Side

There are two varieties of persimmons available on the market, fuyu and hachiya. Fuyu are round and flat and are eaten while still crisp; they make colorful and tasty salads. Hachiya are elongated with a pointy tip, and are tannic until ripe and very, very soft.

Rocket and arugula are both common names for the spicy salad plant Eruca vesicaria, which has dark green, lobed leaves that taste nutty and peppery.

This salad is best made with whole uncut leaves of romaine. You may need to remove quite a few of the large outer leaves to expose the smaller pale green sweet leaves at the heart. There are tender small varieties called Little Gem and Winter Density that make incredible salads. Look for them at your farmers’ market.

There are many varieties of avocados, and all may be used, but the Hass avocado is the ideal choice. The flesh has a rich, nutty, and herby taste. It is a good keeper, it peels easily, and the pit is easily removed. An avocado is ripe when it yields to the gentle pressure of your thumb.

This is a very simple approach to a classic deviled egg, but I like them without a lot of spices and things that cover up the good egg flavor. I sprinkle them with chopped fresh herbs just before serving.

Any soft mild white cheese will work here. Fresh goat cheese shaped into logs or rounds, feta, even a stiff yogurt cheese like labneh would work. This cheese makes a nice spread for croutons or a tasty garnish for a salad.

You can prepare any greens this way—rapini, mustard greens, beet tops, spinach, rocket, kale—but cook them separately, because they all have different cooking times. The sturdiest greens, such as kale, take longest. Once cooked, they can be mixed together in any combination, dressed with this simple olive oil marinade, piled warm on croutons, or cooled and wrapped in slices of prosciutto.

There is a long list of variations of savory galettes and most of them begin with sautéed onions. Sautéed onions are the perfect foil for the crisp, buttery crust of a tart. When combined with other vegetables, onions add protective moisture and deep flavor as the tart bakes in the oven. The pastry can also be rolled into long thin rectangular tarts, which can be cut into small pieces that make very popular finger food for a party. Surprisingly, onions vary quite a bit, and not just in appearance. Sometimes they cook quickly and are so juicy they need to be drained before they can be used; other times they take a long time to soften and don’t give off any liquid to speak of. Onions with very thin skins are usually much more sweet and juicy, while those with very hard, dark, golden skins tend to take longer to cook. All onions will eventually soften and be delicious, but when given the choice, I recommend selecting large onions that have a delicate, thin, lighter skin. In the summer, when they are in season, sweet Walla Walla, Vidalia, or Bermuda onions make excellent tarts, baking up almost as sweet as honey. In the spring there are fresh onions, or spring onions, that have not been dried and cured, and still have their green stalks attached. Peel them and trim off their stalks, slice them thick, and cook until just soft. The flavor of spring onions is delicate and less sweet than that of mature cured onions. The right amount of onions cooked to the right consistency is what makes a good tart. Pile the onions into a low-sided, heavy-bottomed pan with a generous amount of fat, and cook them slowly with herbs until soft and tasty; this will take at least 30 minutes. The onions must be cooled before they are spread onto the pastry or they will melt the butter before the tart bakes. The onions should be moist but not dripping wet or the tart will be soggy. If the onions are too juicy, drain them. Save the juice; it can be reduced and served with the tart as a little sauce or added to a vinaigrette. If the onions are still juicy, even after draining, sprinkle a little flour over the pastry (avoiding the border), before adding the onions, to soak up some of the juice while the tart cooks. Bake on the lowest rack of the oven for a crust that is crisp and golden brown on the bottom. Check the underside by gently lifting up the tart with a spatula. When the tart is fully baked, slide it off the pan onto a cooling rack to rest. If left on the baking pan to cool, it will steam and the pastry will not stay crisp. Once you have mastered a basic onion tart, there are many variations you can try: add sliced sweet or hot peppers to the sautéing onions about halfway through cooking; grate some summer squash and stir it into the onions during their last few minutes of sautéing; or, before you fill the tart, while the onions are cooling, stir in either seasoned cherry tomato halves or roasted, peeled, and sliced peppers. You can also top the layer of onions with sliced tomatoes or lightly grilled slices of eggplant. For a sweet and savory tart, mix chopped roasted figs into the onions. Other variations include sprinkling the pastry with grated cheese or brushing it with a slurry of chopped herbs and olive oil before spreading on the onions. Artichoke hearts also can either be sautéed and stirred into the onions, or sliced and baked and arranged on top of them; when the tart comes out of the oven, try painting it with garlic and herb butter. And most of the year you can mix the onions with sautéed greens—collards, chard, spinach, broccoli rabe, or mustard. Or when the tart has only 10 minutes left to bake, top it with anchovies and black olives.

A frittata is a flat round omelet with its filling stirred into the eggs before cooking. I like my frittatas dense in vegetables, almost like pies without crusts. Many things can be stirred into frittatas: sautéed onions, wilted greens, roasted peppers, sliced potatoes, mushrooms, even pasta. Frittatas can be served warm or at room temperature, plain or with a sauce, as a first course or as dinner. And they are great for sandwiches and as picnic food. Any filling should be cooked before being added to the eggs. For more flavor, vegetables can be browned or seasoned with herbs and spices. Although some recipes say to pour beaten eggs into the pan over vegetables after they have been cooked, I have better luck turning the frittata later when I beat the eggs with a little oil and salt, stir in the vegetables and any other ingredients such as herbs or cheese, and cook the frittata in a clean preheated pan. Cook frittatas over medium to medium-high heat. Any higher and the eggs will burn on the bottom. As the edges set, lift them away from the side of the pan and tilt the pan to let uncooked egg flow underneath. When the frittata is mostly set, place an inverted plate the same size or a little larger over the pan, hold them firmly together, and turn the pan upside down on top of the plate. (Protect the hand holding the plate with a towel or potholder.) Add a bit more oil to the pan and slide the frittata back in. Cook for another 2 or 3 minutes and then slide onto a plate. The frittata should be cooked through but still moist inside. Another way to cook a frittata is in the oven, as long as the pan you use is ovenproof. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Start the frittata on top of the stove, as above. After a couple of minutes, put the pan in the oven and cook until the frittata is set on top, about 7 to 10 minutes.

Dramatic, puffy, and feather-light, with quivering, gilded caps, soufflés are surrounded by an aura of culinary mystery. Surprisingly, beneath the mystery lies a rather simple, but ingenious, dish. In a basic soufflé, a simple white sauce made of flour, butter, and milk is enriched with egg yolks; a flavoring element such as cheese (or fruit or liqueur for a dessert soufflé) is added; and the mixture is lightened with egg whites beaten to many times their original volume. The air trapped in the egg whites expands in the heat of the oven, puffing up the soufflé even more. The only critical point is that a soufflé should be sped to the table the moment it’s finished baking. Out of the oven, a steaming soufflé cools quickly and loses its triumphant height. Here is a basic method to follow to make savory soufflés. Start by making a white sauce, or béchamel: Melt butter in a heavy saucepan. Stir in flour, cook for a minute or two (this mixture is called a roux), and whisk in milk, a little at a time, whisking thoroughly after each addition before adding another. The flour and butter will bind up and then slowly loosen as more milk is added. If you add all the milk at once you are almost guaranteed lumps in the sauce. (If the sauce does get lumpy, push it through a strainer to smooth it.) After the milk is whisked in, bring the sauce to a boil, stirring all the while. This cooks the flour into the milk and fully thickens the sauce. Turn the heat down as low as possible, and simmer for at least 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, to cook out the taste of raw flour. Season the sauce to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne. Let it cool slightly. Separate the eggs, stirring the yolks into the béchamel one by one and putting the whites into a large bowl in which they will be beaten later. Take care not to break the yolks: egg whites containing even a tiny bit of yolk refuse to be whipped into a foam as high, stiff, and stable as those without. If there are visible traces of broken yolk in your egg white, you may be able to scoop them out with an eggshell half; if you can’t, you may have to separate another egg and save the broken one for some other use. Eggs that are many weeks old have watery whites and fragile yolks, which makes them more difficult to separate than very fresh eggs, with their thick whites and stand-up yolks. To the béchamel and egg yolks, add grated cheese or other flavoring elements such as a vegetable purée (of leeks, asparagus, or garlic, for example), chopped shellfish, or a few herbs. This mixture is called the base of the soufflé. It can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated, but be sure to take both the base and the egg whites out of the refrigerator at least an hour before baking to come to room temperature. When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 375°F (or to 400°F if you decide to make individual soufflés rather than one big one). The soufflé needs to bake in the center of the oven. Rearrange the racks, if necessary, to allow plenty of headroom for the soufflé to rise. Butter a baking dish liberally with soft butter. A soufflé can be baked in a traditional soufflé dish, in a shallow gratin dish or other baking dish, or in individual ovenproof cups or porcelain ramekins. Even a fl at sheet pan with sides will work; the soufflé won’t puff as high, but it will have more surface area to brown. Beat the egg whites vigorously with a wire whisk until they form peaks that are stiff, but still moist and smooth. It’s easy to overwhip egg whites with an electric mixer, so pay close attention when the whites start to thicken, and stop and check them frequently. (Overwhipped whites have a chunky granular look to them.) Stir about one third of the whites into the soufflé base, to lighten it. With a rubber spatula, scrape the rest of the beaten eg...

No less than meat and fish, vegetables are enhanced by the smoky perfume and radiant heat of the grill, whether served plain with a simple salsa verde or vinaigrette, stirred into a risotto, or combined into a grilled version of a vegetable stew such as ratatouille or peperonata. Grilled potatoes can be made into an intriguing potato salad that is even tastier when it includes a few grilled scallions. Different vegetables require different grilling approaches, and some vegetables can be grilled in more than one way. In general, grill vegetables over a medium to medium-hot bed of coals; a hotter fire will scorch the vegetables before they cook through. Conveniently, the fire is often at the perfect temperature for vegetables after the meat or fish has been grilled. You can also distribute the coals to create areas with different temperatures, so that one area burns hot while the other is medium-hot, allowing you to grill vegetables at the same time as a steak, for example. Use the hand test. If the fire is medium-hot, you should be able to hold your hand over the grill for about 4 seconds. Clean the grill well and oil it after it has heated up, before putting the vegetables on. Summer squash, eggplant, potatoes, and onions should be sliced 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick, as uniform as possible. Cut peppers in half or in quarters and clean out the ribs and seeds. Onion slices can be skewered flat, which makes them easier to turn. (Soak skewers in water for a few minutes to keep them from igniting.) Salt the vegetables. This can be done ahead of time, but note that salting accelerates moisture loss, so don’t be alarmed by liquid around them when you’re ready to grill. Brush olive oil generously over the vegetables before grilling. They can also be tossed with chopped herbs. After the vegetable slices have been on the grill for a few minutes, rotate them a little over 90 degrees to make a nice crosshatch of grill marks. After a couple more minutes turn the vegetables and finish cooking, rotating them once more to make grill marks, and turning them again, if necessary. Take the slices off the grill as soon as they are tender. Check for doneness at the stem end, which always takes the longest to cook. (Again, tongs are my favorite grilling tool; they make turning the vegetables a breeze.) Leafy vegetables such as scallions, small leeks, and wedges of radicchio benefit from an initial moistening before they go on the grill. Oil them, and then sprinkle them with water or mist them with a spray bottle. Turn them often as they grill to prevent scorching, and keep sprinkling or misting them to keep them moist. To accelerate their cooking, invert a metal bowl over them, to steam them while they grill. Some vegetables are better when cooked until tender in boiling water before being finished on the grill: asparagus, for example, and leeks that are larger than scallions, and small artichokes and potatoes, whole or halved. For easy turning on the grill, skewer potatoes and artichokes, taking care that all the cut faces are on the same plane when skewered to ensure equal contact with the grill. Tomatoes can be grilled, but they need a hot fire. Cut them in half and slide them onto the grill, cut side down. Let them grill for 3 minutes to seal the flesh before trying to rotate them. Be sure to clean the grill before you grill anything else, as tomatoes are a bit messy. Vegetables such as eggplants, summer squashes, and peppers can be cooked whole, but because they will take longer to cook through, the fire should be medium rather than medium-hot. Make a couple of deep incisions in their sides to speed up the cooking and to keep them from bursting from a buildup of steam. Corn can be grilled with great success after a little preparation. Peel back the husks, leaving them connected at the base of the ear, and remove all the silk. Season the corn with salt and pepper and a little chile or herbs, if you want; brush with some butter or o...

When I serve roasted vegetables, my guests often ask me, “How did you cook these vegetables? They are so delicious!” I tossed them with a bit of oil and salt and threw them in the oven, is my answer. Eyebrows rise in disbelief, but it’s true: roasting vegetables is that easy and that delicious. As vegetables roast, their flavors intensify and the brown caramelized edges they get add sweetness and texture. Very little oil is used during the cooking so they are quite light as well. Most any vegetable can be roasted, either simply with salt and olive oil or with garlic, herbs, and spices for added flavor. The critical points for roasting vegetables are: the shape in which they are cut; the seasoning and oiling; and the temperature at which they are cooked. Winter root vegetables should be peeled and cut up into smaller pieces, though the very tiny ones can be left whole. Carrots, turnips, celery root, rutabagas, parsnips, and kohlrabi are all excellent roasted. Cut the vegetables into pieces more or less the same size so they will cook evenly and be done at the same time. Avoid shapes that have thin edges, as they tend to burn before the centers are done; and don’t cut the vegetables too small or they will be mostly browned bits with very little soft flavorful vegetable left to eat. Toss the cut vegetables in a large bowl, using your hands or a spoon to coat them evenly with salt and olive oil. They only need a light coating of oil; if oil is accumulating on the bottom of the bowl you’ve used too much. Taste a piece to see if they are seasoned correctly and keep adding salt until it tastes right. Lay the vegetables out in a single layer on a baking sheet that has low sides. The sides make it much easier to stir the vegetables while they are cooking and keep them from drying out. Cook the vegetables in a hot oven preheated to 400°F. A lower temperature will dry out the vegetables while they cook, making them leathery before they are done; a higher temperature will burn them before they are cooked all the way through. Stir the vegetables a few times while they are cooking, turning those along the edges into the center. Cook them until they are tender and nicely browned here and there. Probe a piece with the tip of a knife to test for doneness, or better still, taste one (be sure to let it cool first). Don’t let them go too far: a little browning makes them sweeter, but if you let them get too dark they will taste bitter. Potatoes can be roasted whole. Use small new potatoes (fingerlings or creamer-size potatoes work really well). Wash the potatoes and peel them or not, as you prefer. Put them into a baking dish with sides as high as or slightly higher than the potatoes themselves. Sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil. Add a head or more of garlic cloves, separated but not peeled, and a few sprigs of fresh herbs. Shake the pan now and then while the potatoes are cooking; turn them if they are browning too much on the top or bottom. Smaller winter squash, such as Delicata and acorn varieties, can be roasted in halves to serve right in the shell. Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds, place the halves cut side up on an oiled baking sheet, drizzle lightly with oil and sprinkle with salt, turn cut side down, and roast until soft. Unpeeled butternut or Delicata squash, once halved and seeded, can be cut into slices and laid on an oiled baking sheet to roast. The skin is so tender after roasting that it is fine to eat. Squash can be cut into cubes and roasted as well; it is wonderful with lots of fresh sage leaves tossed in before cooking. Fat asparagus—the butt ends snapped off, the spears peeled and tossed with oil and salt—roasts very well. Lemon thyme is an intriguing herb to use with asparagus. Stick to larger spears when roasting; the smaller spears tend to shrivel and dry. To roast broccoli, peel and cut the stems into thick slices and break the head into florets. O...

Sautéing is an exciting cooking experience. All your senses are engaged with the high heat, the loud sizzle of the pan, the active stirring and tossing, and the delightful smells of browning food and the perfumes of aromatics added at the end. Sautéing is best suited to small pieces of meat, fish, shellfish, and vegetables. The pieces are tossed or stirred in a hot pan with a small amount of oil. This cooks them quickly; meat stays succulent and vegetables fresh and juicy. A sauté pan has rounded sides, which makes it easier to toss the food than if you use a classic frying pan or skillet—although in a pinch, a frying pan will do a fine job. When sautéing, ingredients are added in quantity—though not in quantities that can’t be easily tossed or stirred—and need to be moved about quickly so that all sides of all the pieces make contact with the hot pan right away. The pan must be quite hot and the heat turned up before the cooking begins to ensure that the food is seared immediately. Otherwise it will start to sweat, lowering the chances of browning and raising the chances of sticking. There should be a gratifying sizzle when the food hits the pan. To check if the pan is hot enough, add a drop or two of water beforehand. Use an oil with a high smoking point to sauté. Clarified butter also works well, but whole butter will eventually burn, even when mixed with oil. Only a small amount of fat is needed, just enough to coat the pan and keep the food from sticking. Occasionally, some ingredients absorb all the oil and threaten to stick; add more oil right away, pouring it down the side of the pan so it has a chance to heat up on its way in. Meat and vegetables are seasoned with salt and pepper either in advance or right at the start of the cooking; most other seasonings are added towards the end to keep them from burning. In some recipes, garlic or ginger is cooked briefly in hot oil for flavor and removed before the main ingredients are added to the pan. Have all your ingredients ready to go before you start cooking, as there will be no time to gather them once you start to sauté.

Risotto is Italian comfort food, a luscious dish of tender rice in its own creamy sauce. Considered by many to be labor-intensive restaurant fare, risotto is actually a basic one-pot dinner that pleases everyone. Risotto is made from starchy short-grain rice, which, when moistened with successive additions of stock, gains concentrated flavor and a distinctive saucy texture. Of the special short-grain varieties that have been developed in northern Italy specifically for risotto the best known is Arborio; others are Vialone Nano (an extra-short-grain rice), Baldo, and my favorite, Carnaroli. All these varieties have short, plump grains that can absorb a lot of liquid while retaining some textural integrity (the grains are said to have a good bite), with abundant superficial starch to make the risotto creamy. Because the rice for a risotto is cooked in fat before any broth is added, use a heavy pot, preferably stainless steel or enameled cast iron, or the rice will scorch too easily. Pick a pot with relatively high sides (but not so high that stirring is difficult and evaporation is inhibited) and a diameter that is wide enough so that when the raw rice is added it’s between one-quarter and one-half inch deep in the pot. The first step is to make a flavorful base of sautéed diced onions. The onion is cooked until soft in a generous amount of fat (usually butter, but olive oil, beef marrow, and even bacon fat are sometimes used). Once the onions are soft the rice is added and sautéed for a few minutes. In Italian this is called the tostatura, or “roasting.” The idea is to coat and seal each grain of rice. The rice will begin to sizzle and turn translucent, but it should not color or brown. At this point, some wine is added, for fruit and acidity. For 1 1/2 cups of rice, I use about 1/2 cup of wine, but I never bother to measure it exactly; I simply pour in enough wine to reach the top of the rice, without covering it. This works for any quantity of rice and is much easier than trying to make a calculation. Adding the wine before the broth gives it time to reduce and lose its raw alcohol flavor. Red wine or even beer can be substituted. When you are caught without a bottle of wine, a teaspoon or so of tasty wine vinegar added to the first addition of broth will approximate the acidity of wine. After the wine is absorbed, broth is added. I use light chicken broth most often, but vegetable, mushroom, and shellfish broths also make lovely risottos. Keep in mind that your risotto will only be as good as the broth you use to make it. Unseasoned or lightly seasoned broths are best. Many recipes say to keep the broth simmering (in its separate pan) the whole time the risotto is cooking. This isn’t necessary; in fact, I prefer not to. The longer the broth simmers, the more it reduces, and its flavor can become too strongly concentrated. I bring the broth to a boil while the onions are cooking and then turn it off. The broth stays plenty warm. The first addition of broth should just cover the rice. Adjust the heat to maintain a constant, fairly vigorous simmer. It is not necessary to stir constantly, but the risotto needs to be tended to frequently, and it certainly cannot be left on its own. When the level of liquid has dropped low enough that the rice is exposed, add more broth to cover. The broth should never be allowed to evaporate completely; the starch will coagulate and burn. Keep adding the broth in small increments; the rice should neither be flooded nor be allowed to dry out. Season the rice with salt early on. My personal rule is to salt the risotto when I make the second addition of broth. This allows the salt to penetrate the grains of rice while they are cooking. The amount of salt needed will depend on the saltiness of the broth you’re using. From the time the rice is added to the onion, a risotto takes 20 to 30 minutes to cook. Taste it often to keep track of the seasoning ...

A pilaf is a savory dish of rice that has first been sautéed in fat and then cooked in a seasoned liquid. (It differs from a risotto in that the liquid is entirely absorbed.) Depending on the recipe, a pilaf may also include nuts, spices, a few vegetables, or even a complex meat stew. I make mostly simple pilafs, such as the red rice pilaf that follows, to go with quesadillas and black beans, or a basmati rice pilaf with saffron and onions to eat with a vegetable ragout. Long-grain rice is usually used in pilafs, although some cuisines use short-grain rice. Sautéing the rice before adding the liquid enriches the flavor of the dish and coats each grain in fat. This, along with thorough washing, keeps the rice from sticking together or clumping. Olive oil and butter are the most commonly used fats. To avoid burning the butter while sautéing the rice, add a little oil to it, or use clarified butter (see page 125). Onion is usually sautéed for a few minutes in the fat before the rice is added. After the rice is sautéed, a flavorful liquid is poured over it and brought to a boil. The pilaf is simmered, covered, until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Depending on their cooking times, vegetables and meats are added sometimes with the liquid, sometimes after the rice has been cooking for a while. The tomato in the red rice pilaf here is added at the beginning to color the rice evenly. When done, pilafs should be allowed to rest for about 10 minutes before serving.