Combine in a blender or food processor :
4 cups fresh melon, chopped into pieces and with as many seeds as possible removed
2-3 tbs of juniper berries
4 tbs sugar
1/2 cup water
Puree until well combined.
Strain through cheesecloth or a wire mesh sieve into an ice cream maker.
Use ice cream maker to freeze sorbet according to manufacturers directions.
Add midway if desired :
1 egg white
This makes a more traditional sorbetto and a creamier texture, but is not necessary.
This is a simple sauce that tastes creamy and luxurious without using heavy cream – highlighting the natural flavor of some of the seasons’ finest wild mushrooms. You can use any kind of chanterelle or craterellus mushroom for this, but the sauce is at its’ best and most pleasing to the eye when a mix of different, colorful mushrooms is used. In the variation pictured above we used black trumpets (Craterellus cornucopioides) and golden chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius).
As always, prepare everything in advance and have handy when making a sauce so you aren’t rushing around chopping shallots or looking for sour cream when the time comes to add it.
Melt / heat in a sautee pan:
2 tbs butter or oil
Add :
1 tbs. whole field garlic bulbils or conventional or field garlic cloves, minced
2-3 oz shallots, finely chopped
A grating of fresh nutmeg
Sautee the onions and garlic until softened, then add:
1/2 lb. of chanterelle or craterellus mushrooms, chopped into similar-sized pieces
NB >>> Different mushrooms will cook at different times, so if using a mix, they should be added one at a time. I usually find that golden chanterelles take the longest and horn of plenty the shortest.
Cook the mushrooms until they are softened but not yet completely tender, and add:
1 tbs. potato starch (corn starch may also be used. Flour can be used but must be well-cooked to avoid leaving an off taste)
Stir and sautee for 1-2 minutes, then add, slowly, mixing to incorporate :
1 1/2 cups hot whole milk, preferably fresh and of very good quality
Cook while slowly adding the milk for fifteen minutes or so. Add seasoning to taste while the sauce reduces a bit. If it becomes to thick and/or is cooking too fast add 1-2 stock cubes or ice cubes and reduce heat if needed. Season with :
Freshly ground black or white pepper to taste (optional)
Salt to taste (not optional)
Fresh or good quality dried thyme to taste
Once the sauce is close to the desired consistency and the mushrooms are mouth-tender, remove the sauce from the heat. If it is very hot, allow to cool a bit before adding :
1/2 cup sour cream, preferably at room temperature
Snipped chives if desired
Taste and adjust for seasoning. Serve immediately.
If not eating immediately, allow the sauce to cool on its’ own without adding the sour cream. When serving, reheat and then stir the sour cream in, with chives if desired.
There are of course any number of herbs or other seasonings that could be added to this sauce, but in this its’ simplest form I’ve used only the classic mushroom herb thyme and a bit of nutmeg and optionally pepper. Fresh parsley or celery leaf in small, finely-chopped quantities are a nice addition for a bit more green color. One could add a stronger herb as well such as oregano or tarragon if it seems appropriate for the dish it is to be used with.
The temptation with a sauce this rich is to toss pasta in it, and revel in the sumptuous texture combination of chanterelle and toothsome starch. And I won’t deny that it is a fine sauce to serve with a starch – heavenly with freshly-made egg noodles, homemade biscuits (a nice vegetarian replacement for Southern-style sausage gravy), even simple buttered rice. Some more interesting uses? A cream sauce for greens or a green vegetable, a base sauce for a pizza, on top of heated stuffed vegetables or grape leaves, especially ones filled with rice or grains, on top of a hearty bowl of cooked, mashed lentils or pulses, and a dynamite partner with polenta. I have even eaten this on top of some scrambled eggs with a bit of cheese and green herbs and had no complaints about the experience.
Makes a little over 2 cups of sauce.
Macaroni and cheese is an iconic dish, indelibly associated in most peoples’ minds with American Southern or comfort cooking. Like many classic American dishes, its’ origins lie elsewhere–in this case Italy and France, via England. Leaving aside powdered and boxed versions, the idea of binding cooked pasta with a Mornay sauce (essentially a Bechamel with cheese) and baking it in the oven is at least a couple hundred years old.
To my mind there are exactly two kinds of macaroni and cheese : crispy and creamy. Endless additions and variations on these themes are all well and good as long as the results play out as either something crusty and crunchy and cheesy and dry or something thick and creamy and cheesy and soft. Inbetween measures are to be despised, as are most attempts to capture the best of both worlds by having a crusty top and soft interior. In my experience, such efforts are either doomed to end in failure or dissatisfaction.
There are no shortcuts to a proper mac & cheese of either variety. Here we have the crusty, crispy kind. The kind that, when reheated, is dry (but in a good way) and chewy (but in a good way), bound with just enough sauce to keep everything toothsome but not to detract from the tactile pleasures of a proper crunchy mac.
The first thing to do is cook your pasta. You will want to make a pound of pasta, boiled until al dente or perhaps slightly stiffer than that. As for choice of pasta, I like to use a long pasta like thin ziti or cavatappi or penne in this type of mac & cheese. For the creamy variety, I would choose traditional elbows or small shells or orecchiette. These considerations have more to do with surface area than anything else. Boil the pasta, drain it and cool by washing it with cold running water. Then toss the pasta with :
2 tbs butter or 1 tbs butter and 1 tbs shallot oil
This is the only step that can reliably be done ahead of time in my mind. Some may disagree, but I find that a cooked and cooled bechamel or mornay becomes a bit stodgy and doesn’t integrate with the pasta very well. You can use pre-cooked pasta but from this point on the results will be most delectable if everything is composed and integrated at once. This mac and cheese is truly superior when first pulled from the oven, but also makes an excellent dish to be reheated and served again.
Next you will want to make the mornay sauce, and get the oven preheated to 425°. An excellent creamy mac can be made on a stovetop, but for this variety a nicely hot oven is required.
For the Mornay sauce :
Warm in a small saucepan :
2 cups milk, whole preferred
Melt in a medium saucepan :
2 tbs butter
Add to the butter :
2 tbs all purpose flour
Cook, stirring or whisking, for two minutes or more (this goes a long way towards removing the raw flour taste)
Slowly incorporate the warm milk into the sauce, a quarter cup at a time. You may whisk if you like, I usually use a flat-ended wooden spoon and then move to a whisk once about half of the milk has been added.
Once all the milk has been added, cook the sauce over a low heat for about 15 or 20 minutes. This will remove the rest of the floury taste from the sauce, as well as thickening it a bit.
Add, stirring :
4 oz. medium sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 tsp hot paprika (smoked if possible) (optional)
2 tsp sweet paprika (optional)
2 tsp dry mustard powder (optional)
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste (optional)
Once all these ingredients are incorporated, toss with the cooked pasta, and add :
1 cup of cooked artichoke hearts or drained marinated artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
1/2 cup fried shallots, roughly chopped
Toss until well combined.
In a small skillet, heat :
1 tbs butter or shallot oil
Add :
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
Toast, stirring, for a few minutes.
Place the cooked, sauced pasta in an oven-safe casserole dish. I like to use a natural stoneware dish for this.
On top of the pasta, spread out thinly :
2 oz grated cheese of your choice (parmesan, a sharper cheddar or cheese with jalapenos or habaneros are all good choices. You may use the same variety used in the mornay sauce, but I find it is more interesting to add some variety here.)
A further 1/4 cup or so of fried shallots
The toasted panko
Place the dish in the oven. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes, then remove the pan and lightly press down on the surface of the mac & cheese with a wooden spoon, allowing air to escape from the dish, which should be bubbling and hot. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the surface is crispy and browned. You may wish to add a tablespoon or two of butter, thinly sliced and dotted on the surface of the dish.
Once the dish is browned to your satisfaction, remove it from the oven and serve.
This dish will reheat well, but you will most likely want to cover it with foil during most of the reheating process, only removing the foil for a few minutes of baking. Otherwise the mac & cheese will become too dry.
Key : The key to this recipe is in the texture, the crispy and crusty tactile taste of panko and thick, heavy-cut macaroni tossed with just enough sauce to bind the ingredients. The artichokes and shallots are added primarily for sweetness and texture.
Another extremely simple winter tomato sauce recipe, in which you can use whatever winter vegetables you might have around and canned tomatoes to make a sauce that can be served either thick and chunky or pureed.
The first thing to do is strain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid. You will want to use about 2 cups / 1 L. of tomatoes and juice, or the contents of a 35 oz can. I usually also squeeze or cut open the tomatoes to let the juice inside them out, but this isn’t strictly necessary. Keep the juice and drained tomatoes separate until needed.
Next, prepare your vegetables. I use between 4 and 5 ounces each of three different vegetables. You should shoot for roughly equal amounts of each vegetable. First I use either celery or onion, chopped into medium size dice. Then I peel and cut into medium dice either carrots or parsnips. Lastly I prepare either kohlrabi, turnip, long radish or celery root in pieces of the same size as the other ingredients. If you like garlic in this, add an ounce or so chopped very fine. Remember to keep all your vegetables separated, as they require different cooking times.
Add two to three tablespoons of olive oil to a wide sautée pan, preferably one with deep sides. Bring the oil to heat over medium heat. Add the vegetables one at a time and cook each until softened. The best order is onions or celery to start, then carrot or parsnip, then the last. Cook each vegetable just until softened, about 5-10 minutes for each. Add the garlic last of all, and cook for only a few minutes before proceeding. You may also wish to add bay or bayberry leaf or whole sprigs of thyme or rosemary at this point, taking care to remove them before pureeing or serving the sauce.
Once the garlic has been cooked, add the whole tomatoes to the pan, breaking them into chunks with a flat-ended wooden or plastic spatula. You may chop them prior to adding to the pan, but I always find that such a mess and prefer to simply break them into pieces while they sautée. Cook the tomatoes for at least five minutes, keeping the heat around medium.
Add the reserved tomato juices to the sautée pan. At this point, you may wish to add stock or water to thin the sauce out. I would only recommend this if it is your intent to puree the sauce. With about 5 oz of each vegetable, this makes a substantial quantity of sauce, enough for more than one pound of pasta. I will often serve the sauce thick with some pasta, then puree whatever is leftover with added stock to make a sauce that I can put on eggs or a half-pound of spaghetti. One could also add chiles or cream or another ingredient to this newly-pureed sauce for the sake of variety.
Whether you add tomato juice with stock or water or nothing else, the liquids must be cooked down slightly. I usually leave the pan at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally. Less can be fine, but the flavor will not be as rich. In any event, make sure before serving that all the vegetables are cooked through and as tender as you would like them. Finally, add salt, freshly ground black pepper, and dried or fresh herbs to taste. With a winter sauce like this I will often add a quick crumble of marjoram or oregano or sage, depending on what herbs I’ve added during the cooking stage.
Serve as-is or puree and serve over pasta, with or without cheese.
In a very large skillet which you are able to cover, heat 3 tbs of neutral oil or ghee over medium-high heat.
When hot add :
1 tbs black mustard seed
Cover dish and allow black mustard seed to pop. When the seeds begin to settle, add:
8 oz onion, very thinly slice.
Reduce heat to medium and cook until softened, stirring occasionally.
Add :
1 lb 4 oz cabbage, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
Cook until wilted, stirring occasionally.
Add :
1 tbs sherry, white wine or shao xing wine
2-4 oz fresh chile, small dice
1 oz garlic, minced
1 tsp turmeric powder
Allow the alcohol to cook off, then reduce the heat to low and cover the pan.
Cook, covered, until the cabbage is tender and soft, usually 45 minutes or so.
Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve hot or keep warm, garnish with cilantro or parsely, chives or field garlic snips, fresh chiles or grated ginger.
An excellent side dish which highlights the tenderness of properly-cooked cabbage and the subtle flavors of black mustard seed and turmeric root. This dish can also be made with grated fresh turmeric, which can be added at the same point in cooking. Many people who claim not to like cabbage enjoy a tender cabbage dish like this, which brings out the natural sweetness in cabbage through slow cooking. The spices used are mild and complementary, rather than overwhelming. I would vary the level of chiles depending on what else I was serving this with–usual just a little chile for flavor, this dish is unassuming enough to be used as a side dish in a meal of almost any cuisine, vegetarian or not. More chiles can be added if the dish is to be served as accompaniment to a strong-flavored main course such as meat or oily fish.
Key : The key to this recipe is to cook the cabbage thoroughly until tender, for as long a time as it takes. This is a good dish to make a day ahead or earlier in your cooking, and will be just fine reheated or kept warm.
Sautée in 3 tbs oil or butter over low to medium heat :
8 oz. green vidalia onions, white parts only, chopped. You could also use leeks or the white parts of scallions.
1 oz garlic, minced
Cook the onions until they become wilted and nearly tender. Bring the heat to medium.
Add :
2 tbs all-purpose flour
Stir and cook for two minutes or so, until the floury taste is gone. Maintain a medium heat.
Slowly add, 1/4 cup or so at a time, stirring all the while and incorporating the liquids into the soup :
1 1/2 cups beer (room temperature if possible)
1 1/2 cups stock (warm or room temperature if possible)
At first this will be like making a roux or a gravy, but gradually something resembling a soup begins to emerge. Cook for as long as required until the onions are tender and the soup seems close to thick enough to serve. As quickly as possible, working in small batches, blend the soup in a blender or food processor. Return to pot, return to heat, then add :
1/2 – 1 cup freshly shredded SHARP cheddar cheese.
1 tbs mustard powder
Dash of maggi or golden mountain seasoning or worcestershire sauce (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Melt the cheese and reduce the soup (if needed) to the desired serving consistency. Stir frequently to avoid burning.
Serve as hot and as quickly as possible and garnish with something bright and spicy. In the above photo, I’ve used spicy Vietnamese style pickled carrots and pickled chopped cherry peppers. Also good are diced raw hot chiles and cilantro, or spring onion and sriracha.
Key : The key to this recipe is in the selection of the beer : in order to avoid either excessive bitterness or sweetness, one wants a well-balanced brew that is mild in its’ character. So if you go with a pale ale, avoid excessively hoppy ones. Lager? Stay away from over-sweet or malty beers. Wheat beer? Don’t pick one that has strong citrus or spice notes or is sugary sweet.
Take :
8 oz. carrots, sliced into 1/4″-1/2″ rounds (I like to bias cut mine to make them longer, like above)
Add to saucepan of boiling, salted water.
Boil for 3-4 minutes, then drain immediately.
Heat in a wok or sautêe pan over medium-high heat:
2 tbs neutral oil such as sunflower or vegetable
When the oil is quite hot, add :
1 tbs of coriander root paste (see below)
Stir-fry for one minute, then quickly add the boiled carrots.
Stir-fry or toss vigorously for one minute.
Add :
2 tbs sherry or cooking wine
1/2 tsp of sugar
Stir or toss vigorously for one minute or until the alcohol evaporates
Add :
1/2 tsp of freshly toasted and crushed coriander
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Cut the heat and serve immediately or cover and keep warm, garnish with abundant cilantro / fresh coriander. This is best hot, but also good at room temperature.
Coriander Root Paste :
Combine in a mortar and pestle :
1/2 oz finely chopped coriander roots (roots of one bunch)
few pinches kosher salt
few grinds of black pepper
2 cloves of garlic
Mash to desired consistency. To get a more paste-like consistency, you can add more salt. This should make about two tablespoons. It can be kept for a great while if salt or oil are added. You could of course also make this in a small food chopper / processor.
This is a simple and versatile dish that could accompany many different types of cuisine. It is most definitely for lovers of coriander though! The roots add a sophistication to the flavor that there is no substitute for.
This recipe accounts for about 2 servings as a side dish, but can be easily multiplied.
Key : The key to this recipe is to have everything prepared and move swiftly during the stir-fry stage.
This is one of the easiest and tastiest tomato sauces you can make. It can be made with fresh tomatoes, but I usually make it in the winter months using high-quality canned tomatoes. This recipe is entirely based on long and slowly evolving use of Marcella Hazan’s “Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion” (see notes at end of recipe).
Gather your tomatoes. If you use fresh tomatoes, use about 2 lbs of a sauce-type tomato and remove the peels by whatever fashion you normally would. If you use canned tomatoes, use 2 cups or so (a regular large 35 oz can) and strain the fruits from the juice. Squeeze or cut each of the tomatoes and push out the juice inside them as well.
ALTERNATIVELY, whether you go fresh or canned, you can pass the tomatoes through the food mill before cooking. I find that the flavor is superior if the fruits are cooked a bit seperately, and while still mostly whole. It can always be pureed later.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, place a small knob of butter (2 tbs or perhaps a bit more) and a splash of olive oil (1-2 tbs). You can put a bit less or a bit more, but if you don’t use at least 3 tbs or so the sauce won’t be as rich. You may of course replace the butter with a substitute or simply use more oil. I have prepared this recipe just with oil. It is good, but not quite the same. A butter substitute appropriate to your diet would be a better replacement to create the proper creaminess.
Add a half an onion or a small whole onion sliced in half. Add as in the picture above, in one large piece, not chopped or sliced. Add a few pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
You may also wish to add other things at this point, such as a few whole cloves of garlic or bay leaves other whole herbs or celery leaves or chiles sliced in half. Whatever you add, keep it in a large enough chunk to remove with ease. The idea is to bring the flavors out through slow cooking and permeate the sauce with them.
Immediately add the whole, drained tomatoes (whether fresh or canned, separate the juice). Sautée the whole tomatoes along with the butter, oil, onion and additional flavorings, slowly crushing the tomatoes them with a heavy wooden spoon or spatula, breaking them up and stirring while the mixture comes to heat. Cook the tomatoes and the aromatics together for five minutes or longer.
Add the reserved juice from the tomatoes. If you are using pre-prepared tomatoes, simply omit the sautée step.
Bring the saucepan to a slow simmer, bubbling occasionally. Think a classic Sunday Sauce, only on a much smaller (and quicker) scale. The longer you cook this and the lower the heat, the more flavorful it will be. It benefits from sitting overnight as well, but I can never resist it when freshly made. I usually find it takes about 45 minutes to an hour of simmering before the oil rises to the top and the juices have boiled down to a nice thick sauce. This is not a marinara-type consistency but a thick, chunky tomato sauce. It should be rich and creamy and look almost like a vodka sauce.
If the sauce is to be pureed, it can be served with thin spaghetti and the like, but I prefer to keep it somewhat chunky and put it on a thicker cut of box pasta, like the rigatoni below. It is also excellent (a la Hazan) with potato gnocchi, and many stuffed pastas with ingredients such as squash, pumpkins, mushrooms, nuts and bitter greens. You may add cheese or choose not too–I usually find that the sauce is rich enough and enjoy instead a sprinkle of oregano or marjoram. Likewise, I find that served with cheese stuffed pasta the cheese should be sharp and pungent rather than mellow like ricotta or mozarella, or the result will be bland. It’s also excellent served with stuffed vegetables or as a sauce to zest up a simple vegetable dish or bowl of lentils.
This is an extremely basic slow food recipe, but one that I hope you will find useful as well as endlessly variable.
Further Recipe Credit / History :
This recipe… or procedure, perhaps–isn’t so much adapted as completely stolen from Marcella Hazan. It appeared first in The Classic Italian Cookbook (1976) where it was appealingly titled “Tomato Sauce III.” By the time her first two books were rebound as Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, it had become “Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter.”
I had to look all this up not only to make clear my thievery, but because while I have been making this sauce since the late 90’s I don’t ever really actually look at the recipe. Once I had looked at them both I realized that I’d been making it unlike Marcella for many years. She must have made that same realization when she selected recipes for Essentials, the latter version being much lighter on butter and omitting sugar (!) entirely. Her version is made with fresh tomatoes, too, while for an unknown reason at some point long ago I began to make this sauce exclusively in the cooler months and good canned tomatoes.
If there is a cookbook writer to be recommended any more highly than Marcella Hazan, I can’t think of one. Even if you aren’t particularly drawn to Italian food, her description of cooking technique is unsurpassed. Always explained in the same authoritative, thorough and patient tone. Almost everything I make is an experiment, I rarely prepare the same exact dish twice. Many of my (hah!) canonical dishes are ruthlessly tweaked from Marcella’s master tapes.
How to Cook a Weed 