Potato

Roast chicken is one of my I-can’t-have-it-around-or-I’ll-eat-the-whole-thing addictions. After the first meal, the rest of the bird sits front and center in my refrigerator, and when the urge hits, I pull off a piece here and there until the carcass is picked clean. Anyway, that’s one of the reasons I am drawn to smaller birds: guinea hens, squab, poussin. They’re certainly on the high end in terms of fat and calories, but at least when I’m done, I’m done. No more temptations. When I saw 3/4-pound hens at one of my favorite vendors (Eco-Friendly Farms) at the Sunday farmers’ market in Washington’s Dupont Circle, I had a brainstorm: Why not treat them like beer-can chicken (more colloquially known as beer-butt chicken), but with a smaller can of pineapple juice instead? I thought it was the most original thing ever, until I Googled around and saw that others had trod this ground before me, including barbecue maestro Steven Raichlen. I forged ahead, combining the pineapple with one of its natural partners—rosemary—and cooking down extra juice with lime and butter into a sweet-and-sour glaze. With roasted potatoes (babies, of course), I had a meal.

Despite all my big Texas talk, the truth is, I don’t make classic chicken-fried steak for myself. Between the prep work and the calorie count, it’s just not practical. Instead, I make something that requires no pounding, no dredging in egg and flour, no inch of oil in the pan. It’s inspired by my favorite steaks growing up: those at Margaret Heinen’s Western Sky, where the cooks would rub crushed garlic into the steaks, very lightly dredge them in flour, and grill them over wood. The light coating was positively delectable. I pan-fry my steak, pair it with boiled and smashed new potatoes, and finish them both with a quick sauce of anchovies, butter, and parsley. I don’t call this chicken-fried, for obvious reasons, but it tastes like Texas just the same.

When I visited Tokyo and Kyoto with my friend Devra a couple years back, I didn’t want to leave. I would say it was the beautiful aesthetic, the attention to design and style, the amazingly efficient trains, but really, of course, it was the food. I was especially excited when I learned how much the Japanese revere the sweet potato, one of my all-time favorite foods. In season (fall and winter), street vendors hawk stone-roasted ones—paler-fleshed and sweeter than ours. Famous cookbook author Harumi Kurihara showed me how she loves to mash miso into roasted sweet potatoes, so when I returned home, I knew that even the orange-fleshed varieties here would take beautifully to Japanese flavors. For a kick of bitterness that nicely offsets the earthy miso, use broccoli rabe instead of the broccolini.

This potato topper was inspired by Polynesian and Southeast Asian combinations of shrimp and mashed sweet potatoes. A good-quality Indian curry powder can be substituted for the Thai curry paste.

This elegant soup has a depth of flavor, brightened by orange and layered with smoked paprika, that would make it right at home as a dinner party starter. For yourself, pair it with a side salad and a big piece of crusty bread, and it’s dinner tonight, while you plan the party for another day.

I got the idea from Lidia Bastianich to make soup bases that pack a lot of flavor on the weekend, then freeze them and thaw them as needed, adding various ingredients on the fly to take them in different directions. I like to concentrate the base, which saves freezer space, and then thin it out when I make a finished soup. Before you thin it out (and jazz it up) for the final soup, this base may remind you of a certain fluffy Thanksgiving side dish (minus the mini-marshmallows, thankfully), but there are some key differences. Besides the lack of cream or sugar, the most important one is the cooking method: Rather than boiling peeled cubes of sweet potato, I like to roast them, concentrating the complex flavor, which is highlighted by subtle hints of thyme and curry. This makes an especially vibrant backdrop to such treatments as Sweet Potato Soup with Chorizo, Chickpeas, and Kale (page 43). There are many other possibilities. You can sprinkle ground chipotle or pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika) for heat and/or smoke, or add toasted pecans, yogurt (or sour cream or crème fraîche), and other sausages or cured meats.

Turn the Sweet Potato Soup Base into a meal with spicy chorizo, hearty chickpeas, and vibrant green kale. This makes a truly beautiful bowl of soup. If you’d rather keep this soup vegetarian, try the grain-based chorizo substitute from Field Roast, one of the first meat substitutes I’ve actually liked. It’s available in natural food stores in almost every state and through www.fieldroast.com.

Salt isn’t fat soluble. On the face of it, this statement might not exactly make your spine tingle with excitement. Another unsexy observation: solid fat melts when heated. But combined, these two fatty facts provide the basis for one incomparably delicious meal. Heat a Himalayan salt block and toss on a duck breast, fat side down. The fat will immediately melt, but because salt isn’t fat soluble it will not dissolve, and the duck breast will pick up only the faintest trace of salt. When you flip the breast to the lean side, the moisture on the surface of the meat will start to flow and the meat will take on a beautiful glaze of salt that carries the whole dish. Meanwhile, you can fry potatoes in the hot fat glazing the salt block! Simple as this dish may seem, it makes the best duck breast I have ever eaten. Serve with a good Rhône or Languedoc wine.

There are two kinds of people: those who love potato chips and those who don’t exist. Making your own chips means a fresh potato, freshly fried in the freshest oil. It also means you can choose your own salt. The freshly fried potato chip is an object worthy of serious contemplation, a thing of wonder, a crispy symphony of fat and starch and salt. When the diamondlike glitter of fleur de sel throws its multifaceted might behind it, hold on to the roof.

The chicken is in the oven—heat forming a golden crust that seals in the juices, salt working its silent alchemy within, denaturing some of the proteins in tough muscles making those parts more tender and flavorful. Roasting is the easiest way to cook chicken and the tastiest. All that is required to reach perfection is time and the perfect salt. Sugpo Asin, a king among salts, glowing rose-cloud white, lush and firmly crunchy, with dulcet brine notes that play lavishly (but with discipline) against the sweet tamed gaminess of poultry, honors this basic meat and vegetable meal as all basic meals should be honored—asserting the preeminence of simple home cooking as the cornerstone of eating well.

All of the optional condiments for serving are available at most Indian grocery stores.

Unless you want to be prepping all day, you should purchase prepared pizza crust. Boboli crusts work for this, as do Tiseo’s and Baker’s Quality frozen pizza dough.