morsels & sauces

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on this flight to Milan. The captain has turned off the seatbelt sign, and you are now free to move about the cabin.  In a few moments, the flight attendants will be passing through with drinks as well as a heavy, holiday meal of osso buco and risotto, two classic dishes from Milan. During the summer of 2003, the husband and I spent almost two months in Germany and Italy. The husband had gotten a job at a lab in Leipzig during the  hottest summer on record  in Europe. We sweltered and sweat and wilted our way through Belluno, Venice, Rome, Verona, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Dresden. After eight weeks, we spent our last day in Europe in Milan. We had arrived from Germany in a predictably prompt and air-conditioned train, found our predictably unair-conditioned hotel chosen merely because of its proximity to the Central Station, and just as predictably determined that we  must  go to a late dinne...

Well hello there, 2015. As you probably already know , I am toasting the five-year anniversary of this blog (thanks for reading, dear friend); thus, it seems only fitting that I start the year with a simple bubbly beverage. This recipe doesn't officially hail from page 215 (as the cookbook doesn't even have a page 215)--but on page 115 (of this thin book), Donna Hay lists menu propositions, and this drink is among the suggestions. And this blog needs more drinks suggestions. Donna Hay is not a complicated chef--instead, her work is often straightforward and simple enough for a weeknight and  has served us well for many years . In  Entertaining , she does kick some of her recipes up a notch and offers copious menus, including one for a garden lunch, a country dinner, a tea party, and red carpet dining. This little drink comes from (the appropriately--and simply--named) Drinks section of the book. Yes, please. I hope your new year was lov...

As you may know from such features as my " about page," this blog is about to become officially five years old. Five years?!  Yep.  In celebration of 2015 and of five full years, I am going back to my original impetus for the blog.  Five years ago, I cooked page 210 from every cookbook I owned (given that the probability of finding a 2010-page cookbook, while not impossible, seemed tricky). I cooked things I had never cooked before and discovered that I like liver , boar , duck , and lamb  but not squab . I made mistakes . I made very simple recipes with absolutely atrocious photography. What fun all that was. So, for 2015, I am cooking page 215 (unless the cookbook has fewer than 215 pages, and then I am cooking page 115 or (in the case of one little soup cookbook I have) page 15). If there is no recipe on page 215, then I am cooking whatever comes closest to page 215.  And indeed, I am getting an unofficial jump on the new year--in part...

Oh, pâté, how I love you. We have had a relationship for years, mostly because first I ate you in your truffled form , thus establishing a love of you in your most expensive state. Then I ate you in your country form, thus establishing that I love you any way you come. Then I just ate you whenever I could, while still trying to exhibit some restraint. Consequently, when Christmas Eve dinner rolled around and I saw you staring back on me from the pages of Donna Hay's Entertaining , I knew we were destined for one another. I couldn't find duck livers for you--in part because of my poor planning on the day before Christmas when everyone and their neighbor happened to be at the grocery store purchasing their last-minute supplies. Instead, we had to go with chicken livers. I think we did alright in the end. Then, I needed to purchase cognac, a liquor that I know little about. However, a very nice, very young man at the liquor store told me that cognac is simply a very...

Isn't this pretty? Once you serve it, it looks like, well, plain old rice. But it is oh-so-pretty on the table if you serve it with all of its spice-accouterments. Seriously, this would work on any holiday table (except the one I am about to sit down at, given that we're having a pretty traditional roast pork; okay, not any holiday table). Curry leaves are the key here. This herb has no relation to the jarred (or perhaps self-prepared) spice mixture that you can find on the supermarket shelves. Curry leaves are an essential ingredient in southern and west-coast Indian cooking (although certainly they make appearances in Cambodian and Sri Lankan cuisine): they have this pungent, lemony flavor that is not really able to be replicated by another spice or herb. Seriously. If you cannot find curry leaves, skip this recipe. Sure, you could substitute with makrut lime leaves, which would probably be quite tasty; however, it would not be this recipe. If you see some, grab ...

Another vegetarian cookbook, you say?  The husband brought this cookbook home last month as a surprise from Market Hall , our favorite European-styled market in the neighborhood.  Also the only one. You may remember Mollie Katzen from your dog-eared copy of The New Moosewood Cookbook (1977). You also may not have opened this cookbook for a decade, as you have moved to lighter fare rather than the hearty vegetarian fare of that disco decade. Katzen shares in this lighter approach to her recipes--and in a lovely article from The New York Times , she reveals her recent interest in the simpler way of cooking (she even admits one of her favorite things to eat is a pairing of cut peaches and tomatoes whose juices are sopped up with good bread). Certainly Katzen has been publishing a multitude of cookbooks since 1977, but it is nice to have one of her new cookbooks in hand. This cookbook is definitely not twee. You'll find nothing precious here: asparagus with ginger and...