In 1975, Sara Moulton attended the Culinary Institute of America. The ratio of men to women was six to one; and out of a class of 452, Moulton graduated second. “I showed those assholes,” she tells me in her New York City apartment, a devilish grin on her face.
On television, where she inspired me to start cooking in the first place, Moulton comes across as a gentle, nurturing, mothering type. (And, indeed, she is the mother of two twentysomethings.) But in real life, Moulton is irreverent (she has a wicked sense of humor), and, more important, she’s a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen. That becomes abundantly clear when I arrive and she stands, in a samurai-like pose, steeling her knife. “Hold your arm out like this,” she says, dragging her knife back and forth across the steel. The rapid-fire slashing sounds make her seem like a character straight out of Kill Bill.
I’m here to learn how Moulton filters her classic French training through the sensibility of the everyday, average American home cook—something for which she’s famous. The answer, I learn from watching her in action, is to be practical.
For example, when Moulton prepares the filling for a stuffed chicken breast (a filling that contains raw chicken), she advises that you make a “spicy meatball” so that you can taste it for seasoning without eating raw chicken. She heats a small pan, adds a splash of grapeseed oil (her favorite neutral oil), rolls the filling into a ball, places it in the pan, and flattens it like a pancake. Sixty seconds later, we’re tasting and determining whether the filling needs more salt. “Just a pinch,” she concludes.
Her practicality spills over into all areas: she grows her own herbs on the windowsill (rosemary, thyme, sage); she doesn’t believe in prepping too much before you cook; she advises packing smelly food remains into the refrigerator until garbage day (“so they don’t smell up your house”); and when she gives me a turn at chopping an onion, she instructs me to “keep it attached at the root end so it doesn’t all fall apart.”
She also maintains genuine enthusiasm for learning new practical tricks. “I took a class at King Arthur Flour,” she tells me, “and everyone in the class measured out flour the way we normally do and then we weighed it, and the difference between each of ours was between ten and sixteen ounces.” The best way to measure flour, she shows me, is to rest the measuring cup on a piece of aluminum foil and shake flour from a spoon into it. “You never stop learning,” she tells me cheerfully.
By the time we’re finished, we’ve stuffed a chicken liver mousse we’ve made into prunes soaked in Armagnac, roasted those stuffed chicken breasts until they’re golden brown, and crafted an apple tart so beautiful I can’t believe I was involved in its creation. (As I sliced the apples for it, Moulton rooted me on: “You’ve really got the hang of it!”)
Moulton is easy to underestimate when she’s in mom mode; it’s when she breaks out the sharpening steel that you’d better snap to attention. This CIA salutatorian means business.
“We should be cooking the onions while cleaning the chicken. Why waste time?”
Serves 6
At first I was nervous that my dinner guests would be squeamish when they heard the L word (that word being liver), but with all the butter in here, and the addition of sweet, grapy port, this has the power to convert even the most offal-averse into a Hannibal Lecter.
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt
1 pound chicken livers, cleaned (cut out all the white stringy bits) and cut in half
Freshly ground black pepper
1½ tablespoons fresh thyme leaves or 1½ teaspoons dried
1½ teaspoons minced fresh sage or ½ teaspoon dried (optional)
1 cup tawny port
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Breton crackers, for serving
12 prunes (optional)
1 cup Cognac (optional)
Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet (do not use nonstick) over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté, with a sprinkle of salt, until the onions are soft but not brown, about 4 minutes. Scrape into a food processor (make sure the pan is left clean).
Increase the heat to medium high and add another 3 tablespoons of the butter and all of the chicken livers to the skillet*. Sauté until the exteriors are brown—3 to 4 minutes—and then season with salt, pepper, the thyme, and, if you’re using it, the sage. Cook for another minute until the livers are lightly caramelized but still pink inside*.
Remove the skillet from the heat and add the port. Return the skillet to medium-high heat and deglaze it by scraping up the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Bring the liquid to a boil and continue to cook until it has reduced to 2 tablespoons. Pour into the food processor. Process the mixture until it’s very smooth and then scrape the mixture into a fine-mesh sieve. Using a rubber spatula, push the puree through the sieve into a separate bowl.
Let the mixture cool almost to room temperature, and then whisk in the final 3 tablespoons of butter and the lemon juice*; taste and season with salt and pepper.
Line a bowl with plastic wrap and transfer the liver puree to that bowl. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.
The next day, you can unmold it and serve it with Breton crackers or, if you’d like, you can stuff it into Cognac-soaked prunes*. To do that, place the Cognac in a small pan, bring to a simmer, and add the prunes. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until the prunes have absorbed the liquid. Turn off the heat, allow to cool, and then cut open each prune and fill it with some mousse. Try not to eat them all before serving.
Serves 4
No one wants to eat a boring skinless chicken breast. Here is a remedy. Buy chicken breasts with the skin on and stuff the space between the skin and the breast with a mixture that contains lots of flavor: spinach, fennel seeds, nutmeg, and lemon zest. You can be aggressive with those spices, too; they’ll really amp up your dinner. Don’t worry if you can’t get the skin all the way around the filling—it’ll still taste good!
Two 1-pound whole chicken breasts, deboned but not skinned*
1½ tablespoons crushed ice
3 tablespoons well-chilled heavy cream
¼ cup firmly packed chopped cooked spinach* (about ½ pound fresh)
¾ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
¼ teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
¼ teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more for seasoning
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Arrange the chicken breasts skin side down on a cutting board, making sure the skin is evenly stretched over the breasts, and halve them. Remove the fillet strip from each breast, discard the white tendon, and grind the fillet strips only in a food processor. Add the ice, blend the mixture until the ice is absorbed, and, with the motor running, add the cream.
Add the spinach, ¾ teaspoon salt, fennel seeds, lemon zest, nutmeg, and ⅛ teaspoon pepper and blend the filling well, scraping down the sides. Turn the breasts skin side up and, beginning at the pointed end, pull the skin back carefully, leaving the thin transparent membranes attached at the opposite end.
Spread 3 tablespoons of the spinach filling evenly over each breast, smoothing it and stretching the skin over the filling to cover it.
Chill the chicken, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, for at least 1 hour. (You can even do this a day ahead.)
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the oil over moderately high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Season the skin side of the chicken with salt and pepper, add the chicken to the skillet skin side down, and then season the other side. Sauté the chicken for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the skin is golden brown. Turn the chicken skin side up, place the skillet in the oven, and bake until cooked through, around 10 minutes (start checking for doneness after 8 minutes). Transfer the chicken to a plate and let it stand, loosely covered with foil, for 5 minutes. Serve with roasted potatoes and a salad.
Serves 6
This stunning pinwheel of a dessert might intimidate you at first. Don’t let it. Essentially, you’re just making a piecrust (and if Moulton’s technique, which is very user-friendly, doesn’t do it for you, try Gary Danko’s*), laying the crust in a tart pan, and piling thinly sliced apples on top. Well, not piling: placing each apple slice in a big circle within a circle within a circle, which means this is more of an assembly project. But, I assure you, even the most unskilled among us can make this tart happen.
FOR THE PASTRY
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
1¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
¼ teaspoon table salt*
2 to 4 tablespoons ice water
FOR THE TART
6 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, halved, and sliced ⅛ inch thick
¼ cup sugar
4 tablespoons (½ stick) cold unsalted butter, sliced thin
½ cup apricot jam, heated and strained
Vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream (optional)
To make the pastry, blend the butter with the flour and salt in a cold bowl, using your fingertips to pinch the ingredients together until they resemble coarse meal, with a few lumps. Drizzle in 2 tablespoons of the ice water and incorporate with a fork. Test the mixture by squeezing a handful: if it holds together without crumbling apart, it’s ready. If not, add more ice water 1 tablespoon at a time and work in gently (don’t overwork or the pastry will be tough).
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and divide it into 4 portions. With the heel of your hand, smear each portion once in a forward motion to help distribute the fat. Use a bench scraper to bring the dough back together and form it into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator. If it’s rock solid, let it warm up for a few minutes (though not too much).
On a lightly floured surface with a rolling pin, roll out the dough* into a 13-inch round. To ensure it stays round, push out from the center with the rolling pin and turn a little bit clockwise each time.
Place the dough over the rolling pin to transfer it to a 10-inch tart pan with a removable fluted rim. Trim the excess dough by rolling the pin across the top. Don’t force the dough into the nooks and crannies because it’ll shrink; just urge the dough in the right direction. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Remove the cold tart shell and arrange the apples on it like a wheel with a rose at the center (see photograph above). That means you want spokes of apples going toward the center, and then, in the center, a ring of apples that gets tighter and tighter as it blossoms into a flower. (Again, use the picture for reference.)
Sprinkle the sugar on top of the apples, top with the butter slices, and bake for 45 minutes, or until the crust is cooked and the apples are golden. Brush with the warmed apricot jam while the tart is still hot. Serve with ice cream or a spoonful of whipped cream, if desired.
