Brunch

Serve this dal as a dip with pita chips or as a side dish with grilled meats or fish.

These are fun to make, especially with kids. Instead of baking the bread in the oven, the muffins are baked in a skillet or on a griddle. If you want to get the big holes that the professionals get, you will need to work with a soft, but not sticky, dough and bake or grill the muffins at just the right time, catching them on the rise. The dough, a fairly straightforward enriched dough, can also be used to make English muffin loaf bread, a holey white bread that kids—well, not just kids—love.

My students often ask me to teach them how to make a cinnamon bun as good as the ones they get at the mall from Cinnabon and other franchise shops. For my money, this version makes a cinnamon bun that outperforms all the malls. But those of us who grew up in eastern Pennsylvania have a soft spot in our hearts for sticky buns, such as the ones originating from the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside. Frankly, everyone in the United States seems to have a favorite regional version, whether it is a cinnamon bun glazed with a sweet, white-sugar fondant or a sticky bun with a caramel glaze. Regardless of side issues, such as white versus caramel glazes, the type of nut (usually walnuts versus pecans), or with or without raisins, the real key to this kind of comfort food is a soft, light, tender, slightly sweet dough baked just right. This formula falls in the enriched, not the rich, dough category because the fat content is slightly under 20 percent. I’ve made versions of sweet dough that do indeed contain up to 50 percent fat, but then why eat the buns? You might as well strap them right onto your hips, since that’s where they will end up (or, as one of my customers used to say, “They call them sticky buns because they stick to your buns!”). Between the shortening, eggs, sugar, and milk, there are plenty of enrichments to tenderize this dough without additional fat. However, if you do want to make a more decadent version of cinnamon or sticky buns, try the formula for Middle-Class Brioche on page 127.

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...

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.

In Mexico, a tortilla is a type of unleavened bread, but in Spain, a tortilla is an omelet, often served open-face.

For a rainy-night supper, serve this “sunshine on a plate.”

Swiss chard and a Swiss-like (Jarlsberg) cheese combine to make a yummy crustless quiche. While it bakes, toss a salad to complete the meal.

Bursting with Italian flavor, this frittata is equally at home at brunch or dinner.

A summery salsa tops these simply prepared trout fillets. If trout isn’t available, serve the salsa with any other sautéed or grilled fish or with shrimp.

Using potatoes instead of tortilla chips as the base for beans, salsa, and other traditional nacho toppings helps you control your sodium intake. The potatoes are a good source of potassium, an important nutrient in helping lower blood pressure.

No potluck meal or barbecue is complete without baked beans. These cook for a long time but need very little attention. The result is well worth the wait.

Sprinkle, bake, and serve—any easier and it wouldn’t be called cooking!

In less than 30 minutes from starting to prep the ingredients to serving, you can make this exotic fish dish and the accompanying fruit relish. Another time, make only the fruit relish and serve it with roasted pork or chicken.

Is this recipe for a side dish or a dessert? It’s your call—either way provides a serving of fruit for each diner. You might want to make a double batch of the walnut crunch and use the extra to top fat-free yogurt or hot cereal for breakfast.

Since you serve this side dish at room temperature, it’s perfect for a party or holiday buffet. It’s also a terrific appetizer when served on crostini or low-sodium whole-grain crackers.

This is finger food at its finest! Invite some friends over for a meal of these oven-fries, stovetop pork chops, and Balsamic-Marinated Vegetables (page 78).

Spoon this dressing over fresh fruit, such as melon or pineapple, when you want a pretty side salad or a light dessert.