American

Quahogs are found mainly off the eastern coast of the United States; steamer clams may be used instead.

If using prepared horseradish, reduce the amount of lemon juice to 1 tablespoon.

Make all three flavored balls, or prepare just one or two, adjusting the ingredients accordingly.

You can serve this chunky salsa in seashells as an hors d’oeuvre with cocktails, but it would also be ideal as a dip for Fried Plantain Chips (recipe follows).

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who like chewy water bagels and those who prefer softer steamed bagels. Having grown up on the East Coast in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I am naturally inclined toward what I think of as the true bagel, the thick-crusted, dense, boiled version, called the water bagel because it is poached in a kettle of boiling alkalized water. (I also like egg bagels, which are made by adding eggs as an enrichment to the dough but, nevertheless, are boiled.) Most people who like the new style of softer bagels, and there are many such adherents, do not realize that what makes them so big and soft is that they are a softer dough, formed after a long proofing. This makes them impossible to boil because they are too airy to sustain their shape in the roiling cauldron. They are perfect for commercial steam-injected rotating rack ovens, however, because they do not have to be handled twice. (The oven lifts the entire rack of sheet pans and rotates it for even baking, after blasting it with a bath of steam to replace the boiling.) According to folklore, bagels were invented in seventeenth-century Austria as a tribute to the wartime victories of King Jan of Poland, and were modeled after the stirrup of his saddle. They were a bread for the masses, popular also in Germany and Poland, but they were introduced into the United States by German and Polish Jewish immigrants, so we think of them as a Jewish bread. Now, because of the softer steamed versions, bagels have once again become a bread for the masses. However, the modern steaming method lends fuel to the debate of authenticity and battles against our nostalgic desire for the real deal. Everyone who loves bagels seems to have a theory as to why even properly boiled bagels seem to fall short of those memories. Some think it depends on the quality of the water. “New York bagels can’t be duplicated because of that great New York water,” say New Yorkers, while others think it has something to do with the quality of the flour, or whatever else they put into the kettle to flavor the crust. Others blame the automatic bagel-shaping machines invented by Tom Atwood in the 1950s. (Prior to that, Tom, now in his eighties, told me, all bagels were shaped by hand using the wrap-around method shown on page 120.) My theory is that nothing can top the taste of memory, but it is quite possible to find and make bagels every bit as good as in yesteryear, though never as good as those of our memories. As a professional baker, a bread instructor, and a water-bagel guy, I’ve been working on making the perfect bagel for a number of years. Just as the steam technique is a totally modern innovation that opened the bagel to the mainstream marketplace, there are many techniques that are now available to both professional and home bakers that did not exist in the days of King Jan. Even the bagel bakers of our parents’ generation did not fully understand bread science as we now know it, though their feel for the product and their intuition was sharpened to a fine edge. What I have been working on is the application of some of the artisan techniques recently introduced by the new generation of bread bakers to the production of a definitive water bagel good enough to challenge our childhood memories and overcome our nostalgic biases. You will have to be the judge. This version is, I believe, an improvement on the formula given in Crust & Crumb, which I thought at the time was as good as it gets. This version uses an easier-to-make sponge, yet still provides the overnight fermentation that maximizes flavor. My students at Johnson & Wales University are too young to have had a “good old days” experience with bagels, so even though they love these bagels, their frame of reference is limited. But my wife Susan who, like me, grew up in the food and bagel mecca of Philadelphia, and some of my friends who grew up in New York C...

Now that I live in New England again, after twenty-two years in California, I felt duty bound to revisit one of the great New England breads, anadama, and to come up with a definitive version. There are conflicting stories of the origin of the name. Judith and Evan Jones, in their wonderful The Book of Bread, tell the story of a Rockport, Massachusetts, man who was upset with his wife not only for leaving him, but also for leaving behind only a pot of cornmeal mush and some molasses. The angry husband tossed the mush and molasses together with some yeast and flour and muttered, “Anna, damn ’er!” This was later amended by the more genteel local Yankees, as they retold the story, to anadama. Sounds likely to me. Traditional formulas for this bread are usually given as a direct-dough method, but this version utilizes a soaker and a sponge to evoke more flavor from the grain. Corn is chock-full of natural sugars, trapped in the complex carbohydrate starch base, so any trick we can employ to break the sugars free can only improve the already wonderful flavor.

You’ll be transported back to Grandma’s kitchen when you smell this homey dish as it cooks. The leftovers are excellent for sandwiches and recipes calling for cooked lean beef, such as Vegetable Beef Soup (page 68).

When you’ve had enough sandwiches made of leftover turkey, try this colorful stir-fry.

Fresh lemon, fresh parsley, and lots of dried herbs tucked between the skin and the meat infuse this turkey with sensational flavors. If there is leftover turkey, you can use it in Turkey Stew (page 167).

Pineapple juice adds a taste of Hawaii to the slightly sweet yet spicy marinade in this dish, and chili garlic sauce adds a bit of Asian flair. Be sure to allow time to marinate the steak for 8 to 24 hours. The recipe makes enough for you to serve grilled steak tonight and have some left for Pacific Rim Steak Salad with Sweet-and-Sour Dressing (page 94) later in the week.

With this recipe, you season and bake a turkey tenderloin, then make a sauce—all in one dish. It’s a great entrée to serve when you’re in a hurry and even greater when you’re the one cleaning up.

No more dry pork chops! Just “sandwich” the chops between layers of dressing and bake, leaving them tender and moist. Serve with green beans tossed with lemon zest.

Unlike many other stews, this one is quick enough for a weeknight. By the time instant brown rice finishes cooking, the stew is just about ready, too.

When you’re rushed for dinner, try this all-in-one-packet combo of chicken and fresh vegetables. While the packets bake, boil some whole-grain pasta to serve on the side.

Vegetables get plenty of smoky flavor when you grill them, so there’s no need to reach for the salt shaker. Feel free to pop some other vegetables, such as yellow squash and mushrooms, onto the grill, too.