To the Mighty Vegetable
Carrot, Turnip,
or Leafy Green,
From Farmyard Dirt
Deep With’een,
Where Roots Do Spread
—nake’d, un’seen—
’Til Yanked & Rinsed,
Now Fresh, Now Clean;
A Gentle Snap,
Roasted, Steamed.
People think of The Publican as this big, meaty restaurant and so often I hear things like, “We don’t go to The Publican because I’m a vegetarian.” That’s a shame because we believe in putting vegetables front and center. Sure, there are pigs on the wall, but we’ve evolved since we started out with the intention of highlighting gastropub staples like oysters, pork, and beer. In the beginning, we basically had two categories on the menu—meat and seafood—and dishes that progressed from zero manipulation (artisanal hams, oysters) to our “big box” items like Porchetta with Chicories and Ham Chop in Hay. The vegetable category was in the bottom right-hand corner of the menu, and it was kind of an afterthought. I was younger, and I was all about being bold. But then, to be perfectly honest, when we were getting ready to first open, I got really fat. I had a whole summer of R & D, just working through the menu, perfecting our now-staple dishes, eating country ribs and chicken and mussels and, of course, drinking beer like crazy. I felt sluggish and horrible (and the black circles under my eyes were blacker than usual). Part of what helped me make a change in my life was standing outside, checking in produce, and seeing all these people running through the alley carrying tires and realizing that it was time to join Mike Madonis’s gym, Fulton Fit House, which had opened about a year before The Publican. But what made the biggest difference was that my wife and I completely changed the way we ate at home, adding more and more vegetables to our rotation. And in time that change was reflected at the restaurant, too.
Offering great vegetable dishes on our menu wasn’t just about health. People would come to The Publican and get so excited about the food that they’d over-order and just get destroyed. The first twenty times I ate there, I felt as if I was going to die at the end of the meal, and the kitchen would be like, “There’s still a Ham Chop in Hay coming!” So I started pushing for more vegetables on the menu to balance things out. Brian Huston got the ball rolling with his California-inspired market connections, and by the time Cosmo came to The Publican—with all his ties to the West Coast and his passion for finding really special produce, including stuff you’d never get in our market, like kinjoki grapefruits, puntarelle di galentina (a kind of chicory), and avocados with more fat content than most cheeses—we were putting out many more plant-forward dishes that were way more interesting and complex than the usual sautéed spinach.
Of course, the quality of our produce is what makes all the difference. The number-one thing for us at all our restaurants, and especially at The Publican, is that our food is driven by the market. (Within reason: There once was a restaurant in Chicago that aimed to be 100-percent seasonal. It went out of business.)
While we buy everything we possibly can from our local vendors—seriously, you wouldn’t believe the pile of stuff sitting outside our back door as soon as asparagus and ramps pop up in the spring—we’ve expanded to bring in produce from warmer climes. It’s important for keeping the restaurant vital and interesting, plus we can get a jump on the season with things like English peas and fava beans because they’re picked in California about two months before we get the first inklings of a pea here.
Even though we buy specific ingredients from other locales, supporting local growers really is everything to us, and I pat myself on the back for helping plant the seeds for the now-thriving farmers’ market system here in Chicago. I wouldn’t say I was the first chef to shop at the Green City Farmers’ Market, which was our city’s first mostly organic market, opened in 1998 by Abby Mandel—chef and author, friend of Alice Waters and Craig Claiborne, author of my wife’s favorite ratatouille recipe, and Chicago Grand Dame—but I was one of the first chefs to shop there. For the first three or four years, the market wasn’t doing so well. Local and seasonal was the talk, but no one was doing it. Abby reached out to Sarah Stegner, Rick Bayless, and me to see if we could get it to work. She believed that people would buy what we bought. And sure enough, our meetings went from five people to fifteen to twenty to all these committees that helped the market pick up steam and find a permanent location.
Our faith in the great work that these local farmers were doing led to some of the most crucial relationships that we have at The Publican, which continue to shape the food that we serve. Dave Cleverdon at Kinnikinnick Farm, who I’ve known for about a hundred years, switched from growing mostly mesclun to baby heads of Little Gem and oak leaf because I wanted those beautiful and tender lime-green heads. He also grows rare varieties of Italian braising greens like spigariello, bietina, and minestra nera; and he’s got the best asparagus I’ve ever tasted. Tim Burton of Burton’s Maplewood Farm, our maple syrup guy, brings us ramps that he forages from the woods near his house in southern Indiana. He drops them off at our butcher shop, Publican Quality Meats, has a sandwich and a beer, and all the other chefs in town come by for their pick-ups. We started giving him bourbon barrels that he now uses to age his maple syrup, which in turn makes a better product for us. Henry Brockman of Henry’s Farm, in the Mackinaw River Valley, grows things we can’t find anywhere else—burdock root, bok choy, tatsoi. He’s the reason (along with Ed Gast and J. W. Morlock & Girls Fruit Stand) someone from The Publican team drives up to the Evanston Farmers’ Market every Saturday. You can’t pre-order with him; you get what you get. We’re always sure that someone’s there at 8 AM so we don’t miss anything. That’s a really good example of what The Publican is about.
I would of course love to say that everything we serve is organic, but it’s just not feasible. I always say that if you’re out of business, you can’t serve any organic food. Whether you’re sourcing food for a restaurant or for your home kitchen, there does have to be balance, but it doesn’t mean compromising on quality. We can guarantee that every farmer we source from is a responsible, conscientious grower. That’s paramount to our philosophy.
THE VEG PLATE EVOLVES
COSMO The biggest transition I saw at The Publican was about five years after we opened. We’d never had a vegetable entrée, only what we’d call a “veg plate.” If someone came in and requested something vegetarian, every cook on the line had about ten minutes to put up something from their station. Then we’d pass the plate around, and each of us would contribute one element. We’d be doing three to five of those a night, and guests really loved them, so it became pretty clear that we needed more vegetables on our menu. As we added hearty, balanced, fully thought-out dishes, such as Radishes with Red Lentil Falafel, Asparagus and Avocado Salad with Fried Quinoa and Flaxseed Vinaigrette, and Maple-Roasted Winter Squash with Piri-Piri Sauce, the balance of our menu changed. We were giving people a chance to have a healthy, super-satisfying meal instead of coming in and getting hammered with food. Paul is always telling us not to overfeed people, and I know what he means. When I go out to dinner, I want to be able to go have a drink afterward or take a walk and not feel like I never want to eat again.
barbecued carrots
I don’t think there’s ever been a dish at The Publican that people have freaked out about so much. Even chefs. We did a charity event last year and served these, and there was a table of twenty-five big-name chefs just losing their minds over them. We’ve tried new variations, adding different spices, experimenting with other preparations, but it always comes back to this recipe. We use a barbecue rub that I “borrowed” from Chris Lilly, the owner of Big Bob Gibson’s in Georgia and a world champion of barbecued pork shoulder. He came in to eat once, and we got embarrassed about ripping him off, so we quickly changed the name of these to Chris Lilly Carrots.
We like to serve them with pecans that we get from Blain Farms in California, which are creamier than any other pecan, and then we top it off with an herbed dressing.
Makes 4 servings
1 gallon water
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon BBQ Rub (recipe follows)
¼ cup kosher salt
1 pound carrots, cleaned and halved
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1½ teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ cup pecans, coarsely chopped
2 sprigs dill, torn
1 batch Ranchovy Herb Dressing (recipe follows)
In a large pot, combine the water with 1 cup of the BBQ Rub and the kosher salt. Bring to a boil, add the carrots, and cook until they’re just about fully cooked, about 5 minutes. Drain the carrots and set aside.
Build a fire on one side of a charcoal grill and let it burn down to embers.
Toss the blanched carrots with the remaining 1 tablespoon of BBQ Rub and the olive oil in a large bowl.
Arrange the carrots on the grill over direct heat and cook, moving them around a bit, until they have some char marks and are finished, about 5 minutes.
Pile the carrots on a serving plate, season with the sea salt, drizzle with the lemon juice, and garnish with the pecans and dill. Taste and add more salt or lemon juice, if needed. Dress the carrots with the Ranchovy Herb Dressing and serve.
BBQ RUB
This is just as good on carrots as it is on meat.
Makes 1½ cups
½ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
½ cup kosher salt
¼ cup pimentón de la Vera (hot smoked Spanish paprika)
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon onion granules
1½ teaspoons celery salt
1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
Combine the brown sugar, salt, pimentón, pepper, granulated garlic, onion granules, celery salt, cayenne, and cumin in a bowl. Mix well. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month.
RANCHOVY HERB DRESSING
Never use store-bought dressing again.
Makes about 1 quart
2 cups mayonnaise (we like Hellman’s/Best Foods)
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1½ teaspoons white vinegar
1½ teaspoons Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1½ teaspoons granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1½ teaspoons chopped tarragon
1½ teaspoons chopped oregano
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Whisk all the ingredients in a bowl and season with the salt and pepper. Taste and add more salt and pepper. Transfer the dressing to a glass container with a lid and refrigerate. The dressing will keep in the fridge for up to 1 week. Give the jar a good shake before using.
jared van camp’s bread-and-butter pickles
Jared Van Camp, who was a sous chef at Blackbird, came up with this recipe. We use these pickles for everything—in remoulade, on sandwiches, in dressings, and, obviously, by themselves. They’re our workhorse pickle. And because we don’t want to waste the juice, we use it in things like brine for fried chicken or instead of vinegar in salad dressings. I highly recommend keeping a jar of them in your fridge.
Makes 5 pounds of pickles
½ cup salt
6 cups water
5 pounds pickling cucumbers, cut in ¼-inch-thick slices, stems discarded
2½ cups white wine vinegar
2½ cups cider vinegar
1 white onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
½ tablespoon allspice berries
2 tablespoons celery seeds
cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
½ tablespoon turmeric
In a large pot, combine the salt and water and stir to dissolve the salt. Add the cucumbers and place the pot in the fridge to brine for 24 hours.
In a small bowl, combine the vinegars, onion, garlic, allspice, celery seeds, cinnamon stick, and mustard seeds. Let the mixture sit in the fridge for 24 hours.
Add the vinegar mixture to a heavy pot and stir in the sugars and turmeric. Bring the pot to a boil.
Meanwhile, remove the cucumbers from the brine and put them in a large tub or pot. Discard the brine. Pour the boiling mixture over the cucumbers and set aside to let everything cool. Transfer the pickles to an airtight container and store in the fridge—they’ll keep for 6 months.
BREAD-AND-BUTTER PICKLING RATIO
Whereas a lot of pickle recipes are 3-2-1 (three parts water, two parts vinegar, and one part sugar), a bread-and-butter version is half vinegar, half sugar, making them sweet and sour. Adding in seasonings such as turmeric, celery seed, and mustard seeds, also gives them a yellow color.
mom’s icebox tomatoes
During tomato season, my mom would always slice up beefsteak tomatoes and marinate them in red wine vinegar, olive oil, thyme, white onion, salt, and pepper. She’d keep them in the fridge just like that, and we’d go in there and yank ’em out. Maybe grab a slice of bologna, too, toast up some white bread, and put a tomato on top. Now you’ll see these on our menu, which we particularly like with burrata. The tomatoes will keep for a couple of days in the fridge, then they get a little soggy. Still good, but soggy.
Makes 4 servings
½ white onion, julienned
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Sugar (optional)
4 beefsteak tomatoes, sliced ½ inch thick
In a large bowl, mix together the onion, olive oil, vinegar, and thyme. Add a pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. If the tomatoes aren’t at peak season, you might want to add a pinch of sugar, too.
Make a single layer of tomato slices in the bottom of a shallow dish or pan and pour over some of the marinade. Make a new layer of tomatoes and repeat until you’ve used up all the tomatoes and marinade. Chill before serving. The tomatoes will last in the fridge for about 1½ days before they start to break down.
BUYING TOMATOES
Buying good tomatoes is crucial, especially if you’re eating them raw. Start with the best at the height of tomato season. Get the tomatoes from the guy whose prices are twice as expensive as every other guy’s. Trust us; it’s worth it. There’s this guy at our market who’s from Tomato Mountain Farm in Brooklyn, Wisconsin. He won’t even let you touch his tomatoes because he’s so proud of them. It’s annoying—and they’re not cheap—but they’re the best. If we’re serving tomatoes raw, we have to buy his.
WHAT WOULD SUZANNE GOIN DO?
Suzanne Goin and I were Food & Wine’s “Best New Chefs” together, and our careers have, to some degree, been parallel—the number of restaurants, the cooking style. Lucques was her first; mine was Blackbird. Then she did AOC, and I did avec. We’ve traveled together and cooked together and, while she likes me just fine, we at The Publican love her. We’re always asking ourselves, “Would Suzanne like this?” Whether it’s adding green garlic to our labneh (her suggestion), adding suckling pig confit to our menu (her recipe), or tracking down the best possible ingredients (by badgering her to share her purveyors), she’s always inspiring us to up our game—especially when it comes to honoring great product and keeping things simple. Seriously, one of the things we love most about her is that she always has a guy—a fig guy, a plum guy, a pistachio guy, a hazelnut guy. We get connections out of her a few at a time. As chefs, whenever we do an event with her or go to eat in her restaurants, we’re always super jealous of at least one thing she has. It kind of ruins and makes your day at the same time. We’ve even shared a lot of talent between our kitchens over the years. What can we say? We’re big fans.
elotes
Elotes—or traditional Mexican street corn—is usually an ear of corn that’s been slathered in mayo, queso fresco, chile powder, and lime. That’s how we do it at Big Star, another one of our restaurants, but Brian Huston came up with a mutation that we started serving at The Publican because, as I like to say, any culture is fair game here. We take the corn off the cob, sauté it in oil, and then finish it with salt, a little butter, and lime juice. Then we add freshly grated Parmesan cheese for its salty nuttiness, Espelette pepper, and our Garlic Aioli (this page), which is like a mother sauce for us. We roast a ton of garlic in olive oil to make roasted garlic marinade, so we use the oil that we roasted the garlic in as the base for the mayo. There’s not much more to it, besides salt, and it ends up tasting really savory, almost cheesy. We serve this dish in a casserole that you just scoop into, and it’s like.…oh my God!
COSMO We start getting corn in late August, if we’re lucky, so when we do eventually get great, super-sweet corn from our farmers, we hoard it. We feature it all over the menu, and it’s one of our favorite things to preserve—as demonstrated by the 250 quarts of corn relish (also known as chow chow) that we put up last summer.
Makes 4 servings
1 teaspoon high smoking-point oil, such as rice bran, sunflower, grapeseed, or peanut
3 cups corn kernels (from 4 to 5 ears)
1½ tablespoons unsalted butter
Juice of 2 limes
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Garlic Aioli (recipe follows)
1 teaspoon piment d’Espelette
4 springs cilantro, leaves picked from stems
Parmesan cheese
Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil and let it get to the point of almost smoking, it’s so hot. Add the corn and sauté until it’s tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in the butter and half the lime juice with a pinch of salt and a few cracks of pepper. Taste, and adjust seasoning if you think it needs it, adding more lime juice if you want.
Transfer the corn to a serving dish and spoon the aioli on top and sprinkle on the piment d’Espelette. Garnish with the cilantro. Grate about ¼ cup of Parmesan over the top (at the restaurant we always do this at the last second because it tastes better that way) and serve.
GARLIC AIOLI
COSMO Paul always refers to this aioli as one of The Publican mother sauces because we use it for so many things. We rub it on fish (instead of oil) to keep it moist, whisk it into salad dressings to thicken them, and, of course, serve it with our frites and other fried foods. It’s simple, basic, and delicious.
Makes 1 quart
10 cloves Garlic Confit (this page)
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 2 lemons
4 large egg yolks
1 raw garlic clove, finely grated
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water
½ cup oil from Garlic Confit (this page)
3 cups grapeseed oil
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
In the bowl of a food processor, combine the garlic confit, lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolks, grated garlic clove, and 1 teaspoon of the ice water.
With the food processor running, slowly stream in the garlic oil. Once the mixture is thick, add 1 tablespoon of the remaining ice water. With the processor running, slowly stream in the grapeseed oil, adding the remaining ice water a few drops at a time until the aioli is a little thinner than store-bought mayonnaise. Season the aioli with the lemon zest, salt, and pepper to taste. Transfer the aioli to a jar with a tight-fitting lid and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
radishes with red lentil falafel, yogurt, and spiced honey
COSMO The pound of radishes in this dish adds spark to what would otherwise be a falafel plate (and gives us justification for sneaking this recipe into the vegetable section of our menu). After Paul came back from eating at Shaya in New Orleans and said he’d had “the best falafel ever,” it was like the falafel challenge had been thrown down. I tried a hundred different variations to make one that even came close, but every time Paul just said, “You gotta go back to the drawing board.” Paul even called Alon Shaya to ask for his recipe, and we still couldn’t get it right. The taste was good, but the texture was off—you want falafel to be crunchy and crispy on the outside and herby and clean on the inside. Then I had this lentil croquette at Bar Tartine in San Francisco, and I thought about using lentils in the falafel instead of the traditional chickpeas. Sure enough, they made the falafel creamier, whereas chickpeas can be a little dry and crumbly. Paul finally let us put it on the menu and ten people told us it was the best thing ever. (Paul still said it was okay, or more specifically, “Do whatever you want, Cosmo…I would rework it if I were you.”) We refined the recipe a bit more and twenty people said it was the best ever the next night, and so on. We just kept trying to improve it every time, and Paul was always pushing us to make it better, too, which was how we knew we were on to something great.
Makes 6 to 8 servings
3 cups dried red lentils, soaked in hot water for 1 hour
1 tablespoon pimentón de la Vera (hot smoked Spanish paprika)
1½ teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1½ teaspoons ground seaweed
1½ teaspoons bonito flakes
4 cloves Garlic Confit (recipe follows)
1 cup chopped scallions, white and green parts
2 scant teaspoons neonata (see note, this page)
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1½ teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1½ tablespoons onion granules
¾ cup ricotta
½ bunch cilantro
½ bunch parsley
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
High smoking-point oil, such as rice bran, sunflower, grapeseed, or peanut, for frying
1 lemon, cut in half
1 pound mixed radishes, cut into bite-size pieces
Extra-virgin olive oil
⅓ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons Spiced Honey (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons chopped herbs, such as mint, parsley, dill, and cilantro
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons sunflower seeds
Strain the lentils and measure 5 cups. Set aside.
Toast the pimentón, cayenne, cumin, and coriander in a dry skillet over medium heat, 1 to 2 minutes. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the toasted spices and the seaweed, bonito flakes, Garlic Confit, scallions, neonata, baking soda, fish sauce, sugar, flour, onion granules, ricotta, cilantro, and parsley. Pulse into a coarse paste. Add the lentils and pulse until they just start to break up. Season with a healthy pinch of salt and pepper.
Heat the about 4 inches of oil in a deep fryer or a large heavy pot to 350°F on a deep-fat/candy thermometer.
Make a tester falafel by taking a couple tablespoons of the lentil mixture and forming it into a ball in your hand. Fry it for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden brown. It should be crispy on the outside and a great mix of creamy and coarse on the inside. If it’s too coarse, pulse the mixture a few more times and test again. You can also adjust the seasoning.
Form the remaining falafel mixture into balls that are 3 to 4 tablespoons (1½ to 2 ounces) each, to make a total of 12 to 18 balls. Fry them, turning continuously, until they’re golden brown and crispy, 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and lemon juice as they come out of the fryer. Set aside.
Toss the radishes in a small bowl with a generous amount of lemon juice and olive oil, plus a good pinch of salt. Set aside.
Spread the yogurt on the bottom of a serving plate. Place the crispy falafel on top and drizzle with the honey. Dance the radishes over the top, reserving any lemon juice and olive oil that has collected at the bottom of the bowl. Combine the herbs and sesame and sunflower seeds in a bowl. Pour the reserved lemon juice–oil mixture over the top and toss to coat. Place the dressed herbs and seeds on the radishes and serve.
GARLIC CONFIT
Garlic that has been slowly cooked in fat—the technique known as confit—takes on a whole new flavor and is sweeter and richer than it is raw or even sautéed. Use any leftover cloves in salad dressings or soups, or just slather it on bread. The leftover oil is great for cooking with—it’s awesome when you’re roasting root vegetables, and you can also use it to make Garlic Aioli (this page).
Makes about 1½ cups
1 cup olive oil
2 heads garlic, separated into cloves and peeled
Place the oil and garlic in a small pot and cook over very low heat—it should gently bubble—until the garlic is tender, about 30 minutes. Let cool. Store the oil and garlic in an airtight jar in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
SPICED HONEY
This is great on gamey things like lamb and venison, and we always find ourselves frying vegetables and reaching for spiced honey to dip them in. In the restaurant we use The Publican Spice Blend for this recipe, which we get from Lior Lev Sercarz (this page). But a good substitute is equal parts pimentón, cumin, and cayenne.
Makes about ¼ cup
¼ cup good farm honey
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons Tapatio hot sauce
2 teaspoons water
1 tablespoon Publican Spice Blend or 1 teaspoon each pimentón, cumin, and cayenne
In a small pot over low heat, heat the honey until it’s just warm. Stir in the salt, hot sauce, and water. Turn off the heat and let the honey steep for about 30 minutes. This will keep indefinitely at room temperature in a tightly closed jar.
NEONATA
Italian for “just born,” this condiment is traditionally a mix of Calabrian chiles and baby eels. The fish makes it sweeter than using straight chiles, and the overall effect is a savory character with rich heat and great acid. We get ours from an Italian import company, but you can find it online. Since it’s now illegal to fish for baby eels, most versions will substitute glass fish.
LIOR LEV SERCARZ, LA BOÎTE
I met Lior about eight years ago when he had just opened his spice shop, La Boîte, in Manhattan. He was Michael Solomonov’s spice guy—so I knew he was for real—plus he’d been a sous chef at Daniel, learned to cook in France, and most amazingly, did a rare externship with Olivier Roellinger in Cancale, France. (If you want a good read, look him.) And he’s from Israel—he grew up on an olive orchard there, which his family still runs. He’s just this total spice mastermind. We get our Shabazi Blend (see this page) from him—which, is I think, my favorite spice that he makes—along with our namesake, The Publican Spice Blend (Lior had an avec blend, a Paul Kahan blend, and a Publican blend, which was originally called the Cosmo blend, but that name didn’t make the cut). It’s crazy, the way he gets inside your head to figure out how to customize these spices. He totally nailed the fact that even though we’re clearly influenced by the Mediterranean and Mexico and Italy, we’re not necessarily cooking Mediterranean or Mexican or Italian food. He could identify with my love of all things acidic in the name of balance, and we share the idea that not every recipe should end with the words “salt and pepper.” (Saltiness is important and heat is important, but that doesn’t have to come from salt and pepper.) Plus, he’s a really cool dude, a T-shirt junkie, and a good-looking man.
roasted beets with green garlic labneh
Beets have always been on our menu 365 days a year. There’s merit to that—young beets are amazing, but so are the big overgrown ones that have been in cold storage for months. They have a ton of sugar, and they retain that sugar as they sit. It’s one of the few vegetables that can be just as good out of cold storage as it is fresh out of the ground. We’ve always made them the same way, too: First we toss them with olive oil, garlic, thyme, and orange peels to get them even more aromatic and flavorful. We throw ’em in the oven with the skins on and then, when they’re good and roasted, we just slip off the skins and marinate them in olive oil, vinegar, shallots, and honey. Forget the rubber gloves; your hands will be pink for a little while, but who cares.
For this dish, we pair the beets with thick and tangy labneh, which is basically just Greek yogurt that has been strained. When Suzanne Goin recommended using green garlic paste, which she loves more than pesto, we were immediately into it. We did it just like she did it—Little Miss Mortar and Pestle—and mashed it into a paste, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and folded it into our labneh. The result is herbaceous and bright; just the action you want for earthy roasted beets.
Makes 8 to 10 servings
BEETS
3 pounds red beets, rinsed
3 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked from the stems
3 dried chiles de árbol
4 cloves garlic, skin-on and smashed
1 orange, quartered
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
MARINADE
2 shallots, haché (see note, this page)
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
⅓ cup red wine or champagne vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Green Garlic Labneh (recipe follows)
1 hefty bunch mixed greens, such as dandelion, arugula, and watercress (optional)
Extra-virgin olive oil
½ lemon
2 tablespoons slivered red onion
2 tablespoons slivered mint leaves
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
To make the beets: Add the beets to a glass or metal pan with sides, along with the thyme, chiles, and garlic. Squeeze the orange wedges over the whole lot and toss in the rinds. Lightly season with salt and pepper and then coat with the olive oil.
Pour in just enough water to make a shallow pool in the bottom of the pan; it’ll help create steam as the beets cook. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and transfer to the oven.
Set a timer for 1 hour, then start checking the beets every 25 minutes until they’re tender all the way through. If a fork can easily pass through the skin into the center of the beet, they’re done.
Remove the foil and let the beets cool to room temperature.
While the beets cool, make the marinade: Combine the shallots, salt, pepper, vinegar, honey, thyme, and olive oil in a bowl and whisk them together. Taste to see if the acidity or sweetness need balancing. No two vinegars are exactly the same, so adjust accordingly by adding more vinegar, honey, olive oil, salt, or pepper.
Once the beets are cool enough to handle, take off the skins. They should slip off very easily.
Cut the beets into bite-size pieces and toss them in a large bowl with enough marinade to lightly coat. Don’t feel like you need to use all the marinade. (You can store any leftover marinade in the fridge and use it for a simple salad dressing, which we do all the time for our staff meals.)
Taste the dressed beets and adjust the seasoning if necessary. You can store the dressed beets in your fridge for up to 1 week.
To assemble the dish, place a mound of Green Garlic Labneh on each plate and top with a nice scoop of beets along with a drizzle of marinade. Garnish with the onion and mint. Place the greens in a bowl, drizzle with olive oil, and add a squeeze of lemon juice. Toss to coat. Mound the greens on the beets and serve.
MATCHING YOUR VINEGAR TO YOUR BEETS
Use any variety of beets, but change the type of vinegar you use for the marinade: match light-colored beets with champagne vinegar, match dark red beets with dark vinegar. For example, use red wine vinegar for red beets and champagne vinegar for yellow or Chioggia beets. We like to serve this with some nice greens on top—dressed with lemon juice and olive oil— but it’s up to you.
GREEN GARLIC LABNEH
We like our labneh, which is essentially yogurt cheese, a little thinner than the commercially made kind. The green garlic we use comes from California and is almost woody and sweet. The paste we make with it and blend into this lebneh makes it aromatic, not spicy.
Makes about 1½ cups
2 cups high-quality Greek yogurt
1 head green garlic or 1 bunch scallions
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Line a strainer or funnel with cheesecloth, add the yogurt, then gather up the ends of the cheesecloth to form a ball. Tie the ball closed with kitchen string and hang it from a rack in your fridge with a small bowl or plate underneath to catch the drippings. Aim to keep it in your fridge for 5 to 10 days (we go for 7 at The Publican). The longer the yogurt strains, the more tangy and rich it gets. Remove the cheesecloth and use the strained yogurt right away or store it in your fridge for up to 1 week longer.
Cut the green garlic or scallions into small pieces and beat them into a paste using a mortar and pestle. It should take 5 to 10 minutes.
Tasting as you go, add the paste to the yogurt until it tastes good to you. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
baby turnips and chocolate persimmon salad with cosmo’s magic bacon dressing
COSMO This dish is kind of an excuse to showcase our Magic Bacon Dressing, a buttermilk and bacon fat–based miracle that can be served cold without congealing. We don’t quite know why it works (probably because it’s emulsified into a mayonnaise). Regardless, it’s awesome on vegetables, salads, and sandwiches and for dunking fried fish.
Chocolate persimmons are really special. We get ours from Penryn Orchards in Penryn, California. They grow fifty-six varieties of fruit on just over four acres of land (most commercial growers have hundreds), and their produce is like no other (see green gauge plums, this page.) These persimmons are essentially pure sugar, to the point that you can also eat the skin. You could definitely substitute a different kind of persimmon, like a fuyu, but you’ll need to peel it.
Serves 4
MAGIC BACON DRESSING
1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
8 ounces bacon, diced
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 lemon zested and juiced
½ cup mayonnaise (we like Hellman’s/Best Foods)
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
SALAD
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
3 cups washed and quartered raw baby turnips
½ lemon
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Sugar
½ cup shaved raw baby turnip
2 persimmons quartered then cut into ⅛-inch-thick slices
1 cippolini onion, thinly sliced into rings
2 tablespoons chervil or parsley leaves
Start by making the dressing: In a large sauté pan over medium heat, heat the grapeseed oil and add the bacon. Stir every few minutes, rendering as much fat out of the bacon as possible and crisping it on all sides, 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer the bacon and all rendered fat to a blender. Add 1 cup of the buttermilk. While the bacon is still warm (before the fat can congeal), blend on high speed for 45 seconds.
Pass the bacon and buttermilk mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a medium bowl. Finely grate the zest of the lemon, and then cut in half. Whisk in the zest, squeeze in the juice of the lemon, and then whisk in the mayonnaise and the remaining 2 tablespoons of buttermilk. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
To make the salad: Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the quartered turnips and sauté for 2 to 4 minutes, until they are almost tender. Season with a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper, and sugar to taste. (The sugar offsets the bitterness of the turnips.) Spread the turnips in a single layer on a serving platter.
In a medium bowl, combine the shaved turnips, persimmon slices, and onion and season with salt and pepper. Top with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Toss the salad to combine and spread it over the sautéed turnips. Pour about ¼ cup of the bacon dressing evenly over the whole dish. Garnish with the chervil or parsley leaves and serve. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 week.
fried sweet potatoes with hazelnut mayo and shabazi vinaigrette
COSMO There’s this Chinese dish I used to love as a kid called Crispy Walnut Shrimp. It was fried shrimp covered with walnuts and mayonnaise (okay, so it probably wasn’t really Chinese), and it was that perfect mix of salty and sweet, creamy and crunchy, and right with a little bit of wrong. When Dan Snowden, the executive sous chef at Nico Osteria, another restaurant in our group, came up with an incredible Parmesan tempura batter, we answered with our sort-of grown-up interpretation of Crispy Walnut Shrimp. Instead of shrimp, though, we use sweet potatoes, which bring a similar sweet and meaty element. We cook them with a little baking soda in the water, drawing out their starch so they get crispier when you fry them in the tempura batter. We really like the Beauregard variety, which we get from Henry Brockman’s farm in central Illinois, but in most stores you’ll find Paul’s favorite “sweet potato,” which is the Garnet yam. Then we finish them with Shabazi vinaigrette, tons of toasted hazelnuts, and hazelnut aioli. Shabazi is one of the spice blends that we get from Lior Lev Sercarz (this page). It’s essentially the dry flavors of zhoug—a spicy Yemenite condiment—combined with green chiles, cilantro, and mint. You can order it from his Manhattan shop, La Boîte.
Serves 2 to 3
8 cups salted water
1½ teaspoons baking soda
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1-inch cubes
High smoking-point oil such as rice bran, sunflower, grapeseed, or peanut
½ cup cornstarch
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups Parmesan Tempura Batter (recipe follows)
1 lemon, cut in half
2 tablespoons pulverized salt (see note, this page)
1 scallion, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced on the diagonal
¼ bunch mint, leaves picked from the stems
¼ bunch cilantro, leaves picked from the stems
2 tablespoons chopped toasted hazelnuts
Extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons Hazelnut Mayonnaise (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons Shabazi Vinaigrette (recipe follows)
Bring the salted water to a simmer in a large pot. When simmering, whisk in the baking soda. Gently cook the sweet potatoes until they’re tender all the way through, about 10 minutes. Strain them and let them cool.
Heat the oil in a deep fryer or a large heavy pot to 350°F on a deep-fat/candy thermometer. Line a baking sheet with paper towels.
In a medium bowl, combine the cornstarch with a pinch of salt and pepper. Dredge the cooled sweet potatoes in the mixture, shaking off any excess, then dunk in the tempura batter until completely coated. Drop a few of the sweet potato pieces in the hot oil at a time and fry until golden brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the pieces from the oil and transfer them to the paper towels to drain. As they come out of the fryer, give them a squeeze of lemon juice and season with the pulverized salt and the pepper.
In a small bowl, make a salad of the scallions, mint, cilantro, and hazelnuts. Dress it with a squeeze of lemon juice and just enough olive oil to coat everything well.
Arrange the sweet potatoes on a plate and drizzle the mayo and Shabazi dressing. Top with the salad and serve.
PARMESAN TEMPURA BATTER
This recipe makes about double what you need for the potatoes, so save the extra for frying other veggies, such as broccoli or cauliflower, or fish (especially white, flaky fish).
Makes about 5 cups
1 (16-ounce) box cornstarch
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 cup vodka
2 cups seltzer water
1 large egg
Whisk together the cornstarch, Parmesan, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, vodka, seltzer, and egg and refrigerate until ready to use, for up to 2 hours.
HAZELNUT MAYONNAISE
The lemon vinegar that we use for this recipe is Jean-Marc Montegottero’s Citron/Lemon vinegar. It’s small-batch vinegar made from in-season fruit and is honestly the best vinegar in the world. We get ours from Rod Markus at Rare Tea Cellar in Chicago and encourage you to do the same. But if you’re not willing to set yourself back fifty dollars a bottle, you could substitute a mixture of ½ lemon juice and ½ rice wine vinegar. Honestly, though, just buy some. You can use it on almost anything—seafood, meat, soups, salads; it’s really versatile. You could even substitute it for lemon juice, if you’re feeling fancy.
Makes about 2½ cups
1 cup mayonnaise (we like Hellman’s/Best Foods)
½ cup Garlic Aioli (this page)
¼ cup hazelnut oil
3 tablespoons lemon vinegar
3 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
2½ tablespoons honey
¼ cup buttermilk
Sea salt
LOTS of freshly cracked black pepper
Whisk everything together and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 10 days.
SHABAZI VINAIGRETTE
I walked into the restaurant one day, and Cosmo was tasting like eight different shiro dashis, which is basically like ready-made broth that’s flavored with bonito flakes and white soy, so it’s got a real mushroomy, umami flavor. All I know is that I tasted one and immediately took a bottle to everyone in the company. Now it’s like The Publican secret ingredient #486.
Makes 1½ to 2 cups
Zest and juice of 1 orange
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon Calabrian chile paste
6 tablespoons minced shallots
2 tablespoons Shabazi spice blend (see this page)
5 tablespoons shiro dashi
½ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons sugar
Whisk everything together and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
PULVERIZED SALT
I first saw pulverized salt—or sea salt that has been blended into a fine powder—when I was in Japan at a restaurant called Den. I thought it was genius because the salt just dissolves when it hits the food, making for a really evenly seasoned and really clean bite because you don’t get any salty residue on your hands when you’re eating. Coarse salt is awesome for some fried things—there’s something pretty satisfying about licking your salty, French fry–covered fingers after eating a burger—but sometimes you want something that’s a little more refined.
frites (with an egg on top)
We certainly had Belgian fries on the mind when we created this dish, so the fries are a thicker cut that’s not just all crunch but creamy on the inside. It’s a simple process of cutting, soaking, blanching, chilling, and then frying when you’re ready to serve. So it’s all about paying attention to the details—using the right potatoes (we have the best luck with Kennebec, but any baking potato will work), hitting the right blanching temp, and cooking the fries completely through before refrying them. You know they’re right when you put ’em in a metal bowl, toss them with salt, and they make a loud clanking noise. We serve them under a blanket of fried eggs, but you can skip the eggs or serve them with Garlic Aioli (this page) instead.
Makes 4 servings
2½ pounds Kennebec, Idaho, or Russet potatoes
Vegetable oil, for frying
Sea salt
4 Fried Eggs (recipe follows)
Fill two large bowls with cold water.
Peel the potatoes, placing the finished ones in one bowl of water to prevent them from turning brown. Slice the potatoes into ½-inch-wide sticks, adding the pieces to the second bowl of water while you work.
Heat a few inches of oil in a large pot or deep fryer to 275°F on a deep fat/candy thermometer.
Rinse the sliced potatoes under running water to wash off all the excess starch. You know you’re done when the water starts to run clear. Dry the potato slices well with a clean kitchen towel.
Line a baking sheet with paper towels or parchment paper. When the oil is at the right temperature, add one-third to one-half of the potato sticks, depending on how large your pot is. (If you crowd the potatoes in the oil, they break up and you get fry nubbins. We hate fry nubbins.) Blanch the sticks in the oil until they are light golden, 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to the baking sheet to cool and drain. Repeat for the remaining potato sticks.
Turn up the oil to 350°F. When the oil is at the right temperature, fry the potatoes in batches until golden brown, 3 to 6 minutes. Using the slotted spoon, transfer them to the baking sheet. Season with sea salt, pile them on a platter, drape the fried eggs over the top and serve immediately.
FRIED EGGS
COSMO Most chefs don’t want their fried eggs with any color on the whites. But Paul isn’t one of those chefs. We fry ours in really hot oil so the whites puff up, then pull ’em off just in time for the yolks to stay nice and runny—so they act kind of like an aioli on the frites. Don’t skimp on the eggs—get some nice farm eggs from a local farmer. They cook better, look better, and taste better than the supermarket kind.
Makes 4
¼ cup olive oil
4 farm eggs
Add half of the oil to a nonstick pan so that it completely coats the bottom and heat oil on a medium-high heat until it’s almost to the point of smoking. Crack 2 of the eggs into the pan and let the edges fry and caramelize until they are GBD—golden-brown-delicious. This is quick because you want bubbly, crispy edges with runny yolks. Once the whites are golden brown, use a perforated spatula to carefully transfer the eggs to the serving plate and repeat for the remaining eggs.
CHOOSING POTATOES
Keep in mind that the crispiness and color of the fries depends not as much on their cooking time as when the potatoes were harvested. Once potatoes are dug from the field, they’re put into cold storage (farmers aren’t digging potatoes every day). In cold storage, a process called recrystallization starts, during which the starches in the potato convert to sugar. So at certain points of the year, you get a very crispy, very blond potato that won’t ever turn golden brown no matter how long you fry them, or on the other end you get a dark brown, soggier potato, no matter how long it is in the oil. French fries are tricky to make at home, but at least they are a delicious experiment.
baby squash with chickpea pesto
COSMO We’re lucky to get our summer squash—patty pans, zucchini, crooknecks—about a month and a half before everyone else, because Nichols Farm and Orchard in Marengo, Illinois, grow theirs in a hoop house. We showcase them with a combination of roasted and raw, tossed together, and topped with Chickpea Pesto, which we invented by accident. We didn’t have enough basil one day, so we threw in all kinds of greens—sorrel, kale, ramp greens (or scallion greens). It’s incredibly delicious. You don’t have to add pine nuts because the chickpeas give that thick texture and nutty flavor, and the vitamin C from the kale keeps the mixture super-bright green. In Chicago, we find fresh chickpeas in Mexican markets and year-round at the farmers’ markets. Spoon any leftovers over burrata with a little good salt, a grating of Parm, and you’re done.
Makes 4 servings
CHICKPEA PESTO
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups fresh chickpeas, shucked
2½ tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup packed arugula
1 cup packed basil leaves
1 cup packed ramp leaves
Zest and juice of 2 lemons, or more juice as needed
½ cup grated Parmesan
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Sugar (optional)
SQUASH
1½ pounds baby summer squash, any varieties or mix thereof
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 chunk good Parmesan cheese, for garnish
To make the pesto: Start by placing the olive oil and—if you have room—the bowl of your food processor in the freezer. This will help the pesto stay cold, which will help keep its bright green color.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Blanch the chickpeas in the boiling water for 20 seconds, then drain and transfer them to the ice water. When the chickpeas are cool, drain them and set aside.
Remove the oil and food processor bowl from the freezer. Combine the fish sauce, arugula, basil, ramp leaves, lemon zest and juice, and ½ cup of the oil in a food processor. Pulse in 20-second intervals until you have a smooth green paste. Add the cheese and blend until smooth. Add the chickpeas and, while pulsing, drizzle in the remaining olive oil until you get the desired texture. You want the chickpeas to still be chunky. Season with salt and pepper, and if necessary, adjust the seasoning with more lemon juice or, if the greens are bitter, a touch of sugar. Set aside.
To make the squash: Cut half of the squash into bite-size pieces and set aside. Cut the other half lengthwise into ⅛-inch-thick slices. A mandoline works well here.
Add the olive oil to a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Sauté the bite-size squash pieces. As they begin to get tender and turn golden brown, season them with a good pinch of salt, a few cracks of pepper, and a squeeze of lemon.
Add the butter to the pan and let it lightly grab the squash. Transfer the cooked squash to a bowl and toss with the raw squash and about ½ cup of pesto. Season with salt and pepper to taste, give the salad a good grating of Parm, and serve.