fennel and Spring Onions
Roasted Spareribs with Crushed Fennel and Red Chiles
Watercress with a Fried Egg and Black Sesame Sauce
Arthur has been singing “The Christmas Song” (“chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . .”) for a full year now, and this afternoon it has finally occurred to me to actually roast some. (Year-round holiday singing seems to run in the family; when Oona was three, her bedtime song was “Frosty the Snowman,” every verse, every night.) Mac already has a fire going and I found a bottle of Lambrusco that reminds me of the “Cold Duck” (sweet, bubbly wine) my grandma used to make.
These chestnuts are fairly soft, moist, and easy to peel. I put them in an iron pan, rake some embers into a pile on the side of the fire, and place the pan on top, stirring every so often. Twenty minutes later, the shells are black-brown and have curled open to expose the yellow nut. The living room smells like sweet caramel, marshmallow, and smoke, the same aroma of the chestnuts that we ate a few weeks ago in Kyoto, roasted at 800 degrees in what looked like a pressurized cannon (the nuts were blistered, sweet, and easy to peel), or many years ago in Zurich, where women wrapped in mink lined up at a smoking cart to purchase chestnuts wrapped in a newspaper cone, or the ones I first tried with my parents in Chinatown in the 1970s (roasted over charcoal, but for me still a future acquired taste). Oona eats one and decides she loves the smell, but not so much the nut, and Arthur takes a pass, excited enough just to see his song in action. We have lots left over to make chestnut soup with sautéed Jerusalem artichokes, and a chestnut pudding for dessert.
At the turn of the century, one out of every four hardwood trees in the Appalachians was an American chestnut. In early summer, from Maine to Mississippi, the dense white blossoms covering the crowns of the often eighty-foot-tall trees created the appearance of just-fallen snow, and in western North Carolina, the moment was known as Christmas in July. The American chestnut started to succumb to a terrible blight in the early 1900s and by the 1950s was nearly extinct.
Our chestnuts at Lantern come from High Rock Farm, a former stagecoach stop where Richard Teague planted his Dunstan trees—a hybrid bred from a hardy American chestnut survivor found in the 1950s and Chinese varieties—in 1991; they are now thirty feet tall.
In late fall, Richard harvests thousands of pounds of chestnuts from his farm, where he also cultivates twenty acres of pecans, blackberries, and sweet cherries. For the last twenty-seven years, biologists working with the American Chestnut Foundation have been developing and testing a new disease-resistant hybrid that is even closer genetically to the original American—down to its massive size, beautiful open leaf pattern, and sweet nuts—that will finally be ready for planting within a few years. Since chestnuts trees grow up to four times as quickly as oaks, the prospect of a mass reforestation has a tremendous, if somewhat fantastic, appeal from a global warming perspective. However, it does seem possible that fifty years from now, American chestnuts could be back—maybe in some forests, but certainly in orchards—and that by then today’s kids will be hungry for them.
Roasted Chestnuts in the Fireplace
There are chestnut roasting devices—long-handled iron skillets or perforated baskets that allow the flames direct contact with the nuts—but they are not necessary; any way you can get the chestnuts in a hot fire and close to the flames works well. Chestnuts are high in moisture—more like a fruit than a nut—and fairly perishable. Look for nuts that are dark brown, shiny, and heavy and store them in the refrigerator.
Using a small sharp knife, score an X across the soft end of each nut—or if you find it easier, on the side of the nut. Soak them in cold water for 10 minutes; then drain and dry well. Put the nuts in an iron skillet over embers in a hot part of a fireplace (or directly on the grate of a hot charcoal grill or on a sheet pan in a preheated 450°F oven) and toss frequently until the shells blacken in spots and are crisp and easy to peel, about 20 minutes. They stay warm in a few layers of tea towels for nearly an hour. If you have leftovers, peel while they are still warm.
Oona and Arthur had their own New Year’s Eve bash with friends last night, and when we walked in at 3 a.m. after our own long night, their sitter cheerfully told us that they had all just gone to bed. This morning, it’s glasses of fresh, tart juice all around: grapefruit for groggy grown-ups and tangerine for the kids, who were only a few hours shy of their goal of staying up until the sunrise.
In late November, when winter suddenly feels like it’s actually going to happen, we get our first shipment of citrus from Linda and Lester L’Hoste’s citrus farm in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The first box is filled with satsuma oranges, full of bright acid but candy-sweet and perfectly balanced. Shipments of ruby grapefruit, kumquats, Meyer lemons, limes, mandarins, navels, tangelos, and tangerines then arrive every two weeks or so until the end of February.
When the L’Hostes transitioned to organic farming methods in 1995, they bought a million ladybugs, whose descendants still live with other helpful insects in the knee-high native nutgrass that forms paths between the rows of trees, about 2,000 in all. Occasionally the grass is cut and left on the ground as mulch that decomposes and adds life to their soil—a recent measurement showed that the L’Hostes’ earth contains four times more organic matter than a typical conventional system. When they had insect problems before they went organic, the L’Hostes would spray. Now, they only rarely see the bugs that plagued them and usually when they do, the bugs don’t cause the same kind of damage here as they do on neighboring citrus farms, where herbicides knock down the grass but render the soil practically sterile.
Tasting L’Hoste’s fruit convinced me to stop eating citrus out of season, holding back to enjoy it as compensation for winter. Eating one of their satsumas is a reminder that kids used to actually thank Santa for putting an orange at the bottom of their stockings. At Lantern, L’Hoste fruit arrives just in time to replace the last, battered shreds of summer and fall on our menu with warm, spicy kumquats with juicy roast duck; a grapefruit salad with fresh lemongrass for caramelized sea scallops; salty, pungent Indian-style spicy lime pickle with a garlicky chickpea puree; a tempura of thinly sliced Meyer lemon and sweet leeks; and bowls of blood orange “creamsicle” ice cream and grapefruit sherbet. At home, we eat each new fruit from Louisiana fresh for the first week or so then start cooking it: lemon relish on hot, crispy flounder fillets; fresh sweet orange peel added to a beef stew; and satsumas glazed on a juicy, buttery cake.
SERVES 6 TO 8
1 cup sugar
½ cup dried elderflowers (see Sources)
Pinch of kosher salt
6 cups freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice, or to taste, chilled
In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. Remove from the heat and immediately add the sugar, salt, and elderflowers, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let steep for 10 minutes and then strain. Let cool. Combine with the grapefruit juice to taste, and serve chilled or over ice.
Roast Moulard Duck with Kumquats and Salt-Cured Chiles
SERVES 4
1 (2-pound) moulard duck breast
2 teaspoons Spice Cure (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil
8 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 (2-inch) piece of fresh ginger, cut into very fine julienne
2 tablespoons rice wine
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons dry white wine
1½ cups Dark Poultry Stock
1½ teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Diced Salt-Cured Chiles, to taste
Juice of 1 clementine or tangerine
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 teaspoon water
12 sour kumquats, sliced into ¼-inch-thick rounds and seeded (about 1 cup)
Trim the silverskin from the meat. Score the duck skin with a sharp knife, making ⅛-inch shallow incisions about ¼ inch apart. (It is best to do this while the duck is cold.) Pat the duck dry with a paper towel. Season the meat (not skin) side of the duck with the spice cure, making sure not to get any on the skin. (The sugar will burn during cooking.) Put the duck on a plate, skin side down, cover, and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of the oil. When the skillet is hot, put the duck, skin side down, into the pan. Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, until the fat starts to render. Reduce the heat to low and cook for another 20 minutes, rotating the duck in the pan as needed to ensure even cooking, until the skin is amber brown and crispy and most of the fat has rendered. Raise the heat to medium. Turn the duck over and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until slightly browned. Transfer the duck to a warm platter and let it rest in a warm place for 5 minutes before slicing.
While the duck is cooking, make the sauce: Heat a nonreactive sauté pan over medium heat and add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes, until fragrant and golden. Add the ginger. Raise the heat to high and cook for a minute, until the ginger is fragrant but not browned. Add the rice wine and the white wine, and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes, until the liquid has reduced by about half. Add the stock, sugar, salt, and chiles and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the citrus juice, stir in the cornstarch mixture, and add the kumquats. Bring back to a simmer, stir until slightly thickened, about 20 minutes, and remove from the heat. Taste for salt, and discard the garlic if desired.
Slice the duck breast into ½-inch-thick slices. Arrange on warm plates, and spoon the sauce over the duck.
This cure also works well for duck confit and to flavor roast pork. It keeps in a sealed container for several weeks. Homemade dried tangerine peel can be made in a few days by leaving fresh peel in a warm, dry spot.
MAKES ALMOST 1 CUP
1 (1-inch) piece of cassia or cinnamon stick
2 silver dollar–size pieces of dried tangerine peel (available in Asian markets)
2 star anise
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
1 medium red dried chile
½ cup kosher salt
¼ cup sugar
Put the cassia, tangerine peel, star anise, peppercorns, and chile in a spice grinder and process until evenly ground. Transfer to a small bowl and stir in the salt and sugar.
SERVES 8 TO 10
ORANGES AND GLAZE
5 satsuma oranges
Juice of ½ lemon
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
CAKE
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
⅓ cup semolina flour
⅔ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon table salt
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a 10-inch round pan.
Finely grate the zest one of the oranges, and reserve the zest for the cake batter. Cut the orange in half, juice it, and strain the juice; you should have ⅓ cup juice. Slice the remaining 4 oranges into ¼-inch-thick rounds. Combine the orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and orange slices in a medium nonreactive saucepan, and bring to a slow simmer over low heat. Cook for 6 to 7 minutes, until the centers of the orange slices are starting to become tender and translucent but are not falling apart. Carefully transfer the orange slices to a plate with a slotted spoon, and continue to simmer the syrup until it has reduced to ½ cup, 5 to 8 minutes. Set the glaze aside.
To make the cake, combine the butter and sugar in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix until fluffy. While the mixer is running, add an egg and wait for it to be incorporated before adding the other. Add the reserved grated orange zest. In a bowl, sift together the semolina flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture, a little at a time, to the batter mixture and mix until all of it is incorporated. Pour the batter into the pan and arrange the orange slices in one layer on top of the batter. Bake for 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cake is an even golden brown and baked through; a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. Let the cake cool on a wire rack until it is warm. Then, using a wooden skewer, poke holes all over the surface of the cake. Brush the glaze over the top, using a pastry brush. Allow the cake to cool to room temperature, and then unmold.
Driving home from work tonight, late and hungry, I remember that there is not much in the house to eat: two oversize bunches of kale, a few tiny eggs from Monica’s young chickens that just started laying, and some Parmesan cheese. Until recently, the discovery would have sent me into a take-out dinner U-turn or at least darkened my mood, but instead I keep going.
Is anyone born loving spinach or craving kale? Not me, but I always tried to do my part, eating collards alongside hoppin’ John, steaming spinach for health-conscious guests, and finishing my kale whenever it was served. I ate enough greens not to seem childish, but no more. When I joined George O’Neal’s farm share, my “just enough” approach finally met a worthy opponent.
Farm shares, or CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), is a model in which customers share in the risks and rewards of farming by purchasing a share of the future harvest from a small farm for the growing season. A membership with George’s Lil’ Farm can include a cup of fresh press-pot coffee when you pick up at the market and a weekly stream-of-consciousness e-mail. The newsy letter has recipes, puns (after a big storm “all hail breaks loose”), pleas (“return your egg cartons!”), and philosophy (on fleeting Dutch irises: “Love them, but don’t get attached: this isn’t that kind of relationship”). Membership also includes a lot of hearty greens.
Many farms work hard to include a variety of produce each week and design their weekly produce box to look like a square meal: trading with neighbors for crops they don’t grow, overwintering carrots, or keeping a row of strawberries in a greenhouse. George delights in a different kind of bounty that dares members to cook at his pace: early spring is a parade of potatoes, July is all about the lily family—garlic, onions, and leeks—and in late summer our share seems to have at least one of each of the thirty varieties of tomatoes he grows. All of this is very welcome, but Lil’ Farm’s motto (and T-shirt logo) is “Kale ’Em All,” a riff on the Metallica album Kill ’Em All. Sure enough, this fall, every week I was handed more kale than I ate in a year—regular curly, frilly pink Red Russian, flat “black,” or Lacinato. My haul wouldn’t even fit in the refrigerator—it was cook or compost.
Under pressure to use it up, I started putting the kale at the center of the plate; I braised it with leeks and tossed it with a little pasta; used it as a filling for a crunchy panini with cheese and pickled chiles; and made it the base of a stew with white beans and spicy sausage. My breakthrough was all about fat; I realized I had been consigning leafy greens to “healthy” side dish territory. I had hung onto childhood feelings, treating greens ascetically—steaming or wilting them all alone—rather than uncovering their richness with cheese, a nutty oil, eggs, mashed potatoes, or smoky bacon.
Dinner tonight is black kale. I rip the leaves off the stems and soak them in a bowl of water while I put a small pot of water on the stove to poach a few of Monica’s eggs and grate the Parmesan cheese. When the garlic I’ve cooked in a skillet with some olive oil is sizzling and soft, the wet kale goes in the pan with a big pinch of salt and then slowly cooks down to a pillow of sweet, dark green leaves. I pile the kale into big warm bowls, lay the poached eggs on top, and follow that with cheese and a long drizzle of olive oil. After all, we are having kale for dinner.
SERVES 4 AS A SIDE DISH
3 big bunches (about 1½ pounds) mixed mustard and turnip greens
2 teaspoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil or extra virgin olive oil
2 thick slices smoked bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 onion, halved and sliced lengthwise
Kosher salt
Vinegar from pickled chile peppers
Wash the greens, remove the thick stalks, and coarsely chop the leaves.
Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat and add the oil and bacon. Cook the bacon until it is about halfway rendered and still soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the onion and season with salt. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes, until the onion is fragrant, translucent, and beginning to turn golden. Add the greens and a big pinch of salt, lower the heat, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until the greens are very soft and the water from the greens has evaporated. Adjust the seasoning and serve with the spicy vinegar.
SERVES 2 AS A MAIN COURSE OR 4 AS A SIDE DISH
2 bunches (about 1 pound) of black kale (also known as Lacinato or dinosaur kale), stemmed and torn into big pieces
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Kosher salt
½ small dried ancho chile, or to taste, crumbled
3 long strips of lemon zest
Fill a medium-size heavy pot with water and bring it to a boil over high heat. Salt it generously, add the kale, and blanch for 1 minute. Immediately drain and squeeze dry.
Return the pot to the stove over low heat, add the olive oil and garlic, season with a pinch of salt, and cook gently for 3 to 5 minutes, until the garlic is soft but not browned. Add the chile and let it lightly toast for a moment before adding the kale and lemon zest. Season with another pinch of salt. Cover and cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a tablespoon or two of water as needed to keep it slightly moist.
Billy Cotter devised this delicious meaty sandwich for his vegetarian wife, Kelli, at their restaurant Toast, in downtown Durham.
SERVES 4
2 big bunches of curly kale (about 1 pound total), stemmed, leaves torn into pieces
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for grilling
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
8 slices rustic sandwich bread
10 ounces farmer’s cheese or other crumbly fresh cheese, such as queso blanco or feta, broken into chunks
Freshly ground black pepper
Working in batches, blanch the kale in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, until tender. Use a slotted spoon to transfer each batch to a colander. When all the kale is cooked, let it cool and then squeeze with your hands to remove the excess moisture. Cut the kale into ½-inch-wide strips and put them in a bowl.
Preheat a panini press, or heat a large cast-iron skillet over low heat and have another pan of the same size ready to weight down the sandwiches.
Right before you are ready to assemble the sandwiches, season the kale with salt. Add the oil and toss well. Finish with the vinegar.
Lay out 4 slices of the bread and top them with equal parts kale and cheese; add chiles to taste. Season with salt and pepper, and top with the other slices of bread.
Lightly oil the panini press and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for grilling the sandwiches. (If using a pan on the stovetop, raise the heat to medium, lightly oil it, and add as many sandwiches as can comfortably fit. Place the other heavy pan on top to press the sandwiches; if the pan is relatively light, add some weight to it, such as a large can or a full tea kettle. Rotating the pan on the burner frequently, cook the sandwiches for about 5 minutes, until deep golden brown. Transfer the sandwiches to a plate, re-oil the pan, and return the sandwiches to the pan, browned side up, to cook the other side, about 3 minutes.)
SERVES 2
1 pound spinach leaves, preferably Savoy, tough stems removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Pile the spinach in a large bowl that will fit into your microwave oven. Cook it in the microwave on high power for 25 to 30 seconds, until it is just warm but not wilted. Toss the spinach with the oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook for 30 to 60 seconds, until the spinach is wilted and its volume has reduced by less than half. It will be hot but not so cooked that it starts to throw off liquid.
Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish of boiled potatoes mashed with green onions, leeks or sometimes chives, kale or cabbage, and milk or cream. I like mine extremely green, with lots of black pepper.
SERVES 6 TO 8
2 pounds small Yukon Gold potatoes, well scrubbed
3 big bunches (about 1½ pounds) mixed greens, such as kale or cabbage
12 small scallions, or 3 to 4 larger bulbing spring onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
1 to 2 cups whole milk, to taste, heated
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons crème fraîche, store-bought or homemade (recipe follows)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Steam the potatoes in a vegetable steamer for about 20 minutes, until tender. Set them aside to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Stem the greens and blanch the leaves in the boiling water until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain, and cool under cold running water. Drain well, wringing out the excess water with your hands. Finely chop the greens.
When the potatoes are just cool enough to handle but still warm, peel them and then mash them coarsely in a large bowl. Add the greens and scallions. Stir in the hot milk to the desired consistency. Add the butter and crème fraîche, and season with salt and pepper.
Crème fraîche is just homemade sour cream and is simple to make.
In a bowl, whisk together 1 part buttermilk with 8 parts non-ultra-pasteurized (and preferably non-homogenized) heavy cream. Cover with a cloth or plastic wrap, and leave it out on the counter for 24 to 48 hours, until it thickens. Whisk again before storing, tightly covered, in the refrigerator, where it will keep for several weeks; it gets thicker and more delicious as it ages. Crème fraîche has a higher fat content than commercial sour cream and so can be heated without breaking.
Predictions for snow have been flying thick all week, but before we take them seriously, it’s coming down in big, wet flakes and by dawn it’s sticking. Oona is reading Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s tale of a year in her future husband’s boyhood in northern New York State in the 1860s. It’s full of head-spinning ideas: breaking colts, shearing sheep, bathing in a washtub by the fire, and fried apples’n’onions. Oona is most awed by the same thing that struck me when I first read it: without a grocery store, the Wilders lead a life that is almost hedonistic, at least at the table. They eat endlessly, all winter long: cracklin’ corn bread, crabapple jelly, stacked pancakes, plump sausage cakes, fried doughnuts, baked beans with pork, chicken pie, roast beef with brown gravy, and bird’s-nest pudding with thick cream and nutmeg. And with the exception of fresh dairy, it is all pulled from their freezer-attic, root cellar, pickle barrels, and cupboards.
Few cooking projects are as satisfying as making a decent meal from things that are already around, no trip to the store required. Success is a feat of imagination, faith, and, of course, a deep pantry full of things like tinned anchovies, canned tomatoes, dried mushrooms, fish sauce, rice, beans, cornmeal, and dried beans. The kitchen cabinet challenge is great entertainment, but the real value in pantry cooking is not to survive for months, but for just days, or even a week at a time, without much planning or shopping. The less often I have to go to the store in winter, the more time I have to cook at home.
So I extend the idea of what counts as “pantry” to the refrigerator: hearty vegetables and fruits, like carrots, apples, citrus, turnips, beets, and cabbages that keep for weeks; thick, succulent winter lettuces like escarole, endive, and frisée; resilient herbs, like rosemary and parsley (stored like a bouquet in a jar of water); dried sausage and ham hocks; hard cheeses. The vegetable bin below the kitchen counter holds garlic, onions, shallots, and potatoes, and the freezer is stocked with meat and fish, but also nuts, bread crumbs, field peas, bacon, and stocks. Fresh farm eggs keep perfectly for a few weeks, and other slow-perishing perishables, like cream, also expand the possibilities.
Now in the midst of what qualifies here as a snow emergency—eight inches by dinnertime; school will be closed for a week—we know we should have gone to the store, at least for candles. Last night, we had mussels for dinner and there are a few left. There are some fillets of rich sable (also known as black cod), a fatty fish that freezes well. For dinner we steam the sable with some small potatoes and serve it with mussels and broth enriched with pounded parsley and garlic. After doing the dishes, we take stock of what else is in the “pantry” for the coming days.
Steamed Black Cod and Potatoes with Pounded Parsley, Garlic, and Mussels
SERVES 4
4 cups loosely packed, fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves (from about 1 bunch)
4 small garlic cloves
Kosher salt
2 pounds mussels, scrubbed
12 small potatoes
4 (6-ounce) fillets of black cod (black sable), skin on
Expeller-pressed vegetable oil
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Chop the parsley very fine. Smash the garlic, chop it just a little to make grinding easier, and then work it into a paste with a small pinch of salt in a mortar. Add the parsley and continue to work the mixture in the mortar until smooth.
In a 4-quart pot, bring 2 cups water to a boil, lightly salt it, and add the mussels. Cover and cook over high heat for 3 to 5 minutes, checking the mussels often and transferring them to a plate as soon as they open. Discard any that do not open. Strain the mussel broth through a fine-mesh sieve and reserve it. Shuck half of the mussels.
Set a large steamer basket over a pot filled with a couple of inches of boiling water, and add the potatoes. Cover and cook until the potatoes are close to halfway done, 4 minutes. Meanwhile, drizzle the fish with oil, season it with salt and pepper, and put it on a plate that will fit in the steamer basket, making sure the fillets do not touch each other.
When the potatoes are almost halfway done, add the plate of fish to the steamer basket, and steam for about 6 minutes, until the fish is barely cooked through and the tip of a sharp knife inserted in the thickest part of the fish for 5 seconds comes out warm to the touch. Transfer the fish and potatoes to a warm platter and cover to keep warm.
In a large, deep sauté pan, bring the reserved mussel liquid to a simmer. Add the parsley mixture and cook for 45 seconds. Remove from the heat, add the shucked and unshucked mussels, stir to reheat, and swirl in the butter. Add salt if necessary before spooning the mixture over the fish and potatoes.
Crispy Chicken with Rye Bread, Mustard, and Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage
SERVES 4
1 loaf (about 1 pound) stale rye bread
1½ tablespoons caraway seeds
4 teaspoons kosher salt
2½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
8 small boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, beaten
Expeller-pressed vegetable oil
Mustard Sauce (recipe follows)
Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage (recipe follows)
Remove the crust from the bread and tear the bread into bite-size chunks. Grind the chunks, in batches, in a coffee grinder or food processor until it is more or less uniformly ground but still coarse. Spread the crumbs on a baking sheet and let them dry out at room temperature for at least 2 hours (or put them in a 250°F oven for 20 minutes). Measure out 6 cups of crumbs into a large bowl, and add the caraway seeds, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and 1 teaspoon of the pepper.
Heat one or more large cast-iron skillets over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with 2½ teaspoons of the salt and 1 teaspoon of the pepper. Mix the flour in a bowl with the remaining ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. Dip each piece of chicken in the flour, shake off any excess, and then dip in the beaten egg. Make sure each piece gets thoroughly covered with egg. Dredge the chicken pieces one by one in the bread crumbs, shaking off any excess.
Swirl 3 tablespoons oil into the hot skillet. Lay as many pieces of chicken in the pan as will comfortably fit, and lower the heat. Cook, rotating the chicken and the pan frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, until the chicken is dark golden brown. Flip the chicken and add another 1 tablespoon oil. Cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, until the chicken is crispy, golden brown, and cooked through. If at any point the pan seems too dry and the bread crumbs start to burn, add a little more oil. Serve with mustard sauce and cabbage.
SERVES 4
¼ cup good-quality Dijon mustard
¼ cup chicken stock, preferably homemade, or water
Big pinch of kosher salt
Whisk together the mustard, stock, and salt, and heat in a small nonreactive saucepan until just hot.
SERVES 4 GENEROUSLY
1 tablespoon expeller-pressed vegetable oil
1 small red onion, cut in half and thinly sliced lengthwise
1 small head of red cabbage, cored and sliced (5 to 6 cups)
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
1¼ teaspoons kosher salt
½ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup red wine vinegar
Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, and add the oil and onion. Sauté for 2 to 3 minutes, until softened and fragrant. Add the cabbage, sugar, and salt, and toss and cook for 2 minutes. Add the vinegars, toss again, and lower the heat. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes—adding a little water as needed to keep it moist but not brothy—until tender. The cabbage will go from its raw purple to lavender to bright violet as it softens.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Roast whole, unpeeled onions on a baking sheet for an hour or longer, until the skins are deep golden brown and blistered and the flesh is very tender throughout when pierced with a sharp knife. To serve, make a slit across the top of each onion with a sharp knife and insert a big pat of butter or spoonful of crème fraîche. Serve with salt at the table.
I got a jewel of a gift in the mail today: six jars of single-variety honey from Italy. The chestnut honey is intense and stinky, possibly a taste that can only be acquired by living in a small Umbrian village; the kids scream when I make them smell it. Other flavors, like the rhododendron, the one cryptically labeled “forest,” are hypnotic.
Honey is hot. Bees are the new backyard chickens, with hives sprouting up on urban rooftops and in suburban backyards while restaurateurs earnestly describe their “honey programs.” When a request for tea brings you a special honey menu, a reasonable response might be “This whole honey thing has gone too far.” But different honeys can offer an opportunity to visit another season and a place, translating the predominant fruit and flower that was feeding a hive of bees the moment their honey was made. During a flowering, bees tend not to merely immerse themselves in the same variety of nectar for weeks at a time but actually in the very same flower blossom.
Honey’s popularity coincides with a dire moment for honeybees. The mysterious phenomenon that is now called “colony collapse disorder” was first noticed in late 2006, when bees began disappearing. Between then and early 2008—just a year and a half—approximately one third of adult worker bees had vanished, and they continue to at an alarming rate. Many of the likely contributors to CCD—exposure to high levels of pesticides and herbicides, viruses, parasites, overcrowding, loss of habitat, and a high level of stress, including poor nutrition—are the direct result of the industrial way in which honeybees are used in food production, which includes pollinating the plants that contribute to one third of our diet.
Rob Bowers and his wife, Cheri Whitted, keep bees to pollinate their biodynamic orchard and fruit crops on their Whitted Bowers Farm, near Hillsborough, north of Chapel Hill. Rob explains that honeys are often regionally specific. While bland clover honey is common in the North, not so in the South since clover blooms at the same time as the more delectable tulip poplar, which bees are mad for. According to our neighbor Scotty McLean (beekeeper, kimchi maker, and barbecue performance artist), 2007 was the best year ever. Other classic North Carolina honeys include sourwood, blueberry, black locust, and wild blackberry.
Rob and Cheri’s melon blossom honey is my favorite, transmitting the complex flavors of the two acres of heirloom melons they plant every year. I fell in love before I understood the implications: As a rule, Whitted Bowers doesn’t extract, or harvest, honey at all. Their bees are valued farmhands, and the most important use of their honey is as vital sustenance to get them through winter. Commercial honey producers generally replace the honey that they extract from their hives with sugar water; Rob and Cheri share in the honey only when they know that there is more than enough for the bees to stay healthy until spring. Of course, what is impossible to have is hopelessly irresistible, but in this case the very factors that prevent it from being available all the time are also exactly what make it worth waiting for.
Honey Frozen Custard with Honeycomb Candy
Alone, I am happy to eat butter cookies dipped in honey for dessert. This recipe is not quite as fast but is worth the time. It has the texture of perfect soft-serve ice cream, and since it’s not actually a proper custard, no cooking is required.
SERVES 8
1½ cups heavy cream
4 large eggs, separated
Pinch of kosher salt
½ cup dark, flavorful honey, plus more for serving
Honeycomb Candy (recipe follows), for serving
In a medium bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. Set aside.
In another medium bowl, beat the egg yolks, salt, and honey with an electric hand mixer until thickened, light yellow in color, and doubled in volume. In a third medium bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Fold the whipped cream into the yolk mixture, and then fold in the whites. Spoon into a 9 × 5-inch loaf pan and freeze until firm, at least 4 hours and up to several days.
To serve, spoon it out of the pan directly onto plates and serve with honeycomb shards.
MAKES ABOUT 6 CUPS OF SHARDS
¾ cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1½ teaspoons baking soda, sifted twice
Have ready a candy thermometer and a greased baking sheet.
Pour 2 tablespoons water into a deep medium saucepan. Add the sugar, and then drizzle the honey evenly over the top without stirring. Heat over medium-high heat until the mixture reaches 300°F and is amber colored; do not let it go higher than 310°F. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with the baking soda, and using a small whisk, quickly combine in just four or five strokes, no more. Immediately pour the mixture onto the baking sheet and let it cool for about 20 minutes.
Break into shards and store in an airtight container for up to several days.
We don’t have a scheduled staff meal or way of sitting down to eat at Lantern. Almost every day we eat lunch together, but it is often very fast and simple—an improvised shrimp cocktail with an experimental hot sauce, a salad, or a thrown-together soup. On especially crazy days, we don’t eat at all except for bites here and there. If someone stops to think about it, we’ll order in homemade pastrami, sauerkraut, and pickles from Neal’s Deli, owned by Matt Neal and his wife, Sheila, who managed the Carrboro farmers’ market before she and Matt opened a busy New York–style deli while raising kids on the side.
On special occasions we cook: for birthdays, maybe a big grilled steak; on a waiter’s last night, something tasty but shocking like sauerbraten or an insane lasagna; in the case of an unusual hangover, Silvia can be persuaded to make Hangtown Fry—fresh oysters dipped in cracker crumbs, crisped in bacon fat, and tossed with lightly scrambled eggs and bacon. When we plan ahead, we really feast, and the fare tends to be Mexican, since that is where almost everyone in the kitchen grew up. During his five years as Lantern’s dumpling master, Rudy Rodriguez made elaborate lunches, like moles that required starter kits carried from home on foot. His chilaquile period was legendary and immobilizing: freshly fried corn tortillas scrambled with eggs and spicy salsa until the eggs were creamy and the tortillas tender but still nicely chewy. We ate them three times a week for months until we all had to buy new pants. At a going-away party for Ramiro Vasquez, who was heading home to Mexico for the first time in eight years for his daughter’s wedding, Dolores Vargas made delicate quesadillas with homemade wrappers so delicious that we now tease Ramiro (back in the States for another tour) that another meal of them might be worth losing him again.
Miguel Torres runs the kitchen at Lantern—by day he is in the kitchen cooking, tasting, and teaching, and he’s there nearly every night, too, managing the details and chaos of service. For his thirtieth birthday, we made an epic ceviche of fat scallops, shrimp, and blue crab served with freshly fried tostadas; nearly fifty pounds were needed to counteract the beer and fuel the dancing. When Miguel moved here from his hometown, Celaya, near Mexico City, he was eighteen years old, had spoken English mainly in school, and knew only one person. One hundred friends showed up at the party—his “double quinceañera” to fond coworkers—and as usual he made sure that no one left hungry or “underserved.”
As for staff meals, I think that we all would agree that the most critically acclaimed (and rarest) at Lantern are those that are completely homemade and don’t involve eggs. With Valentine’s weekend behind us, Miguel came in early today to make carnitas.
On the few nights that he is not at Lantern, Miguel cooks Mexican at home. He has not seen his family since moving to North Carolina in 1999, and the goal of his home cooking is to make his dishes taste as close to his mother’s and grandmother’s as possible with the ingredients he can get here. He thinks that he is getting close with these carnitas.
SERVES 12, WITH LEFTOVERS
8 pounds boneless pork shoulder
2 cups lard
3 tablespoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 dried bay leaves
1 cup whole milk
1 cup Coca-Cola
1 orange, cut in half
Jalapeño and Red Onion Escabèche (recipe follows)
Green Cabbage Salad (recipe follows)
Salsa Verde and/or Salsa Roja
Warm corn tortillas, for serving
Cut the pork shoulder into 3-inch cubes, trimming off any gristle as you go but leaving all the fat. Put the pork and the lard in a large, heavy pot over high heat. As soon as the lard has melted, add just enough cold water to barely cover the pork. Return to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium. Add the salt, pepper, and bay leaves, and stirring regularly, simmer briskly for about 1 hour, until the water has evaporated and the pork is nearly tender.
Raise the heat to medium-high and add the milk. Simmer for 5 minutes until the milk is almost completely reduced. Pour in the cola. Squeeze the orange halves over the meat and add the oranges to the pot, too. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until the meat is crispy and deep caramel brown. Remove the orange halves and adjust the seasoning. Spoon the carnitas and some escabèche, cabbage salad, and salsa into each tortilla.
MAKES 3 CUPS
10 jalapeños, halved, seeded if desired, and thinly sliced lengthwise
4 medium red onions, thinly sliced
½ cup Escabeche Dressing
In a medium bowl, combine the jalapeños and red onions with the dressing. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes and up to 2 hours before serving.
MAKES 4 CUPS
1 small head (about 1 pound) of green cabbage
2 medium carrots
1 bunch of radishes
½ cup Escabeche Dressing
Remove and discard the outer layers of the cabbage. Cut the head in quarters, remove the core, and thinly slice the cabbage crosswise. Peel the carrots and slice them ¼ inch thick on the diagonal. Cut the slices into matchsticks. Slice the radishes into thin rounds. Combine the vegetables with the dressing and let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes and up to 2 hours before serving.
Top right: Salsa Verde; bottom left: Salsa Roja
MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS
1 (11-ounce) can tomatillos, drained
1 jalapeño, stemmed and cut into thick slices
¼ medium yellow onion, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 garlic clove
½ bunch fresh cilantro, thick stems cut off
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Put the tomatillos, jalapeño, onion, garlic, cilantro, and salt in a blender and process until smooth.
MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS
6 ounces (about 7) dried guajillo chiles
1½ ounces (about 5) dried chiles, such as de Arbol
1 garlic clove
1 (11-ounce) can tomatillos
¼ medium yellow onion, finely diced
1 bunch fresh cilantro, thick stems cut off, leaves chopped
2½ teaspoons kosher salt
Stem and seed the chiles, and soak them in a bowl of hot water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving ¾ cup of the liquid. Put the chiles, reserved soaking liquid, garlic, and tomatillos in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into a serving bowl and stir in the onion, cilantro, and salt.
MAKES 1 CUP
½ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Stir together the lime juice, vinegar, salt, and sugar in a small bowl until the salt and sugar dissolve. Whisk in the oil.
I’m back from a dark, wet market earlier than usual and getting started on lunch. Big rough-skinned turnips, sweetly spicy, are going into a pot with onions and a small branch of rosemary to cook slowly for a warming late-morning soup.
Around this time every year, a suspicion creeps in at farmers’ markets that there is nothing left to eat. This morning when I picked up one of Stanley Hughes’s huge purple turnips, another shopper looked at me and laughed, “Never thought to eat a turnip.” She graciously listened to the unsolicited recipe that followed but, fearing a lunch invitation, ran. Turnips are one of those vegetables that tend to hang around until the end of the market, sometimes making the trip back to the farm to become supper for the pigs. Even cold, hungry shoppers can’t seem to make the leap to seeing them as food.
You could sell more turnips from a pot of soup than off a market table. Like cabbages and brawny rutabagas, they have a magical stone-soup feeling about them (you made this from that?), and the cold months are the best time to eat them. Many of these vegetables need long cooking to unlock their flavor—thorny, gnarled carrots and buttery yellow potatoes stewed together to make a soup with duck and cracklings; dense green cabbage salted for fortifying sauerkraut; beets simmered with aromatic spices and spiked with vinegar; or chunks of rutabaga simmered in a little water with a bit of salt and sugar and then coarsely mashed with butter. Others are fast—small, mild Japanese-style turnips roasted whole with honey or thinly sliced and gratinéed with cream; tender Savoy cabbage quickly braised with smoked ham or served just warmed in a slaw with caraway or in a raw winter crudité of black radishes; celery hearts and pale orange rutabaga with a warm fondue of Swiss cheese.
Until recently, most markets here in North Carolina shut down at the end of the fall, not to reopen until spring. But now that the demand for local food is starting to balance the risks that come with another growing season, more farmers are beginning to press on into the winter. At the Carrboro market in February, for instance, Michael and Jennifer Brinkley’s stand is one of the most abundant. It’s stacked with beets, fennel, cauliflower, early sping onions, curly red and flat black kale, purple mustard greens, several varieties of sweet potatoes including deep orange Beauregards and creamy white-fleshed O’Henrys, pork sausages, chickens, and nutty wheat flour and golden cornmeal, both grown and milled on the farm. And although farmers are certainly fewer at the winter market, so are shoppers. It’s a kinder pace; no one is stepping on your foot to get the first asparagus and you have plenty of room to think about what to make for dinner.
Carolina Gold rice “grits” from Anson Mills are short, uneven pieces of rice that have been broken during the threshing process. They cook up creamier than long-grain white rice, which can be substituted in this recipe: pulse it in batches in a spice mill or clean coffee grinder for 5 seconds to create the same effect.
SERVES 4 TO 6
1 small onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt
½ cup dry white wine
6 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade, or water
½ cup Carolina Gold rice grits (see Sources)
Freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 medium turnips, cut into ½-inch cubes
2 small branches fresh rosemary
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste
In a heavy 8-quart pot, sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until tender and turning golden, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pour in the wine and stock. Bring to a simmer and then add the rice grits, seasoning with salt and a little pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. Then add the turnips and one of the rosemary branches. Continue to cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the turnips and rice are tender throughout.
While the soup cooks, pull the leaves off the remaining rosemary branches and roughly chop them.
Check the soup for seasoning and add more salt if needed. Discard the rosemary branch. Spoon the soup into bowls, and garnish with a generous grinding of black pepper, some chopped rosemary leaves, and the Parmesan.
Sautéed Savoy Cabbage with Speck and Lemon
Speck is a cured Austrian ham, similar to prosciutto except that it is lightly spiced and smoked. Prosciutto or thinly sliced uncooked bacon may be substituted. (If using bacon, cook until nearly rendered, 3 minutes.)
SERVES 4 AS A SIDE DISH
1 large head of Savoy cabbage (about 1 pound)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, cut lengthwise into thirds
4 thin slices of speck, any rind removed, torn into rough pieces
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
Juice of 1 lemon
Discard any bruised outer leaves from the cabbage. Remove the leaves from the core and tear them into rough pieces, discarding the tough central stems.
Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until it just starts to color, about 2 minutes. Add the speck and stir to coat it in the oil. Add the cabbage, season with the salt, toss to combine, and add the stock. Simmer until the cabbage leaves are just tender, about 4 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice just before serving.
Roasted Japanese Turnips with Honey
These small turnips are typically sold with their tender green leaves attached, and those can be braised like any other winter green.
SERVES 4
4 bunches (about 20 small) golf-ball-size Japanese-style turnips, stems trimmed to ¼ inch, sliced in half lengthwise
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon expeller-pressed vegetable oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon honey
Pinch of cayenne
In a medium bowl, toss the turnips with 1 tablespoon oil, the salt, and some pepper.
Heat a large cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. When it is quite hot, coat the pan with the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and add the turnips. Reduce the heat to medium and toss the turnips. Sauté, shaking the pan frequently, until the turnips are starting to turn golden brown, especially on the cut sides, and are almost tender but still slightly firm, 8 to 10 minutes.
In a small bowl, combine the honey and cayenne with 1 tablespoon water. Add this to the turnips and cook, tossing for another few minutes, until the turnips are tender.
Choucroute garnie traditionally combines sausages and thick chunks of bacon with larger cuts of meat like smoked pork chops and even hunks of pork shoulder. This faster version includes only sausages and bacon. The grated potato adds body and silkiness to the sauerkraut, which, if not homemade, should be purchased refrigerated (not canned).
SERVES 8
2 tablespoons duck fat, lard, or expeller-pressed vegetable oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 cups grated peeled russet potato (about 1 large potato)
Kosher salt
2½ pounds drained sauerkraut (12 cups loosely packed homemade or 1 [32-ounce] jar or equivalent, drained and lightly rinsed)
2 dried bay leaves
10 dried juniper berries, lightly crushed
5 black peppercorns
1½ cups dry white wine
2 to 3 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade, or water, as needed
1-pound chunk of unsliced slab bacon, cut into several large chunks
2 pounds mixed pork sausages, such as knockwurst, boudin blanc, and/or fresh garlic sausages
Mustard, for serving
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Heat the fat in a heavy, shallow 3-quart enameled cast-iron pot or other heatproof baking dish over low heat. Sauté the onions until soft and fragrant but not browned, about 8 minutes. Stir in the potatoes, season lightly with salt, and cook until wilted, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the sauerkraut, bay leaves, juniper berries, peppercorns, wine, and just enough stock to nearly cover the sauerkraut. Bring to a simmer and remove from the heat.
Nestle the bacon into the sauerkraut, cover, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until the bacon is starting to render. Remove the cover and add the sausages in one layer, pushing them down a bit into the sauerkraut, which should still be quite moist. If it seems dry, moisten it with a little additional chicken stock. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the top of the sauerkraut is golden and the sausages and bacon are cooked through and browned. Bring the dish to the table and serve with strong mustard and lots of cold beer or white wine.
SERVES 6 TO 8 GENEROUSLY AS AN APPETIZER
¼ cup expeller-pressed vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
½ cup finely julienned fresh ginger
2 tablespoons garam masala
1 dried red chile, such as de Arbol
3 pounds small beets, 2 to 3 inches in diameter, stems trimmed, peeled, and quartered lengthwise
2 tablespoons kosher salt
½ cup distilled white vinegar
Crème fraîche and nigella seeds (sometimes mislabeled black onion seeds), for serving, optional
Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion, reduce the heat to low, and cover. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent and soft but has not colored. Add the ginger, garam masala, and chile. Raise the heat to high and toast the spices for about 1 minute, stirring the whole time. Add the beets, 5 cups water, and the salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the beets are just tender. Remove from the heat and add the vinegar. Adjust the seasoning and remove the chile.
Serve in warm bowls as is or garnished with a spoonful of crème fraiche and sprinkled with nigella seeds.
The first time, it was practically an accident. Stuck out at our old house outside of town on a freezing night with houseguests, a power outage, and a whole duck in the fridge, it occurred to me that I could solve two problems at once. We stayed up late by the fireplace and put the duck in the (propane-fueled) oven at 200°F before going to bed around 3 a.m. The cooking smells pulled us from our beds into the toasty kitchen for coffee in the morning and the duck became a satisfying lazy lunch with mashed rutabagas to soak up the juices (just chunks of rutabagas simmered until tender in water seasoned with salt and a little sugar, then mashed with soft butter). A far cry from a rare, seared nouvelle-cuisine breast, this was a duck of the old school, with completely tender meat and crisp, burnished skin.
Super-slow cooking (whether during the day or, if you stay up late and rise early, overnight) extends the rewards of work in the kitchen—the delicious smell and the cozy feeling—without adding any extra time or effort. And actual cooking aside, I love anything that makes itself: yogurt placed in a warm spot on the stove; a cool, slow rise for no-knead bread or pizza dough; or an eggy Dutch pancake batter made in minutes with an immersion blender and then left in the refrigerator until morning. Even something as simple as soaking beans overnight gives me a sense of accomplishment.
But these overnight projects are more than just fun: soaked beans cook rapidly and have a velvety texture; a Dutch pancake made from batter that has rested is so fluffy, it rises out of the skillet; and the bread has an amazing airy crumb. Overnight beef short ribs are tender enough to eat with a spoon and their broth is clean, clear, and intense. Super-slow brisket has the time to build real flavor along with the sweet caramelized onions that, by morning, have become gravy. It’s a good trick to stumble into the kitchen in the morning and open the oven door to a complete meal—as if you were on a cooking show. But, if you are like me, what grabs you is the comfort to the animal brain of knowing where your next meal is coming from.
SERVES 4 TO 6
4 pounds bone-in beef short ribs
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil
1 cup (about 1 ounce) dried porcini mushrooms
1 large yellow onion, cut into quarters
1 head of garlic, unpeeled, cut in half crosswise
1 bunch (about 12 medium) radishes
2 medium carrots, or 1 bunch baby carrots
1 bunch spring onions, or 1 medium leek
Horseradish, mustard, coarse sea salt, and pickles, for serving
Trim the silverskin and any excess fat off the short ribs, and season them with the 1 tablespoon salt and the pepper. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 225°F.
Heat a heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and add the oil. Sear the ribs on all sides until deep golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove the meat and discard any remaining oil. Put the ribs back in the pot, meat side down. Add enough cold water to cover the ribs by 2 inches (about 3 quarts). Bring the liquid to a simmer and cook, repeatedly skimming off any foam, for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the porcini, onion, garlic, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Bring back to a simmer. Tent the meat with a piece of parchment or aluminum foil by placing it on top and then crimping it snugly around the ribs so that the edges nearly meet the liquid. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid, transfer it to the oven, and braise for 6 hours.
Trim the radishes, leaving about ¾ inch of green stem. Unless they are very small, cut them in half. Cut the carrots on the diagonal into ½-inch-thick rounds; or, if using baby carrots, peel and trim them, leaving ¾ inch of the green stem. Trim the spring onions or leek and slice into chunks (wash the leek well). One vegetable at a time, blanch in boiling salted water until just tender.
Remove the ribs and strain the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a saucepan. Skim the fat from the broth; then add the blanched vegetables to the broth and reheat gently. Adjust seasoning and serve the ribs and vegetables in the broth with the accompaniments.
SERVES 8 TO 10
1 (4-pound) beef brisket, trimmed
4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
1 large garlic clove
4 tablespoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil
4 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
Season the fatty side of the brisket with 1 teaspoon of the salt and ½ teaspoon of the pepper. Flip the brisket over.
On a cutting board, chop the garlic. Add 1 teaspoon of the salt while continuing to chop, stopping occasionally to mash the garlic to a paste by holding your knife almost flat against the board with the dull side facing you and sliding it across the garlic to crush it. Rub the garlic paste into the non-fatty side of the brisket and season it with the remaining ½ teaspoon pepper. Starting with the thin side, roll the brisket up tight, jelly-roll style, with the fat on the outside, and tie it firmly with kitchen twine.
Heat a Dutch oven or other heavy pot over medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon of the oil. Brown the brisket evenly on all sides, about 20 minutes, and then transfer it to a platter.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 225°F.
Discard any remaining oil in the pot, wipe it out with a paper towel, and return the pot to the stove over medium-low heat. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons oil, the onions, the sugar, and the remaining 2 teaspoons salt. Cook, stirring often, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions are completely soft and caramelized.
Remove the pot from the heat and add 1 cup water. Return the brisket to the pot, and use a slotted spoon to spread some of the onions on top to keep it moist. Tent it with a piece of parchment or aluminum foil by placing it on top and then crimping it snugly around the roast so that the edges nearly meet the liquid, and then cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. Put the pot in the oven and braise for 7 hours, until the brisket is tender.
Transfer the brisket to a warm place and use a food mill to puree the onions. Return the onion puree to the pot and heat gently, adding a little water if necessary to make a thick but pourable gravy. Slice the brisket and serve with the onion gravy.
This afternoon at work, I made a terrine from a pig’s head and some chunky feet for extra oomph. A few hours in the pot with warm spices like star anise and cassia, heady fish sauce, and white wine, and the meat is delicately flavored and silky enough to be thinly sliced, spiced up with aromatic Vietnamese black pepper, and served with warm buttered bread and pickled turnips. Waiters used to dread explaining “head-to-tail” dishes to customers, but in these pig-obsessed times, they sell well along with barbecued tails and ear salad. The revival of whole-animal cooking was fueled by chefs on the prowl for “new” food and deeper flavors but also in support of the farms they love. Selling each and every part of an animal, from cheeks to shanks to skin, helps farms move towards break-even, and having a market for “the odd bits” has been an essential part of the rise in small-scale livestock production. Piedmont North Carolina farmers now have waitlists for pork belly, chicken feet, and schmaltz.
But a rabbit has only two kidneys and each ox a single tail, and as tasty as they are deep-fried, no farmer is going make it selling cockscombs. What they do need to sell more of is happily mundane and feasible: whole chickens! Because of high processing costs, it’s impossible for farms to thrive selling boneless breasts, so simply finding a group of steady customers willing to buy whole birds is more useful than an entire kick line of offal-loving chefs.
If you usually cook chicken parts or boneless meat, dealing with a whole bird may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not. A small chicken can be prepped for the oven in just a few minutes and cooked in about forty-five. Aside from simple roasting, my everyday way of handling a whole chicken efficiently is the Chinese “no poach” method, which delivers a tender pile of perfectly cooked meat and a bowlful of broth with minimum effort.
Cooking and cleaning pigs’ heads all day gave me a powerful hunger for chicken. This is an especially aromatic roasted chicken with an all-in-one sauce and side dish.
SERVES 4
1 (3½- to 4-pound) chicken
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil
2 fennel bulbs, preferably with green fronds
8 bulbing spring onions with green tops
6 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup chicken stock, preferably homemade (or see Note)
Allow the chicken to come to room temperature, up to 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Rinse the chicken under cold running water and pat it dry. Remove the wing tips, reserving them with the neck for broth if desired (see Note). Coat the chicken with 1 tablespoon of the butter, and season it inside and out with a generous amount of salt and pepper.
Coat a large, heavy roasting pan with 1 teaspoon of the oil. Trim the fennel and spring onion bulbs, reserving the fennel fronds and green onion tops. Cut each fennel bulb and the onions in half lengthwise and then into ½-inch-wide lengthwise slices. In a medium bowl, toss the fennel, onion bulbs, and garlic with ¼ teaspoon salt and the remaining 1 teaspoon oil to coat. Arrange the vegetables in the roasting pan, put the chicken on top, and roast in the oven for 30 minutes.
In the meantime, slice the green onion tops into thin rings, and tear the fennel fronds into small sprigs to make about 3 cups total.
Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F and give the vegetables a stir so that they color evenly. Roast for another 20 to 25 minutes, until the chicken is done—the skin will be crisp and deep golden brown, the juices will have just a tinge of light pink, and an instant-read thermometer placed in the thickest part of the thigh will read 165°F.
Remove the pan from the oven. Transfer the chicken to a platter, tent it with foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes. In the meantime, if the fennel and onions are not yet golden brown, return them to the oven to roast for another few minutes on their own until they are well caramelized.
Put the roasting pan over medium-high heat and add the wine and stock, scraping the bottom of the pan and stirring the vegetables. Simmer for about 3 minutes, until the sauce has a slightly syrupy consistency. Add the fennel fronds and green onion tops. Remove the pan from the heat and add the remaining 3 tablespoons butter, swirling it in until it dissolves and thickens the sauce.
Carve the chicken into serving pieces, adding any juices that accumulate on the carving board to the sauce. With a slotted spoon, spread the vegetables on a warm serving platter. Arrange the chicken over the vegetables, and spoon the sauce on top.
Note: It’s simple to make a light chicken broth by simmering the neck and wing tips in cold water with some aromatics like a slice or two of carrot and onion, a garlic clove, and a few peppercorns for about 45 minutes, about the time the chicken is in the oven.
Rinse a 3- to 4-pound bird well and rub it all over with a generous amount of kosher salt. Place the bird and its neck in a pot that fits them comfortably. Fill the pot with cold water to cover by about an inch, and add aromatics: garlic, fresh ginger, scallions, and sherry; or dried chiles, cumin seeds, and bay leaves; or wine, fresh thyme, leeks, and black peppercorns. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then immediately reduce the heat so the water simmers. Check the seasoning of the stock; it should be as salty as a well-seasoned soup broth. Simmer for 5 minutes and then remove from the heat. Cover tightly and let sit for about 1 hour. The chicken will be perfectly cooked: the white meat still juicy and rosy at the bone, and the dark just done as well. Let the chicken cool completely in the broth. Remove the bird, leaving the liquid and aromatics behind in the pot.
With a little more time, you can make a more flavorful stock: Pick the meat from the bones, and reserving the meat, return the bones to the pot. Bring the broth to a simmer, add additional flavorings if desired, and cook for 1 hour or longer, adding water as necessary. With lots of chicken and a rich stock, you have an on-the-spot chicken soup; you can make a cold chicken salad from the pulled breast meat and a little of the broth seasoned with lemon, roasted walnut oil, and scallions; or you can stew the dark meat further in the broth with ground chiles and hominy.
Roasted Spareribs with Crushed Fennel and Red Chiles
SERVES 4 TO 6
2 racks (about 5 pounds) pork spareribs
2 tablespoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil
2 small dried red chiles, such as de Arbol
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Drizzle the ribs with the oil and rub it in evenly. In a clean spice or coffee grinder, pulse the chiles and fennel seeds until coarsely but fairly evenly ground. Season the ribs on both sides with the mixture, and with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Put the ribs on a rack in a roasting pan and roast for 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F and roast, rotating the pan halfway through cooking, for 1 to 1¼ hours, until the meat is tender and deep golden brown, and easily pulls away from the bones.
For about six weeks at the end of winter and the very beginning of spring, the cold stream that runs through a small wooded valley on Daniel Tolfree’s Millarckee Farm fills with watercress. His farm is just twenty-three acres—standing at one end of his land you could almost hear his distinctive, easy laugh from the other—but it has the environmental diversity you might see within five hundred acres. The earth is veined with soapstone and quartz and small springs; the fields where he grows his spicy greens and herbs make up only a few acres and are surrounded by meadows of grasses filled with beneficial insects and stands of first-growth hardwoods and pine forests. The soil is gorgeous and loamy, rich with thousands of years of silt from Cane Creek, which winds through the land and floods his lower fields during big storms every five or ten years.
The stream where his watercress grows is its own narrow microclimate, much cooler than the rest of the farm. Harvesting watercress, he can spend hours in the middle of the stream—usually barefoot as it warms up—as he picks each stem by hand. The watercress starts off very small and tender and grows more peppery each week until it begins to flower, tiny bright white blooms on deep green—and then it’s gone.
Watercress, an ancient vegetable, is also a worldwide plant. Daniel has customers who recognize it from childhoods lived in Laos, Bolivia, and the Himalayas. In general he won’t sell it to us at the restaurant, preferring to keep it for his loyal market regulars, to whom he enjoys selling more than to fickle chefs. He has been hard to get in touch with for the last few days and so I am up early, thinking that this is the week.
Farm-driven cooking using ingredients that taste like themselves is the goal of a great many chefs, and it makes sense: even at the most rarified restaurant, the highest compliment we give the food is that a pea foam actually tastes like a sweet pea, or that a peach dessert tastes like a real, ripe peach. But it is a bit of a myth that chefs always have the greatest access to the best ingredients: with the exception of hard-to-find exotic things, like dry-aged prime beef or fresh wasabi, a home cook who is in touch with local farmers often has greater access to better ingredients than restaurant chefs do. At home, a quart of the sweetest strawberries or just-picked peas, or a dozen eggs from chickens that spent most of their time in the woods, will start a good many meals. In a restaurant, where the volume is greater and consistency is required, ingredients purchased by the flat often can’t live up, even when they can actually be ordered in quantity.
Watercress from very pure water like the stream at Millarckee Farm is a once-a-year treat, and its juicy leaves and crunchy stems are more succulent and spicy than what you find any other time. It won’t be for sale in any restaurant tonight, but everyone who makes it to the Millarckee Farm stand before 9:00 this morning will have a few bunches.
Watercress with a Fried Egg and Black Sesame Sauce
SERVES 4
1½ teaspoons fresh lime juice
Kosher salt
1½ tablespoons expeller-pressed vegetable oil, plus more for frying the eggs
2 bunches of watercress, tough stems trimmed
4 large eggs
¼ cup Black Sesame Sauce (recipe follows), or more to taste
In a medium bowl, mix together the lime juice, a big pinch of salt, and the oil with a fork or a whisk. Add the watercress and toss gently to lightly coat. Divide the dressed watercress among four salad plates and set aside.
Heat a cast-iron or other heavy skillet that you like to use for eggs over medium-high heat. When it is hot, swirl a small amount of vegetable oil in the pan and crack in the eggs, in batches if necessary. When the edges of the eggs are a bit crispy, the whites are completely set, and the yolks are still runny, transfer an egg to each plate so that it slightly overlaps the watercress. Season the eggs with salt, and drizzle about a tablespoon of the sesame sauce over each portion.
At Lantern, we use this sauce on vegetables like meaty steamed Roma beans, and also on thinly sliced raw beef along with homemade hot sauce and a tiny pile of dressed spicy greens.
MAKES ½ CUP
¼ cup black sesame seeds
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon expeller-pressed vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sake
1 tablespoon mirin
¼ cup Dashi (recipe follows), chicken stock, or water
Toast the sesame seeds in a small sauté pan over medium heat, tossing frequently, until the seeds become fragrant and begin to pop. Transfer them to a plate and let them cool completely. Grind in 10-second increments in a spice mill or clean coffee grinder to a very fine paste, stirring the mixture, then grinding again, and repeating this process until the paste is completely smooth and glistening from the oil that has been released. This will take 3 to 5 minutes. (If the seeds are not ground into a very smooth paste, the sauce will be gray rather than deep black.) Transfer the paste to a small bowl, add the salt, and gradually whisk in the oil, sake, mirin, and dashi until smooth.
Leftover dashi freezes well and can become a fast miso soup or used instead of water to poach vegetables or cook grains.
MAKES ABOUT 2½ CUPS
5 dried black mushrooms
1 (1 × 4-inch) strip of kombu
3 tablespoons bonito flakes
Put 3 cups water and the mushrooms in a nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat to low, cover, and cook at a very gentle simmer for 10 minutes. Add the kombu and simmer very gently for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the bonito flakes. Let steep, covered, for 8 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Discard the solids and use the broth as you would stock.