Duck Breasts with White Beans and Sausage: The comfort of cassoulet, only quicker

Duck Breasts with White Beans and Sausage combines many of the comforting elements of cassoulet, but comes together fast enough for a weeknight dinner. Recipe below.

French cooking is usually thought of as elegant and refined. And indeed, it’s no accident that the term that defines high-end dining, haute cuisine, is French. But fancy isn’t all they do. When it comes to comfort food, few can outcomfort the French. Hanger steaks with frites, coq au vin, gratins filled with cream and covered in cheese…

And perhaps the most comforting of French comfort foods, cassoulet. A hearty baked stew of beans and various meats (usually pork and duck and maybe lamb) and crusted with bread crumbs, cassoulet sticks to the ribs and satisfies your very soul on a chilly night. Unfortunately, cooking it takes forever. Recipes vary, but baking time is always measured in multiple hours, usually with at least an hour or two of prep time up front. And if you make your own duck confit for it, you can tack on another day or two.

So we were really excited when a dinner in Portland, Oregon, on our recent trip to the Pacific Northwest got us thinking about ways capture some of the flavors of cassoulet without all the long cooking. Continue reading “Duck Breasts with White Beans and Sausage: The comfort of cassoulet, only quicker” →

Patatas Riojanas: Potatoes and sausage with a spicy Spanish accent

Spanish chorizo—dense, flavorful sausage—paprika, red bell peppers, onion and garlic turn potatoes into a colorful, satisfyingly hearty meal, perfect for chilly nights. Recipe below.

Before I get started, I’d just like to say that this post marks Blue Kitchen’s fourth anniversary. As Anonymous once said, “Time flies when you don’t know what you’re doing.”

MY, WE’VE BEEN BOOKISH LATELY. Today’s second post below mentions two books, one the memoir of a chef who forever changed food and professional cooking, the other, a resource for anyone interested in a career in the kitchen. A recent USA Character Approved Blog post reviews Amanda Hesser’s The Essential New York Times Cookbook, which many home cooks will find essential indeed. And this recipe was inspired by José Andrés’s lively, inventive Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America.

Andrés comes by his inventiveness honestly; he is a protege of Ferran Adrià, chef of El Bulli, Spain’s temple of molecular gastronomy Continue reading “Patatas Riojanas: Potatoes and sausage with a spicy Spanish accent” →

Just like somebody’s grandma used to make: Braised Lamb with Juniper Berries, Fennel, Sage

Adapted from an Italian grandmother’s recipe, slow oven braising allows many flavors—onions, garlic, celery, wine, sage, juniper berries, fennel seed, bay leaves—to melt together in this soul-satisfying, fork tender lamb dish. Recipe below.

One of the perks of doing Blue Kitchen is that we’re occasionally asked to review cookbooks. It’s also one of the drawbacks. Writing, thinking, reading and talking about food on a daily basis means that we’re almost always at least a little bit hungry—kind of a low grade infection that never clears up unless you are actually actively engaged in consuming a substantial meal at the moment. And when a gorgeous cookbook like Jessica Theroux’s Cooking with Italian Grandmothers: Recipes and Stories from Tuscany to Sicily comes along, whole hams can’t quite stay your hunger.

To write Cooking with Italian Grandmothers, Theroux spent a year in Italy talking, cooking and often staying with a dozen Continue reading “Just like somebody’s grandma used to make: Braised Lamb with Juniper Berries, Fennel, Sage” →

Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers

I don’t browse food blogs often enough—it usually just makes me hungry. I did a little browsing just now. Here are some delicious recipes I found.

Melon Mozzarella Salad with Honey, Lime and Mint

This refreshing looking dish from Nicole over at Pinch My Salt not only sounds like the taste of summer, it also has a nice kick of crushed red pepper. Because, as Nicole puts it, “After living in Sicily for four years I now put crushed red pepper in just about everything.” Continue reading “Five late summer recipes from fellow bloggers” →

Vietnamese beef stew blends flavors of multiple spices and cultures

Flavors from all over Asia (ginger, lemongrass, five-spice powder, garam masala, fish sauce…) spice up this delicious, aromatic, meaty stew that draws its inspiration from when Vietnam was called French Indochina. Recipe below.

vietnamese-beef-stew2 — Bò Kho: Vietnamese Beef Stew

OKAY, SO, YES, IT’S HOT. BUT SOMETIMES I GET THESE CRAVINGS. The other day the taste I wanted was a particular combination of beef and lemongrass and spice. And I wanted sauce, and plenty of it. I know it is insane, in the middle of the hottest summer in recorded history, to want stew. Nevertheless. Continue reading “Vietnamese beef stew blends flavors of multiple spices and cultures” →

Potage Parmentier: A simple, satisfying antidote for holiday culinary excess

Six modest ingredients—potatoes, leeks, cream, parsley, salt and water—produce a flavorful first course for a simple meal in my take on Julia Child’s classic potato leek soup. Recipe below.

As much as I love Thanksgiving, I’m always kind of happy to see it in the rear view mirror. Every year, it seems to become a bigger orgy of culinary excess and overload. And I’m not just talking gluttony here. Food magazines are taken hostage for an entire month—you’re hard pressed to find a single recipe that doesn’t include turkey, sweet potatoes or pumpkin. Ditto most newspaper food sections and online food sites. Articles and recipes abound, urging you to make this year’s feast more traditional, more alternative, more sumptuous, more festive, more more.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful, with the traditional bird and our own non-traditional traditions for sides. But when the figurative smoke cleared and I started thinking about what to post this week, I wanted something palate-cleansingly simple. Not just the finished dish, but simple in its preparation as well. Julia’s six-ingredient potage parmentier—potato leek soup—seemed just right. Continue reading “Potage Parmentier: A simple, satisfying antidote for holiday culinary excess” →

Five recipes guaranteed to beat the cold

From quick weeknight dinners to slow cooking and from Morocco to New Mexico, here are five surefire recipes to warm your insides as cooler weather takes over.

A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body.” By the standards of this graffiti found in the men’s room of Chicago’s Green Mill Jazz Club, Marion and I are not good friends. There were no bodies involved. But we did just spend five days helping someone with three cats move 600 miles. So I think we qualify as pretty good friends.

Those five days included zero time spent in a functioning kitchen. So this week, I’m digging into the Blue Kitchen archives for some hearty, stick-to-your-ribs meals perfect for taking the chill off cool autumn—and even downright cold winter—nights.

1. Moroccan Braised Beef

Pictured above, this dish combines golden raisins and an international mix of spices, with an emphasis on bold flavor, not heat. It delivers the warm, sweet/savory tastes and aromas of traditional Moroccan cuisine, a blend of Europe, the spice trade routes and the African continent. Moroccan Braised Beef uses slow oven braising to turn inexpensive, flavorful but tough chuck roast into a tender, delicious, fragrant meal.

2. Lentil Soup with Kale and Sausage

This hearty, healthy soup comes together quickly, perfect for a weeknight meal. Lentils pack a powerful nutritional punch—they’re loaded with fiber and protein. Kale brings plenty to the table too—vitamins A and C, folic acid, calcium and iron. It also contains cancer-fighting antioxidants. And good health aside, Lentil Soup with Kale and Sausage is just plain good. Continue reading “Five recipes guaranteed to beat the cold” →

Grilled cheese with an autumnal touch, lentil soup with cilantro and cumin

Two recipes create a satisfying vegetarian dinner this week: Quickly sautéed apple slices and arugula liven up a classic grilled cheese sandwich, and cumin and fresh cilantro do the same for lentil soup.

grilled-cheese-lentil-soup

The Russet apples Marion had picked up at the farmers market had sat in a bowl on the kitchen counter for days now, their rough skin inviting an occasional touch and the promise of delicious tartness encouraging ideas for their use. Continue reading “Grilled cheese with an autumnal touch, lentil soup with cilantro and cumin” →

Two hearty soups for one chilly weekend

Marion cooks up a delicious, hearty Potato, Parsnip and Carrot Soup with sausage and dill, based on childhood memories, and I revisit a simple, satisfying soup with white beans, sausage and leafy greens. Recipes below.

potato-soup

Unseasonably cool weather [and mind you, we’re not complaining—we love it] put Blue Kitchen in full soup mode this past weekend. We both made hearty, warming soups. I’ll let Marion tell you about hers first. And if summer is still being summery where you are, you’ll find links to a couple of chilled soups at the end of this post.

My mother didn’t care for cooking. She loved to bake, and my childhood is crowded with memories of amazing pastries—braided challahs; tiered cakes iced and decorated with tiny! marzipan! fruits and vegetables!; sheets of napoleons so good that I don’t even bother to taste napoleons any more because they will be a disappointment; cinnamon rolls at once austere and intense. But the cooking? Oh, well.

There were exceptions, of course. For special occasions, roasted geese and ducks. Anything she ever made with a potato–latkes, kugels, salads. One of her attempts at Americana, chuck roast sprinkled with—yes!—dried onion soup and baked in aluminum foil, which I recall thinking was amazingly wonderful. And her soups. Elegant clear very gold chicken soup. Mushroom barley soup. Borscht, starting with the single most gristly ugly piece of beef at the store plus some dirty beets from the yard and transforming it all into this tart, clear purity. And potato soup with lots of fresh dill.

This dish is a modest homage to those wonderful bowls. Continue reading “Two hearty soups for one chilly weekend” →

Seafood Bourride: A delicious, creative mix of Mediterranean flavors

There are countless variations on bourride, a traditional Mediterranean seafood soup/stew. This one, prepared by our friend Mellen and served over Israeli couscous, was the best thing we ate by far on a weekend trip to Washington, DC. Recipe below.

mellen-seafood-bourride2

When I started Blue Kitchen way back in the fall of aught-six, I had great plans for having occasional guest cooks do posts here. So far, I’ve failed miserably. Aside from Marion [a co-conspirator here, really, not a guest], I’ve only had one guest cook, the lovely Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen, who made her delicious Brazilian Rice and Beans. When I smelled this wonderfully fragrant stew percolating in Mellen’s kitchen, I knew it was high time I made good on my plans.

Our friends Mellen and Steve live in a beautiful 1800s house in the historic, convenient and cosmopolitan DuPont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC. The neighborhood is home to foreign embassies, ethnic restaurants, art galleries and shops—and is the center of DC’s vibrant nightlife. So when they invited us to come visit them for a long weekend, it took very little arm twisting to get us there. Mellen and Steve—and Mellen’s kids Madeleine and Taylor—were gracious hosts. Madeleine even gave up her room for us. The whole weekend, conversation flowed like wine. So did the wine, often on their rooftop deck.

In today’s second post, I’ll talk about some of the DC stuff we did on our visit, with a focus on food. But now I’m going to concentrate on this delicious seafood stew/soup. A bourride [boo-REED] is a Mediterranean fish soup, something like a bouillabaisse but with a consistency more like stew. There are probably as many variations on it as there are cooks who make it, and options vary wildly, from suspiciously quick and simple to complex and slow-cooking. Many use thick slices of toasted bread as a base, others call for potatoes. Mellen uses large, pearly Israeli couscous. One common thread among all recipes, though, is making the most of plentiful fresh seafood in the region. Continue reading “Seafood Bourride: A delicious, creative mix of Mediterranean flavors” →