dinner

Coniglio alla Ligure (Ligurian Braised Rabbit)

This dish is from Liguria, the coastal region in northwest Italy. This area is known for its abundant pine nuts, which make an appearance in this dish (fun fact: pesto, which relies heavily on pine nuts, is also from this region). Liguria also borders with the eastern side of France, and this dish shares French culinary staple — namely slow-braised meat in a wine sauce.

Cooking with rabbit can be intimidating to Westerners, but it’s actually quite simple. Just think of it like an oddly-shaped chicken, that’s made with all white meat. The hardest part is finding a whole rabbit, which you can often find at specialty butchers or Asian markets. They’re also available online, and my friends at US Wellness Meats regularly carry whole rabbits — just throw it in your box the next time you get an order of their incredible 75% lean grass-fed ground beef.

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Eye of Round Roast with Wine Sauce

The most visited recipe on this blog, by a long shot, is my old Perfect Eye of Round Roast recipe. It’s been read over 1.7 million times, which is pretty crazy. The recipe is unique because you basically blast the roast with a high heat for a while, then shut the oven off completely for a couple hours while you watch Netflix, build a snowman, fume at Twitter, or whatever else people do with their free time.

Last week, the old post celebrated its sixth birthday, so I figured it’s time for a bit of an update. In place of shutting the oven off completely, we’ll just reduce the heat to 170F, which will give you the freedom to check the roast’s temperature periodically with an instant-read thermometer to make sure you pull it out of the oven right when it’s ready. I also like to pair my roast with a wine sauce reduction, so I’ve included that as well.

This recipe is adapted from the one I used in my first cookbook, The Ancestral Table, which in turn was an updated version of my old blog post (we’re almost getting into Inception levels of cross-reference here). Fun fact: the photos from this post are actually from that original photo session from The Ancestral Table, back in March of 2013. They still hold up pretty well!

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Tigania (Greek Pan-Fried Pork)

Pork shoulder is great: often one of the most affordable cuts of meat, and it can be used in a variety of dishes, from Kalua Pig, to Pork Adobo, to hearty stews. But most preparations call for extended cooking times, to break down all of that connective tissue and create a very tender bite. We’re going to do things the Greek way this time around, and give them a quick pan-fry, followed by a simmer in a flavorful sauce.

This preparation visits the other end of the pork shoulder spectrum: cooking the meat just through, so it’s still tender and super juicy. We’ll keep the prep and cook time to under an hour, with lots of hands-off time so you can prep a salad and pickled veggies to go with the meal.

In case you missed my post from last week, I’m officially accepting recipe testers for my next cookbook, which will be entitled The Heritage Cookbook! Recipe testing is open to the public until January 28th (which is also when feedback is due), so don’t delay!

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Bigos (Polish Hunter’s Stew)

Hi everyone, and welcome to 2018! It’s downright chilly across the US today, so let’s enjoy some stew.

Bigos is a Hunter’s Stew most associated with Poland, but likely of German origin. This dish, in one form or another, has been a part of Eastern European cuisine since at least the Middle Ages. The stew derives most of its flavor from a combination of meats, sausage, sauerkraut, cabbage, and mushrooms. I’ve found that adding dried plums (prunes) to the mixture adds a light sweetness to the dish that perfectly balances the sauerkraut.

It is likely that the original version of this dish was mostly meat, and reserved for the upper nobility; sauerkraut and cabbage were added to stretch out the meal, but eventually were incorporated into all preparations. Today, there remains significant variation of this dish – it is said that there are as many variations of Bigos as there are cooks in Poland.

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Holiday Roast and Vegetables Roundup

Hi everyone, being that it’s a holiday week, I thought it would be a nice idea to share some of my favorite holiday-friendly roasts and vegetable accompaniments.

Honey and Citrus Glazed Ham
Maple and Bourbon Glazed Pork Loin
Roasted Leg of Lamb
Roast Duck with Winter Vegetables
Roast NY Strip Loin
Simple Roast Turkey

Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Oven Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes
Winter Slaw
Skillet Roasted Winter Vegetables
Roasted Asparagus with Bearnaise Sauce
Roasted Cabbage Steaks

Hope you folks have a great holiday weekend – we’ll be keeping it quiet here in Virginia as I keep plugging away at the manuscript for my new cookbook. See you next week!

Singapore Rice Noodles

Hi everyone, today’s recipe will be short and sweet – I’m currently feeling under the weather, but wanted to make sure I got a recipe out to you this week. Rather than entice you with a recipe from my upcoming cookbook, let’s check out one of my favorite recipes from Paleo Takeout: Singapore Rice Noodles (新洲米粉). It comes together in 20 minutes, and doesn’t need any exotic ingredients; if your pantry is stocked with curry powder, white pepper, and ground ginger, you’re halfway there.

I prefer to use rice vermicelli for an authentic texture, but feel free to use spiralized vegetables (like zucchini or yellow squash), or sweet potato noodles, depending on your preference.

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Chili con Carne

As many of you probably know, I’ve been blogging about my journey with the Paleo diet (or some approximation of it) for about seven years now. But what most people don’t realize is that I posted recipes on this site well before I decided to change my dietary lifestyle, albeit to a much smaller audience. There are very few remnants of the old site today, but one of them is this chili recipe, published about a month before I changed my diet.

I think it’s about time I updated that recipe – the pictures make me cringe every time I see them. In truth, I have updated the recipe twice before; it was featured in both The Ancestral Table and Paleo Takeout. Today’s creation differs from those recipes because it’s more in line with traditional Texas chili; in other words, it focuses mainly on the flavor that comes from dried chilis.

Before we get started, a quick caveat to any Texans reading the recipe: yes, I used tomatoes (considered sacrilege in certain circles). I found that by grating a couple tomatoes and cooking them down a bit, it adds a fruity balance you can’t get from dried chiles alone. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.

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Simple Roast Turkey

Around this time every year, my Perfect Smoked Turkey starts making the rounds, and for good reason – it’s relatively simple (with a little practice), and comes out great every time. But sometimes, with so many other things on your plate during Thanksgiving, the idea of tackling a new smoked turkey recipe can be daunting; lots of folks have told me that they would like to try the recipe, but never manage to get to it. So for everyone else, here is how I oven-roast my turkeys.

There’s really not much to this recipe, and that’s the point. This recipe uses a couple handy techniques first discovered by kitchen wizard J. Kenji López-Alt over at Serious Eats: start with a dry brine, then roast the turkey over a hot baking stone.

For the dry brine, you simply rub the turkey all over with kosher salt, pepper, baking soda, and cream of tartar and leave it in the fridge overnight. Baking soda and cream of tartar (which paired together in a 1:2 ratio create baking powder) help to raise the skin’s pH, which more efficiently breaks down its proteins to create a crispier skin.

Placing your baking sheet directly on a hot baking stone will give the lower, dark meat a head start in roasting, so that both parts reach their optimal temperature at the same time: 150F for breasts, 165F for legs and thighs.

When it comes to stuffing the bird, I prefer to use just a few aromatics to fill the oven with delicious aromas without inhibiting air circulation…

…and that’s about it. This simple recipe will give you a chance to focus on other dishes on the big day, like Cranberry Sauce, Basic Mashed Potatoes, Devilish Eggs, or New Brunswick-style Potato Stuffing.

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Stewed Okra in Tomato Sauce (Bamies Latheres me Domata)

As we enter into November, I have exciting news – I’m just about done with developing and photographing recipes for my next cookbook! I’ve been at it for nearly two years straight – researching, testing, and retesting. I’m looking forward to moving to the next stage of the book-writing process, as I organize the contents, design the layout, and edit the manuscript. To be honest, editing is my favorite part of writing books; I like making small, incremental tweaks to refine my voice, and perfectly lining up every little element of the narrative.

So in celebration of moving on to the next (and arguably the most complicated) stage of the process, let’s enjoy this simple Greek stewed okra recipe. These okra fall into the lathera (λαδερά), or oil-based, dishes commonly found among Greek home chefs – simple to prepare, but packed with flavor. This dish works well as a hearty side, but really shines during Lent or other fasts, since it is remarkably filling thanks to its generous helping of olive oil.

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Pichelsteiner

I’m currently sitting at my computer with a blanket and a cat on my lap, and wearing a hoodie and house slippers for the first time this year. Sounds like the perfect time to break out a stew recipe.

Pichelsteiner is a very typical stew, found in similar shapes and sizes all over the world. There are several stories to explain its invention, a common trait among stews. One folk tale details how a farmer’s wife fed the stew to a group of marauding soldiers, saving the day (and her family) with this new culinary invention. Another tale explains how a Bavarian chef prepared Pichelsteiner for party atop Büchelstein mountain (allegedly, the name of this dish morphed from there). Finally, the small Bavarian village of Regen, along the Czech border, claims ownership of this dish as well, which they have communally served at the anniversary of their church’s dedication in 1874.

Pichelsteiner shares another feature with other regional stews: it serves as the solution to those pesky leftovers that creep up in the fridge. As truly communal fare, the stew incorporates a spectrum of ingredients available to pre-industrial Germans: mushrooms, onion, carrots, leeks, cabbage, potatoes, and three types of meat. So if you don’t have all the ingredients, or if you have a couple extra that aren’t listed below, don’t fret – there’s a lot of wiggle room here.

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