recipettes

Giving Poached Eggs Another Whirl

7 June 2011

Poaching an egg takes nerve. The first time I attempted it, I thought I was following all the rules: I had an egg and a pot of boiling water spiked with vinegar. But after sliding the egg into the water, I watched, horrified, as the whites dissolved in a web of veins, leaving the yolk [...]

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Eggs and Green Garlic

10 May 2011

Eggs signal spring in a way that goes well beyond Easter and egg-dyeing. If we followed old-world cycles of life, we’d eat eggs in the spring, chicken in the fall. And although I eat eggs year-round, I acknowledge that spring farm eggs, with their carotene-loaded orange yolks, stand apart. (By comparison, winter eggs are downright [...]

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I Can Do Bread all By Myself

28 February 2011

Before I fell hard for cooking—and fall I did, for everything from coulis to fish fumet (both made regular appearances on my favorite show, Great Chefs, Great Cities)—I was into baking. Particularly bread baking. Ask my sister—I made her babysit my sourdough starter once. “Feed it with flour and water twice a day,” I instructed. [...]

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How to Use Preserved Lemons

6 February 2011

It’s easy enough to talk about the wonderful word of preserved lemons. But after waiting on a vat of salted lemon wedges for a month or longer, now what? How do you get from salty pith to citrus nirvana (or at least to something better than salty pith)? There are many paths one can take. [...]

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It’s Raining Lemons

28 December 2010

January and February are usually California’s dampest months. But this year, rain came early, flooding streets in San Diego and threatening mudslides in Marin before the first of the year. And yet, the local Meyer lemon crop seems to be doing fine. My mom’s small potted tree, which typically bears fewer than a dozen lime-sized [...]

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How to Winterize a Salad

18 December 2010

Produce gets all the attention when it’s in season. But dishes have seasons too. Take gazpacho, for instance. When snow hits the ground, I don’t want to cozy up to a bowl of cold tomato soup. Salads also are affected by the season, and in a way that goes beyond using seasonal produce. Texture and [...]

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Roasted Tomatillos, Brilliant Salsa Verde

16 August 2010

I seem to talk about salsa verde quite a bit. And that’s probably because I think it tastes good on nearly everything. Eggs? Check. Potatoes? Check. Grilled chicken? A no-brainer. This holds true whether I’m discussing an herby Mediterranean-style salsa verde or the Mexican kind made with tomatillos. This post is about the latter. Mexican [...]

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Iced Coffee Talk

10 August 2010

There are times of the year when iced coffee becomes a necessity. My brother’s wedding on the coast of Massachusetts last year was once such occasion. The week before the wedding, we rented a odd, split-level house in Marion to help in wedding preparations. To say that it was hot that week is to shortchange [...]

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A 30-Second Meal

5 August 2010

Well…. maybe not a complete meal in 30 seconds. But certainly one stellar course. Here’s what you do: Heat up a grill. Drizzle a baking sheet full of shishito (or friarelli peppers or padrón peppers, if you must) with a glug of olive oil and a generous pinch of sea salt. Put the peppers on [...]

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Madeline Island Meals

30 July 2010

To say that summer is the best time to eat locally is an understatement. It doesn’t take much forethought to make meals taste satisfying in June, July, and August. In many cases, the less you do, the better the result. The only people I know who are more stressed in the summer are chefs. They [...]

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