Curry for Leftover Lamb or Beef

The 1964 edition of Joy of Cooking was my very first cookbook, an engagement present from a college friend named Helen, who was from Cincinnati. She left Oakland University and transferred to B.U., where I visited her for an afternoon when I found myself in Boston. She was small and fierce with a helmet of shiny dark hair. I don't know what happened to her. She might be surprised to learn that giving me Joy (no pun intended) was the first step in my lifelong passion for cooking and collecting cookbooks. Thanks, Helen.

I don't know if the 1964 edition is still available in paperback or not. It used to be easy to find as a two-volume set. The most current edition is the 75th Anniversary Edition, considered by many to be the quintessential American cookbook, but the 1964 edition is still my favorite.

This combination of meat and fruit and vegetables is delicious and a great way to use up leftover lamb or beef.

Curry for Leftover Lamb or Beef

Adapted from the 1964 Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker

Serves 4

1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 - 3 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil (I use grapeseed or peanut)

2 cups cooked lamb or beef, cut into medium pieces

2 teaspoons flour, Wondra is best
1½ cups hot chicken broth (you can use beef broth, but I always use chicken)
1 tablespoon curry powder (I use Sun Brand)
2 tart apples (Granny Smith are good), peeled and cut into wedges
1 tablespoon raisins (whatever color raisins you keep in the pantry)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup diced celery
Salt and pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter or oil in a sauté pan or saucier. Add chopped onions, and cook until the onions are tender and just beginning to brown.

Add the curry powder, and cook for about 1 minute to release the flavor of the curry, being careful not to burn it. Add the apples and celery. You want them to stay crisp, so cook for about 2 minutes, no more than that. Using a slotted spoon, remove the ingredients from the pan to a bowl, leaving behind any juices that have accumulated.

Add the additional tablespoon of butter or oil, if necessary, to the pan, and brown the meat. Add the flour to the pan, sprinkling it over the meat. Stir to coat the meat thoroughly with the flour, and pour the hot broth in slowly, stirring the whole time.

When the sauce is smooth and boiling, add the apples, onions, and celery from the bowl along with the tablespoon of raisins to the pan. Stir in the lemon juice, and season carefully with salt. The amount of salt in the broth you use will make a difference. Pass the peppermill at the table.

This goes well with Basmati Rice Pilaf, buttered green peas, and Cucumber Salad.

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Lamb Salad with Pine Nuts

This is very good and an unusual way to use leftover lamb.

Lamb Salad with Pine Nuts

Adapted from The Frog Commissary Cookbook by Steven Poses, Anne Clark, and Becky Roller

Serves 4

Sweet Onion Vinaigrette

⅓ cup olive oil
⅓ cup light vegetable oil (I use grapeseed)
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ teaspoons pepper
½ teaspoon minced garlic
¼ cup wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
½ cup minced red onion

Whisk together all the ingredients and refrigerate. This can be done up to 2 days in advance.

Salad

4 quarts loosely packed mixed salad "greens," such as spinach, arugula, watercress, or radicchio
1 cup red bell peppers, cut into 1-inch matchsticks
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound leftover lamb, cut into bite-size strips about ¼-inch thick
¼ cup black raisins
¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted in a skillet (watch carefully so they don't burn)

Wash and dry the greens thoroughly. Tear them into pieces, and put in a large bowl. Add the red peppers.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet that will hold the lamb in one layer. Add the lamb, and cook for 1 minute. Stir, and turn the pieces of lamb around for another 15 to 30 seconds. Turn off the heat, and add the raisins, pine nuts, and dressing all at once. Stir for about 15 to 30 seconds to let the dressing heat through.

Pour the contents of the skillet over the greens and red peppers in the large bowl, toss, and serve immediately.

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Roast Leg of Lamb

How easy can you get?

Roast Leg of Lamb

Adapted from From Julia Child's Kitchen by Julia Child

Serves 6 to 8

A 5 to 7 ½ pound leg of lamb

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup soy sauce

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Remove as much of the fat from the lamb as you can. The reason this is important is that lamb fat has a low melting point and will start to congeal on the plate at room temperature, accounting for the strong taste that people associate with lamb. It's not the meat; it's the fat. This is different from beef fat, which has a high melting point and makes the meat stay juicy and succulent while you are eating it.

Rub the lamb with the oil and soy sauce.

Place the roast on a rack in a roasting pan. Put the pan in the middle of the preheated oven, and roast for 15 minutes. Baste with oil.

Turn the heat down to 350 degrees, and cook for another hour. Remove the roast from the hot pan, and let stand on a board for 10 minutes before carving.

Leftovers are wonderful made into a lamb salad or turned into a curry.

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Orange Salad - For Bill

This is a good recipe to have on hand in the winter when navel oranges are in season and not much else is. It's bright and vibrant - a good change of pace to uninspiring winter salad greens.

I think Maldon Salt is the best salt to use in salads. If it's too coarse for your taste, you can crush it a little in your fingertips when you add it. This helps release the flavor.

Orange Salad

Adapted from The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey and Craig Claiborne

Serves 2

2 large navel oranges
8 black olives, cut into pieces (use your favorite - I like Cerignola)
1/2 teaspoon finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste (I don't always automatically use pepper in everything, but it's good in this recipe)
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Put the vinegar in a small bowl, add the salt, and let it steep while you proceed with the recipe.

In order to peel oranges so you remove all the pith, cut a slice off the top and a slice off the bottom with a knife. Then stand the orange up on one end, and cut down from top to bottom, curving around the shape of the orange. Go all the way around the orange until the skin and pith are completely removed. Do this carefully on a plate so you can catch any juice that might escape.

Cut the skinned orange into ¼-inch rounds, slicing parallel to the top and bottom slices you removed.

Put the orange slices on a platter and scatter the olives on top.

Whisk the minced garlic, oil, and pepper into the salt-infused vinegar. Pour over the oranges and olives. Sprinkle with parsley.

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My Chicken Legs - For Bill

Recipes "For Bill" are easy.

I guess we all have things we make that don't really seem like recipes but are just "things we do." This is something I do all the time. I think it's delicious. And it's easy.

Basically, you just put a little tiny bit of oil on whole chicken legs, stick them in the oven, and cook them at a high temperature until they are very crisp.

Since this is excellent hot, cold, or at room temperature, and everyone always loves it, I often make it for company, cooking it ahead of time to serve with different side dishes depending on what appeals to me at the moment. One of my favorite dinners was a 2-ounce-per-person portion of Pasta Shells with Sausage as a starter, followed by a chicken leg served on the same plate with a tart green salad.

If you are tempted to try this recipe. I'm sure you will like it.

My Chicken Legs

Whole chicken legs (free-range are best), as many as you like. (Don't substitute chicken breast halves here because the white meat does not take well to this method.)
Olive oil
Kosher salt

If you have time, salt the chicken legs all over, put them on a rack on a platter, and refrigerate for a few hours. This will air-dry the chicken so it will cook extra crisp. I like to do this the night before I am going to cook the chicken, turning the pieces over in the morning. (Since I prefer this step to brining, I also air dry a whole chicken this way before I roast it.) If you don't have time to do this step, make this recipe anyway; it will still be good.

Put a tiny amount of olive oil in your hand, and rub it onto each chicken piece, all over. You might have to add olive oil to your hand more than once, but do it sparingly because you want each piece very lightly coated with the oil. If you haven't salted the chicken in advance, you should also rub a little salt into each leg. If you have already salted the chicken, don't add any more salt.

To avoid contamination with any bacteria from the chicken, wash you hands after you handle the chicken before you touch the olive oil bottle and salt container (if you are salting at this point).

Put the chicken legs in a pan, and bake in a preheated 400 degree oven until they are very, very crisp – 45 minutes to an hour. I usually cook them for an hour because the result I want is extremely crisp, well-done chicken.

Leftovers are great.

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Gizi's Chicken Paprikash

I once spent a weekend at the farm with Gizi, learning how to cook a number of her Hungarian dishes.

Gizi 1937

Chicken Paprikash was her specialty.

I have tried other recipes for chicken paprikash and tried little changes to this recipe, but I always come back to the way Gizi showed me. It's definitely more tomato-y than most recipes, but I really think it's the best - the sauce is delicious. It's even good the second time around, so don't be afraid of having leftovers.

Gizi's Chicken Paprikash

Serves 4

6 chicken drumsticks and 6 chicken thighs (or any combination of the two), skin and fat removed
About 3 tablespoons oil (I use grapeseed or olive oil)
2 green peppers, cut into strips
Lots of diced onion - depending on the size, I use 1-1/2 to 2 large onions

1 16-ounce can tomato sauce or 2 cups of plain homemade tomato sauce
1 cup of chicken broth

2 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika
Salt to taste
¼ cup heavy cream
Sour cream for the table, for people to dollop on the finished dish to taste

I like chicken cooked all the way through, but I don't want it to start shredding in this recipe, so I am careful not to overcook it.  I find three pieces usually makes one serving.  I cook the sauce with heavy cream, which will not curdle, rather than sour cream, which does.  Diners can add dollops of sour cream to their own portions at the table if they choose to.

Use a pan that will later hold all the ingredients with the chicken in a single layer.

Sauté the diced onion in the oil until the onion starts to turn gold; however, do not let it brown. Add the paprika, and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute, allowing the paprika to bloom but making sure it does not burn.

To avoid splattering, turn off the heat, and add the tomato sauce. Then pour the chicken broth into the tomato sauce can or the cup the homemade tomato sauce is in (to get all the tomato sauce out of the can or cup), and add the chicken broth to the pot.

Turn the heat back on, bring to a boil, and lower heat to a simmer. Taste for salt. You may not need any because of any salt that may have been in the tomato sauce and/or chicken broth.

Add the chicken pieces and submerge (they will float up – that’s okay) in the sauce. (Note that I do not sauté the chicken pieces first.) Then strew the strips of green pepper over the ingredients in the pan. Do not stir them in at this point. Put a cover on the pan, and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring after the first 20 minutes to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan .

At the end you want the sauce to be thick enough to coat a spoon, like heavy cream. If it isn't, you can thicken it with a slurry made of water and flour or heavy cream and flour. However, I don’t usually do this because using the flour makes the color of the sauce too light. So if it isn't thick enough toward the end of cooking (and it often isn't), I remove the chicken to a plate, set it aside, and turn the heat up under the pan to reduce some of the liquid until the sauce reaches the consistency I want.

While I'm reducing the sauce is the point at which I add the heavy cream and keep reducing. When the sauce is as thick as I want it, I put the chicken back in the pan, and cook it just long enough to get hot again. Turn off the heat.

Diners can add dollops of sour cream at the table, stirring it in to create a marbled effect..

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I always serve this with buttered Spaetzle.

buttered green beans, and Cucumber Salad.

Buttered green peas are good with it too.

The best dessert is a fruit/cake thing. Marian Burros' Original Plum Torte topped with lightly whipped heavy cream or Linzertorte are especially good.

Plum Torte

Linzertorte

Crunchy Brussels Sprouts

This is a really terrific recipe for Brussels sprouts. Even Brussels sprouts haters have been known to gobble it up. It's adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe with some help from the Brussels sprouts wisdom of Marian Morash in The Victory Garden Cookbook, a cookbook I love. Even though it was announced that it was going to be re-released after being out of print for far too long, it's still not available except used.

I think this recipe is ripe for adaptation - use butter and add a little cream to thicken into a sauce, use bacon instead of pancetta.

Crunchy Brussels Sprouts

Adapted from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

Serves 4

1 to 1½ pounds small to medium Brussels sprouts, trimmed
2 tablespoons butter or extra-virgin olive oil (I use olive oil)
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 tablespoon plain breadcrumbs or 1/4 cup diced pancetta
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley leaves (optional)
Salt to taste

The rule for his recipe is don't overcook the sprouts.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil, and add salt. Add the trimmed Brussels sprouts, and boil them until they are just tender. This will take between 4 and 8 minutes depending on the size of the Brussels sprouts, so start poking with a cake tester at 4 minutes and taste one as soon as it seems barely done. At that point drain the sprouts, and plunge them into cold - even iced - water to stop them from continuing to cook. Drain again, and put them on a towel to absorb moisture.

Cut each sprout in half.

Place the butter or oil in a deep skillet or saucier over medium heat, and add the garlic. Do not let the garlic burn, so be prepared to remove it from the pan if it starts to get too dark. When the butter foam subsides, or the oil is hot, add the sprouts and the breadcrumbs. Stir until hot.

If you're using the pancetta instead of the breadcrumbs, add the cubes of pancetta before the sprouts. Stir until the pancetta colors slightly. Then add the sprouts, and stir until hot.

Turn off the heat. Remove the garlic if you haven't already done so, and toss the sprouts with the lemon juice and parsley if you are using it. Season to taste with salt and serve.

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Orange Sponge Cake

This is one of my go-to desserts. It's a delicious and not overly sweet cake that I found on Chocolate & Zucchini, the lovely blog written by Clothilde Dusoulier.

Clothilde is French and bakes by weight, and I recommend that when you make this cake, you weigh the ingredients too. Just to see if it makes a difference, if you have a scale, measure one cup flour by the scoop-and-level method without compressing the flour, then weigh it and see if it weighs the same 120 grams called for in the directions.

You can eat this cake plain, but my favorite way is with strawberries or raspberries macerated for a short time (30 minutes is fine) with a little sugar and topped with cream softly whipped and lightly flavored with Mathilde Orange Liqueur X.O.  It is softly orange with a slight somewhat caramel flavor, making it good to use as an ingredient and lovely to drink on its own.  You can serve a thimbleful in beautiful small glasses, which makes it quite festive, especially at Christmastime when I like the scent of oranges in the air.

Clothilde calls this cake Le Piège Gateau.

Orange Sponge Cake
Adapted from Chocolate & Zucchini

Although this will keep, I like it best on the day that it's made.

1 large pat butter
1 heaping tablespoon sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch round cake pan generously with the butter, then coat the pan with a heaping tablespoon of sugar.

For the cake:

120 grams (½ cup plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, softened (really, really softened but definitely not melted)
120 grams (½ cup plus 2 tablespoons) sugar
2 large eggs
1 medium organic orange, scrubbed
½ cup of juice from the orange - If there isn't enough from one one orange, juice another one.
120 grams (1 cup) flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (do not decrease this amount, but don't increase it either)
A generous pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter with the sugar,  then add the eggs one by one, and mix after the addition of each egg until completely combined.

Without going into the pith, grate the zest from the entire orange, and add to the bowl.  This is easy if you use the original Microplane grater; one pass over the orange will do it.  Juice the orange, and add ½ cup of juice to the batter.  If you don't have ½ cup of juice from this orange, juice another one or two until you have ½ cup of juice.  Mix until smooth.

Put the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.  Stir with a fork to mix together.  Sift this mixture onto a piece of aluminum foil, and then pick up the foil and fold it into a spout so you can easily pour  it into the mixing bowl.  Whist this mixture into the batter until just combined, and pour into the prepared 9-inch cake pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.  With my oven 20 minutes is the right amount of time.

Let the cake cool on a rack for ten minutes - but no more than this or the caramel crust the sugar has made which is one of the delights of this cake, will harden and stick to the pan.  Turn onto a serving plate, and let cool completely before serving.

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Extra Rich Brownies

Adapted from La Maison du Chocolat: Transcendent Desserts by the Legendary Chocolatier Robert Linxe

These are very delicious - what I call my adult brownies. They are loaded with nuts, both ground almonds and lots of walnuts. They are best served cold.

Extra Rich Brownies

Adapted from La Maison du Chocolat: Transcendent Desserts by the Legendary Chocolatier Robert Linxe

Makes about 20 small brownies

2-1/2 cups walnut pieces
1/2 pound highest quality bittersweet chocolate
7-1/2 ounces unsalted butter
4 eggs
1/4 cup ground almonds
Scant 1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 9 x9-inch baking pan, and dust the pan with cocoa powder.

Coarsely chop the walnuts. Break the chocolate into pieces, and place the pieces in the top of a double boiler to melt. Do not let the bottom of the double boiler hit the water in the bottom. Add the butter, and stir to blend as the butter melts. Alternatively, do this step in a microwave, but be cautious about overheating it. Once melted set the chocolate aside, away from any heat.

Combine the eggs, ground almonds, and sugar in a separate bowl. Add to the melted chocolate mixture, and stir to blend. Then put the baking soda and flour into yet another bowl, and stir with a fork to combine. Sift this into the chocolate mixture, and blend. Add the walnut pieces, and stir again.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then unmold into a cooling rack. Cool completely, then cut into 2-inch squares. Refrigerate until serving.

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Fried Onion Rings

This delicious recipe is adapted from a card that was attached to a bag of onions packaged under the name Bon Campo, which is a brand and not a type of onion.

Pay attention to the fact that you need 3/4 cup of flat beer to make this, not exactly something most of us have hanging around.

Fried Onion Rings

Adapted from a recipe on a Bon Campo brand onion package

2 large or medium-size sweet onions
1-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks, beaten

3/4 cup flat beer

vegetable oil for frying (I use grapeseed)

Cut onions crosswise into 1/4-inch slices, and separate into rings.

In a bowl combine and mix well the flour, salt, and egg yolks. Gradually add 3/4 cup of flat beer. Refrigerate the mixture, and let it rest for a minimum of 3 hours.

When ready to cook, pick up some of the onion rings with a fork, and dip in the batter. Pick the rings up one by one with a fork, allow the excess to drip off, and fry in hot oil until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with additional salt, if necessary. Serve hot.

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Raised Waffles

This recipe is a good reason to go out and get a waffle iron if you don’t already have one. Marion Cunningham discovered the recipe when she was doing research for what would become the twelfth edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, my favorite basic cookbook.

The mixing is done the night before, and all you have to do in the morning is add a couple of eggs and some baking soda before the batter is ready to cook. These waffles are very crisp on the outside and delicate on the inside. They are absolutely scrumptious.

I have made these in a regular waffle iron, which Kim Severson of The New York Times recommends you use for this recipe, and I have made them using a Belgian-style waffle maker.  I prefer these waffles made Belgian-style, but that's probably because it's the first way I made them.

I recently ate lunch at a new restaurant near my office in Chelsea. It's called Trestle, and the chef is Swiss. The space is rather spare and beautiful, and the cutlery and glasses are lovely. So far, the food and wine and beer I have had there have all been excellent. Many times - because it is so good - I have eaten a dish of creamed chicken in puff pastry cases. I think a creamed chicken like that one, which has mushrooms and butternut squash in it, would taste good served on top of these waffles for dinner. If I try it, and it turns out to be good, I'll post the recipe.

Raised Waffles

Adapted from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham

Makes about 8 waffles

1/2 cup warm water
1 package dry yeast (1/4 ounce or 7 grams)
2 cups milk, warmed
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Added later:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon baking soda

The batter will double its original volume so use a mixing bowl that will accommodate its doubling.

Put the warm water in the bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast, and let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.

Add the warmed (not hot) milk, melted butter, salt, sugar, and flour to the yeast/water mixture, and beat until smooth and blended.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let stand overnight at room temperature.

Just before cooking the waffles, beat in the eggs. Add the baking soda, and stir until well mixed. Don't be alarmed; the batter will be very thin; that's okay.

Pour about to 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup batter into a very hot waffle iron. (This will, of course, depend on your waffle maker. I use one with large indentations - the kind for Belgian waffles. It makes four waffles and will hold almost a full cup of batter. You will get the hang of it after a few waffles.) Bake the waffles until they are golden and crisp. Serve immediately.

If I am serving these for breakfast, I top with hot maple syrup. I don't add any additional butter because I think they are rich enough without it.

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Barbecue Ribs in Spicy Sauce

Barbecue Ribs in Spicy Sauce

Adapted from Roasting by Kathy Gunst

This is a great recipe for ribs roasted in a spicy barbecue sauce, and you make them right in the oven so it's easy to do when you've packed your grill away for the season.

These are not like barbecued ribs in a Chinese restaurant, and they are not like ribs off the grill or from a smoker, but they are delicious in their own right.

It's the first recipe of mine Mandi made after she and Scotty got back to

Australia from their honeymoon in New York, and now it's become one of their regular meals.

Barbecue Ribs in Spicy Sauce

Adapted from Roasting by Kathy Gunst

Serves 4

4 pounds pork ribs, cut into individual ribs

The Marinade

2 cups ketchup1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 to 3 tablespoons Asian chili paste - I use the one in the jar with the rooster on it by Huy Fong called Chili Garlic Sauce, not Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. One tablespoon of chile paste will make a mild sauce, 2 tablespoons will make a medium sauce, and 3

tablespoons will make a very spicy sauce. I use 2 tablespoons.

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl large enough to hold the ribs.

Add the ribs to the bowl, and coat all over with the marinade. Cover, and refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours. I have made them with only a short marinating time, and they were still good.

When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the ribs with half of the marinade in a large roasting pan, and roast

for 10 minutes.

Then reduce the heat to 300 degrees. Baste the ribs every 20 to 30 minutes, adding more marinade as necessary. Cook for a total of 1-1/2 hours, turning the ribs once or twice during that time.

If the sauce begins to dry out, you can sprinkle 1/4 cup water or dry white wine over the ribs.

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Penne with Balsamic Vinegar and Tomatoes

This recipe is from Marcella's Italian Kitchen. It's not Marcella Hazan's most well-known book, but it is excellent, one of my favorites, and a good addition to your collection.

I'm not fond of balsamic vinegar in salad dressing, but used as a flavor enhancer, as it is here, it can add tremendous, almost elusive, depths of flavor. This dish is really different and wonderful.

If you happen to have very high quality, aged balsamic vinegar, now is the time to use it. I got this vinegar

from DiPalo's at 200 Grand Street, between Mulberry and Mott, a treasure trove of Italian food. If you live in NYC or are visiting, this is definitely worth a visit. If you can't get there, check out their website, DiPalo Selects.

Marie DiPalo with balsamic vinegar and farro

Penne with Balsamic Vinegar and Tomatoes

Adapted from Marcella's Italian Kitchen by Marcella Hazan

Serves 4

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 or 4 cloves garlic, sliced very thin
2 springs fresh rosemary, about 4 to 6 inches long, or 2-1/2 teaspoons dried leaves, chopped
2 14-ounce cans of Italian peeled plum tomatoes or 1 cup of plain homemade tomato sauce

Salt
Black pepper
1 pound penne, cooked in boiling, salted water until very firm to the bite
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Put 2 cups of whole tomatoes, exclusive of their juice, in a bowl. Using your hands, break up the tomatoes. Some juice will come out of the tomatoes. You want to use that juice (as opposed to the juice left behind in the can).

Put the olive oil and garlic into a saute pan or saucier large enough to hold the sauce and the pound of cooked penne. If you're using fresh rosemary, add it now.

Turn the heat under the pan to medium. As soon as the garlic begins to sizzle, add the ingredients from the bowl of tomatoes, and salt to taste. If you are using dried rosemary, which you have chopped, add it now.

Cook the sauce until the oil separates from the tomatoes. This usually takes between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on the liquidity of the tomatoes you start with. Turn off the heat.

While you are making the sauce, you want to cook the penne in lots of boiling salted water timing it so it is al dente - very firm to the bite - at the same time the sauce is done. Drain the penne, and transfer it immediately to the pan containing the sauce.

Turn the heat back on to very low, and toss the pasta with the sauce for about 1 minute.

Turn off the heat again, and make a well in the middle of the pasta. Pour the vinegar into the well, draw the pasta through the sauce, and mix for a few seconds until it's well coated. Add some black pepper and mix again.

Serve at once.

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Crustless Zucchini Quiche

This delicious recipe, which I use as a vegetable side dish, is from one of those little pamphlet-type books you sometimes see displayed on a revolving rack in a cooking store or a gift shop.

I once served this zucchini with a roast leg of lamb for Easter dinner when I lived in Atlanta. Polly, who had just found out that she was pregnant (it turned out with Hallie) was there. For some reason that I can't remember, neither Bill nor Serena were there. Nevertheless, it was a great day - a good dinner and a celebratory occasion.

Now that Hallie is a gorgeious grown-up young woman, we know how right we were to celebrate that day's good news!

Hallie and Polly 2010

Crustless Zucchini Quiche

Adapted from Food Processor Cookery by Irene Chalmers

1/4 cup parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound small zucchini, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs (this means not dried breadcrumbs; I blitz whatever bread I am using in a food processor)
3/4 cup grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese (I grate this on a box grater)
3/4 cup half and half or cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (I grate this with a Microplane)

Heat the olive oil, and cook the zucchini over moderately high heat until lightly browned. Add the garlic and parsley, and cook until the garlic just begins to color. Do not let the garlic brown. Turn off the heat, and season the zucchini with salt.

Remove the zucchini from the pan with a slotted spoon, and place it in a baking dish with the breadcrumbs and Swiss or Gruyere cheese.

Combine the half and half or cream with the eggs, and pour into the baking dish. Sprinkle the surface with Parmigiano-Reggiano, and bake in a preheated 400-degree oven for 25 minutes.

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Mozzarella in Carozza

Sometimes Nanny used to make this for me on Saturday mornings for breakfast. Pepperidge Farm Sandwich Bread works okay, but now that there are so many fabulous artisanal breads available, try any bread you like.

Whenever I have to coat anything with egg, I strain the beaten egg

to make it smooth.

Mozzarella in Carozza

Adapted from The New York Times Cookbook (1961 edition) by Craig Claiborne

Serves 4

8 slices white bread (I usually use Pepperidge Farm Sandwich White)
Flour
4 slices mozzarella, ¼-inch thick
2 eggs, beaten and put through a strainer to make smooth
Oil
Salt

Remove crusts from the bread, but skip this step if you like.

Now this is something I don't normally do - follow a step in a recipe that I don't understand at all. But I have made this recipe for a million years and have always done it this way. Flour the mozzarella lightly (I use Wondra). Place each slice of cheese between 2 slices of bread.

Put oil in a skillet, and heat. (I have always used a light vegetable oil, which now for me would be grapeseed. I imagine in Italy olive oil is used in this dish.)

Dip the sandwiches in the beaten, strained eggs, and fry in the hot oil, turning once, until the bread turns pale gold, and the cheese starts to ooze. Sprinkle lightly with salt, and eat hot.

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Carrot Vichyssoise

On my recommendation in 1974 Bill got Polly a copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes - before I had even met her - and this began many years of cooking and eating together in Atlanta, Mobile, Washington, and New York.

This is elegant and easy. The original recipe calls for chicken or vegetable stock. I always use chicken, but vegetable stock would make it a vegetarian (not vegan) dish.

It's so rich that it would be appropriate to serve it in demitasse cups as a tiny starter.

Carrot Vichyssoise

Adapted from A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price

Serves 4 to 6

2 cups peeled and diced baking potatoes
1-1/4 cup sliced carrots
1 leek white part only, sliced*
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
Salt
Shredded raw carrot or minced fresh chives for garnish

Put the potatoes, carrots, leek, and chicken broth into a large saucepan. Heat until the contents of the pan come just to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer until the vegetables are tender - about 25 minutes . Remove the pan from the heat, and let cool for 15 minutes.

Puree the contents of the saucepan in a food processor or blender. If you use a blender, do this step in two batches, half each time, so the soup doesn’t erupt out of the blender. I have never used a hand-held stick blender for this myself, but if it purees perfectly, it could work here.

Refrigerate in a covered bowl until cold. You can hold the soup at this point for one to two days.

Just before serving, stir in the heavy cream, and add salt to taste. Serve icy cold with a topping of shredded raw carrot or minced fresh chives.

*You need to thoroughly clean the leek. First, wash the outside of the leek. Then slice off the green part. Cut the white part of the leek in half all the way down to the root, but don't cut all the way through the root. Spread the leek apart, and clean both halves under running water to remove any accumulated dirt. Once washed, slice off the root end, and cut the two halves of the leek across into half moons.

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Pesto Torta

Adapted from Above and Beyond Parsley: Food for the Senses by the Junior League of Kansas City, Missouri

I once made this for one of Walter's birthday parties, and Marsha took one bite, thought for a second, and looked at me and said, "Cream cheese AND butter?" So I guess you can imagine how good this is.

This recipe can be cut in half.  It can also be frozen, so instead of making one large torta, you can make two and freeze one.

Pesto Torta
Adapted from Above and Beyond Parsley: Food for the Senses by the Junior League of KCMO

Cream Cheese and Butter

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound unsalted butter, room temperature

Beat softened cream cheese and softened butter with a spoon until smooth.

Pesto

¼ cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic
1 cup fresh spinach, tightly packed
1 cup fresh basil, tightly packed
½ cup fresh parsley
½ teaspoon salt or less
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

Beat softened cream cheese and softened butter with a spoon until smooth.

Toast the pine nuts in a small skillet on top of the stove, stirring and watching carefully to prevent burning. Puree the toasted pine nuts, garlic, spinach, basil, parsley, and salt in a food processor. Add the olive oil and blend.  Add the parmesan cheese and 3 tablespoons of butter, being careful not to over blend.

Torta

Cut an 18-inch square of cheesecloth; moisten with water, wring dry and as smoothly as possible line a 6-cup plain or charlotte mold (I once used a glass flowerpot-shaped mold, and it was perfect) with the cheesecloth. Drape the excess cheesecloth outward over the rim of the mold.

Take two pieces of wax paper or aluminum foil. On one, make six mounds of the cream cheese/butter mixture; on the other one, make five mounds of the pesto.

Use two different spatulas for the next step so the cream cheese/butter mixture has its own spatula, and the pesto has its own spatula. You are going to layer the two different ingredients - the cream cheese/butter mixture and the pesto.

Start by making an even layer with one of the cheese mounds in the bottom of the mold, extending it evenly to the sides of the mold. Cover with one of the pesto mounds, and spread the pesto in an even layer.  Repeat layering, making each layer even, and extending each layer to the sides of the mold.  If your mold is too wide to make this many layers, that's fine, but always finish with a cheese layer.

Fold the hanging ends of the cheesecloth inward over the torta, and press lightly to compact.  Chill for several hours or overnight.

A half hour before serving gently pull the torta out of the mold, but do not remove the cheesecloth yet, and do not turn it right side up.  Open the folds of the cheesecloth to expose the bottom of the torta, put a serving dish over the exposed bottom of the torta, turn it over so the serving dish is in the right position, and gently remove the cheesecloth.  Decorate the top of the torta with sun-dried tomatoes spread out in a fan shape. Serve the torta with crackers (I like Wellington Traditional Water Crackers) and/or thin slices of baguette or ficelle.

To store, remove the cheesecloth, wrap the torta air-tight with plastic wrap.  This can be refrigerated for up to five days. The torta can also be frozen.

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Sweet Potato Puree - For Bill

Adapted from Gotham Bar and Grill Cookbook by Alfred Portale

Serves 4





This is really, really good and really, really easy. You can even make it ahead of time and heat it up in the microwave just before serving. You don't even need a mixer to mash the sweet potatoes, they are so soft that a hand masher works. This will become one of your favorite and most useful recipes because it goes with so many dishes, and you can easily increase the amount you make.

4 large sweet potatoes (2 pounds total), a thin slice cut from one end of each potato (to avoid exploding in the oven)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon maple syrup (I like Grade A Dark Amber or even Grade B because they are dark and flavorful)
Coarse salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the sweet potatoes until tender when pierced with a cake tester or fork. This will take about 1 hour.

When done, remove the potatoes from the oven, slit them open.

If you are going to serve them quickly, scoop the flesh into a medium saucepan. Add the butter and maple syrup. Mash or stir (because they should be very soft) the potatoes over very low heat until they are smooth, and the butter is incorporated, about 1 minute. Season with salt.

You can keep the potatoes warm for a little while placing the saucepan in a skillet of simmering water over low heat.

If preparing ahead of time, place the flesh in a bowl. Add the butter and maple syrup. Mash or stir the potatoes until the butter is incorporated, and the texture is the way you like it. Cover and set aside.

When ready to heat, put a plate on top of the bowl (because you do not want to heat plastic wrap), and heat for 3 minutes in microwave. Stir again, and serve.

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Pasta Shells with Sausage

Adapted from Marcella's Italian Kitchen by Marcella Hazan

Serves 4

This is a wonderful recipe; one of my very favorite dishes. Do not eliminate the heavy cream; I have already cut the amount in half. You can use whatever pasta shape you like; Marcella specifies shells, and she's right about this - the bits of sausage nestle perfectly inside "large" (not the size you can stuff) shells. However, I have recently started to use Pasta Setaro on a recommendation from Luisa, (and you know you can always trust Luisa), but I haven't found Pasta Setaro in that shape. So recently I've been using Pasta Setaro mezzi rigatoni or mezzi millerighe (almost the same as the rigatoni) that I get from BuonItalia. If you find another shape that works well, let me know.

The first time I ever ate this, Tracey and I cooked dinner together at what was then her new house. We sat in her kitchen, which is surrounded by windows on three sides, and it was like sitting in a little treehouse.

All the windows were open, it was raining, and we drank a fabulous bottle of wine Tracey had been saving since her graduation from Augustana. The night she graduated, we drank so much champagne to celebrate, we didn't get around to drinking this wine.

When we started to eat this pasta , we literally did not say one word. It was so good we were speechless!

½ pound mild pork sausage (Italian without fennel is best if you can find it)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
⅔ cup canned Italian peeled plum tomatoes, cut coarse, with their juice
¼ cup heavy cream
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 pound pasta shells, mezzi rigatoni, or mezzi millerighe
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano

If the sausage is in a casing, squeeze it out onto a plate. Break the sausage meat into pieces about the size of a walnut.

Heat a saute pan or saucier, and two tablespoons of olive oil. Let the oil get hot, and add the nuggets of sausage meat. (If you add the sausage to oil that is already hot, it won't stick.)

After the sausage meat is lightly browned, add the garlic, and cook briefly - for about 30 seconds. You want the garlic to color a little but not brown. Add the tomatoes, stir, and cook at a gentle simmer.

After about 20 minutes, when the fat separates from the other juices and floats free, add the cream, and turn up the heat. Cook for 1 or 2 minutes, stirring frequently until the cream is incorporated and reduced. Add salt. Turn off the heat, and stir in the chopped parsley.

While the sauce is simmering, cook the pasta to the al dente stage. Drain the pasta, add it to the pan the sauce is in, and toss with the sauce. Turn off the heat, and add the freshly grated cheese; toss again, and serve immediately. Let everyone add freshly ground pepper to taste at table, if desired.

Grilled Shrimp Skewers

Peggy, who is from Charleston, South Carolina, is the master of all shrimp dishes.  She introduced me to this dish, which I instantly added to my repertoire. I think you will too. These are delicious.

Grilled Shrimp Skewers

Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

Serves 6

2 pounds medium or large shrimp, unshelled weight
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (estimate)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (estimate)
⅔ cup fine, dry, unflavored bread crumbs (estimate)
½ teaspoon garlic chopped very fine
2 teaspoons parsley chopped very fine
Sea salt and pepper
Lemon wedges (optional)

Shell the shrimp. I never remove the vein but prefer to leave the shrimp whole, but you can certainly devein them if you prefer. Put the shrimp in a bowl, and add as much oil and as many breadcrumbs as you need to to coat the shrimp lightly but evenly all over. Marcella specifies that you use olive oil and vegetable oil in equal parts; and you might want to try that because she probably has a reason. However, sometimes I only use olive oil and just glug it in until it feels right - enough so when you add the breadcrumbs, they coat the shrimp evenly.

Add the chopped garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper.  Toss thoroughly to coat the shrimp well. It's best if you let them to steep in their coating for 20 to 30 minutes at room temperature, but I have cooked them right away with good results.

Don't be tempted to add lemon juice to the marinade; it will start to cook the shrimp.

I cook these on a preheated electric grill that is part of my stove. If you are going to cook them over charcoal, light the charcoal in time for it to form white ash before cooking. If you are going to cook them on a gas grill, preheat it first.

Skewer the shrimp tightly, curling one end of each shrimp inward so that the skewer goes through the shrimp in three places. This prevents the shrimp from spinning around as you turn the skewer over.

Cook the shrimp close to the source of heat until they have a thin, golden crust. I cook these longer than you might think - usually for a total of 7 minutes.  Even though I don't like my shrimp overcooked - who does? - I have found that undercooking these takes away from the flavor.

Serve piping hot, optionally with lemon wedges.

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Fried Red Peppers - For Bill

Adapted from Cucina Fresca by Viana LaPlace and Evan Kleiman

Serves 4


I like this cookbook so much I have two copies - one in the city and one in the country. My original copy is dog-eared and falling apart.



This is a miracle recipe.

You will be amazed that so simple a preparation yields such tasty results. The longer the peppers cook without becoming dark brown or burned at the edges, the sweeter they will be.

Cucina Fresca

Make them while you're hanging around the kitchen so you can afford to be patient and not hurry this up. If you decide to make these peppers in advance, remember to serve them at room temperature – not cold.

I often serve this as a starter on a plate with Nanny's Stuffed Mushrooms and Green Bean Salad.  It’s also good served on top of asparagus vinaigrette. Margaret likes it with anchovies.

Fried Red Peppers
Adapted from Cucina Fresca by Viana LaPlace and Evan Kleiman

4 to 6 red bell peppers
Olive oil

Cut the tops and bottoms off from the peppers. Remove the seeds and the white ribs inside. Cut the peppers into 1/2 inch vertical slices.

Cover the bottom of a skillet or saucier with a light coating of olive oil, and turn the heat to medium. Add the sliced peppers. Stir. When the peppers get hot, turn the heat down to moderate, and cook the peppers s-l-o-w-l-y until soft with a few browned edges.

When done, put the peppers with their oil into a bowl or onto a platter. Cool to room temperature.




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Stuffed Mushrooms - For Bill

Make as many as you want

These are very, very good. When my mother told me this was how Nanny made them, I was sure she was wrong. She wasn't.

I used to use seasoned bread crumbs for this but stopped when I read the list of ingredients on regular brands found in the supermarket. I avoid food with trans fat (hydrogenated oil) and high fructose corn syrup, but if you find a brand of seasoned bread crumbs that you like that doesn’t have junk in it, you can use it here.

Nanny's Stuffed Mushrooms

Large cultivated mushrooms (just plain old white mushrooms) - If you find the really large ones that are packaged specifically for stuffing, get them.
Dry breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper
Pinch of dried oregano (optional - I don't use this, but Nanny and Mom did )
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove stems from mushrooms. Coarsely chop stems and place in a bowl with breadcrumbs (about a quarter of a cup for a large package of mushrooms). Add a small amount of salt and pepper to taste and a little dried oregano if you want to use it.

Do not add any liquid ingredients.

Put mushroom caps open end up in a baking pan. Fill indentations with stuffing mixture, which is totally dry and will fall out a little. Can be prepared in advance to this point.

Drizzle (this means not a lot) with olive oil, and bake for 20 minutes or until sizzling and slightly brown. The cook gets to eat all the little crunchy parts in the bottom of the pan.

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Chicken & Pear Salad

Adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

Serves 4 to 6

The original recipe actually calls for duck,* but I always use chicken. It's a good dish to eat in the summer, especially in the country when we're sitting around the picnic table. I serve a plate of sliced mangoes strewn with blueberries with this salad.

2 chickens roasted and cooled
3 cups wild rice cooked (recipe follows)
1 cup chopped celery
4 scallions, cleaned and cut diagonally into ½-inch pieces
Grated zest of 1 organic orange
Salt
3 ripe but firm eating pears
1 cup lemon juice
½ to 1 cup blueberries
Mango Chutney Dressing (recipe follows)

Roast the chickens the way you usually do, making sure the chicken is cooked all the way through, because who doesn't hate pink chicken. But remember, for this dish it doesn't matter if the skin is as crispy and delicious as you normally like, so you don't have to blast your kitchen with a high-heat roasting method if you don't want to. Also, you don't want to be tempted to eat the chicken as soon as you pull it out of the oven so restrain yourself. Please. I know some of you will want to poach chicken breasts, and they would well here, but the dark meat is so delicious in this recipe, I, personally, would never do that. Cool the chickens completely before proceeding, so, obviously, you can do this step a day in advance, refrigerating the chicken once it cools down.

Toss the cooked wild rice in a mixing bowl with the celery, scallions, and orange zest. Add salt to taste and toss again. Put this mixture on a large platter. Shred the cooked chicken into pieces and salt lightly, tossing it with your fingers to disperse the salt. Strew the chicken over the wild rice mixture on the platter.

If the skin of the pears seems too thick or spotty, peel the pears. Otherwise leave the skin on. Quarter, core, and slice the pears thinly. Put the lemon juice into a bowl, and drop the pear slices into that bowl as you go along, and toss to coat the slices with the pear juice. This will prevent the fruit from begoming brown. Don't do this ahead of time - just do it when you're done with everything else and about to serve the salad, pear by pear until all three pears have been sliced and tossed with lemon juice.

Arrange pear slices in a decorative fan across the top of the duck salad, and serve immediately.

Either pour Mango Chutney Dressing over the top, or serve in a bowl on the side.

*The recipe calls for 2 ducklings, not chickens, cooked medium-rare, so you might want to do ducklings. The recipe says to roast the ducklings at 450 degrees for 15 minutes and at 375 degrees for another 20 to 30 minutes, and, of course, to cook longer if you prefer ducks well done.

Wild Rice

I personally don't find much difference in the taste or texture of cultivated wild rice or real "wild" rice, so use what you prefer.

3 cups light-bodied chicken broth
1 cup wild rice (if really "wild," rinse and pick over for foreign particles)

Bring the chicken broth to a boil in a saucepan. Gradually stir in the wild rice. Cover the pan, and simmer until the grain of the rice is tender and moist.  This will take 40 - 50 minutes. All of the broth might not have been absorbed.  See if the rice needs salt, but season carefully because the amount needed, if any, will depend on how much salt was in your chicken broth.

Mango Chutney Dressing

Makes 3 cups

1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (I prefer Edmond Fallot Dijon Mustard)
¼ cup blueberry vinegar*
⅓ cup mango chutney
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Salt
2 cups light vegetable oil

Combine whole egg, egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, chutney, and soy sauce in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Season to taste with salt, and process for 1 minute.

With the motor running, dribble the oil in in a slow, steady stream. When all oil has been incorporated, shut off motor, scrape down sides of processor bowl, taste, and correct for salt.

Transfer dressing to storage container, cover, and refrigerate until ready to use.

*I have actually always used the blueberry vinegar called for in the recipe, hence my addition of blueberries to the plate of mangoes. However, I think you can mess around with what kind of vinegar you use, and if you change this, leave the blueberries in or out as you choose. They are, however, very pretty. But if you try it with raspberry vinegar, which is more readily available than blueberry, you could strew the mangoes with raspberries, and that would be very pretty too.

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Open-Face Ice Cream Sandwich

Adapted from Desserts and Sweet Snacks – Rustic Italian Style by Viana La Place

Serves 1

"The combination of bread and ice cream may sound strange, but it is a time-honored custom in Italy" where people eat gelato on brioche for breakfast in the summer. How good is that? Definitely try this; you will be surprised at how delicious it is.

Lemon marmalade
1 slice firm crusty bread
Vanilla ice cream

Spread lemon marmalade, including bits of peel, thinly on the untoasted bread. Then spread your own or the best quality ice cream you can find generously over the marmalade. Eat immediately.

Cauliflower Gratin

Adapted from More Vegetables, Please by Janet Fletcher

Serves 4

If you think people don't like cauliflower, make this. You'll be surprised at how fast it disappears.
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium cauliflower
Salt and pepper
2 cups soft fresh breadcrumbs
¾ cup grated parmigiano-reggiano and/or pecorino-romano cheese
2 tablespoons minced parsley

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the cauliflower florets off of the thick stem, leaving the florets in large pieces. Steam the florets over simmering water for 3 minutes. Essentially, you want to just moisten them, not really cook them because you are going to finish them in the oven. Cut the large steamed florets into smaller florets.

Liberally oil a baking dish with low sides that is just large enough to hold the cauliflower florets in one flat layer with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Arrange the cauliflower florets in one layer in the baking dish. Season with salt and pepper.

Combine the breadcrumbs with the cheese, and parsley. With your hands pat the mixture on the cauliflower, pressing it down. Drizzle the top with the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and bake until well browned and crusty, about 30 minutes.

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Spaghettini Aglio e Olio - For Bill

Adapted from The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Giuliano Hazan

Serves 4

Being able to whip up this recipe any time is a good reason to always have a bunch of parsley standing in water in a glass (like a bouquet of flowers) in the refrigerator at all times, as well as really fresh garlic. Sometimes I serve this with an egg fried in olive oil, with the white cooked and the yolk runny, on top of each serving. It's delicious to cut up the egg and mix it in with the pasta. I often use penne instead of spaghettini.

Spaghettini Aglio e Olio
Adapted from The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Guiliano Hazan

1 pound dried, store-bought pasta, spaghettini (thin spaghetti) or penne
1/4 to 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt

For one pound of pasta, bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and all the pasta, stirring until the pasta is submerged.

Put the olive oil and the garlic in a saucier or sauté pan over medium-high heat. As soon as the garlic begins to change color (and this means light gold, not brown), add the parsley, red pepper flakes, and some crunchy Maldon Salt. Stir well, and remove from the heat immediatly.

When the pasta is cooked al dente, return the pan with the sauce in it to a low heat, drain the pasta, and add it to the skillet quickly so that a little of the water is still adhering to the strands. Toss until the pasta is well coated with the sauce, correct for salt and spiciness, and serve at once.

Fresh Margaritas

If you are not already a subscriber to Cook's Illustrated Magazine (which I imagine to be very unlikely), I highly recommend your subscribing to www.cooksillustrated.com because you have access to all the old issues and will have lots of fun checking the site out.

This is a very loose adaptation of a recipe from Cook's Illustrated magazine. This is really, really good; The biggest problem is these margaritas do go down very easily.


Fresh Margaritas
Adapted from the July-August 2000 Issue of Cook's Illustrated Magazine

4 limes, juiced
2 lemons, juiced
1 small orange, juiced
1 cup Reposado tequila (I use Hornitos)
1 cup Triple Sec (I use Bols and never substitute Cointreau)
Glug of Rose's Lime Juice (optional)
Simple syrup*
Salt to rim the glass (optional)

Mix all of the above in a pitcher. Add simple syrup* to taste; the amount you add will depend on how tart the fruit is and on how sweet you like your drink. Remember, the Triple Sec is sweet, and the Rose's Lime has sugar in it too even though it imparts that sweet/sour taste.

At this point, taste a little of the mixture to make sure it's sweet enough - you can always add more simple syrup until you get it right, but you don't want it too sweet.  After all, this is a drink for grown-ups.

In batches (because it won't all fit), shake the above mixture from the pitcher in a metal cocktail shaker filled with ice until the shaker is frosty. Serve over ice cubes in old-fashioned glasses or large wine glasses.

Personally, I do not rim the glasses with salt and never use margarita glasses, but if you must, feel free.

*Simple Syrup

Bring equal amounts of sugar and water to a boil, just until the sugar dissolves. This will keep in a jar in the refrigerator. It's good to have on hand in the summer for iced tea, lemonade, and refreshing cocktails.

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