recipe

Off to the races at Keeneland

Posted on by Pat
I was a little surprised when my friend Patti told me that I should wear a skirt or dress, or at least a nice pantsuit, when we went to the thoroughbred races at Keeneland (www.keeneland.com). But Patti knows that my travel wardrobe consists mainly of black jeans and white blouses – not a bad look if I do say so myself, but definitely not the right thing for Lexington, Kentucky's National Historic Landmark track. (Hats, by the way, are optional.) Keeneland, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, was founded in 1936 to serve as an elegant showcase for the Bluegrass thoroughbred horse industry. Live races are held only twice a year (this year April 8-29 and October 7-29) and are quite an event....Read More

Flying high with one of Spain’s top chefs

Posted on by Pat and David
We give Iberia Airlines credit for hiring superchef Sergi Arola to create the menus for its business class customers. Arola has been one of our favorite Spanish chefs since we met him shortly after he opened his first restaurant in the Hotel Michelangelo in Madrid. His great flair with food was matched only by his deep sense of hospitality. For those of us in coach seats, the airline tortures us every month with an Arola recipe in the inflight magazine, Ronda Iberia. This chicken stew is a great example of a dish that can be reheated and served at 35,000 feet and will still taste good. Arola's unexpected touch is the addition of a vanilla bean. We've adapted it for home use and added an...Read More

Having a blast at Las Fallas in Valencia

Posted on by Pat and David
Valencia is beginning to rev up for Las Fallas, the festival of fires, fireworks, and managed explosions that culminates on the evening of March 19. The pageantry, sheer noise, and almost giddy sense of celebration is almost unfathomable, and we were not sure how we could possibly write about it. But we gave it a try for the Boston Globe. See it on the Globe's web site or check it out on our page of sample articles. This being Spain, there is of course plenty of time set aside for eating. Paella, the quintessentially Valencian dish, fits the celebratory mood as people gather around a big festive pan. Last year we posted our version of paella valenciana . But we know that a lot of...Read More

Making pâté chinois the cooking school way

Posted on by Pat and David
In our most recent Montreal residency we were amazed by the explosion in cooking classes. Montrealers have always loved to go out to eat, but more and more they're also dining well at home. One of the pioneers in teaching classes for the general public was the Académie Culinaire (360 rue Champ-de-Mars, 514-393-8111, academieculinaire.com), which has its offices and kitchens in a modern facility on the edge of Old Montreal. The Académie created a modernized, jazzed-up version of pâté chinois that reflects the increased sophistication of even basic Quebecois cookery. We find it a wonderfully comforting supper dish on a cold winter night. The recipe required no tinkering at all, except that we adapted it for cooking in a 9x13 pan. If you prefer, individual...Read More

Cooking with Comté

Posted on by Pat
If you've ever eaten a croque monsieur in a cafe anywhere in France (my absolute favorite is served at the News Cafe in Paris at 78 rue d'Assas across from Jardin du Luxembourg), chances are you've eaten Comté cheese. The firm and nutty Comté is the largest selling hard cheese in France. I'd always figured that only a big factory could turn out enough Comté to satisfy the appetites of the fromage-loving French, but it turns out that Comté is still made pretty much the same way that it's been made for about a thousand years--that is, small-scale and personal. And the whole process is open to the public: from brown-and-white Montbéliarde cows grazing in buttercup-laden meadows, to milk delivery and early morning cheese-making in...Read More

A Cayman Islands version of a pepper pot

Posted on by Pat and David
[caption id="attachment_1149" align="alignleft" width="213" caption="Chef Dean Max"][/caption] As we were pondering how else to use our beautiful Cayman peppers, we were reminded that chef Dean Max is also a big fan. We met him last winter at an "Island Organic" presentation at the Cayman Cookout on Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman Island. When Max isn't presiding over the kitchens of his Miami seafood empire, he's often on Grand Cayman kicking back at the Brasserie, the restaurant he owns with King and Lisa Flowers. For him, one of the pleasures of cooking in the Caribbean is drawing inspiration from local cooks. "I always take the traditional thinking," he said. "We use their technique, but then we add things. Take chicken pepper pot soup. You're making...Read More

Deciphering the traditions for sofrito

Posted on by David
There must be as many recipes for sofrito as there are cooks in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, and even Catalunya. But the mixture is to Latin cooking what the classic mirepoix of onions, carrots and celery is to French. It's the underlying mother flavor of the cuisines. When I asked around the garden, I got very different answers about ingredients. Jamaicans seemed to favor a lot of green sweet pepper, and some suggested ham. Some people add tomato, some don't. But everyone felt that the sweet ají dulce peppers were critical for an authentic sofrito. If they were not available, you could substitute an equal amount of chopped bell pepper. Some folks use only cilantro (or cilantrillo, as some call it), while others...Read More

Sweet and tart — the Shaker take on lemon pie

Posted on by Pat
The Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, is one of my favorite Shaker sites to visit. Although it hasn't been a working Shaker community for decades, it's the largest preserved Shaker village in the country. Moreover, it is the only one that offers both overnight lodging and a good restaurant. I wrote about it last week in the Boston Globe's Food section in a piece called "A menu that reflects Shaker simplicity." The article deals with the new chef Patrick Kelly's "Seed to Table" program. His menus in the restaurant feature food from his kitchen garden and from farms in the adjacent bluegrass country near Lexington. Not only is the program in keeping with the locavore trends in contemporary dining, it also echoes the Shaker...Read More

Burgundy eggs in red wine sauce

Posted on by Pat
Of all the wonderful food in Burgundy, I have a special soft spot for the bistro staple known as oeufs en meurette. The dish is hearty and warming on a cool autumn night and it is a classic in the region. Maybe I like it so much because sauce meurette is very similar to the sauce in coq au vin. Despite its rich flavors, French cooks usually pair meurette with mildly flavored proteins, like poached eggs or a poached fish. Restaurants in Burgundy often feature this dish as a first course (one egg per person) because everything but the eggs can be prepared ahead and re-heated, making it a quick dish to assemble. POACHED EGGS IN RED WINE SAUCE Most of the ingredients for this...Read More

Black pepper, red wine, and strawberries

Posted on by Pat and David
The conjunction of strawberry season with this series of blogs about French cooking takes us back to our first introduction to lightened French cuisine, which was not in France at all but in the second largest French-speaking city in the world, Montreal. Les Halles opened in 1971 as a grand Escoffier-like townhouse palace of dining in a city best known to that point for its great baked beans with salt pork. When Dominique Crevoisier took over as chef in the early 1980s, he skillfully blended the haute with the nouvelle to create magical meals that didn't give the patrons gout. He gave us the best idea of what to do with leftover red wine: Turn it into a peppered syrup to serve on strawberries! He...Read More