COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA
Before corn transformed the Great Plains of the American Midwest and became essential to cattle, hog, and chicken farms, before it was fabricated into starch and syrup and used to make rayon, rubber tires, car fuel, explosives, shotgun shells, battery cells, aspirin, surgeon’s gloves, and embalming fluid, it was the delicious crop of late summer. Parched, dried, ground, milled, baked in ashes, and boiled in lye, corn became part of distinct regional cuisines, especially in the American South. Corn bread, pone, dodgers, cakes, spoon bread, grits, and hominy stew connected generations.
In the mid-1990s, Glenn Roberts, a highly regarded restoration consultant in Charleston, went to the grocery store in his hometown of Edisto, South Carolina, and couldn’t find corn grits as his mother, grandmother, and at least seven generations of Robertses had known it. And the jab of pain he felt somewhere between his heart and his stomach at the disappearance of traditional grits—stone-milled dent corn with a rich corn taste and a substantial, creamy feeling in the mouth—wouldn’t go away.
With enough money and commitment, research and skill, antebellum homes and buildings can be restored or rebuilt. Re-creating their menus, on the other hand, requires ingredients produced by local mills, using crops grown on small farms from seeds saved from generation to generation—a vanished way of life. But Mr. Roberts is not easily defeated. He steered his Lexus toward country back roads, surveying fields for signs of antebellum corn. He drove hundreds of miles and spent hours hunched over antique agricultural reports, plantation ledgers, cooks’ journals, antebellum cookbooks, and seed catalogs. Within two years, this Southern gentleman and erudite guardian of the past was divorced and seemed to have disappeared.
But his detective work paid off. He identified the variety of corn needed to make perfect southern grits—Carolina white seed mill, a soft, easy-to-mill dent variety that was traditionally admired for its high mineral content, floral characteristics, and, most important, its creamy texture. In 1997, he found Carolina Gourdseed White in a bootlegger’s cornfield near Dillon, South Carolina. The corn had been hand-selected by a single family since the 1600s.
Navajo farm, EDWARD CURTIS, 1906.
In addition to locating and cultivating the grain, Mr. Roberts had to figure out how the kernels were milled before industrial rollers and sifters took over the grits and cornmeal business. The best flavor in the corn, he realized, came from larger pieces with the germ intact. “The big guys call those pieces trash and throw them out, but it’s the best part of the kernel,” he says. Intrigued by a reference to corn that ripened and was milled late in the fall, he experimented with freezing the grain before milling. The result was the platonic ideal of a grit.
Having decided that his lunacy could be a business, Mr. Roberts sold his homes and cars and boats, his art and antiques. He rented a warehouse behind a car wash in Columbia, South Carolina, bought four old granite mills and forty chest freezers and began saving—and milling—the corn. He named the business Anson Mills. He likes to say that he went from making a quarter million dollars a year to losing a quarter million dollars a year.
His determination to coax corn out of hiding, mill it properly, and restore it to its rightful position on the nation’s table soon led to efforts to save other all-but-extinct grains. Massive cultural and scientific research, tests, false leads, and intimate work with the federal government’s bank of nearly five hundred thousand plant samples were needed to save Carolina Gold rice, old-fashioned buckwheat, and the varieties of wheat that make biscuits worth eating. Mr. Roberts has also provided grants to resuscitate more than a dozen types of endangered antebellum mill corn.
Properly cultivated, his heirloom corn delivers about 20 bushels an acre, as opposed to the 120 bushels a factory farmer can expect. He plants about a thousand acres a year and has contracted with certified organic farmers around the country to grow the corn for him. He spends most of his time traveling from field to field, consults with growers on his BlackBerry, fields calls about old mills all over the country that might be for sale, talks cooking with chefs such as Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter, who buy his grains, and plans dinner with his new wife, the food writer and photographer, Kay Rentschler.
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA
Spoonbread, says Kay Rentschler’s husband, Glenn Roberts, is the apogee of corn flavor. This recipe, which should be filed between “low-down corn mush” and “lofty corn soufflé,” was a Native American specialty that Charlestonians still call “Awendaw,” after the Awendaw Indians. Ms. Rentschler developed this version, which she finishes with a final glaze of heavy cream. “She was born in Vermont,” explains Mr. Roberts.
Either yellow or white grits can be used in this recipe; for best results use cold-milled grits and the highest quality cornmeal you can find. Anson Mills brand is well worth the expense.
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pan
½ cup white or yellow Carolina quick grits
2 cups spring or filtered water
1¼ teaspoons fine sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups whole milk
1 cup white or yellow cornmeal
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ cup heavy cream
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease a 9-inch cast-iron skillet, a 9-inch cake pan, or a 1½-quart casserole dish with butter.
2. Place the grits in a heavy-bottomed 2½-quart saucepan and cover with the water. Stir once. Let the grits settle for a full minute.
3. Tilt the pan and set over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the starch begins to coat the spoon, 5 to 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir frequently, until the grits are just tender and hold their shape on a spoon, about 25 minutes.
4. Beat in the butter, salt, and pepper. Whisk in one-third of the milk, and continue adding and whisking by thirds until all the milk is incorporated.
5. Cover the pot, raise the heat to medium, and bring the grits to a simmer, whisking frequently. Whisk in the cornmeal and remove the pan from the heat.
6. Ladle about 1 cup of hot grits into the beaten eggs and whisk them to warm. Pour the egg mixture back into the grits. Stir in the baking powder. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Spoon the cream over the top.
7. Place the pan in the oven and bake 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 375°F and bake until the spoonbread is nicely risen and golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes more. Remove from the oven and serve without delay.
SERVES 4 TO 6 AS A SIDE DISH
SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA
In 1974, Azeez Mustafa was a husband, the father of two children, and a highly paid steelworker in New Jersey. Then he was laid off. “That shook us up bad. Fathiyyan and I, all set up to raise our kids one minute and the next minute we didn’t have enough to pay the mortgage. We started doubting everything we’d been raised to believe, how, if you work hard, you get ahead. I swore that this wasn’t going to happen to me ever again. I had just enough savings to buy a little hunk of land back home in South Carolina. I figured that if we had land, we could always eat. We didn’t have money, so we built a teepee. We couldn’t afford to pay for chemicals and pesticides and, anyway, by then, we didn’t believe everything we read about how you needed them. We were organic before that was a word. We made a co-op with other organic growers and sold our ‘veg-edibles’ as a group. We saved money and built our first little house. That’s where we cook now. We sit down for dinner with our workers at noon every day. We have the largest organic ‘veg-edible’ farm in the state. I helped start the Sumter cooperative farms and mentor many farmers on organics. I have five grandchildren. We are very grateful that we had no choice but to live the life we have. It is a good life. So is my wife’s chard and grits.”
FOR THE GRITS
1 cup whole hominy grits (white or yellow)
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (optional)
FOR THE CHARD
2 pounds rainbow chard, rinsed well and spun dry (spinach, watercress, or very young kale can also be used)
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, sliced thin
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
4 leaves youngest chard, washed, stemmed, dried, and cut into fine ribbons
1. To make the grits: Place grits in a bowl and cover with water. Stir once and let sit. When the hulls and chaff rise to the top, skim them off with a fine tea strainer. Drain the grits in a fine-mesh strainer and rinse under cold water.
2. Put 3 cups water in a saucepan over medium heat. When it simmers, add the grits, turn the heat to very low. Cook, stirring occasionally and adding water by the tablespoon as necessary, for 45 minutes, until the grits are tender.
3. Add 1 tablespoon water, cover, remove from heat, and let sit for 5 minutes.
4. Return to the heat, and beat in the butter a little at a time. Season with the salt and black pepper. Keep warm, stirring occasionally.
5. To make the chard: While the grits are cooking, cut the chard stems into ½-inch slices and cut the leaves crosswise into ½-inch ribbons.
6. Warm 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until it begins to turn gold. Stir in half the cayenne. Add the chard stems and toss to coat well. Reduce the heat to low and continue cooking, stirring frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes.
7. When the stems begin to grow tender, raise the heat to high and add the leaves. Season with the salt and the remaining cayenne pepper. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the leaves are tender. Add the vinegar and more salt and cayenne, if desired. Toss to mix. Remove from heat.
8. To serve, spoon the grits onto a warmed platter and make a well in the center of the grits. Use tongs to remove the greens from the pan, squeezing out as much of the liquid as possible, and place them in a ring around the grits. Return the skillet to high heat, bring the juices to a boil and stir in the remaining olive oil. Spoon the juice into the center well in the grits. Sprinkle with the chard and serve immediately.
SERVES 4
LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA
Any ordinary football fan can chant “De-fense! De-fense!” But when Louisiana State University’s defensive line needs extra encouragement, the fans remind the players of two local specialties worth fighting for: “Hot Boudin! Cold Coush-coush! Come on Tigers! Push, push, push!”
Coush-coush is an old South Louisiana cornmeal recipe most often sweetened with cane syrup, honey, or molasses, doused with milk, and served as a hot cereal for breakfast, or on cold winter nights when rib-sticking comfort is in order. Brenda Martin prepares it in a cast-iron skillet that has been passed down through her family.
Coush-coush can be the right response to family crises. After her mother had heart surgery, she says, “we fixed her coush-coush for two weeks until her appetite came back.” This version is unsweetened and makes an unusual companion to savory ragout, gravy, or stew.
2½ cups white or yellow cornmeal
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1¼ teaspoons baking powder
1¾ cups milk
¾ cup vegetable oil
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and milk. Blend well.
2. Heat the oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, pour in the cornmeal mixture and cook approximately 5 minutes, letting a crust form at the edges.
3. Once the crust has set, stir, lower the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally to break up the new crust as it forms, until it resembles crumbled cornbread, about 15 minutes.
SERVES 6
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Arthur Zampaglione takes a perverse delight in serving his perfectly rendered polenta in an even layer right onto a wooden table—raw pine works best. Polenta alla spianatora—literally, polenta spread flat—is a rustic ritual that has been performed in the Tuscan hinterlands since the beginning of time. “Only foreigners and prissy people eat polenta from a dish,” says Mr. Zampaglione, the New York correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Most cooks top their polenta with big, meaty sauces. Mr. Zampaglione says that the ragù must contain at least one sweet sausage and that it must be placed in the center of the polenta “tablecloth.”
FOR THE MEAT SAUCE
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 celery stalks, minced
3 carrots, minced
1½ medium onions, minced
4 fresh bay leaves
½ pound ground veal
½ pound ground pork
4 cups stewed tomatoes, with their juice
1 cup white wine
½ pound beef stewing meat, cut into 1-inch chunks
½ pound pork, cut into 1-inch chunks
½ pound sweet Italian sausage, skin and fennel seeds removed
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound white mushrooms, cut into wafer-thin slices
¼ cup Italian parsley, minced
Parmesan cheese, grated
FOR THE POLENTA
2 teaspoons kosher salt
6 cups water
¾ cup coarse cornmeal, plus more for the table
1¼ cups fine cornmeal
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1. To make the meat sauce, melt the butter with the olive oil over high heat. Add the celery, carrots, onions, and bay leaves, and sauté over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, add ground veal and pork, and simmer for 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice and cook uncovered for 15 minutes.
2. Add the wine, the beef, pork, and sausage, and cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Adjust the seasoning. Add the mushrooms and parsley and stir, cover, and set aside while making the polenta.
3. To make the polenta, add the salt to the water in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Very slowly sift in alternating handfuls of coarse and fine cornmeal, whisking constantly.
4. Add the butter, reduce heat to low, and stir with a wooden spoon until the polenta peels cleanly off the sides of the pot, about 20 minutes.
5. Make a circle of coarse cornmeal 15 inches in diameter on a clean table or a large platter, and spread the polenta over it to a thickness of ¾ inch. Top the polenta with the sauce and serve immediately with grated Parmesan on the side.
SERVES 6
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
When she was a child, Leslie Forde’s parents came to the United States from Barbados to continue their educations. They gradually fell in love with America, but they made sure that their children spent a few months of each year in Barbados. Ms. Forde, now a marketing executive, is “a product of both cultures in every aspect of life,” and her cooking tells the tale. A serious amateur from a young age, she attended Le Cordon Bleu in London and applies classic French techniques to Bajan ingredients and flavors, layering as many herbs and peppers as she can into most dishes. Coo-coo, the Caribbean cornmeal porridge, is not usually highly seasoned, but she adds curry and both chicken broth and coconut milk to the dish. While coo-coo is traditionally served with flying fish, Ms. Forde serves hers with tilapia or cod.
½ cup light coconut milk
3 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth, or water
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon raw or brown sugar
5 okra (2 to 3 inches long), rinsed, tough stems and tails removed, sliced into thin rounds (about ½ cup)
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Hot pepper sauce
Seasoning salt
Freshly ground black pepper
5 scallions (white and light green parts only), sliced
1. In a small bowl, stir together the coconut milk, 1 cup of the broth, and the cornmeal. Make sure the cornmeal is fully integrated with the liquid.
2. In a large saucepan or stockpot, bring the remaining broth, the salt, sugar, and okra to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook at a fast simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cornmeal mixture until fully combined. Stir in the curry powder, allspice, and hot pepper sauce to taste.4. Return to the heat and simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and cleanly comes away from the pan, 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Stir in seasoning salt and pepper to taste.
6. Garnish with the scallions and serve immediately.
SERVES 4 TO 6
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
As a young woman living in Ocotlan, a small city in Jalisco, Mexico, Maria Gallardo dreamed of “a ticket out of town” to a place like Guadalajara when she met a dashing man from that big city at a county fair. She did not anticipate a ticket out of Mexico, which was the dashing young man’s dream. But in 1964, the newlyweds moved to San Francisco. Her husband was eager to live like an American, so she learned to make meatloaf and spaghetti and tuna salad. But in a strange city where Mexican ingredients were then scarce, her mouth watered for spicy chiles, long-stewed moles, soft tacos, and fresh tamales. For years she prepared his-and-her meals, but gradually she invented dishes like this casserole layered with fresh American corn, cornmeal, and a poblano sauce, which used American ingredients and an American sensibility while sating her hankering for home. The dish can be prepared with or without the cheese, and can also be made without the spicy sauce and served with sour cream and salsa on the side.
FOR THE CASSEROLE
¾ pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
8 ears corn, husked and all silk removed
1 cup milk
1½ cups cornmeal
1½ cups rice flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese (about 4 ounces)
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese (about 4 ounces)
FOR THE SAUCE
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
3 poblano peppers, seeded and chopped
½ medium white or yellow onion, diced
1 cup tomato sauce
¾ cup sour cream
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter an 8-inch-square baking pan.
2. To make the casserole mixture: With a sharp knife, cut the kernels off the cobs. In a food processor or blender and working in batches, coarsely grind the kernels with the milk.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, rice flour, sugar, and salt. Add the corn mixture and stir well. Stir in the melted butter.
4. To make the sauce: Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the peppers and onion and sauté until tender. Add tomato sauce and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes before stirring in the sour cream.
5. Pour half the casserole mixture into the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Spread the sauce over it and top with the rest of the casserole mixture. Sprinkle with the cheeses. Place the pan in a 9 x 13-inch pan. Pour boiling water into the larger pan to a depth of 1½ inches.
6. Bake for 90 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown on top.
SERVES 6 TO 8
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
Like many products of border towns, Ken Bowling grew up eating biculturally in El Paso, Texas. His efforts in the kitchen are not, therefore, spent on melding Mexican and American flavors, but on the subtle nuance that distinguishes one family’s or one region’s food from another. As a young adult he moved north to larger, more cosmopolitan towns and by the time he reached Santa Fe, the Southwest’s many layers of flavors had found their way into his kitchen. He takes ethnic cooking classes for fun, makes an annual pilgrimage to Hatch, New Mexico, to buy the green chiles and red chiles he hangs in his garage to use throughout the year. He travels back to El Paso to visit family—and stock up on Mexican oregano.
2 pounds posole (lime-slaked dried corn, aka hominy)
½ cup all-purpose flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Two 1-pound pork tenderloins, trimmed and cut into ½-inch chunks
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons finely chopped onion
6 garlic cloves, minced
10 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
1 big pinch saffron threads
¾ cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 small limes (preferably Mexican or Key limes), halved
1. Put the posole in a large Dutch oven, cover with water, cover the pot, and simmer about 3 hours, until tender. Add water as needed to keep the posole covered. Drain, rinse well, and return to the pot.
2. In a shallow dish, whisk together the flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Dredge the pork in the flour and shake off the excess. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until well browned on all sides. Transfer the pork to the pot with the posole.
3. Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and cook about 4 minutes, until soft. Stir in about 1 cup of the broth and scrape any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the onion-broth mixture to the posole and pork.
4. Add the remaining broth, the bay leaves, oregano, and saffron, bring to a simmer, and cook for 1 hour. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into warmed bowls and sprinkle with the cilantro. Serve with the limes.
SERVES 8
Harvesting corn, New Mexico.
PALM KEY, SOUTH CAROLINA
Dr. Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, the granddaughter of a former slave, was born in the Carolina lowlands, the marshy region that—from the late seventeenth century until after the emancipation—has been the cradle of Carolina Gold rice, one of the best rices in the world. The area developed its own culture—the Gullah-speaking Geechee people who created both the rice and the “The Carolina Rice Kitchen,” a rice-centric fusion of African, West Indian, and European cooking that was America’s first regional “Creole” cuisine. Like the rice and the language, the cooking has long been in diaspora, along with much of the historical detail of the Geechee people.
“People accept that Italy is pasta, but they don’t understand that America was once rice,” said Dr. Smart-Grosvenor, a commentator on National Public Radio and the author of three books, including Vibration Cooking or The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. Sitting on her porch overlooking marshlands that were once a four-hundred-acre rice plantation, she feels increasingly impelled to set the record straight by telling the story of early-American rice.
Carolina Gold rice was developed in the eighteenth century in South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. A long-grain Asian rice was brought to the New World in the late seventeenth century by slaves from rice-growing regions in West Africa, where they had learned how to prepare the swampy fields, construct canals and dikes, flood and drain the land, and plant and tend the rice that grew in the fields. The delicate grain flourished in the lowlands of the southeastern colonies, where it developed a subtly nutty, herbaceous flavor. When Thomas Jefferson was ambassador to France, he helped cross this long-grain variety with a short-grain Asian variety (probably a cousin of today’s Arborio rice) to please European tastes—and South Carolina unseated Genoa as the number one rice-exporting port in the world. Fortunes were made; Charleston was built; and untold hundreds of thousands of slaves hulled, winnowed, hand-pounded, and winnowed the grains again before screening and handpicking to exclude broken grains or “middlins.” The result was one of the best rices in the world, reserved for export and the tables of the world’s elite.
Along with the partially hulled brown rice, the broken middlins (basically grits made from rice instead of corn) were the staple of Geechee homes. Shrimp, crab, oysters, sausage and bacon, chicken, and beans were abundant, as were African vegetables such as hot peppers, okra, greens, sesame seeds, and peanuts. They went into dishes such as Frogmore stew (a boil that usually contains shrimp, sausage, and corn—but no frogs); chicken bog (spicy baked rice with chicken, sausage, and bacon); hoppin’ John; oyster roasts; Low Country barbecue; and sweet potato pie. Recipes were rarely recorded; cooking was an oral tradition.
Dr. Smart-Grosvenor knows firsthand the toll that distance and dispersion take on culture. After her family moved to Philadelphia when she was 9 years old, her schoolmates taunted her speech. She traded Gullah for perfect English and became shy about the traditional cooking she had learned from her Geechee grandmother and her father, Frank Smart.
“At one point, when I wanted to rebel, I dreamed about growing up and having my own kitchen and not allowing one grain of rice in there,” said Dr. Smart-Grosvenor. Instead, she lived in Paris and New York City (where she raised her two daughters) and traveled extensively on the trail of what she calls “Afro-Atlantic cuisine.” Last year, she settled in a small cottage in Palm Key where, she says, her life is “just the opposite of anything I imagined. My kitchen is rice, rice, rice.” And the quiet allows her to feel what she calls “the evidence of things unseen,” the way her front-porch swing moves rhythmically on breezeless days, the scent of cooking when there are no pots on the stove, the whispers that seem to hum just beneath the cicadas at night.
“I traveled and studied, traveled and studied. Always looking for the ‘Africanisms’ in dishes and then trying to chart their course from Africa to the region that spreads from Charleston to New Orleans. But all I needed to do was sit here on the porch and feel the connection. No sane person can sit on my porch and say that Africans came to America with no culture. It just got scattered, absorbed, forgotten, misunderstood, and reinvented—just like the rice that was at its culinary center. The dish that tells the story the best is probably red rice, she said. A staple of traditional Geechee kitchens, it can be as simple as rice cooked with tomatoes, or as rich as her family recipe. She calls its style “Afro-Brazilian-West-Indian-Italian-Chinese-Geechee” and serves it with boiled shrimp or crabs, chicken or beef, or fresh corn on the cob.
1 cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup strained pureed tomatoes or tomato juice
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
½ to 1 small chile pepper, minced
1 slice smoky bacon, cut fine
½ cup minced yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ cup minced smoked beef sausage
1 celery stalk, diced
1 cup finely minced mushrooms
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup Carolina Gold rice, rinsed and drained
1. Combine the broth, tomatoes, vinegar, thyme, bay leaf, and chile in a medium saucepan over low heat. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Cover, remove from heat, and let sit at least 1 hour.
2. Put the bacon in a heavy-bottomed medium pot (preferably cast iron) with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat and cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon is crisp. Drain on a paper towel–lined plate.
3. Add the onion to the bacon fat and cook, stirring constantly, until the onion begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, stir, and cook for 1 minute. Add the sausage and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until the celery begins to soften. Add the minced mushrooms, ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper and stir once. Cover, remove from heat, and let sit for 5 minutes.
4. Return the pot to medium-high heat. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains of rice well. Strain the liquid into the pot and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cover the pot and cook for 20 minutes without lifting the lid.
5. Remove the pot from the heat and, without lifting the lid, let sit for 10 minutes more. Fluff lightly with a fork, and correct seasoning, if necessary, before serving.
SERVES 4 TO 6
ROUND MOUNTAIN, TEXAS
Up in the hill country, about an hour west of Austin, Round Top, a former stagecoach stop, is little more than a wide spot on U.S. Highway 281. There is a post office, a gas station, a volunteer fire department, a branch of the National Cattleman’s bank, and a cattle auction barn, and since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina drove a small, nondenominational congregation from New Orleans’s Ninth Ward to higher ground, a truck stop that serves New Orleans cooking. It is called Real New Orleans Style Restaurant.
“I got the message to move my people,” said Willie Monnet, the group’s pastor. Two days before the levee broke, 187 members of his flock piled into twenty vehicles. It took nineteen hours to make the three-hour trip to Lone Star, Texas, where they had been offered temporary housing. “We thought we were leaving for a few days and, over time, we realized we were gone for good. We didn’t fall apart because of our faith and the generosity of the Texas people,” said Pastor Monnet, whose ministry has always focused on jobs, education, and community outreach. “We didn’t know how we could ever thank the fine people of Texas, so we did what we know, we cooked them a big community dinner. Well, they loved it so and I knew right then that we’d found our new ministry and we weren’t going home.”
Five years later, the gumbo, po’boys, jambalaya, étouffée, dirty rice, and pies have made the Real New Orleans Style Restaurant a must-stop for truckers, travelers, and the food cognoscenti. Many ask how the church got its name. Pastor Monnet assures them that it has nothing to do with barbecue but is based on a passage in the Book of Revelations that castigates those with lukewarm faith. “We are hot,” he says, “we are smoking for Jesus. We feed your body and your soul.”
1 chicken giblet, 1 chicken liver, and a couple of necks, trimmed and rinsed
½ cup minced shallots
2 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
4½ cups water
3 or 4 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
8 to 10 whole black peppercorns
Kosher salt
3½ tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 large onion, minced
2 pounds cremini mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
1 green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced small
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced small
1 celery stalk, diced small
5 garlic cloves, sliced
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1½ cups short-grain rice (preferably Anson Mills Carolina Gold or basmati)
1 bay leaf
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup thinly sliced green onions (scallions), green parts only
1. In a heavy saucepan, combine the giblets, shallots, chicken broth, 2 cups water, the parsley, peppercorns, and ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes or until the livers are just cooked through.
2. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the livers to a bowl. Simmer the giblets for 30 minutes more.
3. Transfer the giblets to the bowl with the livers to cool. Strain the stock through a fine-mesh strainer into another bowl.
4. Remove the meat from the necks, discarding the skin and bones. Chop the giblets and livers, and return them to their bowl.
5. Combine the oil and flour in a heavy skillet, preferably cast iron, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 30 minutes, until it is the color of milk chocolate. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until the roux turns a darker mahogany color, another 20 to 30 minutes.
6. Add the chopped mushrooms, bell pepper, celery, and garlic and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes.
7. Add the reserved broth and the thyme and simmer the gravy for 30 minutes, skimming off any fat or foam.
8. In a heavy saucepan combine the rice, the remaining 2 ½ cups water, the bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring a to boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 15 minutes or until it is tender and the water is absorbed.
9. Remove the pan from heat and let steep, covered, for 5 minutes more.
10. Remove the bay leaf from the rice. Stir the giblets and green onions into the gravy, adjust the seasoning, and stir into the rice.
SERVES 6
HARPERSVILLE, ALABAMA
Lonnie Holley, the visionary artist whose work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, the High Museum of Art, and the White House, was born in 1950, the seventh of twenty-seven children. He lived in a series of foster homes, spent time in the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama, and ran away to New Orleans when he was 14 years old.
Mr. Holley says: “I slept where I could and worked in restaurants, that’s where you could get jobs. I learned to cook by inhaling and sweating, listening and being hungry. Gumbo or jambalaya is the sort of thing you grab from the air. It’s a summer day and there are eggplant or tomatoes, it’s a lucky day and there is chicken or crawfish, it’s a hog-killing day and there is sausage, maybe peppers and onion, okra. When rice is in the air, that is jambalaya day. You pull a little of this and a little of that and you build, just like you do a building, a sculpture, an installation, a painting. You build layers. It’s a God-given thing, you just stay out of the way and the food moves through you and there is enough to eat, oh, there is so much to eat if you watch and reach and take what God gives you.
“Cooking showed me that I am an artist. Cooking taught me how to make art. When my sister and her children were burned up in a fire in 1970, I was sick in the soul and the heart and we did not have money to make the send-off we wanted, couldn’t afford headstones for the babies. There was a foundry near her house and I found a soft sandstone-like block, something they use in metal casting then throw out, and I carved the stones. That is why some people call me ‘The Sandman.’ That was the beginning. Nothing is trash, there is art, there is eating. If you take what you find, the art moves through you. It is not your business; you are the tube, the wind tunnel, the empty pipe, the land that the wind sweeps up. I take the things I find. Sometimes I know what they are for. Sometimes it is years before something tells me what it wants to be.
“I worked hard and had a home outside Birmingham, behind the airport. I built a world there, collected for years, had fifteen children. They wanted to expand the airport and they condemned my property. I sued, and later they had to pay me. I moved to Harpersville. The neighbors did not like my hair, my dreads. They thought the truckloads I brought were junkyard. It is clay, it is marble, it is metal, it is paint. When people are afraid of what is given, hatred and sadness are the result. God gave me art and God gave me cooking. Jambalaya is a good thing to think about when you have a lot of folks to feed because you can always add more rice if you need to. That makes the meal bigger and bigger, depending on who stops by and wants to eat.”
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined, shells reserved
4 whole chicken legs, cut apart to make drumsticks and thighs
4 tablespoons vegetable oil or bacon fat
1 quart water
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 celery ribs, sliced ¼ inch thick
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons hot sauce (preferably Tabasco)
2 cups white rice
6 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
4 andouille sausages (about 1 pound), sliced in ½-inch chunks
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Combine the paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne, oregano, and thyme in a jar. Shake it up. Put 1 tablespoon of this spice blend in a big bowl. (The remainder can be stored, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.) Add the shrimp and chicken and toss to coat each piece well. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a soup pot over high heat. Add the shrimp shells and cook, stirring constantly, until the shells are bright pink. Add the water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cook until the water is reduced to half, about 15 minutes. Strain the broth and set aside.
3. An hour before serving, warm 2 tablespoons of the oil a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Remove the chicken and shrimp from the refrigerator and brush the spice blend from the chicken with paper towels. Brown the chicken on all sides, about 5 minutes per side.
4. Add the onion, stir, and cook for 1 minute. Add the garlic, bell pepper, and celery, stirring after each addition. Cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato, bay leaves, Worcestershire, and hot sauce. Add the rice and stir. Add 2 cups of the strained shrimp broth and the chicken broth to the rice. Reduce the heat to medium-low, partially cover the pot, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes.
5. Add the shrimp and andouille. Add salt, pepper, and additional spice blend to taste. Cook, uncovered, about 5 minutes more, until the rice is tender. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.
SERVES 8
HEMPSTEAD, NEW YORK
Mireille Fabius was a prosperous Haitian woman who worked as dressmaker to the daughters of Papa Doc Duvalier. In 1964, she, her husband, and young children joined her parents who had long since immigrated to New York City. In her new country, she designed clothing for department stores and took up the cooking that back home she’d left to the family’s maids.
In Haiti, cooks are measured by their ways with rice. Djon Djon is all but a national dish, and Ms. Fabius has yet to meet anyone who has not fallen for her version. To keep the spice subtle, she uses a habanero whole (rather than chopped), coupled with pungent wild mushrooms such as porcini or candy-caps. She has also substituted salted chicken or vegetable bouillon cubes for the salt. These small changes elevate an everyday Haitian dish to a company-worthy side dish that is wonderful served with chicken or pork.
1 cup dried wild mushrooms
4½ cups boiling water
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 slices bacon, coarsely chopped
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
Kosher salt
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 whole Scotch bonnet or habanero chile
2 cups white rice
2 to 4 teaspoons unsalted butter
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
1. Place the dried mushrooms in a medium saucepan, cover with the boiling water, and place over low heat. Simmer until tender, 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Remove from heat and let sit until any grit settles to the bottom. Carefully strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer. Discard the grit. You should have about 1 quart mushroom broth (add water if you don’t). Lightly rinse the soaked mushrooms, then drain and chop.
3. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally, until some of the fat has been rendered but the bacon is not yet crisp.
4. Add the onion, garlic, and about 1 tablespoon of the chopped mushrooms. Cook stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp, about 10 minutes.
5. Add the reserved mushroom broth, 2 teaspoons salt, the thyme, and the remaining mushrooms. Float the chile on the liquid, cover, lower the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Gently stir in the rice, being careful not to puncture the chile. Cover and cook 15 to 20 minutes, until the rice is tender.
7. Remove the chile. Stir in the butter. Taste and add salt and black pepper, if desired. Cover the pot, remove from the heat, and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.
SERVES 8
STUDIO CITY, CALIFORNIA
Nancy Mehagian’s mother was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1915, the year of the Armenian genocide. Her father, who had been living in the Armenian provinces of Turkey, was the last person to escape his village after the Turks set fire to it. After they married, the couple moved to Phoenix. “We were the only [Armenians] I knew,” Ms. Mehagian says. “Now there are more Armenians in Southern California than in Armenia.”
“Growing up, we ate pilaf all the time the way Americans eat potatoes,” she says. Now pilaf has become part of the American food lexicon. This recipe, from Ms. Mehagian’s mother, uses a fair amount of butter and chicken broth. “Everyone says it’s the best they ever tasted,” she says.
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
⅔ cup broken (about 1-inch pieces) vermicelli noodles
2 cups long-grain white rice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
5 cups boiling homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the vermicelli and brown in the butter, stirring constantly. Watch carefully so the butter does not burn.
2. Add the rice and salt and stir a few minutes more.
3. Stir in the broth, cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid, and simmer over very low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed.
4. Fluff the pilaf with a spoon and let stand at least 10 minutes before serving.
SERVES 6 TO 8
Princesses, National Rice Festival, Crowley, Louisiana.
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
Abeer Abutaleb was born in Damanhour, a small city in Egypt. She and her husband immigrated to the United States after finishing their medical residencies. Once here, they completed second residencies and started a family. Dr. Abutaleb is committed to preparing special meals—such as okra in a casserole, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage, and tilapia cooked in a casserole or fried—to pass their culinary heritage on to her two daughters. She also teaches them prayers and songs, and celebrates religious occasions. She prepares this dish, which she learned from her grandmother, in a special ceramic pot she brought with her from Egypt. One could prepare the dish in a regular casserole, she says, but it would not be the same. “It wouldn’t taste as much like home to me.”
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
2 cups rice (preferably medium grain)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
2 cups whole milk, plus more as needed
1 cup heavy cream
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 2-quart casserole with the butter. Add the rice, salt, and pepper.
2. Bring the milk to a boil. Pour the milk and cream over the top of the rice.
3. Bake until all the liquid is absorbed, about 45 minutes. Add additional milk a little at a time if the casserole seems dry before the rice is tender. Serve hot.
SERVES 8
GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA
Even plain rice, the hallmark of nearly every Iranian meal, was a challenge to Shanaz Haghanifar when she immigrated to America as a young bride. She experimented with jasmine and long-grain Carolina rices, steaming them in the way that makes Persian rice notable for its fluffiness. “For us, if you haven’t eaten rice, then you didn’t eat that day,” she says. “It’s our daily food” (and a perfect companion to Ms. Haghanifar’s Persian New Year Fish recipe on page 265).
2 cups high quality basmati rice
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted
Pinch of ground saffron
1. Place the rice in a deep bowl and run cold water over it, swirling the rice with your hand. Add enough water so it covers the rice by 2 inches. Drain and rinse five or six times, until the water runs clear.
2. Add enough room-temperature water to cover the rice by 2 inches and set aside for 2 hours.
3. Bring 6 cups water and the salt to a boil in a large, preferably nonstick, pot. Drain the rice and add to the boiling water. Lower the heat to a high simmer and cook, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes or until al dente.
4. Drain the rice in a colander. Put 3 tablespoons of the melted butter and 2 tablespoons water in the bottom of the pot.
5. Sprinkle 1 large spoonful of rice over the bottom of the pot so it is evenly covered. Spoon remaining rice into the center of the pot until you have a pyramid.
6. Mix the remaining butter with ⅓ cup warm water and pour over the rice pyramid. With a spoon or spatula re-form the pyramid if necessary.
7. Place a clean dishcloth or two paper towels over the pot and cover firmly with the lid. (The cloth will trap the steam away from the rice, preventing it from getting sticky.) Place the pot over low heat and cook undisturbed for 20 minutes.
8. Remove the lid and fluff with a fork. In a small bowl, dissolve the saffron in 3 tablespoons boiling water. Remove ¼ cup of the rice from the pot and stir gently into the saffron mixture. Ladle the remaining rice into a serving dish and sprinkle the saffron rice over it.
9. The rice at the bottom of the pot should be a solid crust that can be removed by gently prying it up with a spatula or fork or by turning the pot over onto a serving plate. The crust is called tah dig, and is considered a great delicacy in Persian cooking.
SERVES 4 TO 6
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
The eldest of thirteen children, Mam Mbye spent her early years watching her mother cook. Her mother frequently served Ceebu Jen, the Senegalese national dish, for the huge family. One day when she was preparing it, a neighbor came to call and she left the pot unattended. When her mother returned to the kitchen, 7-year-old Mam was standing on a stool, finishing the dish. “My mother had to use big iron pots … and she was terrified for me to ever try lifting them or to be near the stove, so she was shocked. But when she tasted the Ceebu Jen, she started yelling, ‘My daughter can cook! My daughter can cook!’ and I’ve been cooking ever since. My father was an accountant with the railroad. My mother was a seamstress and a hairdresser and had an export business. When the strikes and bad times made it impossible for me to finish my education in Senegal, I got a grant to come to the University of Wisconsin to study English literature. No one in my family had ever done that, but my husband and I loved America and we moved to Los Angeles for the weather. I taught English and African studies at UCLA. I often cooked for events, and eventually that turned into a catering business. When my family came from Africa to visit they hated it. They said that everybody worked all the time, and what sort of life is that.” But it is Mam Mbye’s life, and with one possible exception, she would not trade it for all the red rice and fish in the world. “In Senegal, the farmers and fishermen bring the food right to your door. Here you have to go buy the food at the grocery and it is older, even frozen. I have to use a lot more spices and seasoning to give it flavor.”
FOR THE SPICE MIX
1 tablespoon dried sage
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
FOR THE BROTH
8 ounces salt cod
1 pound medium-size shrimp
½ cup canola oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 yellow onions, quartered
¼ dried red chili pepper, minced, plus more to taste
3 6-ounce cans tomato paste
16 cups water
2 fish, lobster, or shellfish bouillon cubes or 2 cups clam juice or other seafood broth
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into quarters
1 medium cabbage, cut into eighths
1 small head cauliflower, cut into large flowerettes
1 large eggplant, cut into 2-inch squares
1 yucca root, peeled and cut into 1-inch squares
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1-inch wedges
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into 1-inch wedges
1 banana squash, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 sweet potatoes, cut into 1-inch dice
8 okra, stemmed and cut in half
1 cup minced sorrel leaves
1 sweet tamarind, peeled, pulp chopped
FOR THE FISH AND STUFFING
5 pounds whole grouper, sea bass, or black cod, scaled, gutted, head and tail removed, cut into 2-inch steaks
½ to 1 cup canola oil
2 bunches flat-leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon dried spice mixture, plus more to taste
¼ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
FOR THE RICE
3 pounds fragrant long-grain rice such as jasmine rice
FOR THE SPICY SAUCE
¼ cup canola oil
1 yellow onion, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ to ½ dried red chile pepper, minced
1 can tomato paste
½ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
½ teaspoon dried spice mixture
1. To make the spice mixture, place all the dried spices in a blender, coffee or spice mill and pulse to make a find powder, remove, and set aside.
2. To make the broth, cover the cod with cold water in a pan, bring to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes, drain under cold running water to remove the salt, and set aside. Peel the shrimp, save the shells, and refrigerate the shrimp for later use. Warm half the oil in a large pot. Add the shrimp shells and sauté, stirring constantly until dark pink and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add 4 cups of cold water and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the broth, discard the shells, and return the pot to the heat.
3. Add the remaining ½ cup canola oil and when it is warm, add the garlic, onion, and chili pepper. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are nearly translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste smells toasty and the oil and tomato separate, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the reserved shrimp broth, 12 cups of water, and all the remaining ingredients except for the cod, the sorrel, and the tamarind. Stir to combine and simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.
4. While the broth is simmering, prepare the fish. Rinse in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Starting at the spine, make several deep diagonal cuts in each piece and set aside. Pick the leaves from the parsley, discard stems, and place leaves in the blender. Add the garlic, the spice mixture, and half the salt and pulse to make a paste. Stuff the paste into the diagonal slashes and lightly season the fish on each side with the remaining salt.
5. Warm ½ cup of canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the fish until the skin is crispy, about 3 minutes per side. Work in batches if necessary and add additional oil if needed to cover the bottom of the pan. Drain the fish on paper towels and set aside.
6. When vegetables are tender, use a slotted spoon to remove them from the broth and set aside. Add the cod, sorrel, and tamarind and simmer for 20 more minutes. Taste the broth and season with additional salt, black pepper, or chili pepper if desired. Ladle 4 cups of the broth over the vegetables and set aside. Return remaining broth to medium heat and make the rice.
7. Place rice in a colander under cold running water and toss until the water runs clear. Add the rice to the broth, raise the heat to medium-high and stir very well. The broth should cover the rice by one inch; if it does not, add cold water. Bring the rice to a boil, cover tightly, and reduce the heat to medium and cook, checking and stirring occasionally, until the rice is almost tender, about 20 minutes. Lay the fish on top of the rice, cover, and continue cooking for 5 minutes. Add the vegetables and remaining broth, cook for 2 minutes, leave covered, and remove from heat.
8. While the rice is cooking make the spicy sauce by warming 3 tablespoons of canola oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the minced onion, garlic and chile pepper, stir, and cook until fragrant, about two minutes. Add the tomato paste and stir until toasty and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Use a ladle to remove 3 cups of the broth that is covering the vegetables and stir into the sauce, along with ½ teaspoon of the spice blend and the shrimp and simmer for several more minutes until the shrimp are tender.
9. Use a slotted spoon to lift the fish and vegetable pieces from the rice onto a plate. Pour the rice onto another large platter, place the fish and vegetables on top of the rice. and cover with sauce. Scrap the crispy bits of rice from the bottom of the pot and either serve these on the side or crumble them on top of the Ceebu Jen before serving.
SERVES 10 TO 15
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
In 1768, more than a thousand people from different Mediterranean countries were brought to Florida as indentured servants to work on an indigo plantation south of St. Augustine. They were Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox and collectively became known as Minorcans, and their descendants have been an important part of St. Augustine and St. John’s County for more than two hundred years. This version of Minorcan pilau (or pilaf) is well loved by the staff of St. Augustine’s Lightner Museum. To make it even richer, add both smoked ham hocks and salt pork. If you prefer not to use the salt pork, use about four tablespoons of butter or margarine instead. Datil peppers can be difficult to find outside of Florida, but habaneros make an acceptable substitute. Remember to use care when handling hot peppers. If you want a less fiery stew, you can wrap the peppers in a cheesecloth pouch and remove them before serving (although some would say this is for sissies).
2 to 3 pounds bone-in pork shoulder or chops
2 smoked ham hocks (optional)
2- by 3-inch piece salt pork, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
Two 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
1 heaping tablespoon dried thyme
1 heaping tablespoon dried oregano
1 heaping tablespoon dried basil
1 heaping tablespoon dried parsley
2 bay leaves
1 pound bulk sausage (plain or Italian)
3 green bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ pound kielbasa or smoked sausage, diced
4 cups white rice
3 datil or habanero chiles, minced
1. Place the pork shoulder and ham hocks, if using, in a large heavy-bottomed pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until pork is tender and can be torn into pieces, about 2 hours. Remove the pork from the broth and, when it is cool enough to handle, tear into pieces, discarding the bones, gristle, and skin from the ham hocks. Save the broth separately.
2. In another large heavy-bottomed pot, cook the salt pork over medium-high heat until the fat has been rendered and the pork is brown. (It should look like pork rinds.) Remove and set aside.
3. Add the onions to the rendered fat and cook, stirring frequently, until they begin to soften. Stir in the garlic, tomatoes, thyme, oregano, basil, parsley, and bay leaves and mix well. Reduce the heat to medium and cook this mixture down, stirring frequently, until very thick and dark red in color.
4. Crumble in the bulk sausage. Stir in the bell peppers, salt pork pieces, 1 ¾ pounds of the shrimp, the torn pork, kielbasa, and rice.
5. Add enough pork broth to cover the rice by 1 inch. Reserve remaining broth. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook about 1 hour.
6. Stir in the chiles and more broth, if needed, to keep the rice moist. Continue cooking over low heat, stirring often. The pilau is done when the rice is tender but not mushy.
7. Steam the remaining shrimp and place on top for garnish.
SERVES 16
HUGER, SOUTH CAROLINA
Ronnie Morris has been helping to care for Kensington Plantation since he was a teenager. Before him, his parents and grandparents helped maintain the oak allee, the mansion, the historic overseer’s house, the gardens and the woods of the 670-acre estate off the Cooper River. No one could have been happier than Mr. Morris when the plantation’s current owner, Richard Stoney, a Charleston restaurateur, along with his friend Batt Humphreys, a writer, polo player, and owner of a nearby plantation, decided to plant ten acres of real Carolina Gold rice. While the public has never lost the conviction that “Carolina” means “the best,” Carolina rice has only recently been brought back from the brink of extinction. Mr. Stoney and Mr. Humphreys were among a small group who dedicated the land to “repatriating” the grain. “There is nothing close to eating real Carolina Gold rice, fresh harvested from the field,” said Mr. Morris, “My family’s been making pilau forever. You can make it with game birds, duck, shrimp, fish, you name it. Pilau is most fun to make over a fire or at least outdoors. Great for hunting-shack meals and tailgating and fishing parties, that’s where you see pilau most on these old plantations. That’s how I like it best, cooked outdoors. My father taught me. You can slow-cook any kind of rice, but nothing is going to be as earthy, as nutty and delicious as the rice that belongs in this land.”
4 slices thick-cut bacon
2 pounds chicken legs and thighs
Salt and pepper
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 red bell pepper, minced
1 yellow onion, minced
2 cups long-grain rice, preferably Carolina Gold
4 cups chicken broth or water
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup green onions, minced
1. Fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp. Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels. Keep 3 tablespoons of the bacon fat, discard the rest and return the fat to the skillet to medium heat. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Add half the butter to the bacon fat and brown the chicken on each side, about 5 minutes per side.
2. Add the celery, bell pepper, and onion and continue to cook for 5 minutes, until the vegetables become fragrant. Add the rice and stir to coat each grain. Add the chicken broth or water, then cover and reduce heat to low and cook undisturbed for 20 minutes, until liquid is absorbed.
3. Add the Worcestershire to taste and whisk in the remaining cold butter. Crumble the bacon and use it to garnish the dish, along with the green onions.
SERVES 6 TO 8
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
Lee Nakamura is co-owner with partner Larry Fujita of the Tokyo Fish Market, a Berkeley institution since 1963. He likes to serve matsutake gohan—a simple dish of matsutake mushrooms and rice—with salmon and his miso slather (page 240). These mushrooms are as highly prized in Japan as truffles are in France, and as expensive. They are somewhat less expensive in the United States, where they are found in abundance in the Pacific Northwest.
1½ cups short- or medium-grain Japanese rice
3 ounces matsutake (or any fresh wild) mushrooms
1 tablespoons shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
1 tablespoons sake
1½ teaspoons mirin
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon bonito flakes
1. Wash the rice thoroughly in cold water, changing the water until it runs clear. Drain the rice in a colander and set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile clean and slice the mushrooms.
3. Mix together the soy sauce, sake, and mirin, and add enough water to make 3 cups.
4. Transfer the rice to a heavy-bottomed pot and add the liquid, mushrooms, salt, and bonito flakes. Bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer until all the water has been absorbed, about 20 minutes.
5. Remove pan from heat and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.
SERVES 6
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Martina Rossi Kenworthy, who was born in Bologna, Italy, has lived in New York for more than twenty-seven years. Before she arrived, she really hadn’t spent any time in the kitchen, since others did the cooking in her childhood home. But “I must have absorbed so much from mothers, nannies, or grandmothers. I knew that if you can’t get exceptional ingredients, you might as well not cook.” This posed a major problem when she was hungry for risotto. The high quality, short-grained Carnaroli or Nano rice that is essential was impossible to find, even in New York City. She and her friend Beatrice Ughi got so sick of hearing each other complain about the lack of fresh, nutty-tasting Nano rice that they formed Gustiamo, an import company. “It’s easy, but not simple. We made risotto perhaps a thousand times in the kitchen at our warehouse and realized a few things. You have to make your own chicken broth, you have to use good rice (Carnaroli and Vialone Nano are the best available commercially today), and stir often, but not obsessively. Always turn off the heat before you think the rice is finished. It will keep cooking. The final risotto should be creamy and shiny and impossible to resist.”
2 ounces dried porcini mushrooms
6 cups homemade chicken broth, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cups Carnaroli rice
½ cup Cognac
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Pour 1 cup of lukewarm water over the mushrooms and soak for half an hour. Lift the mushrooms out of the soaking liquid and chop. Reserve the soaking liquid. Bring the chicken broth to a light simmer in a saucepan. Cover and keep hot.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until soft and translucent but not browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the rice and stir with a wooden spoon over high heat until toasted and opaque, about 3 minutes. Add the Cognac, stir well, and let evaporate completely.
3. Reduce the heat to medium-low and start adding a couple of ladles of hot chicken broth. Continue adding the broth one ladle at a time, waiting until the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Stir gently between each addition.
4. Add the mushrooms to the rice when it has cooked, about 10 minutes. Stir, taste, season with salt, and continue adding broth. If necessary, add the mushroom liquid. Very old rice will require more liquid, fresh rice will require less.
5. Cook until the rice is tender yet still a little al dente, 15 to 20 minutes longer after adding the mushrooms. Turn off the heat, stir in the Parmigiano, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pot and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
SERVES 4 TO 6
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Julie Shafer isn’t sure who taught her to make risotto. As soon as she was old enough to hold a spoon her grandmother, mother, or one of her aunts would stand her on a chair so she could stir the rice. “Many people view risotto as something fancy, when it’s really just a staple of Italian cooking,” she says. Using these basic instructions with seasonal ingredients, she can make a variety of risotto dishes, such as risotto Milanese, primavera, pesce, funghi, and quattro formaggi. In California, the asparagus season begins in late winter and extends through the spring, which is when she makes this version.
2 lemons
2 small bundles asparagus
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
2 to 3 quarts homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth, heated
Finely grated Parmesan cheese
1. Grate the lemon zest, juice the lemons, and strain the juice.
2. Peel the asparagus, cutting off the woody ends. Cut the spears into 1-inch lengths and steam to al dente.
3. Cook the onion in the butter and olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat until they are transparent and fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the rice and stir until grains are almost clear, 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Keeping the broth on a low boil, ladle 1 to 1½ cups into rice. Stir constantly, until liquid is just about absorbed. Continue adding broth in the same manner, until rice is creamy and almost al dente. (You may not need all the broth.)
5. Stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice, and asparagus with one last ladle of broth. Cook for 1 minute.
6. Take the pan off the heat and add finely grated Parmesan to taste. Cover with a lid or foil. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
SERVES 8
NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS
Colleen Pina-Garron’s maternal and paternal grandparents emigrated from Cape Verde in the early 1900s. Like thousands of others who left the island off the northwest coast of Africa, they came to New Bedford to work in the textile mills and lived in Bay Village, a project that more closely resembled a village in Cape Verde than it did low-income housing.
“I remember watching one grandmother walking through the projects carrying groceries on her head,” said Ms. Pina-Garron. “My grandmothers only cooked Cape Verdean, but they insisted that English be spoken at the table, pushed their children to excel in school, flew an American flag, and lived to see their progeny flourish.”
It wasn’t until she was teaching middle school in 1984 that Ms. Pina-Garron realized that lots of “nos con nos” had been lost along the way. Roughly translated, the Creole phrase means “the us within us,” and denotes Cape Verdeans’ cultural soul. Appointing herself the keeper of the Cape Verdean flame, Ms. Pina-Garron, along with her husband, Christopher Garron, began working as a disc jockey and playing Cape Verdean music at parties in New Bedford. She also began gathering recipes—first from the twenty-five thousand Cape Verdeans who live in New Bedford, then from the 350,000 others scattered across the United States.
Every Cape Verdean has their own recipe for jagacida, the traditional rice-and-bean dish that Cape Verdeans call “jag,” and serve with fish stews.
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, minced
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon sweet paprika
2 bay leaves
1 quart cold water
2 cups long-grain rice
1 cup cooked and cooled butter beans or lima beans
1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a pot with a close-fitting cover. Add the onion, season lightly with some of the salt and pepper, and stir. Add the paprika and bay leaves and cook over medium-low heat until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the cold water, stir, and bring to a boil.
3. Stir in the rice and reduce the heat to the lowest possible level. Cover the pan and cook undisturbed for 20 minutes.
4. Add the beans to the top of the rice, cover, and cook for 5 minutes more.
5. Remove from the heat. Fluff the rice, cover again, and let it settle for at least 15 minutes. Uncover and gently stir in the beans.
SERVES 4
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
On a day that seems way too hot for a slow-cooked, meaty meal, Claudette Eugene is cooking one anyway. “I cooked yesterday, I cook today, I will cook tomorrow,” she says. “I cook every day. The food never stays.”
In Haiti, a cook learns to match the heat of the day with the chiles in a meal, to deploy bitter and sweet flavors against the languor of humidity. And an intuitive cook like Ms. Eugene naturally melds the culinary patois of Haiti—a blend of African, Spanish, French, and British influences culled from tropical produce and spices like nutmeg, allspice, and annatto—in the kitchen. The kind of safety measures crucial in a tropical climate prompt the Haitian-born cook’s habit of rinsing, marinating, rubbing, cooking, and recooking. Seasoning is added at each stage, and the flavor of the dish grows incrementally more complex. “It’s the healthy way to cook,” she says.
And yet something more than health simmers in the battered aluminum pots crowding the stove in her Brooklyn brownstone: a spirit that, for all her matter-of-factness, the Haitian cook is not unmindful of. It’s odd, she muses, “when you cook, you only eat a little and feel satisfied. In a restaurant, you eat a lot and are still hungry.”
½ pound dried red beans
8 whole cloves
1 garlic clove, chopped
Leaves from 1 sprig parsley, chopped
1 scallion, green and white parts, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
One 14-ounce can coconut milk
1½ teaspoons finely chopped Spanish onion
1 teaspoon adobo seasoning (preferably Goya)
¼ green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced
2 cups long-grain rice, rinsed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Place the beans and cloves in a medium pot and cover with water by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer until very tender, about 1 hour. Drain the beans, reserving the liquid. Add enough water to the liquid to equal 1 quart.
2. Meanwhile, with a mortar and pestle, mash the garlic, parsley, and scallion into a paste to create “picalese.”
3. Heat the oil over high heat in a large kettle with a tight-fitting lid. Add the picalese and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add the beans, coconut milk, and onion and cook, covered, for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the reserved liquid and the adobo, reduce the heat to low, and cook, covered, for 25 minutes.
4. Stir in the bell pepper and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice and cook, covered, until tender, about 25 minutes more.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately.
SERVES 6
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Rita Pellegrini was born in Brazil and spent the first decade of her working life on cruise ships. She settled in Seattle with her husband, and now says that the best thing about being on solid ground is being able to cook in her own kitchen. There are fewer than a quarter-million Brazilian-born nationals living in the United States and this may explain why she “keeps company” with Brazil by cooking with the fresh fruit juices that are so popular there.
Ms. Pellegrini’s parents were, she says “macrobiotic hippy people”—wild or brown rice was a regular part of her diet. Her own wild rice salad uses fresh carrot-orange juice along with pineapple, watermelon-mint, and ginger juices.
1 quart water
¾ cup wild rice
¼ cup long-grain brown rice
1 sprig fresh thyme (optional)
Kosher salt
⅓ cup fresh orange-carrot juice, or plain orange juice
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped
¼ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup shelled pistachios, toasted
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Freshly ground black pepper
4 cups lightly packed arugula leaves, for garnish (optional)
1. In a large saucepan, combine the water, wild rice, brown rice, thyme, if using, and ½ teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook about 40 minutes, until tender. Drain the rice, transfer to a large bowl, and cool to room temperature. Discard the thyme sprig.
2. Stir the orange-carrot juice, celery, carrot, cranberries, pistachios, and oil into the rice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Divide the salad among four plates, garnish with the arugula, if using, and serve.
SERVES 4
ABEND, LOUISIANA
Early tavern owners used to set an extra place at the table in case an unexpected traveler needed a hot meal. In Louisiana, having extra food on the stove is a similar gesture. “I don’t know what it is to cook a small meal,” says Ann Green. “I always cook enough for ten or fifteen people on the weekend. Normally, at the end of the day there is nothing left if you have people dropping in.”
Born and reared in Convent, Louisiana, the seat of St. James Parish, Ms. Green learned to cook from her mother. “When I was growing up you had to learn to cook. My uncle made me a little stool to stand at the stove and cook. If you didn’t do it right, you stood there until you did.”
Ms. Green grew up in a family of seven children. Her daddy earned fifty-seven dollars a week, which bought staples such as bread, rice, beans, and a piece of meat. Red beans and rice was weekly fare, as was potato stew. “The main dish on Sunday was fried chicken with potato salad, sweet peas, and baked spaghettis,” she says. “The next Sunday we would have stewed chicken. Chicken was expensive, so that was a Sunday dish. Monday meant beans and rice. My aunt went to her grave cooking chicken on Sunday and red beans and rice on Monday.”
Some cooks season their red beans and rice with andouille sausage, salt pork, or ham hocks. Ms. Green’s family uses pickled pork.
2 pounds red beans
2 cups diced onions
2 cups sliced green onions (scallions), green and white parts
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 pound Cajun pickled pork or other spicy pickled meat
5 pig tails, each cut into 4 pieces
½ pound smoked sausage, sliced thin
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 large cooking spoon lard
Kosher salt and cayenne pepper
Granulated garlic
½ cup chopped parsley
Cooked long-grain rice, for serving
1. Wash the beans, cover with cold water, and soak overnight in the refrigerator.
2. Drain beans and rinse in cold water. Place them in a 12-quart Dutch oven, then add enough water to cover them by 1 inch.
3. Add onions, 1½ cups of green onions, the celery, bell pepper, and meats.
4. Cook over medium-high heat about 2 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching. (Add more boiling water to keep the beans covered.)
5. About an hour and a half into the cooking process, add the baking powder. The baking powder will foam. Reduce the heat to low and add the lard. (This makes the beans really creamy.)
6. Season to taste with salt, cayenne, and granulated garlic.
7. Stir in parsley and the remaining green onions. Serve over rice.
SERVES 10
BORN IN ONE OF THE POOREST SECTIONS OF NEW ORLEANS, THE JAZZ LEGEND LOUIS Armstrong ate red beans and rice every day. “It really should not be hard for you to figure out my favorite dish to eat,” he wrote a fellow New Orleans native. “We were all brought up eating the same thing and it’s red beans and rice with ham hocks.” Mr. Armstrong, who was also known as “Satchmo” (short for “satchel-mouth”) and “Pops,” was known to sign his letters “Red Beans and Ricely Yours.”
CHARLESTOWN, WEST VIRGINIA
Charlestown, West Virginia, is not a hotbed of Indian culture, says Rajni Hatti, but ever since her husband’s job brought them from Chicago to this outpost about an hour west of Washington, D.C., Ms. Hatti has been surprised by how interested her neighbors have been in learning her culture. She started teaching Indian cooking and even appeared on a local-access television show.
Ms. Hatti remembers waking up on weekend mornings to the smell of her mother cooking dosas. She learned much of what she knows in the kitchen from watching and helping her mother. “I guess a lot of it is that feeling of family, whether it was waking up to the smell of something cooking or getting together with all our family or just having a really good meal,” she says. “For me the food and the family closeness go hand in hand.”
The quintessential dish of South India, dosas are typically made by soaking, then grinding, rice and urad dal (split white lentils). To cut down on cooking and preparation time, Hatti has tweaked the recipe to use rava (farina or Cream of Wheat) and flour. Dosas are typically cooked on a tava (cast-iron griddle), but you can use a nonstick pan.
2 cups farina (preferably Cream of Wheat)
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup grated fresh coconut
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon ground cumin
4 to 8 curry leaves, finely chopped (optional)
½ cup chopped cilantro
1 medium green serrano chile, finely chopped
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
2¼ cups water
Vegetable oil
Coconut chutney or mango pickle, for serving
1. Put the farina, flour, coconut, baking soda, and salt in a blender or food processor and blend until the ingredients are fully combined, about 1 minute.
2. Pour the mixture in a large mixing bowl and stir in the red pepper flakes, cumin, curry leaves, if using, cilantro, chile, and yogurt.
3. Add the water gradually until the dough is a little thinner than the consistency of pancake batter. (You may need a little more or less water to achieve this consistency.) Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.
4. Heat a tava (cast-iron griddle) or large nonstick skillet over medium heat and lightly coat with oil. When the oil starts smoking a little (after 3 to 5 minutes), use a ladle to pour about ½ cup of batter onto the griddle and spread it into a thin layer, about a ⅛ inch thick.
5. Adjust the heat, if necessary, so that the batter sizzles while cooking but does not burn. When the underside of the dosa turns golden brown, drizzle a little oil on top and then flip it. Cook until golden brown spots appear on the bottom of the dosa. Serve immediately with coconut chutney or mango pickle.
SERVES 4
POLSON, MONTANA
Farro is emmer wheat, an ancient Mediterranean variety said to have been the staff of life of pharaohs and legions. It is pearl-shaped and cooks a little like risotto and a little like barley. Joseppi Rossi’s family moved to the United States from Israel, and farro was a staple of his home growing up. His mother makes farro salads in the summer, and Mr. Rossi, an accountant, makes this risotto-like dish in the fall, when root vegetables are beginning to show up at the farmers’ market.
1 cup farro
½ cup olive oil
8 fresh sage leaves
1 quart homemade chicken broth or rich vegetable broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken or vegetable broth
1 yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup white wine
1 celery stalk, diced small
1 carrot, peeled and diced small
1 cup cubed butternut squash, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh sage
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1. If you are using farro with the bran intact, place the grain in a heavy plastic bag, place on the work surface, and bang it with a rolling pin two or three times to loosen the bran.
2. Place the farro in a small bowl, cover with cold water, and set aside for 1 hour.
3. About 1½ hours before you plan to serve the farro, pour 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a small skillet over high heat. When hot but not smoking, add the sage leaves. Cook briefly on each side to crisp. Transfer to a paper towel–lined plate.
4. Bring the broth to a simmer in a small saucepan. Skim off and discard any chaff and hulls that may have risen to the top of the soaking farro. Drain the farro with a tea strainer, then in a colander.
5. Place a heavy-bottomed 4-quart pot over medium heat. Pour in the remaining olive oil and when it is hot, add the onion. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
6. Add the farro and stir to coat it with the oil. Stir in the wine and cook until it has all been absorbed.
7. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and slowly begin adding ladles of broth, letting the farro absorb it between additions. Stir once between additions. Continue this process for about 45 minutes.
8. Gently stir in the celery, carrot, and squash. Cook, adding broth as needed, about 30 minutes more. The farro should fluff up to more than twice its size and be very tender.
9. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chopped sage. Add the cheese and beat vigorously for a few seconds until creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste. Divide between four bowls, garnish with fried sage leaves, and serve.
SERVES 4 AS A ROBUST FIRST COURSE OR A SMALL MAIN COURSE
PARK CITY, UTAH
Dalia Levin grew up in Israel and met her American husband, Noah, while she was serving in the Israeli army. The Levins have been a member of a monthly gourmet club in Park City for years. This is the recipe that Mrs. Levin used to introduce Israeli couscous—a dense, pearl-shaped pasta that is about the size of a barley grain—to her club and it remains one of the favorites. It will not work with conventional couscous, but pearl barley or pastina can be substituted and cooked according to the instructions on their packages.
Harissa is a spicy paste, available in tubes and jars and, like Israeli couscous, is available online.
5 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup Israeli couscous
2½ cups homemade vegetable broth or low-sodium store-bought vegetable broth, or 2 vegetable bouillon cubes dissolved in 2 ½ cups water
6 ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into ½-inch dice
Grated zest from ½ orange
¼ cup oil-cured black olives, pitted and minced
½ red bell pepper, minced
½ cup coarsely chopped pistachio or pine nuts
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes or harissa
1 yellow onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium zucchini, diced to make 2 to 3 cups
1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. When hot, add the couscous and toast, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of the broth, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until tender, about 6 minutes.
2. Drain in a colander, rinse under cold running water, and drain again.
3. In a large bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the tomatoes, orange zest, olives, red bell pepper, pistachios, parsley, and basil. Season with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes or harissa to taste.
4. Pour the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil into a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring often, until wilted and almost translucent, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the zucchini and the remaining broth and cook for 2 minutes.
6. Add the couscous, stir, and cook for 2 minutes until the flavors are well combined. Adjust the seasoning with salt and black pepper. Partially cover and remove from heat.
7. Stir the tomato mixture into the couscous and serve immediately.
SERVES 4
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Gabrielle Arnold’s family came from Spain and Venezuela and she grew up in the Northeast, but she considers herself a Floridian. “Every part of me is comfortable here. Florida is an extremely diverse place and it shaped me in the most important way: It made me curious about other people and culture.” She travels to eat, and the cultures she discovers inevitably end up back in her kitchen where she responds to the ingredients she finds. “I’m all about improvisation, so there are very few things that I make twice. This recipe happens to be one of them.” Ms. Arnold, an advertising copywriter, describes it as “Thanksgiving stuffing meets the Middle East. The fresh herbs make the couscous so aromatic that you can’t help but eat it if you’re within twenty-five to fifty feet of it. It makes a wonderful meal, is terrific with sliced chicken, and holds its own at picnics, potlucks, and buffets.”
Handful of fresh sage leaves
Handful of fresh oregano leaves
10 to 12 sun-dried tomatoes or 8 oven-roasted tomatoes
2 shallots, peeled
¼ red onion, peeled
1 small garlic clove
5 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper
2 cups water
1½ cups instant couscous
¼ cup pine nuts or crumbled feta, for garnish
1. Chop up the sage and oregano. Set aside a small amount for garnish. Dice the tomatoes, shallots, onion, and garlic.
2. Pour 4 tablespoons of the olive oil into a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped sage and oregano, the tomatoes, shallots, onion, and garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is tender. Keep partially covered about half the time so all the juice doesn’t evaporate. Add 1 teaspoon salt and cracked black pepper to taste.
3. Bring the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and the couscous. Cover and remove the pot from the burner right away. Keep covered for 5 minutes. When the water is fully absorbed, fluff the couscous with a fork.
4. Toast the pine nuts: Cover the bottom of a small skillet evenly with the nuts (no oil is required). Cook over medium-low heat (no higher!) and toss them around constantly until they’re browned on all sides. Be vigilant: They burn easily.
5. Add the herb and tomato mixture to the couscous. Season with a little extra pepper and another dash of salt and/or olive oil if you like. Toss really well to remove all clumps. Top with the pine nuts or feta cheese and the fresh herbs. Toss again and serve.
SERVES 4
WHIDBEY ISLAND, WASHINGTON
Vito Zingarelli says: “My father was a carpenter, and my brothers and I always worked with him. We spent a lot of time visiting relatives in New York and New Jersey—that’s where I fell in love with theater. With all my construction experience, I ended up on the production side and eventually became a stage manager. I came to Whidbey to take a break, and it was home right away. After a year of creating dinners to introduce Seattle chefs to the farmers on Whidbey, I got lucky and was offered a position at Hedgebrook, the forest retreat for women writers. The position combines the things that I care most about: serious food and serious art. We grow our own fruits and vegetables and use them to make the meals that the residents share every night.
“A few years ago, I noticed that some of the residents had begun to talk about wheat intolerance and I started fooling around using spelt flour to make pasta. I found that the fine-ground spelt pastry flour makes a smooth, silky pasta that is virtually indistinguishable from wheat flour pasta. The key to this dish is soaking the noodles in the sauce. I call it ‘slaking,’ which is what bricklayers call it when they add just the right amount of water to cement to get a perfectly smooth, satiny texture.”
FOR THE PASTA
2¼ to 2 ½ cups fine-milled spelt pastry flour, plus more for kneading and cutting
½ teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
FOR THE PEASANT SAUCE
1 cup olive oil
4 medium onions, cut in half and sliced in ⅛-inch slices
Red pepper flakes
1 cup dry, not oil-packed, sun-dried tomatoes
Boiling water
1 cup oil-cured olives, pitted and cut into thirds
2 teaspoons dried oregano or 1 teaspoon fresh
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese, for serving
1. To make the pasta: Pour 2 cups of the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the salt. Make a well in the center and crack the eggs into it. Stir with a fork to combine. Sprinkle in additional flour, if necessary, to achieve a soft, nonsticky dough. Sprinkle more flour on a work surface, turn out the dough, and knead it until it is smooth, about 10 minutes. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. Line a baking sheet with a kitchen towel. Cut and shape the dough into six balls. Working with one ball of dough at a time and keeping the others covered, lightly flour the work surface and roll out a ball of dough to a sheet ⅛ inch thick. Using a hand-cranked pasta machine or a very sharp knife, cut the sheet into strips ½ inch to ¾ inch wide to create linguine or fettuccine noodles. Transfer the noodles to the baking sheet and cover with another clean towel. (It’s all right if the noodles are tangled; they will come apart when they cook.) Repeat with the remaining dough.
3. To make the peasant sauce: Pour the olive oil into a skillet large enough to contain the pasta and the sauce. Warm the oil over medium-low heat, then add the onions and 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or to taste). Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions have exuded their liquid but are still pale, about 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cover the sun-dried tomatoes with boiling water. Let them soak for 15 minutes, then drain and reserve the liquid.
5. When the onions are completely cooked (they should be soft and translucent, not browned), stir in the olives, tomatoes, and oregano. Cover and remove from the heat.
6. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until extremely al dente. (The noodles need to be undercooked in order to absorb the liquid of the sauce.) Reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water, then drain the noodles and carefully pour them into the sauce.
7. Return the skillet to low heat. Add the reserved tomato water and stir. Cook uncovered for 5 to 10 minutes, until the pasta is tender, has absorbed as much sauce as possible, and is “slaked.” Add some of the pasta water, if necessary, to keep a saucy consistency.
8. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Serve immediately, with grated Romano cheese on the side.
MAKES ABOUT 1 POUND NOODLES, SERVES 4 TO 6
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Ms. Kelly-Landes added a hint of Texas smokiness to create a toothsome pasta sauce that is delicious on her gnocchi (see recipe page 662) as well as in lasagna or with dried pasta. This recipe makes enough for one pound of pasta.
One 28-ounce can whole peeled plum tomatoes, with juice
5 tablespoons (⅝ stick) unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved
1 small red bell pepper
Kosher salt
1. Chop the tomatoes and combine with their juices, the butter, and onion halves in a medium saucepan.
2. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, at a very slow but steady simmer, about 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, put the pepper on a cooking fork and hold over the stove burner, turning frequently, until it’s black and blistered.
4. Put the pepper in a plastic container, cover tightly, and let sit about 10 minutes. Remove the pepper and gently pull off the skin. Don’t use any water; just rub the pepper in a clean kitchen towel.
5. Core the pepper and remove the seeds and stem. Chop the pepper and add it to the sauce. Stir occasionally, breaking up any large pieces of tomato. Taste and add salt as needed.
6. Remove from the heat, discard an onion half, and puree the sauce in a blender. Return to the saucepan to reheat. If it’s slightly watery, cook for a few minutes to thicken.
MAKES ABOUT 3 CUPS
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA
“I started cooking from Marcella Hazan’s cookbooks with my mother when I was ten years old, and pasta may be the first thing I ever fell in love with. I fell in love with painting not that long after,” said Ali Rea-Baum, an art historian. The 27-year-old self-taught cook says that her two loves are deeply connected—“You can’t know art history without knowing Italy, and you can’t spend much time in Italy without being exposed to some incredible pasta”—and the improvisational nature of making pasta for dinner is, to her, akin to making a little bit of art. This particular sauce is wonderful on a cool night, and shiitake mushrooms can be substituted for their wild cousins.
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium yellow onions, minced to equal 3 cups
¼ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup highest quality balsamic vinegar
2 cups white mushrooms, sliced
2 cups wild mushrooms such as porcini, hen of the woods, or candy cap, fresh or dried, sliced thin
2 cups high quality Barolo wine
2 teaspoons minced flat-leaf parsley
1 pound linguine
1. Warm the olive oil and half the butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onions. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, stir, and continue cooking until the onions are lightly caramelized, about 10 minutes more. Add the balsamic vinegar, turn heat to high, and cook, stirring constantly, until the vinegar is evaporated. Reduce heat to medium and add the mushrooms. Season lightly with salt and pepper and stir. Cook for 5 minutes.
2. Add the red wine, partially cover, and continue cooking until the mushrooms are tender, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in well-salted boiling water until tender and drain. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if desired. Stirring vigorously, add the reminaing butter. Add the drained pasta, toss, and serve, with grated Parmesan on the side, if desired.
SERVES 4 AS A MAIN COURSE, 6 AS A FIRST COURSE
DURANGO, COLORADO
“My father worked the rodeo, my mother was rodeo queen and later she cooked for the crew. We lived on the road until I was twelve,” says Bessie Oakley Klose, a silversmith and mother of three who is “a decent barrel racer” and a darned fine cook. “My father said we were related to Annie Oakley, but he said a lot of things and they weren’t all true. I didn’t care. I loved listening to his stories. I have this memory of sitting around a campfire, eating macaroni and meat sauce, not meatballs, not ground beef, really rich meat sauce. My mother said she used to make sauce from short ribs and I more or less put this recipe together in their memory after they died, though believe me they never heard of Pinot Noir. I like to use long fusilli, it sucks up the sauce real good. This works great in a Dutch oven over a fire or buried in the ground, too. It’s just right for that sort of cooking.”
1 to 2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons canola oil
4 pounds short ribs, each cut across the bone into 2 inch segments
4 small carrots, cut into ¼-inch dice
2 celery stalks, strings removed, cut into ¼-inch dice
1 medium onion, cut into ¼-inch dice
2 medium shallots, minced
1 bottle pinot noir or cabernet
1 dried bay leaf
2 juniper berries
1 sprig fresh rosemary
5 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup high-quality canned tomatoes
6 garlic cloves
4 cups veal or beef stock, homemade or low-sodium canned
1. Preheat the oven to 250°F. Place a medium flameproof casserole over medium-low heat. Season the flour with salt and pepper. Add the oil and when it is very hot, drag the meat through the flour to dust on all sides, shake off excess, and, working in batches, brown slowly on all sides 5 to 6 minutes per side. Remove and set aside. Add half of the carrots, celery, onion, and shallots to the casserole, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft and golden, about 3 minutes. Add the red wine, bay leaf, juniper berries, rosemary, thyme, and parsley, scrape the bottom of the pan to incorporate all the bits of meat and flour, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the wine has reduced to about 1 cup, about 20 minutes.
2. Add the tomato paste and tomatoes, stir, and simmer for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and the meat stock and simmer for 30 minutes until reduced by half. Strain, discard the aromatics, and wipe out the casserole. Return the strained liquid to the casserole and return to low heat. Add the remaining half of all the vegetables and the meat. Stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning lightly with salt and black pepper. Cover and place in the oven for 4 to 5 hours, until the meat is falling from the bones and the sauce is bubbling. Remove from the oven, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste, and set aside.
3. Boil 1 pound of pasta, preferably wide noodles such as pappardelle, in well-salted water. Drain and toss with the sauce. Serve immediately.
SERVES 4
FRANKLIN LAKES, NEW JERSEY
“I was the oldest of eleven children from a big Italian family, and the first thing I cooked was pasta. I was about nine, my mother was pregnant and not feeling well, and I told her I’d make dinner. So I ran back and forth from the kitchen to the bedroom and made pasta fagioli,” said Angela “Cookie” Rooney, a real estate agent. “With a family that size, the secret is ‘stretching.’ I learned a lot about how to stretch things from my mother, adding green beans and potatoes to pesto is a good example. I’ve added tuna, chicken, tomatoes. But my secret ingredient is lemon zest. It brightens everything.”
4 medium red-skinned potatoes, cut into 1-inch dice
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for potatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped
1½ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
3 cups fresh basil leaves
¼ cup pine nuts
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup freshly grated pecorino cheese
Grated zest of ½ lemon
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste
1 pound dried fettuccine
2 cups green beans
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Place the potatoes in a bowl. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil, season lightly with salt and pepper, and set aside for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, place the garlic, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 cup basil in a food processor and pulse until chopped. Add the remaining basil and process until chopped. Add the pine nuts, cheeses, and ¼ cup olive oil and process until the mixture forms a smooth paste. Remove to a bowl, fold in the lemon zest and juice, adjust seasoning with additional salt and black pepper if desired, and set aside.
2. Place the potatoes in an even layer on a baking sheet and bake, turning several times, until golden and tender, 7 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool while the pasta cooks.
3. Cook the pasta in a large pot of well-salted boiling water, according to the directions on the package. Steam the green beans until tender and set aside. When the pasta is tender, drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water and transfer to a large bowl. Add the pesto sauce and toss, adding pasta cooking water as needed to get a smooth sauce. Add the potatoes and green beans, season with additional salt and black pepper to taste, and serve.
SERVES 4
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VERMONT
“My grandfather moved from Sicily to New Jersey,” says Nick Gagliotti, a cabinetmaker. “My father moved us all to Vermont the spring I turned three years old. The first thing my grandfather did was strap a basket on his back, take me by the hand, and walk me into the woods. We came back with about a bushel of wild garlic (ramps) and then he walked up and down our road digging up people’s dandelions. My grandfather, who was quite the character, said it was his public service. My best memories are of being in the woods with him, gathering things to cook. It usually took about an hour to fill up his basket. The rest of the time we spent smoking and playing cards and drinking wine from this little pouch he carried. I use regular garlic if there isn’t any wild around and watercress or arugula if the dandelions aren’t tender and right. It’s all good.”
1 pound bucatini
¼ cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, smashed
½ teaspoon minced fresh chile or ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pound small, tender dandelion leaves, well rinsed and cut into ½ inch ribbons
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup freshly grated ricotta salata or other tangy fresh cheese
1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir well, and boil until tender, about 7 minutes or according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, warm the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until almost gold, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat. When the pasta is almost done, return to high heat add the chile and dandelions. Stir-fry to barely wilt the leaves.
3. Drain the pasta and toss with the dandelion mixture. Season lightly with salt and pepper, if desired. Add the cheese, toss quickly, and serve immediately.
SERVES 6 AS AN APPETIZER, 4 AS A MAIN COURSE
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
Didi Rea, a talent manager in Hollywood, heard a client describing a dish similar to this nearly a decade ago. “I was recently divorced, had just discovered that my inheritance had evaporated under the hand of a money manager, and I was broke,” said Ms. Rea, who grew up on Park Avenue in New York City. “This was the moment when Didi Debutante, Downwardly Mobile was born. I hadn’t worked a paying job in years, I honestly didn’t know how I was going to keep meals on the table and tuitions paid. I overheard someone describing this dish and thought it sounded yummy and knew it was cheaper than Spago. I tried it a few times and knew when I’d gotten the balance right because my girls, who are normal eaters, inhaled it. Zucchini pasta was a building block in the life we’ve built together. Chocolate cake helps, too.”
1 pound pasta (preferably farfalle or radiatorre)
4 tablespoons high quality olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 to 2½ pounds fresh zucchini, sliced into ¼-inch disks
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta and stir. While the pasta is cooking, place a large skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil. Sauté the garlic, stirring frequently, until it is translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook until it is soft and browned, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
2. When the pasta is tender, drain it, reserving a cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta with the zucchini, along with the Parmesan cheese and enough of the reserved pasta liquid to create a creamy consistency. Serve, with additional cheese on the side.
SERVES 4 TO 6
PARMA, OHIO
Barbara Urban’s great-grandfather moved from Sicily to Toledo, Ohio, in the 1920s when the Italian community there was burgeoning. This was thanks, in part, to its butchering industry and the National School of Meat Cutting, as well as its proximity to the “Hooch Highway” that ran south from the Canadian border during Prohibition and brought gangsters like Al Capone to town. “Like everyone who came, his wife brought seeds from her family’s tomatoes. She told me that the first thing you have to do to make a great red sauce is plant the tomatoes. This was one of her recipes. We make it a lot in the fall when we are canning and drying tomatoes.”
1 pound linguine
¼ cup olive oil
3 shallots, sliced very thin
2 garlic cloves, sliced very thin
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 plum tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup tomato paste
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon minced fresh parsley
1½ cups cooked and cooled fresh peas or thawed frozen
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the linguine, stir, and cook until tender, 8 to 10 minutes, or according to package directions. When done, drain the pasta, reserving about 1 cup of the cooking water.
2. While the pasta is cooking, place a large skillet over medium heat. Pour in the olive oil and when it is warm, add the shallots and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables begin to soften and become fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add the carrots, tomato, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste and cook until tender, 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Stir the tomato paste and ½ cup of the pasta water into the vegetables. Add the oregano, parsley, and pasta and stir. Add the peas and cheese and stir. Add more pasta water if necessary to coat the pasta nicely. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste, and serve immediately.
SERVES 4 TO 6
OCCIDENTAL, CALIFORNIA
In 1997, retired college professor and author of Garlic Is Life (a memoir!) Chester Aaron had eighty varieties of garlic growing on his four-acre plot in Occidental, California. He credited garlic for his vitality and recites the names of his most beloved varieties—Red Toch, French Messadrone, Spanish Roja—as other artists might summon the muse. It is a passion that he inherited from his father, a Russian immigrant and Pennsylvania farmer who ate raw garlic like potato chips. Mr. Aaron continues to appraise the appearance, aroma, and taste of his bulbs with the dispassion of a sommelier. Some, he says, explode in the front of the mouth, others come alive later in the back. Some, like Xian garlic from China, are rich and mildly hot, while others, like Spanish Roja and Creole Red, are quite hot and tend to linger.
1 pound linguine
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves (preferable Spanish Roja or other hardneck garlic), minced
1 cup whole salted cashews
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6 fresh basil leaves, shredded
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving
1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil, add the linguine, and cook until tender, about 7 minutes or according to package directions.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and toss for 2 minutes, until lightly gold but not browned. Add the nuts and season with the salt and pepper.
3. Drain the pasta. Toss with the nut sauce. Add the basil and parsley and toss again. Adjust seasoning and serve with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.
SERVES 6
HEALDSBURG, CALIFORNIA
The youngest of five boys, chef Thomas Keller was raised by a single mother, Elizabeth Marie “Betty” Keller, who managed restaurants in West Palm Beach, Florida. This spaghetti allowed her to feed her brood inexpensively and in a hurry. When Thomas was 16 and washing dishes at the Palm Beach Yacht Club, the club’s chef quit and Thomas’s mother told her son, “You are the chef.” For nearly four decades, he’s done his best to live up to her pronouncement and is the only chef in the United States to have two restaurants—The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and Per Se in New York City—that have earned the top Michelin star rating.
In this dish, that meant substituting fresh ricotta for the cottage cheese his mother used, creating a silky reduction sauce with butter, and including one ingredient—the tender shoots of sprouted cilantro—that was not in the 1960s culinary vocabulary and is still not common parlance.
4 large shallots, peeled
½ cup all-purpose flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2¼ cups canola oil
2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Stems from 4 sprigs parsley, rinsed and cut into ½-inch pieces
1 pound dried spaghetti
1⅓ cups ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup finely minced flat-leaf parsley
30 cilantro shoots (young sprouts picked before leafing, optional)
1. Cut 2 of the shallots into ⅛-inch rings and set aside. Mince the remaining shallots and set aside. Put the flour into a pie plate. Season very lightly with salt and black pepper. Heat 2 cups of the canola oil in a small pot over medium heat until it registers 325°F on a deep-fry thermometer. Working in batches, toss the shallot rings in the flour to coat and shake off any excess. Fry in the oil, stirring gently, until golden brown, about 1½ minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the fried shallots to paper towels to drain. Pat the rings slightly and set aside.
2. Heat the remaining ¼ cup canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Reduce the heat, add the chopped shallots, and cook, stirring frequently until they begin to caramelize, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the butter, vinegar, and 2 cups of water and simmer until the mixture is reduced by one-third, 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Place the parsley stems in a fine-mesh strainer, dunk into boiling water for 10 seconds, then cool completely under cold water. Add the spaghetti to boiling water and cook until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes, or according to package directions. Drain the spaghetti and add to the skillet with the shallot reduction. Add the cooked parsley stems, the ricotta, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine. Divide the spaghetti among four warm bowls. Garnish with minced parsley, cilantro shoots, if using, and fried shallot rings. Serve immediately.
SERVES 4 AS A MAIN COURSE, 6 AS AN APPETIZER
DUNDEE, OREGON
In 1916, Jack Czarnecki’s grandparents opened Joe’s, a Polish workingman’s bar in Reading, Pennsylvania. His parents put tablecloths on the tables and expanded the menu and Jack Czarnecki was named one of the top chefs in the country by the James Beard Society. Each generation foraged for mushrooms: morels and chanterelles, puffballs, hedgehogs, lobster mushrooms, candy caps, and porcini. But Mr. Czarnecki is obsessed with fungi: he got a degree in biology from the University of California at Davis, wrote three books, including Joe’s Book of Mushroom Cookery, and moved to Oregon, where the foraging season is nearly year-round. And there are native black and white Oregon truffles. He established the Joel Palmer House in Oregon’s wine country and dedicated himself to rehabilitating the public impression of Oregon truffles—“they’ve been maligned and misunderstood, mostly because they are picked and shipped before they are ripe,” he says—and truffle oil. Until Mr. Czarnecki, no one in the United States had managed to infuse a light olive oil with a truffle in full bloom. Dishes such as this angel hair pasta in creamy mushroom sauce reach an entirely new level when finished with a drop or two of the extraordinary oil.
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons fresh mascarpone or cream cheese
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups clean wild mushrooms such as chanterelles, morels, candy caps, lobster mushrooms, or porcini, or white mushrooms, cleaned and sliced, if necessary
Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cognac
¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese, plus up to 1 cup more for serving
1 pound angel hair pasta
8 ounces fresh lump dungeness crab, picked over
Oregon White Truffle Oil
1 fresh white Oregon truffle (optional)
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, combine the shallot and white wine in a sauce pan over medium heat and cook until the liquid is reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the milk and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Whisk in the mascarpone, remove from heat, and beat until smooth.
2. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. When the butter is hot, add the mushrooms, season lightly with salt and black pepper, and cook, stirring constantly, until the mushrooms are tender. The time will vary depending on which varieties are used. Remove from the heat, add the cognac, stir, and add ¼ cup of the Parmesan cheese.
3. When the water boils, add the pasta and return the cheese sauce to medium-low heat. When it is warm, stir in the sautéed mushrooms. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add the crabmeat, stir gently, and continue cooking until just warm, about 2 minutes.
4. Drain the pasta, toss immediately with the sauce, add the white truffle oil and top with a shaved white truffle, if available. Serve immediately with additional Parmesan cheese on the side.
SERVES 6 AS A FIRST COURSE, 4 AS A MAIN COURSE
HARBORSIDE, MAINE
Barbara Damrosch is a dark-eyed earth mother whose shingled farmhouse is flanked by extraordinary flower gardens. A landscape designer and the author of The Garden Primer, she and her husband, Eliot Coleman, a sustainable-farming expert, grow most of what they eat on their Four Season Farm and sell market vegetables and cut flowers and see themselves as revolutionary. He says: “What I do every day is the most radical thing possible. I address the cause of our troubled food system, not the symptom. The aspirin company wants you to treat your headache by taking aspirin; they don’t want you to figure out that your hat is too tight. I show people how they can grow their lives and live beautifully without buying anything.” They have movable, unheated greenhouses, and make creative use of cold weather vegetables. Ms. Damrosch says: “The key is cooking seasonally. But cooking with the seasons is like gardening, over time your relationship with nature becomes more collaborative. You learn to live in the moment, cook in the moment.”
6 leeks, white and light green parts only
4 long carrots, peeled
1 large parsnip, peeled
4 cups shredded kale (rinsed, ribs removed, leaves cut into long, thin strips)
½ cup olive oil, plus more if desired
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound linguine
Freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese, for serving
1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, cut the leeks lengthwise into very thin strips. Soak in cold water, then drain in a colander, and rinse until all the grit is removed.
3. To cut the carrots and parsnip, hold the vegetable by the root end, and using a vegetable peeler, cut long thin strips, rotating the vegetable to remove the strips in an even pattern all the way around.
4. Pat the leeks dry and combine with the carrots, parsnip, and kale in a large Dutch oven or skillet. Add the oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and toss to mix. Cut a circle of parchment paper to cover the vegetables, and place the pan over low heat. Cook until the vegetables are tender, 10 to 12 minutes.
5. While the vegetables are cooking, boil the linguine until tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain, reserving some of the cooking water.
6. Toss the pasta with the vegetables over low heat, adding pasta water if necessary to coat the noodles well. Taste and add more salt and pepper if desired. Serve immediately with grated Romano cheese on the side.
SERVES 6 AS A FIRST COURSE, 4 AS A MAIN COURSE
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Jesse Kelly-Landes grew up in Georgetown, Texas. The daughter of an emergency room physician and a nurse and the granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants, she and her sister were outsiders. “My mother was Catholic, but my father was Jewish and in Georgetown that means you are different.” They spent a lot of time at home, cooking with their mother. Ms. Kelly-Landes created these gnocchi with what she had on hand. They contain no potato, but are wonderful and light and a perfect counterpart to her roasted red pepper–tomato sauce, which was inspired by Marcella Hazan.
4 ounces chèvre, crumbled
6 ounces Bucheron, crumbled
¼ cup grated Gruyère
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Slightly heaping ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
Flame-charred Red Pepper–Tomato Sauce (page 651)
1. Combine the cheeses, egg, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper and mix well. Add the flour and mix with a fork just to combine. It should be a rather sticky dough.
2. Scoop small balls of dough with a spoon or melon baller and roll with your hands to form a tiny egg shape, about 1 inch long and ½ inch thick. Set aside in one layer on a parchment paper—lined baking sheet and cover with a clean kitchen towel.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once you have a rolling boil, drop in the gnocchi. After they float to the top, cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, until tender.
4. Drain the gnocchi in a colander. Serve immediately with Roasted Red Pepper–Tomato Sauce.
SERVES 4 AS A FIRST COURSE
City Market, Austin, Texas, 1939.
MONTEVIDEO, MINNESOTA
In 1972, Audrey Arner and Richard Handeen, liberal arts graduates and refugees of the 1960s, went back to the land—the 240-acre piece of the Minnesota prairie that Mr. Handeen’s great-grandparents homesteaded in 1872. Today, they raise grass-grazed cattle and lead a community of environmentalist farmers. In a life that’s ruled by the seasons, winter is about making art, making music, and making pasta. Every year after Thanksgiving, four generations gather around the old pasta machine. Their favorite ravioli fillings use the ingredients they can find in their late-autumn garden: butternut squash and the last hardy arugula of the season. A double or triple batch is enough to freeze and serve for a big group of family and friends on Christmas Eve.
FOR THE PASTA DOUGH
4 large eggs
⅔ cup water
3½ cups semolina flour, plus more as needed (preferably Bob’s Red Mill)
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
Melted butter, for brushing pasta
FOR THE FILLING
1½ cups cooked and pureed butternut squash
2 tablespoons melted butter
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. To make the dough: Place the eggs and water in a 4-quart mixing bowl. Add the semolina flour and sea salt and stir until incorporated. Continue adding semolina, 2 tablespoons at a time, until you have a firm but pliable dough. Lightly flour a work surface. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, then place in a plastic bag or wrap in plastic and let rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. While the dough is resting, prepare the filling.
2. To make the butternut squash filling: Combine the squash, melted butter, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste in a medium bowl.
3. Divide dough into 24 pieces. Working with two pieces at a time and keeping the others covered, flatten each into a rectangle. Using a pasta machine, roll one piece of dough into a very thin sheet. Lay the sheet flat on a lightly floured work surface. Drop one of the fillings on the sheet by scant teaspoonfuls in two rows, spacing the mounds 1½ inches apart, for a total of 12 mounds per sheet. Brush the edges and between the mounds of filling lightly with melted butter. Roll out the second piece and cover with the second sheet, pressing down around the filling to seal. Using a pastry wheel or a knife, cut the pasta between filling, trimming the sides to form 1½- to 2-inch ravioli. Transfer the ravioli to a floured baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
4. Let the ravioli dry for at least 30 minutes. To freeze, let dry overnight before freezing on baking sheets. Once frozen, they can be transferred to a heavy plastic bag and kept in the freezer for up to 6 weeks.
5. To cook the ravioli, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Working in batches of about 30 ravioli at a time, cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Lift out with a slotted spoon, drain, and serve with melted butter or the sauce of your choice.
MAKES ABOUT 144 RAVIOLI
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
“This is the most traditional lasagna recipe in the family. It must have come from Italy or maybe from God,” says Phyllis Fresina, the matriarch of the pasta-making clan. “Somebody before me added the cottage cheese; that’s America, not Italy. I made this dish a lot when my husband and I were young, but as time when on, people didn’t want such a rich lasagna and I began adding more spinach and less meat. This is a great dish for a crowd. You can make it a day ahead and put it out with bread and a salad and never think about cooking after the company arrives.”
Kosher salt
1 pound lasagna noodles
¼ cup olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups onions, diced
8 to 12 garlic cloves, minced, to measure ¼ cup
2 cups cooked spinach, drained (or frozen spinach, thawed, drained, and patted dry)
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoons minced fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried
Two 6-ounce cans tomato paste
Two 14-ounce cans high-quality tomato sauce
1 cup sliced white mushrooms
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to boil over high heat, add the lasagna noodles carefully, so as not to break, stir gently, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the noodles and cool completely under cold water. Toss the noodles with some of the olive oil to prevent them from sticking and set aside.
2. Place a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and brown the ground meat, stirring to break the meat up well, about 10 minutes. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Remove the meat and set aside, discarding the excess fat. Return the pot to medium heat. Add the olive oil and, when it is warm, add the onions and garlic, cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Stir in the spinach. Add the oregano, parsley, and basil, season with salt and pepper, toss to combine, and remove from the pot and set aside.
3. Reduce the heat to low and add the tomato paste to the pot. Cook, stirring constantly to dry and lightly brown the paste; this intensifies the flavor and brings out a toasty sweet note, but be very careful not to burn it. Add the tomato sauce to the paste and stir to combine. Stir in the onion and garlic mixture. Simmer for several minutes, add the mushrooms, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the meat and stir well. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and beat in the cottage cheese and then the ricotta to make a creamy tomato sauce.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. To assemble the lasagna, ladle a layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Add a layer of noodles, then top with sauce and the shredded mozzarella. Repeat three times, leaving about ½ inch of space between the top of the lasagna and the edge of the pan to avoid overflow. Top with sauce and grated mozzarella and bake, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until bubbly.
SERVES 6 TO 8
Steamer loading grain from floating elevator, New Orleans.
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
Linda Crutchfield Fresina likes to say that she is “a hundred percent Italian by marriage,” a claim that no one who has eaten her cooking would dispute. She learned how to cook from her mother-in-law, and when it became clear that she was more than qualified to carry the family cooking torch, she began to adapt recipes to a world that wants more vegetables than beef. This lasagna is like a late summer garden in a pan and is wonderful made the day before serving.
2 eggplants, cut into bite-size cubes to measure 16 cups
2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more as necessary
10 zucchini, cut into bite-size cubes
2 yellow onions, diced
2 red bell peppers, pith and seeds removed, cut into bite-size pieces
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili pepper sauce, plus more to taste
1 pound lasagna noodle, or “Elene Piccolla” noodles
1 pound ricotta, or more to taste
1 large egg
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon minced garlic
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups fresh artichoke hearts or oil-marinated artichoke hearts
6 cups Flame-charred Red Pepper–Tomato Sauce (page 651)
1 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted and chopped
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 pounds fresh mozzarella, sliced thinly
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the eggplant in a colander in the sink, sprinkle with salt, and allow to drain for 30 minutes. Rinse the eggplant under cold water and pat dry. Place the eggplant, zucchini, onions, and bell peppers in a large bowl, add the olive oil, and toss. Season lightly but thoroughly with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne to taste and set aside for half an hour.
2. Spread the vegetables in a single layer on baking sheets and bake, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and place all the vegetables in a large bowl to cool. Leave the oven on. While the vegetables are cooling, bring a large pot of well-salted water to boil and cook noodles according to the directions on the package, drain, and cool completely under cold water and set aside.
Street vendor for Italian feast, 1908.
3. Combine the ricotta, egg, cream, garlic, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl, beat until smooth, and set aside. If using fresh artichoke hearts, clean them, slice thinly, and steam until tender. Cool and set aside. If using oil-marinated artichoke hearts, drain them well and pat dry. Place all the lasagna components in a row.
4. In the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch casserole, spread a thin layer of the sauce. Lay the first layer of noodles in the pan, overlapping them slightly to create a solid base. Spread one-third of the vegetable mixture over the noodles, add a thin layer of artichoke hearts, sprinkle with olives and ladle one-quarter of the remaining sauce evenly over the vegetables. Sprinkle with one-third of the Parmesan cheese and then a third of the mozzarella to create a thin layer. Add another layer of noodles and top with another third of the vegetables; smooth the ricotta mixture over the vegetables. Create another layer of noodles, cover with the remaining vegetables, add the remaining artichoke hearts and olives, spread some sauce over the vegetables, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and top with a layer of mozzarella.
5. Add the final layer of noodles, then the remaining sauce, and top with the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. Cover with foil and bake at 350°F for 40 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling. Allow to cool for 15 minutes to make the lasagna easier to slice, and serve.
SERVES 8
In the eighteenth century, after the unification of Italy, poverty drove thousands of men to the United States to work. Frank Fresina’s ancestors, who worked in the citrus trade in Palermo, Sicily, were among those who came to work the citrus harvest in the South. “Initially, they filled the labor shortage on the plantations after the Emancipation,” said Frank Fresina. “They felt at home with the subtropical climate, the Catholicism, and the rapacious appetite for fine food in south Louisiana and they stayed and started businesses. My great-grandfather opened the family pasta factory and shop in New Orleans. When we moved to Baton Rouge in the early 1960s, we moved all the antique machinery so that our pasta would never change. There are a lot of Cajun and Creole Italo-Americans. We can’t make pasta fast enough.”
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
Mu Jing Lau has been chef-owner of Mu Du Noodles, a small Santa Fe restaurant, for more than twelve years. She serves fresh food made with largely organic ingredients and, when she can, from sources at the local farmers’ market. She was born in Canton, China, and immigrated to the United States with her parents at age 8, but cooking and serving Asian food was the last thing she thought she would be doing. “My mother was a terrible cook, so I never learned to like Chinese food.”
Ms. Lau credits her move to Santa Fe—after careers as a woodworker and computer engineer—with her change of both heart and profession. “I became more Chinese when I moved here.” Still, the first time someone suggested she open a noodle house, she snubbed the proposal. “I told them that I didn’t eat noodles, and I certainly didn’t cook noodles,” she laughs. “But you never know where life will lead you. I never would have chosen this life, but I’m very grateful for it—even if I’ve had to eat my words.”
Ms. Lau discovered this dish during a visit to Malaysia, then modified it to suit her own sense of place and taste. She cuts fresh noodle sheets to size, but dried rice noodles will work, too. She does not dry her marinated meat before searing it, but restaurant woks get much hotter than stovetop models, so you may have to experiment to get a good sear.
The red sauce is very hot, so use less if your tongue is tender, more if you are a fire-eater.
½ cup light soy sauce, or enough to cover the meat
One 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, then minced or grated
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound beef tenderloin or flank steak, cut against the grain into ¼-inch slices
½ pound fresh or dried wide rice noodles
Vegetable or peanut oil, for cooking
1 bunch green onions (scallions), trimmed and cut into 6-inch lengths
2 to 3 handfuls bean sprouts
FOR THE BLACK SAUCE
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
3 tablespoons mushroom soy sauce or other dark soy
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons water or beef broth
FOR THE RED SAUCE
2 tablespoons red chile jam
2 tablespoons sambal oelek
1. Combine the soy sauce, ginger, and garlic in a shallow bowl or baking dish. Add the beef and turn to coat well. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
2. If using dried rice noodles, soak in very warm water until pliable, 10 to 30 minutes. Drain well before proceeding. (Fresh noodles need no advance preparation.)
3. To make the black sauce, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl.
4. To make the red sauce, combine all the ingredients in a separate small bowl.
5. Heat a wok as hot as you can and add a film of oil. When the oil is hot and barely smoking, drain the meat and add to the wok, spreading it flat along the bottom and sides. For the best sear, do not flip or stir the meat; let it sit undisturbed for a few minutes, until a test piece looks brown and crisp. Flip and sear on the second side. Transfer the meat to a plate and cover to keep warm.
6. Add more oil to the pan and when it is hot, gently lay the noodles in the wok. Using the same technique as you used for the meat, sear one side, then flip the noodles and sear the second side.
7. Pour the black sauce over the noodles and toss to coat. Add the red sauce to taste and quickly toss again. Add the green onions and toss a few seconds, until they’ve wilted. Add the bean sprouts, toss once more, and transfer to a serving bowl.
8. Add the reserved beef and any accumulated juices and serve immediately.
SERVES 4 AS A FIRST COURSE OR PART OF A MEAL MADE OF AN ASSORTMENT OF LITTLE DISHES
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
“My grandfather had four daughters. He sent them to the United States for college. I do not know why he chose Arkansas, but he researched it very carefully and that is where he moved the family so his daughters could go to school,” said Mimi San Pedro. “They decided to stay, and my grandfather said that each of his daughters had to have a son and then a daughter—and they did! My grandfather said that each grandson had to go to medical school—and they did. He said that each daughter had to become a nurse practitioner—and they did, except for me, and I tried. I have no bedside manner. I am a businesswoman. But I had to try or my grandfather would have been upset. Then my mother would have been upset and then the entire family would have been upset.” And this, she suggested, could have had a deleterious effect on the pansit and other traditional dishes that the extended family eats when they gather around one table. Ms. San Pedro calls pansit “the Filipino national noodle dish.”
Three 8-ounce packages of rice noodles (bihon)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 large onion, diced
5 carrots, peeled and julienned
3 cups julienned green beans
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
4 celery ribs, sliced into wafer-thin diagonal slices
5 tablespoons soy sauce, preferably Kikkoman brand
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
2 tablespoons Asian oyster sauce
½ teaspoon black pepper
3 cups shredded cooked chicken
5 cups homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
1 cup julienned snow peas
½ cup thinly sliced scallions
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced crosswise
1. Place the noodles in a shallow dish, cover with hot water, and soak until almost soft, 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the noodles. Drain and cool under cold running water and set aside.
2. Place the oil in a wok over medium-high heat. When warm, add the crushed garlic and cook, tossing occasionally to avoid burning, until golden, about 2 minutes. Add the onion and stir for 2 minutes. Add the carrots, green beans, cabbage, celery, soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and black pepper and cook and stir until the vegetables are half cooked, about 4 minutes.
3. Add the chicken and the broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, then stir occasionally until the chicken is warm, about 3 minutes. Add the noodles and the snow peas and continue cooking and stirring until the broth is absorbed and the noodles are tender. Transfer to a platter, top with the scallions and eggs, and serve.
SERVES 10 TO 15
GRANTS, NEW MEXICO
Quinoa is a weekday staple in Peru, in the background of everything, the foundation that holds up each meal. “It’s funny because they just add it to the food,” says Maria Sanders, who came to the United States when she was 12. “It’s not like ‘Okay, I’m cooking with quinoa today.’ It’s such a basic thing there.” The Incas called it chisaya mama (mother of all grains) for good reason. It can grow at altitudes up to 13,000 feet and its protein content is a whopping 15 percent, compared to 7 percent for rice.
Maria’s mother, Isabel Morales de Dioguardi, remembers getting up before dawn every day to spend hours buying quinoa and other food on the black market to serve at her restaurant and hotel in Arequipa, in southern Peru. Today her son Bernard runs the Crismar Hotel. Ms. Morales de Dioguardi has lived in the desert of New Mexico since 1976, when the family, with three teenage children, fled Peru’s military government. She and her husband now run a Dairy Queen because “all the food is delivered to the door prepared.” But on special occasions, she still cooks traditional quinoa recipes like this one.
1 cup quinoa (husked and cleaned)
2 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 small onions, diced
2 tablespoons ground aji colorado (red chile)
2 tablespoons ground aji amarillo (yellow chile)
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup finely diced queso fresco
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 boiled potatoes, hot
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
1. Rinse and drain quinoa at least twice. Combine the quinoa and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat, cover, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the water has been absorbed, the quinoa looks translucent, and a small white “tail” is visible on each grain. Remove from the heat.
2. Pour the oil into a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add the ground chiles and stir to blend. Add the quinoa and mix again.
3. Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the milk and cheese and cook until the cheese starts to melt. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Arrange the potatoes and eggs on four plates. Divide the quinoa among the plates, and serve.
SERVES 4
NOTE: Quinoa grains naturally have a bitter coating, but most quinoa sold commercially in North America has been processed to remove this. Queso fresco, a Mexican cheese, is generally available in supermarkets. The special Peruvian red and yellow chiles can be found in Asian markets.
DEXTER, MICHIGAN
Erin Drasher was brought up in central Pennsylvania by parents of German descent. “My parents were raised on Pennsylvania Dutch cooking,” she says, “which consists mainly of lard, meat, potatoes, and pie. They later adopted a healthier vegetarian diet.” Several years ago, she moved to Michigan, the second most agriculturally diverse state in the country. “This culture has influenced the way I think about food,” she says. “I now prefer to purchase food locally or grow my own fresh ingredients.
“I will sometimes start with a recipe and substitute ingredients based on what is in season and add or subtract herbs and spices to suit my palate. Reading about food, eating, and experimenting has given me confidence in my cooking and has made me a better amateur cook.”
She loves the “sweetness of the cherries paired with the earthiness of the beets and spinach” in this quinoa recipe. “Combined with the tanginess of the goat cheese and the nutty texture of the quinoa and sunflower seeds, it’s just delicious.”
3 large golden beets
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the beets
1 cup quinoa, rinsed, drained, and dried
2 cups water
⅓ cup loosely packed dried sweet cherries (preferably from Door County)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 packed cups baby spinach
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 ounce crumbled soft goat cheese (about ¼ cup)
2 tablespoons shelled raw sunflower seeds
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
1. To roast the beets, preheat oven to 400°F. Trim off the tops of the beets. Brush with olive oil and wrap in aluminum foil. Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a paring knife pierces them easily. Remove from the oven and cool until you can handle them. Slip off the skins and cut into large dice.
2. Toast the quinoa in a dry medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the water and cherries. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and cover. Cook for 15 minutes, until the water has been absorbed, the quinoa looks translucent, and a small white “tail” is visible on each grain.
3. While quinoa is cooking, heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Stir in the garlic and spinach and cook until the spinach is just wilted. Add the beets and quinoa and toss.
4. Transfer to a serving bowl. Stir in salt and pepper to taste. Toss with the goat cheese. Divide among 4 plates and top with sunflower seeds and chopped parsley.
SERVES 4
COLTS NECK, NEW JERSEY
Janet Crain’s great-grandparents were Eastern European Jews who arrived at Ellis Island in the late 1800s. Her grandmother was born in the United States in 1898.
Her family eats dinner together only one day a week—on Shabbat. “It is traditional in my family to have chicken soup, chicken, kasha varnishkes, and a vegetable” for the Friday night Sabbath dinner, she says. “Shabbat is a celebration of the end of the workweek. It is a time to count your blessings, eat a slow meal, and celebrate family.”
Her grandmother used to make kasha varnishkes without a recipe—“a little of this and that.” Dr. Crain likes to serve hers with applesauce.
3 ounces bow tie pasta (about 1 cup)
Vegetable oil or nonstick cooking spray
½ cup whole kernel kasha (buckwheat groats)
1 cup homemade chicken broth or low-sodium store-bought chicken broth
¼ cup chopped scallions, green and white parts
One 4-ounce can mushroom pieces, drained
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir, and cook until al dente, 11 to 12 minutes. Drain.
2. While the water is heating, pour a little oil in a small saucepan or spray the pan with cooking spray. Place the pan over medium heat and add the kasha. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant and toasted, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the broth, bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook until the liquid has all been absorbed, 10 to 12 minutes.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet. Add the scallions and mushrooms and cook until the scallions are soft and golden.
4. Stir the pasta and kasha into the scallions and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to taste and heat through.
SERVES 2
