Recipe for Today: The Greenest Gazpacho

By Leslie Brenner

Cucumbers, celery, green bell peppers, parsley and a serrano give this green gazpacho its gorgeous color. Raw almonds or cashews add body, and sherry vinegar provides zing and olive oil (use your best, freshest one) makes it silky and deep.

Because there is no bread in it, it is not technically a gazpacho, but that vinegar-and-nut vibe definitely makes it eat like one — not the vibrant tomatoey kind that’s the word “gazpacho” usually brings to mind, but its cousin ajo blanco, or white gazpacho. (Ajo blanco, beloved in its birthplace of Málaga, Spain, is made with bread, garlic, almonds, salt and sherry vinegar — and in summer, garnished with green grapes.)

Our Greenest Gazpacho is just the thing for a meatless Monday. (It’s vegan! And gluten-free!) It’ll keep you cool and happy all through the summer.

RECIPE: The Greenest Gazpacho

Family gift from the Great Confinement: the perfect, easy roast chicken

Perfect easy roast chicken with crispy, brown skin. Our recipe requires no basting, no flipping and no advance preparation.

By Leslie Brenner

Yesterday was bittersweet. Wylie, my 24 year-old son and partner-in-cooking during The Great Confinement, finished packing up his silver Honda Fit, took one last look around to see what he left behind (inoperable culinary blowtorch, heavy suede jacket, melancholy parents) and — with his girlfriend Nathalie in the passenger seat — hit the road for California.

It’s a scene that’s been happening all across the country during recent weeks, apparently, as life begins to return to normal. Whatever that was.

The reasons for the bitter part of bittersweet are obvious. The sweet part is my feeling of gratefulness for the time we all had together — Wylie was with us during the entire pandemic.

I can’t exactly say that while Wylie was here I taught him to cook. That started long ago. He asked for a crepe pan for his birthday when he was, I think, seven. He spent the last year of his time in college in Los Angeles wowing his housemates with Santa Maria barbecues or giant pans of baked ziti.

But when he rejoined us a year and a half ago to regroup post-college and embark on a job search, he still had a lot to learn — as we all do. I’m pretty sure that’s when I taught him how to deglaze a pan, though he’ll probably dispute that. I definitely taught him to make corn tortillas and miso soup, soufflés and Chinese dumplings.

What I can say is that while he was here, Wylie grew up culinarily. Cooking nearly every meal during the year of confinement allowed both of us to fully immerse ourselves in the kitchen.

Of course for me there was (and always will be) plenty to learn as well. We both learned from cookbooks, videos and websites, along with conversations with cooks — Monish Gujral in India, who taught us about murgh makhani (butter chicken, which his grandfather invented); An-My Lê in New York, my brilliant photographer-friend and home cook who taught us about bánh xèo (sizzling crepes) and pho ga; Yuyee Sakpanichkul here in Dallas, the chef-owner of Ka-Tip, who talked me through the way to build a Thai curry.

What surprised me most in all this was how much I learned from Wylie. He’s a quick study, and when he wanted to master a dish, he dove headlong into it — watching chef videos, reading websites (always seeing what Kenji had to say at Serious Eats), consulting cookbooks. Most of what he wanted to learn was French (Thomas Keller became one of his faves) or meat-centric. (Kenji, in case your internet has been out for the last few years, is J. Kenji López-Alt; his fans call him Kenji.) Yet Wylie is seldom satisfied that his teachers have shown him the best way. He absorbs their wisdom, and then pushes forward, questioning assumptions, making improvements. (I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; that constant tweaking and evolution is the animating ethos of Cooks Without Borders.) 

One of the most useful things I learned from Wylie is his take on roast chicken. I had taught him everything I know on the subject, beginning with the late Judy Rodgers’ method of salting the bird a day or two before you want to roast, air-drying the skin, then tucking fresh herbs between skin and flesh and roasting simply in a skillet in a very hot oven. No need to baste, but you flip it twice. The result is an exquisite bird with wonderfully crisp skin. He tried that, tried Thomas’ Keller’s wet-brine method, which he was sure would be better (it wasn’t), tried CWB’s viral rendition of Lucky Peach’s lacquered roast chicken (impressed, but he tweaked the glaze). He tried other versions, too. We invested in a stove-top rotisserie, which makes a fabulous and very easy bird, but fixing the chicken on the rotisserie axle is a bit of a headache, and the thing can only accommodate birds smaller than three pounds, which aren’t easy to find.

After a year or so of experimenting, Wylie had settled into his preferred method. He feels salting ahead of time is best, but more often than not, when we want a roast chicken, we want it right now. One day, I suggested trying to pick up a supermarket roast chicken, something Wylie’s father and I used to do all the time when I was working at an office, and Wylie scoffed. “It’s just as easy to roast our own,” he said, “and so much better.”

Wylie’s solution to lack of time to salt and air-dry is hilarious: He pats the bird dry, sets it on a rack on a sheet pan and puts the pan on the floor with a small Vornado fan pointed at it for a half hour or so. Very effective! Then he finely chops a lot of thyme, distributes it between skin and flesh (sometimes suspended in butter), seasons inside and out, puts a whole lemon in the cavity and roasts — very simply. He uses Judy Rodgers’ basic method, heating a dry skillet on the stove, then setting the bird on it breast-up (at which point it makes a terrible loud farting sound!), and immediately putting it in a very hot oven.

Unlike Rodgers, however, Wylie doesn’t flip the bird. Rodgers’ method calls for turning it breast-down after 20 minutes, then flipping it back breast-up for the last five or ten to crisp the skin back up. Wylie doesn’t believe that there’s much (if anything) to gain with the flip, and certainly not worth the risk of the breast skin tearing in the process. He wants that perfect, crisp, browned skin.

After having eaten an adulthood’s worth of Judy birds and a year’s worth of Wylie birds, I daresay he’s right.

Last night, hours after he and Nathalie drove off, I needed roast chicken. Had Wylie been here, he would have insisted on roasting the chicken himself. Instead, I channeled him, with edits. 

As I started putting it together, I realized that I finally had something I’d long been seeking: the best streamlined way to roast a chicken with minimum effort and maximum impact.

The Perfect Easy Roast Chicken, resting after its 50-minute, no-basting, no flipping stay in the oven

Busy all day, I hadn’t thought of taking the bird from the fridge and letting it come to room temp. No matter. I rinsed it and patted it dry, tucked some thyme under its skin and salted it inside and out. Pepper on the outside, too. I tied its ankles together, heated a skillet, plopped down that bird, and shoved it in the oven, set at 450. Our ridiculous smoke alarm went off three times (though the kitchen was not smoky), making us curse and miss Wylie. I pulled out the chicken and took its temperature in the thickest part of the thigh, which the experts always tell you to do: 190 degrees — overdone!  How was that possible after just 40 minutes?

And then a lightbulb went off, and I finally understood that the thickest-part-of-the-thigh dictum is wrong. How many times have we pulled out the bird when thickest part registered more than 165, let it rest, carved it, and found that next to the bone, it was underdone.

So instead I inserted the thermometer next to the drumstick bone: 145. Not done. Back in went the chicken for another 10 minutes, I took the temp in the same place, and got 165.

Out came the chicken to rest — resplendent in its golden-brown skin. I made a little pan-sauce, having minced a shallot finely enough to meet Wylie’s exacting standards. (I used to be sloppier.)

I carved the bird, missing Wylie’s sharp carving knife. (He built an impressive knife collection while here.) We dined, Thierry sipping a glass of rosé, me sipping fizzy water, having reclaimed our two old accustomed places at the table for dining à deux. We toasted Wylie and Nathalie — and the adventure they’d driven off into.

And the chicken? It was perfect.

RECIPE: Perfect Easy Roast Chicken

Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh is one of our favorite salads, springtime through the summer

By Leslie Brenner

Every spring, as the sun comes out, the earth warms up, and thoughts of picnics, patios and pool parties pervade, this deliciously optimistic Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh finds its way to my table lickety-split.

From Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook’s superb 2015 book Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, it’s one of my favorite things to eat all the way through summer’s end.

Easy to make, and from ingredients that are not hard to find (frozen peas!), it’s super-versatile. Serve it as a starter, part of a creative mezze spread, maybe, or a simple spring dinner. Or as a side dish with lamb, chicken or fish —or even as a vegan main course. It travels well and eats great at room temp, so it’s a dreamy dish to bring to a potluck or picnic. I love it on its own for lunch — especially when it’s leftover from the night before — either on its own, or stuffed into a whole-wheat pita pocket.

Because I’m so fond it it, I make sure to keep a bag or two of those petite peas in the freezer and quinoa in the pantry all spring and summer long. That way when I see fresh mint (or my potted one is in a giving mood), I can chop it all together.

Oh, just one thing: If you’re more than one or two people, consider doubling the batch. The few times I made just a single dose, I’ve kicked myself for not making more.

RECIPE: Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh

The blueberry muffins in Roxana Jullapat's new 'Mother Grains' are seriously the best I've ever tasted

By Leslie Brenner

“It’s time to give the classic blueberry muffin a makeover, swapping out all the refined white flour for whole-grain spelt” writes Los Angeles baker Roxana Jullapat in her new cookbook, Mother Grains. Music to my ears!

I’ve always loved blueberry muffins — or maybe loved the idea of them, as I’m inevitably disappointed, finding them too white-floury, too cottony, too sweet. They stick unpleasantly to the roof of your mouth.

Because I love sneaking whole grains into baked goods whenever I get away with it, I was excited to learn of Jullapat’s book, subtitled “Recipes for the Grain Revolution.” It is scheduled for publication on April 20, and I’ve been cooking through it with plans to review, but you need this recipe now. It is far and away the best blueberry muffin I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.

Having a Easter brunch? It’ll be smashing on your table. Or on any weekend morning table.

The recipe, which has you top the muffins with a light and crunchy spelt streusel, is quick and easy — just 15 or 20 minutes to get the batter into the tin. The muffins bake for about 25, then need to cool for 20.

Their crumb is gorgeous and light, and the whole-grain spelt — which I had never baked with until I made the muffins this morning — gives them a mildly earthy flavor without clobbering you with an overly rustic texture or punitive health-food taste. Spelt, writes Jullapat, is “perhaps the best-known ‘ancient’ wheat.” She considers it “a gateway for bakers starting to explore ancient grains.” If I had money, I’d invest in a spelt farm.

Anyway, back to the recipe. Jullapat calls for a half-cup of frozen blueberries, adding that you can use fresh ones as long as you’re careful folding them in. I used fresh ones, and couldn’t help but wonder if the muffins might benefit from more berries than that. I made half using her exact recipe, and added more berries to the other four.

The muffin halves on the right were made according to Jullapat’s exact recipe; the halves on the left have extra blueberries.

I loved the extra berry version, while my husband, Thierry, preferred the less berryful original. In any case, the extra fruit did not compromise the recipe, so feel free to play with that.

Both ways were outstanding, though. I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten more than one muffin in a sitting in my life, and I had one and a half. I could easily have eaten three. Can’t wait to hear what you think — if you’d be so kind as to leave a comment.

[Did you notice we have a much more friendly new commenting system? We’d love to have you dive in!]

RECIPE: Roxana Jullapat’s Spelt Blueberry Muffins

This Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt is our new favorite easy, one-pan weeknight dinner

Our recipe for a cannellini, rapini and Italian sausage melt is gluten-free and incredibly cravable.

By Leslie Brenner

When you come right down to it, we’re all looking for the same elusive thing: Weeknight dinners that are quick and easy to make, delicious and satisfying. And if they can also be craveable, gluten-free and made in just one pan, so much the more fabulous.

An Italian-flavored Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt I recently concocted fits that bill — and then some.

I spent most of my adult life whipping up, at least once a week, pasta with Italian sausage and broccoli rape (aka rapini, aka broccoli rabe). It has long been my favorite easy comfort dinner. Though the dish is traditionally made with orecchiete as the pasta shape, I always used penne — smooth ones, not penne rigate. I just enjoy them more than those flat little ear-shapes.

No need for a recipe to achieve that old standard: Just blanch a bunch of rapini (saving the vitamin-filled water to cook the pasta in), brown a pound of Italian sausage, add the rapini, cook the pasta (saving a little cooking water), add pasta to rapini and sausage, along with a little pasta cooking water, cook briefly, add grated parm, a shake of Aleppo pepper and serve. To me it’s one of the most simply perfect dishes in the world. Garlic is a welcome but not entirely necessary enhancement.

But at some point I seriously cut back on refined-flour products (along with sugar), and so the dish changed for us from once-a-week favorite to once-in-a-while special treat.

Then came The Great Confinement, and with it, the feeling that under the circumstances, we should be able to eat whatever we want. The pasta dish appeared on our table with increasing frequency, the longer the pandemic stretched out. I made it with whole wheat pasta a few times, but it tasted punitive.

Beans, I thought. Beans and greens: Such a dreamy combo. Why not swap the pasta for cannellini beans — from a can, so it’s quick and easy? With the Italian sausage, of course. And Parm stirred in at the end.

It was good, but it wasn’t craveable. It wanted some spicy zing, and something melty on top.

Next time, I stirred in some harissa — North African chile paste kissed with caraway seed — and a bit of fresh rosemary. And then, after stirring in the Parm, I topped it with slices of fresh mozzarella. Not too much; I wasn’t looking for decadence, just irresistible, creamy deliciousness. Under the broiler it went, till it was bubbly and browning.

Eureka!!!

Treat yourself tonight, and let me know what you think.

RECIPE: Rapini, Cannellini and Italian Sausage Melt

Made in a flash, intensely chocolatey and ludicrously easy, molten chocolate cake deserves a comeback

By Leslie Brenner

There was a time when chocolate molten cakes were so ubiquitous that they became a runny joke — especially because the more it went, the less they were cooked. In went your spoon, and liquid eggy chocolate spilled out all over the plate. Ick.

Over the years, we’ve been subjected to so many mediocre versions of the dessert that we forgot how appealing they were way back when, as they poofed — pillow-like and fabulous — onto the scene. They were like small chocolate dreams — something between a soufflé and a mini-flourless chocolate cake, but preternaturally light, and intensely chocolatey. The middles were molten, but not liquid, just a bit oozy and soft. They were a way to show off great chocolate.

That was back in 1991, in New York City. I was a fledgling food writer there, molten chocolate cakes were everywhere, and they were wonderful.

I remember eating one at JoJo, Jean-George Vongerichten’s restaurant (his first), where he called it Chocolate Valrhona Cake. They’d been invented sometime before that, either by Vongerichten himself or by star pastry Jacques Torres, or maybe by someone in France, depending on whom you talked to. Vongerichten had served them a few years earlier, when he was chef at a restaurant called Lafayette, in the Drake Hotel, but apparently they were too early for their time. (I was still a starving grad student when Vongerichten was at the Drake, so I never made it there.)

In any case, as a society, in the intervening decades, we OD’d on them.

Now, at a time when we need small, easily achieved pleasures, it feels like a great time to rediscover them. A molten chocolate cake may be the biggest dessert bang you can in under a half hour, start to finish, and it’s ludicrously easy. All you need to have on hand is two good chocolate bars, four eggs, a stick of butter, a quarter cup of sugar, a pinch of salt and a couple spoonfuls of flour. If you want to impress a date, a spouse, a friend, a child — or anyone else in your orbit — you can whip this together in a flash and make quite a splash.

I thought about them the other night when my pod clamored after dinner for dessert, something rare and special in our small world. What could Wylie (our 24 year-old son) and his girlfriend Nathalie conjure quickly? I thought about this recipe, verified that we owned two bars of chocolate, and we found a perfect recipe penned by Vongricheten, published in Food & Wine magazine, 22 years ago.

Five seconds later, there Nathalie and Wylie were in the kitchen, melting the chocolate with butter, whipping eggs with egg yolks, folding in the melted chocolate and butter with a spoonful of flour and a pinch of salt, turning the batter into soufflé molds and baking. The cakes spend just 12 minutes in the oven. Maybe leave them in one extra minute, so they’re glossy and molten in the center, but no longer liquid. Pull ‘em out, let ‘em sit for one minute, and unmold.

Anyone can do this. And any of us — event the most well traveled and sophisticated — might well be dazzled all over again.

Happy Valentine’s Day! ❤️

RECIPE: Molten Chocolate Cake

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Gloriously lush but not overly rich, this is quite simply the perfect creamed spinach recipe

You might think that when it comes to creamed spinach, the richer the better. You’d definitely think so if you took a spin around the internet looking for recipes: They’re laden with daring amounts of heavy cream, sometimes even cream cheese. Often they’re so white from cream that the spinach nearly disappears. That’s not creamed spinach; that’s spinached cream.

I take the lighter view: I love a version that’s creamy in texture, but relatively light on the palate. I want to taste that lovely spinach more than the phat mouthfeel of heavy cream, but still want enough of a sauce to bind it deliciously together and soften the spinach’s astringency. A dash of nutmeg supplies a sweet middle note, a touch of perfume.

This recipe — which is delightfully simple — delivers maximum wonderfulness. For my money, it’s the perfect creamed spinach recipe.

It’s easy to shop for. You need one pound of baby spinach, which is one of those oversized clamshells. Part of a white onion, diced fine. Two tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of flour, which you probably already have. A quarter teaspoon salt, and a little less freshly ground white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.

If you have a kid learning to cook, or a pod-mate who thinks creamed spinach can only come from the kitchen of a steakhouse, have them watch; it’s actually pretty cool if you’ve never done it. Next time, you might not even need a recipe because the proportions are so simple.

Start by cooking the spinach on top of a couple inches of boiling salted water, so it doesn’t lose too much volume. Drain it well, but don’t squeeze it dry, then chop it medium-fine.

Now make a béchamel plus onion: Melt the butter, cook the onion in it till soft, sprinkle on the flour (equal to the amount of butter), stir and cook about three minutes, then slowly whisk in the milk. Cook, whisking frequently, until it’s thick and creamy. Add salt, white pepper, nutmeg, then stir in the spinach.

Now taste: It’s shocking that something that delicious can be so easy. Make this a couple times, and it’ll become second nature — something you can whip up without thinking about it to serve with any kind of chop or steak, roast chicken, simple pan-seared or roasted fish. Because it’s almost like a sauce itself, that main thing can be on the plain side — and the creamed spinach is a feather in its cap.

RECIPE: Perfect Creamed Spinach

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This sheet pan chicken dinner, with spices that evoke Morocco, is easy and spectacular

We love the idea of sheet pan dinners — the notion that you can plop everything on a pan, shove it in the oven and pull out something fabulous.

Unfortunately, most sheet pan dinners suck. Either some components are overcooked and others undercooked, the cooking instructions are so involved it might as well not be a sheet pan dinner, or, well, it’s just kind of blah.

I think you know what I’m talking about.

But I kept thinking a glamorous one could be dreamt up. Something with deep, interesting, evocative flavors — a dish so transporting that by the time it floated to the table you’d forget it was a sheet pan dinner. And yet it needs to be easy. And to work as advertised.

I love the smell of Moroccan spices cooking with tomato and cinnamon (as it does in a chicken and lamb couscous, for instance), and I thought that would be lovely to inhale on a busy weeknight. I put that together with that thing canned diced tomatoes do when you roast them, getting nice and concentrated and deep, and imagined them — zhuzzhed up with cinnamon and harissa — on top of chicken thighs with Moroccan-ish root vegetables. And onions cut so the edges get a little charred. Like that couscous dish, the one I dreamt of would have turnips and carrots.

I didn’t realize the dish would make its own pan sauce. What a delightful bonus!

So, how to you put together this dreamy deal?

First make a spice mix — toasted and ground cumin and coriander seed. Stir a little into a glug of olive oil, and toss the root vegetables in that. Put the turnips on the sheet pan first, and give it a 15-minute head-start in the oven, while you coat chicken thighs in the same mix plus cinnamon and a little harissa.

When you pull out the sheet pan to add the chicken (skin-side down), the pan is hot enough to give a little sizzle — perfect. Scatter the spiced carrots and onions around and back in it goes. Fifteen minutes later, flip the thighs and spoon on top of the tomatoes, and slide it in the oven again. Your kitchen fills with those beautiful smells, you have 35 minutes to relax with a glass of wine while the chicken finishes cooking.

It’s so simple you’ll have had time to clean up everything even before that last 35-minutes of roasting.

In fact, you’ll even have time to make a green salad — or roast some broccolini — and still enjoy that glass of wine.

For the broccolini, you don’t even need a recipe (though we’ll supply one just for kicks). Here it is in talk-through form: Toss two bunches of broccolini on another sheet pan with a thin-sliced lemon, a tablespoon of olive oil, half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of Aleppo pepper. Pop it in the oven during the last 20 minutes of your Moroccan-spiced sheet-pan chicken dinner, and everything comes out at once.

Easy peasy. And pretty damn good.

RECIPE: Sheet Pan Chicken Thighs with Turnips, Carrots and Harissa

RECIPE: Roasted Broccoli with Lemon and Garlic

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Italian ham & eggs team up (with cheese!) in a delightfully indulgent winter salad

We love salads starring winter greens, like endives, chicory or escarole — especially when they’re zhuzzhed up with snazzy and rich co-stars.

One of our all-time favorites is this escarole salad chock full of crispy prosciutto, six-minute eggs and shaved Parmesan.

Cooking the eggs for six minutes results in yolks that are still custardy, but not runny — perfect for mingling with the ham and cheese. The bright acid of lemon juice in the dressing balances all that richness, lemon zest adds beautiful citrus flavor, and a touch of anchovy brings extra umami depth.

Use your best olive oil with this one, and don’t skimp on the freshly ground black pepper. If you don’t find beautiful escarole, chicory (curly or otherwise), frisée or endives make good substitutes. If you threw in a little raddichio, that could be lovely, too.

It makes a royal lunch on its own; with a nice bowl of soup, it’s the perfect winter dinner.

RECIPE: Escarole Salad with Egg and Crispy Prosciutto

A chocolate mousse for every mood: This classic, easy-to-make French dessert is yours to customize

The first time I had chocolate mousse was when I was five or six years old and my dad took me out to lunch — just the two of us — at a fancy French restaurant. I don’t know what the restaurant was called, but it was on the same plot of land in Los Angeles where Eataly now stands, in Century City. The restaurant was cozy, dark, and — to my five-year-old mind — terribly elegant. I wore white gloves.

I don’t remember most of what we ate, only that I couldn’t wait for dessert. We were going to have a chocolate moose, my dad told me. How fantastic — a chocolate moose! An edible Bullwinkle!

And then it landed, and it was something much better than a moose: It was a Champagne coupe filled with something chocolate, crowned with a dollop of whipped cream and topped with a candied violet.

A sugar-coated tiny purple flower you could eat! This was the best thing ever. And that mousse! In that Champagne glass! I still remember the sensation, the flavor, the mouthfeel: It was like eating a rich, chocolate cloud. Heaven.

Recently, my extreme bouts of culinary adventurism have been punctuated with longings for nostalgic French foods. Onion soup. Quiche. Chocolate mousse.

Anyone can make chocolate mousse, but you do need the right recipe. I like a classic one, which is basically melted chocolate with egg yolks mixed in, folded gently into egg whites. Chill it for three hours, and dessert is yours.

The nice thing is you can dress it up or dress it down for any mood. Spoon it into Champagne coupes if you’re feeling fancy, or jelly jars if the vibe you want is chill. Some people like to leave it in a big bowl and serve it from that, or just give everyone a spoon. You could use pretty tea cups, or ramekins or custard cups — whatever you have.

Make the mousse as sweet or dark chocolatey as you like. We’ve based our recipe on two 3.5 ounce bars of chocolate; choose the one you most love to eat. If you’re a 70 or 72% cacao person, use that. If you like sweeter (60%) or darker, adjust accordingly. My chocolate of choice is 85%. That might be a little un-desserty for dessert, so I use one 72% bar and one 85% bar: That’s perfect for me.

You can really get creative in that melting bowl of chocolate. I like to add orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier. David Lebovitz, whose chocolate mousse proportions informed our recipe, favors Chartreuse. Julia Child called for strong brewed coffee as well as orange liqueur (which she whipped into the egg whites). Cognac could be nice, or Turkish coffee kissed with cardamom. You can use vanilla or almond extract, or even peppermint (just a touch).

Serve it naked for the full-on, chocolate-forward mousse experience, or top it with whipped cream, lightly sweetened or not, depending on how sweet you went with the mousse.

And then the (totally optional) final flourish, geared to your audience or expressive of your mood. Multi-colored or chocolate sprinkles! Slivered candied orange peel or cacao nibs! Dried rose petals! A candied violet!

If you love this recipe as much as I do, you’ll want to keep a couple of extra chocolate bars on hand for whenever you might want to conjure something special with very little effort. As long as you have four eggs, you’ll be good to go.

RECIPE: Your Favorite Chocolate Mousse

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Around the world in chicken soup: Flavors of the Yucatán shine in Jenn Louis' Sopa de Lima

This is the fourth story in our series “Around the World in Chicken Soup.”

I really miss traveling, and especially traveling to Mexico — which in the last five years had become almost an addiction for my husband and me. Our last two trips were to the Yucatán Peninsula, where we mostly explored the beautiful towns and cities inland — Valladolid and Mérida — and coastal towns like Sisal and Campeche and Champotón. And of course the archeological sites: Chichen Itza, and Uxmal and Ek Balam.

The peninsula’s bright and sunny flavors came back to us deliciously in the form of a recipe I found in Jenn Louis’ delightful new book, The Chicken Soup Manifesto: Sopa de Lima — the region’s tangy, limey chicken soup.

As Louis writes at the start of the book, it’s always great to use homemade chicken stock in soups “because the end result is worth the time, and your home will smell amazing.” So true.

But there’s not always time to make stock. And when you jazz up a chicken soup with assertive flavors, like the exhilarating spices that went into the Tibetan Thukpa we wrote about in December, the convenience of using store-bought broth or stock as a base becomes much more attractive.

That’s definitely the case with Louis’ Sopa de Lima. The original version in her book calls for starting with either home-made chicken stock or water, but because the chicken pieces cook in the liquid less than 20 minutes, I chose store-brought broth instead of water.

In the Yucatán, the lime they use for this soup is the region’s native lima ágria. Because we can’t get it here, Louis brilliantly swaps a combination of regular (Persian) lime and grapefruit juice, and that works great. Spices and herbs — cinnamon stick, black peppercorns, cloves, garlic, oregano and bay leaves — add some depth of flavor and balance the brightness; a big handful of chopped cilantro and hot, crisp tortilla strips are the finishing touch.

You could certainly swap the tortilla strips for store-bought tortilla chips if you don’t feel like frying the strips, but just-fried, they do add a lovely flourish. (And it’s a great way to use corn tortillas that have seen better days.)

OK, now I’m craving that soup, and that crunch. Hope you like it as much as I do.

RECIPE: Jenn Louis’ Sopa de Lima
Read: “Around the world in chicken soup: First stop, Rio de Janeiro, for a comforting bowl of canja de galinha”

Read: “Jenn Louis’ new ‘Chicken Soup Manifesto’ celebrates the feel-better elixir as expressed in 64 countries”

Read: “Around the world in chicken soup: Next stop Tibet, for a fresh and fiery bowl of thukpa”

This quick, easy cardamom-pumpkin spice bread is just the thing for lazy holiday or weekend mornings

I’m neither a big breakfast eater nor a frequent baker, but on lazy holidays (and regular lazy weekends) I do love to nibble on a cakey bread with my morning coffee.

The sight of an unused post-Thanksgiving can of pumpkin purée in our pantry and a recipe in Karen DeMasco’s 2009 book The Craft of Baking inspired this one, which we’ve been enjoying since Christmas morning. (Damn — it’s almost gone!)

DeMasco, in case you don’t know her, was the opening pastry chef at Tom Colicchio’s Craft in New York, as well as at Craftbar and ’wichcraft; she won the James Beard Award in 2005 for Outstanding Pastry Chef. “It is great toasted and spread with a thick pat of nice salty butter,” she wrote in the headnote. We didn’t get that far at our house: Each slice has gotten quickly gobbled.

Our version is slightly different than DeMasco’s original. I’m always looking for ways to use more whole grains, so I thought I’d try subbing out half the white flour in her recipe for whole-wheat flour. (It worked!) I also cut the white sugar by half, from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup, suspecting that with the 1/2 cup of brown sugar also called for, it would be sweet enough. (It was!) And finally, I added freshly ground cardamom into DeMasco’s pumpkin spice mix — probably because cardamom always seems so alluring this time of year. (And anytime, really!) Success again — it added something aromatically delightful.

The result is lush, moist, warmly spicy and delicious. The whole wheat flour adds a wee bit of wholesomeness without turning the bread cardboardy or punitive; and even with the reduced sugar, it was definitely sweet enough for Thierry (who has been been successfully taming his sweet tooth), and of course sweet enough for me. A touch of turbinado or demerara sugar sprinkled on top before baking gave it a light sugary crunch (I cut that by a third as well). Best of all, it’s a snap to make.

We’ve enjoyed this cakey bread so much, I’ll be keeping cans of pumpkin purée in the pantry well into the winter. Hope you like it too!

RECIPE: Cardamom-Pumpkin Spice Bread

Need a perfect, easy holiday side dish? Try my family's longtime favorite roasted potatoes

If you’re anything like me, you’re likely to forget something as you plan your special holiday meals, or leave one thing to the last minute to strategize.

If for you that means spuds (during this weirdest-ever pre-holiday moment!), we’ve got just the thing: my family’s roasted potatoes.

The dish couldn’t be simpler, really, and it’s not much of a recipe. Think of it as a method. I usually use Yukon Golds or similar potatoes, but I’ve also used red ones. Most often I use medium-size Yukon Golds.

Here’s what you do: Peel and quarter the the potatoes lengthwise, drop them in a baking dish with a yellow onion peeled and cut into eighths. Drizzle with a couple of glugs of olive oil, liberate the leaves from four or five thyme branches, sprinkle liberally with salt and freshly ground pepper. Pop the dish in a hot oven, stirring once or twice with a wooded spoon to make sure they don’t stick, and roast for 45 to 55 minutes, until they’re crispy-edged and golden brown. Swap in other herbs, such as rosemary or oregano, if you don’t feel like thyme, add garlic cloves if you like, or swap the onions for shallots.

That’s it. I usually keep a big jar of grey sea salt from France in the pantry; I love using it with potatoes done this way. (But any salt will do.)

The potatoes are great with all kinds of rich holiday foods — prime rib, tenderloin and other roast beefs, turkey, ham, duck, goose and so on.

Best of all, they’re easy.

Oh, if you’re wondering about the platter they’re sitting on, it was an early work by my friend the ceramist Christopher Russell. He has since become a big deal artist who shows in galleries and whose work is highly sought-after. (I’m a huger fan than ever; check out his website.)

Back to those potatoes. They’re not just handy for holidays; they’re also brilliant with roast chicken or leg of lamb. Here you go:

RECIPE: The Brenner Family’s Roasted Potatoes

Happy holidays from Cooks Without Borders to you and yours!

Around the world in chicken soup: Next stop Tibet, for a fresh and fiery bowl of thukpa

Think chicken soup is bland or boring? You’ll sing a different tune after one taste of Thukpa, the fiery chicken-noodle soup of Tibet.

We found this one in Chaat: Recipes from the Kitchens, Markets and Railways of India.

“The first time I tasted thukpa was after I arrived on a train in Guwahati on a cold winter’s day,” writes James Beard Award-winning chef Maneet Chauhan in the headnote. (Chauhan, who has several restaurants in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote the book with Jody Eddy.) “Seeking warmth, I followed the aroma of chicken soup to a vendor spooning golden thukpa into dented metal bowls. In that single bowl of soup I found all the reassurance that the long journey had been worth it.”

It became a favorite comfort food for her and her husband when they spent chilly winters in New York City. 

Guwahati, in case you’re a bit rusty on your Indian geography, is in the northeastern part of the subcontinent, next to Bhutan, about 200 miles from the Tibet border.

Chock full of shredded cabbage, carrot, bell peppers, green beans, chicken and rice noodles, scented with ginger and cumin, fired up with serrano chile, garnished with scallions and bean sprouts, it’s a nourishing meal in a bowl. 

And because it’s based on store-bought chicken broth, it comes together quickly (cooking time is about 30 to 35 minutes, once you’ve got everything prepped). It’s simple, too: blitz together tomatoes, ginger, garlic, chiles and cumin with a little oil, cook the paste briefly with cut-up boneless chicken thighs, add broth and vegetables and simmer till the chicken’s cooked through. Add rice noodles and a splash of lemon juice, dress up with scallions and bean sprouts and dinner is served.

I’m thinking that whether or not anyone in your crew is under the weather, it’s just the thing for an easy, light holiday-week or between-the-holidays dinner — lively, bright and spicy and filled with fresh veg. The rice noodles keep it squarely in the comfort food zone.

RECIPE: Maneet Chauhan’s Thukpa

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a cooking project sure to enthrall kids over the holidays, consider making paneer — fresh Indian cheese — also from Chauhan’s book.

Dana Cowin teams up with talented food entrepreneurs to bring a world of flavor to her table and yours

Dana Cowin, founder of Giving Broadly and Speaking Broadly | photo courtesy of Dana Cowin

Strange as it may seem, Dana Cowin — who led Food & Wine magazine for 21 years as editor in chief, and who has been one of the most influential people in food in America this century — does not count her skills in the kitchen among her strengths.

“I’ll be honest,” she famously wrote in the introduction to her 2014 cookbook Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen, “I am not a great cook.”

So how does someone who has long been devoted to eating well manage to put excellent food on the table every night for her family during a pandemic? She collaborates with interesting chefs and food makers to put the flavors she craves in bottles and boxes — cooking shortcuts, if you will. 

That’s part of the idea behind the project Cowin has just launched: Giving Broadly. It’s a guide that curates and spotlights amazing products from women-owned artisan brands. The Giving Broadly website functions as a shop for those ingredients and other edibles as well as a place where the remarkable women behind them share their stories. Some of those entrepreneurs have been helped by Hot Bread Kitchen, an organization that helps immigrant women incubate food businesses; Cowin sits on Hot Bread Kitchen’s board.

We caught up with Cowin on the phone for a Q & A to hear more about the project. She, her husband and their two children (one home from boarding school, the other home from college) had spent most of the pandemic at their home in Upstate, New York. When we spoke, Cowin was back in New York City. 

Cooks Without Borders: Tell me about Giving Broadly — where did it come from? How did you get the idea?

Dana Cowin: For the first time in my entire life, I found myself at the stove mostly every night. I found that in order to make it great and interesting to me and to everyone around me, I really needed some help. 

There are cookbooks, yes, and actually I love cookbooks. But I also like shortcuts because as someone who’s not an amazing cook, I really need the shortcuts to flavor. So this first great discovery during Covid was Omsom. Omsom was started by two sisters — Kim and Vanessa Pham — who have put the flavors of Southeast Asia essentially into packets. I would be craving larb, and there would be the packets, and I would follow the instructions, use the little flavor packets, and put it on the table and be like oh, my goodness — I actually feel like I’m at a restaurant! I, Dana Cowin, made a restaurant-tasting meal, which has often been somewhat beyond my reach. 

Omsom founders Vanessa Pham (left) and Kim Pham | Photo courtesy Giving Broadly

So my not being a cook definitely led me to finding shortcuts, and then my desire to spotlight women entrepreneurs and learn their stories led me in a very particular direction, as I was trying to find great condiments or great products to make cooking in the last nine months more interesting and more exciting. 

CWB: Very cool.

DC: The larb was so well received that I actually went online and bought a second starter kit, just so I wouldn’t run out. What I found — and I think this is what most real cooks do —  is that the first time I followed the directions. But the second time I just took the notion of the flavors that were inside those packets and used it on something else. Like instead of doing it with ground pork, I added the flavor to potatoes, or something that was not something they had recommended, which gave me a lot of freedom. 

Fauzia Abdur-Rahman, founder of Fauzia’s Heavenly Delights | Photo courtesy of Giving Broadly

I sort of rationed my Omsom, and I wanted to try different things, so I ordered Fauzia’s Jerk Seasoning. Fauzia Abdur-Rahman is a street vendor in NYC who has Fauzia’s Heavenly Delights; she has been on the street making her food for 25 years, which is quite extraordinary. She partnered with Hot Bread Kitchens and bottled her jerk seasoning. 

To me part of the idea behind Giving Broadly and my own quest for change in the kitchen was to bring back memories of travel, or bring back memories of restaurants. That was what I was in search of. Having this really great jerk seasoning brought me right back to the beaches of Jamaica, which I love —  the idea of smoke and the outdoors and the music and the heat and just that whole vibe. I love a condiment that can do that to you.

CWB: That’s amazing that you can get all that in a condiment.

DC: The thing about jerk is that it’s not hard to do, but it involves all these things that I don’t know if I have in pantry, and if I do, they are aging. I like the fact that all things in Fauzia’s are fresh. She has a great story about how when she first got in the business, she was buying her spices from a big wholesaler, and her mother tasted the spices and was like, “this is awful. We are never buying from them again. This does not taste like home.” And so her spices are definitely fresher than mine.

Diaspora Co. founder Sana Javeri Kadri | Photo courtesy Giving Broadly

CWB: You also have someone doing single-origin spices — Sana Javeri Kadri. Tell me about her.

DC: Amazing. What’s so remarkable about Diaspora Co. and Sana is how devoted she is to finding exactly the right farmer. She says it can take her anywhere from two months to two years to find the right person for the right spice. I’m in love with her pepper — it has so much flavor. Again, it makes you realize how long the pepper you generally have in your spice grinder has been sitting on the shelf before it got to your house, and how flavor does degrade over time. 

Sana often does a pre-order, so I’ll pre-order the pepper because she pays attention and respects the season — because pepper has a season, it has a picking time and I imagine it has a curing time; it has a time during which she can import it. She’s not getting old pepper, and that’s part of the respect for the ingredient.  

She’s also investing in the community, and if there are farmers she feels need more time, she can work with them in order to get them ready to produce and to ship to her. So she’s very, very, very thoughtful about who she’s pairing up with. 

CWB: I love that you’re helping small businesses bring what they’re doing to a much wider audience than they’d otherwise have just in their own geographic communities. 

Krissy Scommegna, founder of Boonville Barn Collective | Photo by Gilbert Bages

DC: Every single person whom I spoke with, I asked “what is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your entire time as an entrepreneur?” And almost to the last person, they said COVID has presented enormous challenges, because of disruption. And in every case it isn’t because they don’t have an audience.Their supply chains are disrupted, their ability to produce sometimes is disrupted, and they’ve had to pivot, and so there are women in this guide who were mostly selling to restaurants, and of course those accounts dried up and so they had to pivot. 

I’m thinking of Boonville Barn Collective’s Krissy Scommegna, with her Piment d’Ville — which is sort of a pun on piment d’Espelette. Her dried ground peppers were mostly going to restaurants. And she had to pivot; she had to find a new audience.

I think in each case these women feel they’re stronger for it, but it’s been a tremendous challenge. So going into this project, I really wanted to find people who would benefit from the exposure. To be fair, there are some who have had tremendous exposure, but the bulk of the people on the site don’t have as much PR or visibility and helping them through COVID and sharing their stories during this time I feel is very important. 

Fly By Jing founder Jing Gao | photo by Sarah Ellefson

There are many parts of the story. Many of them are really fighting for recognition for their culture. Jing Gao, who has Fly By Jing, which is an extraordinary company, is creating a Sichuan Chili Crisp that is I actually eat standing up at the fridge, I can’t even get to put it on top of something, it’s so addictive. But the journey for her was really about how people perceive Chinese ingredients and their value. And how that in turn made her value herself. Through this project, Fly By Jing, she changed her name back to her birth name from Jenny, which she had adopted living in Europe. Now this condiment is sort of everything to her because it’s made with beautiful ingredients from Sichuan, and it’s brought so much pride to her culture. 

So there are many ways in which I was looking at people I wanted to highlight. 

Of course the food has to be great, but I also wanted it to stand for something that was important — both to the individual but also in the conversation around food today. 

CWB: Dana, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and tell us about these incredible artisans and their fabulous products! 

A number of them are available at the Cooks Without Borders Holiday Pop-Up Gift Shop. You can find them all (along with many others) at Giving Broadly, and you can listen to Dana Cowin’s extraordinary interviews with brilliant, remarkable women in the food world at her podcast, Speaking Broadly. 

Rich, luscious and packed with umami, miso-butter sweet potatoes are a spectacular autumn treat

Roasted garnet sweet potatoes, slathered with miso butter and dressed with scallions and furikake

Miso butter is one of those magical ingredients. Creamy and luscious, rich with umami, it puts richness and incredible flavor anywhere you want it, turning the simplest foods into incredible luxuries.

It’s stunningly easy to make: Combine equal amounts of miso with softened unsalted butter. That’s it.

You can use it in a hundred different ways. Plop it on plastic film, roll in a log and chill it (as you would any compound butter), then use slices as needed to melt atop steaks or chops or steamed, braised or roasted vegetables. (Braised kale! Roasted eggplant! Roasted Brussels sprouts!) Stir it into boiled soba noodles or brown rice. Spread it on salmon fillets or chicken breasts before roasting or broiling. 

The most delicious way to use it, as far as we’re concerned, is slathering it on a hot-from-the-oven sweet potato that’s been roasted till creamy-soft, luscious and caramelized. Three ingredients: butter, miso, sweet potato. Infinite autumnal pleasure, essential winter joy. Sure, it’s a bit indulgent, with all that butter, but it’s so good. And it’s a meal in itself. Sometimes I grind black pepper on top.

Last night, I got a little fancier, skipping the black pepper and adding sliced scallions and a sprinkle of furikake — the Japanese condiment of sesame seeds and nori flakes that has become one of my pandemic pantry essentials. A dash of shichimi togarashi (Japanese red pepper flakes in a tiny shaker bottle) added a happy high note. I didn’t realize it while it was happening, but the furikake-togarashi play was inspired by a José Andrés recipe for Miso-Butter Corn.

You don’t really need a recipe for this, but maybe you’d like one. The pleasure’s all mine. And now yours.

RECIPE: Miso-Butter Sweet Potatoes

Classic split pea soup, stupid-easy and satisfying, will keep you cozy and happy all week

There’s something almost magical about classic split pea soup. Sweat some chopped onion and carrot in oil, dump in a bag of dried split peas, add water and a ham hock, and an hour and half later, you’ve got soup.

OK, there’s a tiny bit more work involved. You had to cut up the onion, peel and slice a few carrots. You might have to skim a little oil off the top as it cooks. You need to remove the ham hock, shred or cut up the ham and put it back in, and add salt and pepper.

But really — can you imagine a soup that requires less of the cook? You don’t have to purée it to get that lovely thick texture: The peas purée themselves, breaking down as they cook, but magically retaining just the right amount of integrity. A marvelous alchemy turns just those four simple main ingredients into something beautiful and soul-sustaining.

You could probably add all kinds of things to it, but none of them would make it better than it already was. On top of it, it’s highly affordable, and requires no special equipment. It’s so nutritious and satisfying, it’s a meal in itself.

As it cooks, it fills your living space with beautiful aroma.

We love split pea soup. Make a pot early in the week, and it’ll sustain you and your family for days.

Want in? Here’s the recipe.

RECIPE: Classic Split Pea Soup.

Creamy, gooey and stupendously satisfying, classic mac and cheese is a meatless Monday favorite

When you think of comfort food, what’s the first dish that comes to mind?

Did you say macaroni and cheese? We’re not surprised. Rich, creamy and irresistible, it’s one of the most soothing and craveable of comfort foods.

As far as we’re concerned, if you’re going to indulge in such a rich and carbo-charged situation, you deserve one that delivers on its promise — which means it’s worth stepping away from the box and taking matters into your own hands. (Yep, we know more than a few legit cooks who still revert to Kraft when the craving strikes.)

You won’t be sorry.

It’s easy to make mac and cheese that’s out of this world — one that’s lush and mellow, gloriously cheesy, outrageously creamy, with beautifully browned bread crumbs on top for texture. Piping hot and melty from the oven, it’s just the thing for this particular Meatless Monday in a nervous-making October.

Boil up some macaroni. Make a bechamel. Stir in lots of grated cheese. Season judiciously with Tabasco. Mix it all together. Top with bread crumbs and parm, dot with butter, bake. You’re just 20 minutes from sending a spoon down into that gorgeous tubular creamitude.

Gather your crew, if you have one; they’ll be eager to dive in.

Or savor it solo. Add a simple green salad (or not), maybe a glass of white wine. A few bites in, all will be right with the crazy world.

RECIPE: Classic Mac and Cheese

Pickle-y, spicy giardiniera is the perfect prelude to pasta, pizza and other carb-loaded indulgences

Everyone knows that if you precede something fattening with something purely vegetable, fat-free, gluten-free and crunchy, the fattening thing you eat after that doesn’t count.

Taquería carrots before chicken enchiladas, rice and beans? A zero-calorie equation.

OK, maybe in our dreams.

Still, I’m always looking for something light and refreshing to nibble before an extravagant plate of pappardelle with ragù bolognese, rich and creamy mac-and-cheese or a pizza.

Since I was a kid, I always loved giardiniera — the crunchy, tangy, lightly spicy pickled vegetable condiment that would make cameo appearances in neighborhood Italian restaurants, where small dishes of it would appear on red-and-white checked tableclothes as we waited for our spaghetti and meatballs or pepperoni pizza. That was my favorite way of eating cauliflower back then, and we loved the crunchy corrugated-cut carrots and celery.

In any case, I’ve been on the lookout for jars of good giardiniera at my local Italian grocery lately, and haven’t been delighted by what I’ve found. That’s why I was excited to see a recipe for it in Alex Guarnaschelli’s new book, Cook With Me.

In fact, I’ve now made five recipes from the book, and the giardinera is by far my favorite.

It starts by soaking cut-up vegetables and garlic overnight in salt water, so you need to plan that for the day before you want to start serving it. Then you simmer up a batch of brine — white wine vinegar combined with salt and spices — let it cool slightly and pour it over the soaked-and-drained vegetables.

Vegetables for giardiniera mixed with pickling brine

A couple hours later, you have giardiniera.

Guarnaschelli’s original recipe made about 6 pints, which is great if you either give most of it away or sterilize jars for long-term storage.

I like to keep things simple, so I halved her recipe. No need to sterilize; the recipe makes 3 pint-sized jars of pickled veg. For us, that’s perfect for keeping two and giving one away.

And then I’ll make it again very soon — maybe upping the serrano chile or chile flakes a bit, or adding some pepperoncini and bay leaf to the mix.

Till then, you’ll find me happily crunching away.

RECIPE: Alex Guarnaschelli’s Giardiniera

Inspired by Diana Henry, this ridiculously easy autumn fruit-and-almond cake is a show-stopper

This time of year, when late-season plums are offering one last chance, and black Mission figs beckon plumply, I love to throw them together with juicy blackberries and bake them onto an absurdly easy-to-make cake.

The Autumn Fruit and Almond Cake was inspired by a summer fruit and almond cake from the 2016 cookbook Simple: Effortless Food, Big Flavors by the British author Diana Henry.

Although it bakes for quite a long time (an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes), the actual work involved is minimal. For the fruit topping, slice figs in half, slice two plums, toss with berries and a little sugar. For the cake, dump all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz them. Pour and spread the batter in a parchment-lined springform pan. Arrange the fruit on top. Bake, cool, remove pan ring, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Not overly sweet, it’s a spectacular treat for lovers of fruit desserts. Almonds in the form of marzipan adds a wonderful toothsome texture, and the almondy flavor marries beautifully with the figs and other fruit. Sour cream keeps it super-moist.

RECIPE: Autumn Fruit and Almond Cake