This dish is inspired by the classic preparation of pizzoccheri, a tagliatelle-like pasta made with buckwheat flour from Northern Italy. It’s commonly tossed with cooked potatoes and cabbage in a buttery, starchy cooking water-thickened sauce accented with grated cheese. It sounded like just my kind of dish, only getting my hands on pizzoccheri noodles this side of the pond, or making it, proved unwieldy.
Last week, I got a beautiful, billowy head of napa cabbage in my CSA share. There were only about three other people picking up their shares at the same time as me, but I was able to overhear the same concerns: “What do I do with napa cabbage?” Naturally, I was determined to find a crowd-pleasing application.
If the fashion sensibility “peasant chic” were translated to food, this would be a runway highlight. It’s a melange of the penniless pantry, but manages to come out vibrant with flavor, and chock full of nutrition. A little funky, offbeat, and very magenta (is that an “in” color?), it’s what I call making the best of the least — and the cheapest — ingredients. It’s also filling enough for a one-dish dinner alone, but plop in a poached egg and … Read More
This dish is simply addictive. To make. Since giving it a vegetarian spin with mushrooms and breadcrumbs a few years ago, I’ve put all sorts of things in stuffed cabbage: spicy chorizo, roast chicken, rice and beans, and mixtures that might form a veggie patty if fried. I can see why rolling things up in large leaves has struck people from all parts of the globe as ideal: it’s a great treatment for any leftover food.
Question: Why do we eat coleslaw in the summer, usually? Okay, it’s crisp, sweet and cooling, and I even thought it was called “cold slaw” as a kid. But it’s made primarily of… winter cabbage. And we’ll be seeing lots of heads of those for the rest of the year.
What happens when you: 1) make a great batch of something, eat it, and love it; 2) eat it for leftovers, and love it; 3) eat it for leftovers again, and kind of loved it more the first or second time you ate it; 4) can’t stand to look at it in the refrigerator anymore? I know. Even with my favorite foods, there comes a limit to my tolerance to it after consecutive encores. That’s where the brazen versatility of … Read More
Little dumpling, who made thee? I know who did, originally. This dumpling was featured on the menu of the notorious 20-course, $1,500 a plate dinners propelled by two of the world’s greatest working chefs, Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se and Grant Achatz of Alinea. Their dinners, billed as mentor-protégé collaborations, unfolded in New York, Chicago and Napa, at the duo’s respective restaurants. But this dumpling, shown above, was just made by little old me. And the … Read More
My friend Nick recently traveled to a few countries in Europe, and when asked what his favorite meal he had there was, he answered polenta e casura, a specialty of Milan. (Judging from my success at Googling the dish, assuming I have the correct spelling, it is a closely kept specialty of Milano cuisine, too.) In any case, the dish sounded soothing, comforting and rustic: braised cabbage and sausage, with polenta on the side. What could be simpler yet more … Read More
This is the kind of comfort food that I’m talking about when I talk about comfort food — hearty, uncomplicated, slow-cooked and pleasantly easy on your tastebuds. Only I’m not talking about any comfort food from my own sensory memory. This one belongs to Arthur Schwartz, as told in his new cookbook, Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited.
Whenever I travel somewhere, I like to geek out on its food and then, immediately upon returning home, try to relive some of those flavors in my own kitchen, while they’re fresh in my memory. Often, this culminates in a dinner party on the theme of the place I had last visited. I recently traveled to Jamaica for my friend Karol’s 40th birthday, where we spent a languid 4-day weekend with a handful of friends. I didn’t expect it to be … Read More