Raw Kale Salad with Walnuts, Pecorino & Lemon / Pane co' Santi (Saint's Bread) / Roasted Figs

Blog Post & Recipe: Raw Kale Salad with Walnuts, Pecorino and Lemon

Kale is such a resilient leaf it can hold up to the onslaught of olive oil, lemon juice and cheese. In other words: it’s easily corruptible. And that’s what makes a raw kale salad great.

Blog Post & Recipe: Pane co' Santi {Saint's Bread}

The dough itself is a cinch to work with...it's totally the fruit and nuts that make it. Bright bursts of sweetness from the yellow raisins and a triple-nutty punch that comes not just from the pecans and walnuts, but also seems to emanate from the olive oil that they were sautéed in.

Blog Post & Recipe: roasted figs

The heat of roasting brings the dried figs back to life. Some of them will puff up to form almost perfect globes. The honey and oil mixture gives them a thick, shiny gloss that hardens slightly as the figs cool. They come out of the oven looking like something you want to put on a Christmas tree.

Roast Tomato Soup with Mussels & Fennel / Vegetable Stock / Marinated & Broiled Sardines

Blog Post & Recipe: Simple Lessons in Roast Tomato Soup with Mussels & Fennel

So when a Sicilian cook's fishmonger was unable to supply her with all the fish she wanted for her brodu di pisci, or the family's budget didn't allow for an elaborate array of fresh fish, she had a trick. She'd use a combination of garlic, parsley, chilies, and salt pounded into a rough paste and then fried in local olive oil.

Blog Post & Recipe: How to Make Vegetable Stock

It helps to brown the veggies first, so the stock gets infused with some of the flavors from caramelization. Unlike chicken or beef stock, which needs time to extract all the goodness from the bones, with vegetable stock, you cook the stock for only an hour to an hour and half. Beyond that, the flavors begin to disintegrate.

Blog Post & Recipe: The Nasty Bits: How to Make Sardine Lovers out of Sardine Skeptics

If you can get sardines that are very fresh, the easiest thing to do is to grill or broil them so the skin chars a little. Sprinkle with salt, freshly ground pepper, and lemon or vinegar. If, however, you find that fresh sardines are still too fishy for your taste, consider a simple marinade. I use ginger to combat the fishiness, a little wine for depth, soy sauce, and a dash of salt and sugar.

Marinated and Broiled Sardines

Black-Eyed Pea & Bacon Eggs Benedict / Eggplant with Tomato, Garlic & Mint / 14 Christmas Breads

Blog Post & Recipe: Good Luck Benedicts

As it happens, black-eyed peas and bacon make for a really good eggs benedict.

Blog Post & Recipe: Eggplant with Tomato, Garlic and Mint

A lot of fresh mint muddled with garlic, pepper and coriander… a handsome eggplant, (try to get one with less seeds)… and a few minutes in the pan, results in a delectable side dish or to have in a wrap or sandwich or even on pasta.

Blog Post & Recipes: Bread Baking Day # 45 Round up - la raccolta

I have been hosting the last edition of 2011 Bread Baking Day, a special Christmas Edition with Special Baking Presents as theme of the month.

Recipes in English: A Tale of Two Stollen ... Blueberry Sourdough Focaccia ... Char Siu Bao ... Salted Caramel Apple Sourdough Challah ... Bolo Rainha ... Garlic Herb Braid ... Candy Cane Bread Sticks ... Irish Good Luck Bread ... Chrismassy almond cloud ... Saffron Stars ... Marzipan Stollen ... Pandoro ... Pandolce genovese ... Nadalin

What to Save & Freeze for Stocks / Roast Butternut Squash & Chickpeas / Gnocchi di Pane e Prugne (Bread Gnocchi with Prunes)

Blog Post: Stockpiling Your Scraps: What to Save & Freeze for Stocks

• Bones and carcasses ... Vegetable & herb scraps ... Seafood shells & bones ... Cheese rinds

Blog Post & Recipe: Roasted Butternut Squash & Chickpeas

This recipe is reminiscent of chana masala, a savory dish of stewed chickpeas with spices and tomatoes. For a fall version, butternut squash has been added, pre-cooked by roasting pieces in the oven with spices.

Blog Post & Recipe: Gnocchi di Pane e Prugne (bread gnocchi w/ prunes)

This recipe is from the far north of Italy in the region of Trentino-Alto Ridge where the influence of Austro-Tyrolean food is prevalent. Some staples in their diet are wurst, cabbage, potatoes, apples, butter, polenta & dumplings. Yes this is Italy! These little bread gnocchi are called Knodeln which is a German word referring to a bread dumpling.

Braised Pork Belly with Caramel-Miso Glaze / Peanut Skins / Osso Busso with Quinoa

Blog Post & Recipe: Pork Belly

This is how I cook and this is how I think about cooking. Recipes are the tip of the iceberg—it’s what’s below surface of the recipes that makes cooking so exciting.

Braised Pork Belly with Caramel-Miso Glaze

Blog Post: What's Up with Peanut Skins?

But there seem to be benefits from eating peanut skins as well. Not only are they high in fiber, but they contain reservatrol, the same antioxidant that red wine is famous for, which is also an antimicrobial, and which in lab tests has been shown to lower blood sugar and may be an important weapon in the fight against cancer.

A more recent study in 2009 showed that roasting peanuts with their skin on actually increased the amount of antioxidants in peanuts.

Blog Post & Recipe: Crock Pot Osso Busso with Quinoa

You’ll want to use a larger Crock Pot for this dish, so that your shanks aren’t piled one on top of the other; while some overlap isn’t a problem, but ideally you’ll have them sitting side by side, flat on the bottom of the crock. If you don’t want to use a slow cooker, feel free to braise your shanks in a Dutch oven or other deep, heavy dish, in the oven at 200 degrees for 3 or 4 hours.

Chicken & Egg on Rice / Braised Rabbit with Prunes / Baccalà Mantecato

Blog Post & Recipe: the chicken and egg situation

Its sinister translation literally means ’mother and child’ although we would prefer to describe it as simply chicken and egg on rice. There are many variations of this dish, this is an adaptation on the one we serve at Bincho

Blog Post & Recipe: Braised Rabbit with Prunes

Rabbit cooked with prunes is a classic French dish, known there as "lapin aux pruneaux". In this version we sear the rabbit pieces first in a little olive oil and butter, and then braise them in white wine with shallots, garlic, thyme, and prunes.

Blog Post & Recipe: Baccalà Mantecato

Upon further query it turned out to be salt cod, whipped up into a spread and gobsmackingly good. So smooth and creamy it was that I could have sworn it had some potato in, but part-owner Russell Norman told us no, it just requires emulsifying the cod with oil to make a smooth paste; labour-intensive but ultimately worth it..

Fava Bean Puree / Greek-Style Lamb Burgers / Chorizo & White Bean Soup with Queso Fresco

Blog Post & Recipe: Fava Bean Puree, Pat and "The Chew"

No, this isn't hummus. It's what you might call the Italian equivalent though - fava bean puree, made with dried fava beans.

Blog Post & Recipe: Greek-Style Lamb Burgers

If you like Greek food, you'll love these warm toasted pitas stuffed with flavorful ground lamb patties, tzatziki, feta and fresh vegetables

Blog Post & Recipe: Chorizo & White Bean Soup with Queso Fresco

The chorizo flavored the broth with its spicy smoky flavor and made me really happy. I made a big pot and froze it in serving-size containers, so each time I made it I experimented with toppings. I tried grated mozzarella with a sprinkle of minced Italian parsley, which was good. But the dollops of salty, crumbly Queso Fresco cheese with minced cilantro and basil sprinkled over the top was the best.

Melanzane Sott’Olio (Pickled Eggplant) / Cold Borscht / Chicken & Sweet Potato Hotpot

Blog Post & Recipe: Marie’s Melanzane Sott’Olio (Pickled Eggplant) [ via ]

One of the antipasti served at the start of this dinner was a traditional Sicilian pickled eggplant – melanzane sott’olio.

Blog Post & Recipe: cold borscht – chilled beet soup

That tang of the sour cream, the floral cool of the cucumber, the slight bitterness of dill – that’s the stuff you remember years later

Blog Post & Recipe: Angela Hartnett's chicken and sweet potato hotpot recipe

Hotpot is a traditional Lancashire dish made from mutton and topped with sliced potato ... This is my summer version – it has the same characteristics as a solid one-pot wonder, but with lighter ingredients.

Crispy Chicken Skin Tacos with Habanero Salsa / Pasta con le Sarde / Eggs Drumkilbo

Blog Post & Recipe: Crispy Chicken Skin Tacos with Habanero Salsa

I ask you, do you like bacon? Because if you do, think of fried chicken skin as "chicken bacon". They're just tasty fried, fatty, salty bits.

Blog Post & Recipe: Pasta con le Sarde: Sicily on a plate

A strikingly simple plate of spaghetti, fennel, onions, and sardines garnished with golden raisins (sultanas) and pine nuts, but its layers of flavor and texture speak of Sicily’s multifarious heritage.

Blog Post & Recipe: Eggs Drumkilbo

Eggs Drumkilbo was a favourite of the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (Gawd bless 'er), and has recently been described by the food critic, Giles Coren, as "so awful it's almost good". It's a splendid old thing, with Lord knows how many flavours going on in there; completely over-the-top and utterly unfashionable. It was served at previous royal weddings. Here's how you make it

Ancient Roman Olive Paste / Perfect Hollandaise Sauce / Gambas Al Ajillo

Blog Post & Recipe: Classical Cooking

Cato’s recipe for this olive paste is included in “The Classical Cookbook,” a book of recipes from ancient Greece and Rome

Blog Post & Recipe: How to make perfect hollandaise sauce

The trick, according to food science god Harold McGee, is "heat the egg yolks enough to obtain the desired thickness, but not so much that the yolk proteins coagulate into little solid curds and the sauce separates".

Blog Post & Recipe: Gambas Al Ajillo

But while present, the aroma of garlic wasn’t overpowering. That’s because the garlic wasn’t grated, the bits were more like pungent punctuation marks rather than a blanket of overwhelming stink. This allowed room for the sweet, briny flavor of the shrimp to come through, which was complimented by the earthy sweetness of the peppers.

Ramen Hacks / Bagna Cauda Dip with Assorted Vegetables / 3 Nori Recipes

Blog Post & Recipes & Slideshow: Ramen Hacks: 30+ Easy Ways to Upgrade Your Instant Noodles

Of course, there's no reason to stay in Asia here. Ramen takes well to Western flavors as well. How about some cheesy chili ramen or a poutine-like dish of toasted raw ramen with gravy and mozzarella?

Simple Add-ins ... Vegetation ... Eggs ... Simple Simmered Meat

Blog Post & Recipe: Bagna Cauda Dip with Assorted Vegetables

This Bagna Cauda, which hails from Italy's Piedmont region and translates as "hot bath," is the perfect accompaniment for spring vegetables -- and a marvelous alternative to heavy, creamy veggie dips.

The recipe is beautifully simple: 24 cloves of garlic, a couple of diced anchovies, and olive oil. Add a little salt and pepper, and that's it!

Blog Post & Recipes: Nori glory

“When we teach our sushi classes, we tell people, ‘Don’t buy the most expensive, and don’t buy the really el-cheapo one,’” she says. “Buy the middle-of-the-road. It will be slightly thicker, it will taste better, and it will be fresh, because everybody buys the middle one.”

Grilled Chicken Nori Wraps ... Thin-Roll Sushi ... Pan-Seared Rosemary Duck Breasts/Tofu

Braised Leeks with Goat's Curd / Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Eggs / Foccaccia / 13 US Bread Puddings

Recipe: Yotam Ottolenghi's braised leeks with goat's curd recipe

Leeks are normally given the job of flavouring other things, such as stocks and soups, but I find their creaminess and sweet, oniony flavour very satisfying.

Blog Post & Recipe: Chinese Braised Soy Sauce Eggs

I promised you my Chinese braised soy sauce eggs recipe (滷蛋) in the Taiwanese scallion oil noodles (葱油拌面) post, so here you go. This is a super easy recipe, and the best thing is that you can save the braising soy sauce stock (滷水汁) in the fridge and re-use it again to make the eggs or even tofu

Article & Recipes & Photo Gallery: California Cook: Focaccia as it was meant to be

I had a blob of already-made dough sitting in the freezer. After defrosting, I just stretched it into a well-oiled jellyroll pan (a generous hand with the olive oil gives a crisper crust), then scattered a half pound of crumbled Gorgonzola on top and baked it. That was all there was to it.

Photos: Step-by-step guide to making focaccia at home ... Recipe: Gorgonzola focaccia ... Recipe: Focaccia recipe from Genoa

The same newspaper has also published thirteen recipes for bread pudding.

Tomato and Parmesan Tart. Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Beet-Tofu Burgers.

Blog Post & Recipe: Torta salata al grana padano e pomodori - WHB # 202

Scroll down through the post for the English-language version.

So let's enjoy the last ripe tomatoes in a lovely savory tart. It can be prepared in advance, just heat a few minutes before serving. When served as a main dish, it's nice with ham.

Tomato and Parmesan Tart

Blog Post & Recipe: Garlic Mashed Potatoes The Way That Mom Never Made Them

I don’t use roasted garlic, and I don’t saute it or even simmer it in butter as some folks do. I simply put peeled garlic cloves into the pot with the potatoes and boil them together and when the potatoes are done, I mash the garlic in with them.

Blog Post & Recipe: Roasted Beet-Tofu Burgers (and another blogger tries the same dish).

To pack in as much natural smoky flavor as I could, I decided to roast the beets as well as the onion and garlic. To avoid adding starch, I used ground flax seeds as a binder, so my burgers came out less stable and easier to fall apart than the restaurant version, but the flavor was very similar, with hints of earthiness and smoke.

Puttanesca. Fried Pig's Tail. Cotechino with Red Lentil Stew.

Blog Post & Recipe: Desperate dinners - good food from the cupboard (via Limes & Lycopene)

Canned tomatoes, mashed anchovies, capers and pasta. These ingredients, staples from the kitchen cupboard, are the basis for one of the best desperate dinners: pasta puttanesca.

Blog Post & Recipe: The Nasty Bits: Crisp Fried Pig's Tail

I want to make the case that pigs' tails contain everything desirable in the pig, and in exactly the right proportions. Unlike oxtail, the tails of pigs come with the skin intact so that each segment is a perfect cross-section of skin, fat, tendon, and meat [...] a tail is a little porky universe unto itself ...

Blog Post & Recipe: Cotechino with Red Lentil Stew

Cotechino is a large thick sausage, lightly spiced and made from all sorts of bits of pork and a generous quality of it's fat. It's first boiled for a few hours and when sliced the combination of ingredients leads to a wonderfully gelatinous treat. To balance the richness of the dish, lentils are the favoured companion.

Cast Iron Pie Pans. Beef Saute with Cream & Mushroom Sauce. Cacio e Pepe.

Blog Post: Cast Iron Pie Pans: Have You Ever Used One?

... six customers who say that the cast iron creates an even, nicely browned crust. [...] Customers also commented that the cast iron helps keep the pie warm for much longer than other pans. It's been used for fruit pies as well as pot pies, quiches and cornbread. All in all, this seems to be a well-liked, if somewhat obscure, product.

Blog Post & Recipe: French Cooks

This was one of my favorite company dishes in the 1970's. I can't believe we really ate this way - it's rich as hell ...

Saute de Boeuf a La Parisienne
(Beef Saute with Cream and Mushroom Sauce)
Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Blog Post & Recipe: cacio e pepe

While you heat the water, you can grate the cheese and make basil chiffonade (a fancy term for slivers). Your fresh pasta takes mere minutes to cook and after a quick drain, you place it in bowls, add heaps of grated cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle with freshly cracker pepper. You mix the ingredients, and garnish with fresh basil slivers.

Old Cheese. Pea Risotto. Mexican sauces.

Blog Post: How Old is Too Old?: The Cheesemonger

It's natural for a cheese to change in flavor over time, but if it tastes like an entirely different or untasty version of what you first bought, it may have gone bad.

Blog Post & Recipe: Easy peasy

... we enjoyed the last of our pea harvest in one of our favorite recipes, a risotto

Risi e Bisi (Venetian Style Pea Risotto) - adapted from Molto Italiano

Blog Post & Recipes: Fiesta Forever

I had been reading over one of my favorite cookbooks, The Mexican Mama's Kitchen, by Sofia Larrinua-Craxton ...

Salsa Cruda ... Salsa Verde ... Guacamole ... Carne Asada ... Grilled Peppers and Scallions ... Stacia's Citrus Salad with Honey & Mint ... Maguie's Lime Ice Cream

Snails. White beans & tomatoes. Tofu Cacciatore.

Article: Edible common snails

It’s very wrong to toss snails over the garden wall into your neighbours’ nasturtiums. Far better to eat them: they don’t come back from that.

Blog Post & Recipe: Tofu & Vegetable Cacciatore with Microwave Polenta

Cacciatore means hunter in Italian."Alla cacciatora" refers to a 'hunter style' meal with onion,tomatoes,bell peppers,herbs and mushroom.It is normally or popularly made with braised chicken or rabbit ...

Recipe: Baked white beans with tomatoes

These are not the traditional Boston baked beans, but rather white beans cooked with tomatoes and lots of herbs. Begin with dried Navy beans or French flageolet, which are pale green, and soak them overnight (the quick-soak method is also given here).

Blood

Recipe: Black Pudding

Ingredients

1 litre blood of wild boar
oxtails
300g fat wild boar, cubed
1.5 large onions, diced
300g oatmeal, soaked
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp butter

Recipes: Sangue di Maiale

Two regional Italian recipes for pork-blood pudding.

TIPS FOR WORKING WITH PORK BLOOD
1. Gather the blood as it drains from the slashed throat of the pig.
2. Stir continually while the blood drains. This is to avoid clots. Clots affect the texture of the finished product which you want as smooth as a dense pudding.
3. It is preferred to use the traditional method of pig slaughter to gather blood. If you can't and have obtained blood from a slaughter house then be sure to strain it, before cooking.

… Sangieri di San Fili ... Sangguinaccio Cheitin

Article & Recipe: Boudin Noir

Follow the links in the article to find the recipes.

Boudin noir — blood sausage — is one of France’s oldest charcuterie preparations. It’s part of a sausage making tradition in France that has lasted well over 2000 years. “There is evidence of the activities of the lardarius, the Gaulish charcutier, in a number of bas-reliefs and inscriptions found at Narbone, Bordeaux and Cologne, and at Rheims, where a bas-relief shows two of these specialists at work…. All the items of charcuterie shown in the relief are easily identifiable: [blood sausages], strings of sausage, joints of pork, pig’s heads.” Although the raising and subsequent slaughter of the family pig was common in the French provinces up to the Second World War, today few families in the countryside raise their own pigs …

…

Boudin Noir … Boudin Grillé en Compote de Pommes Citronnée et Fruits Secs … Émincé de Boudin Noir aux Pommes … Tarte au Boudin Noir et aux Deux Pommes … Bouchées Croustillantes au Boudin Noir … Feuilletés aux Pomme et Boudin … Crème de Boudin Noir

Recipes: Food that does not taste like chicken

A collection of blood recipes, some of them sausage.

BLOOD SAUSAGE OR BLACK PUDDING … NAVAJO BLOOD SAUSAGE … WORSPE BLOED … BLOOD PANCAKES (VERIOHUKAISET) … BLOOD BREAD … SANGUINACCIO DOLCE … TIếT CANH (RAW BLOOD SOUP) … PENANG CURRY MEE … DINUGUAN … SAKSANG (PORK BITS WITH HOT SAUCE) … CZERNINA … CABIDELA … SWARTSOPPA … CANARD AU SANG

Gravlax & the Feast of Seven Fishes

Recipe: Lemon-Dill Gravlax

To make this Scandinavian specialty, you rub raw salmon with salt, dill, and other flavorings and cure it in the fridge. The process takes three days, at which point you’ll have smooth, silky cured salmon, which makes an impressive appetizer served with baguette toasts or black bread and a swirl of crème fraîche.

Article & Recipes: Feast of Seven Fishes

For these Italian chefs the Feast of Seven Fishes is the highlight of their culinary calendar, and they're happy to be sharing recipes, workspace, and later, lunch. The feast is a Christmas Eve tradition that has spread from southern Italy to Italian homes throughout the United States. Though theories abound on its origins, the feast probably derives from the centuries-old Catholic tradition of eating only fish on Fridays and certain holy days.

Salsa. Crepes. Italian. Gammon. Cookies.

Recipe: Superior Salsa.

Five recipes for different flavours of salsa.

Article/Recipe: Love me tender.

The recipes are: poached gammon with mint and watercress sauce; and peanut butter cookies.

There's a lovely piece of gammon on the stove, sitting in a deep pan surrounded by onions, bay leaves and sweet young vegetables. It's not boiling, more progressing at a slovenly simmer, an occasional blip-blop and a low sigh every now and again as it reaches tenderness.

Article/Recipe: Learning to master crepes.

Crepes can be eaten as a savory entree, filled with anything delicious, or as a sweet dessert. They're easy to make, and they freeze beautifully, so you can have a few now and freeze the rest for later.

Article/Recipe: Nonna Sense.

You'll have to skip forward to page four to find the recipes. They are: Pappardelle ducali (pasta for the duke); Grissini della nonna Maria (nonna Maria's mini breadsticks); and Spinach gnocchetti.