No-Cook

Eat well, eat more! Chew this one until you bust!

This recipe demonstrates the way that xanthan gum and Versawhip combine to form elegant and flavorful foams. Versawhip is an enzymatically treated soy protein that creates stable foam structures that can tolerate small amounts of acid but no fat. The whipped cherry juice is great over lime seltzer for a play on a lime rickey. It also works well sprinkled with chopped marcona almonds on top of marinated fish. The light, ethereal texture adds volume to dishes and the intense cherry melts on the palate, lingering so as to present more cherry than is actually there. The ratio of 0.15 percent xanthan gum and 1.5 percent Versawhip may be applied to many other liquid mediums.

Butter is the direct result of churning. You can use an electric mixer, a bowl and a whisk, or even a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid (shaken vigorously for ten to fifteen minutes) to make butter. Our tool of choice is the food processor. It works quickly, is easy to control, and is easy to clean—all good things in our kitchen. Use the best cream you can get your hands on because the better your cream tastes, the more delicious your butter will be.

While you can certainly buy ranch spice blend in the supermarket, we prefer to make our own. It just tastes fresher and we can fine-tune the seasoning exactly the way we like it.

This technique produces a tender asparagus with all the flavor of the raw vegetable. It can be served as part of a salad to emphasize the fresh flavor or used in any recipe that calls for blanched asparagus. We like the way it emphasizes the meaty texture of the vegetable without requiring extended cooking time. The resulting asparagus will stand up to a very quick grill or sauté, achieving a tender bite while still retaining its grassy flavor and bright color.

Preserved lemons should be in everyone’s pantry. They taste like sunshine, adding bright acidity and color to a dish. We often mince the preserved lemon and use it to season crab salads, enrich pan sauces for fish and meat, and flavor pastas like our preserved lemon noodles. Thinly sliced and fried, they can go sweet or savory depending on how you season them. Chopped up with fresh garlic and parsley, they make a wonderful replacement for classic gremolata. Create a tangy finishing sauce for grilled meat and vegetables by mixing them with olive oil and minced herbs. You can slide them under the skin of your roast chicken for an amazing lemon chicken. Even a simple bowl of noodles with butter and cheese is given unexpected zest with the addition of some preserved lemon.

Maple vinegar is a favorite of ours for its rich, nuanced flavor. Our version is not a product that can be found commercially, so there is a real reward in trying this recipe at home. Once you have it in your pantry, you’ll easily find many different uses for it. It’s wonderful drizzled over roasted squash or balanced with a touch of cayenne and butter and brushed over corn on the cob or a roasted chicken. It’s amazing simply spooned over a rich, runny piece of brie, accompanied by crisp apple slices, or blended with diced apples and jalapeños as a condiment for meat or game. It also makes for a surprisingly balanced maple martini when combined with ice-cold gin or vodka. The possibilities are endless.

We use organic cider vinegar as a starter because it usually contains a live mother. If you have friends who have made their own vinegar, you can begin with their live vinegar instead. In either case, we start with equal parts, by weight, of live vinegar (vinegar with mother) and wine. Make sure there is enough room in the jar to add more wine as the vinegar develops. Wrap the mouth of the vinegar jar with cheesecloth to prevent vinegar flies from taking a dip and then place the lid back on top. A little patience here will yield great results.

This brine is wonderful with a pork shoulder or racks of lamb. We would brine the shoulder for forty-eight hours and the lamb racks for twenty-four. Whole chickens would also be great after twenty-four hours in the brine and a few hours on a rack to dry. You could even follow the Roast Chicken (page 218) procedure to finish them and have a meal to remember. For root vegetables like parsnips or celeriac, we peel them, cut them into bite-size pieces, brine them for a couple of hours, pat dry, and then roast or sauté them. The honey helps amplify their natural sweetness while the mustard provides a great contrasting kick of acid and spice. They are wonderful alongside salmon or any other full-flavored fish.

This recipe is a play on the ubiquitous smoked salmon with cream cheese and a bagel. It was one of our favorite lazy Sunday breakfasts when we were living in New York. Once we moved away from the city, we found that we didn’t always have access to great bagels or smoked salmon. We needed to find a good alternative that was readily available. “Everything” bagels—which typically contain onion, garlic, and several seeds—are our favorite, characterized by their crunchy coating of various seasonings. So we decided to use that flavor profile for cured salmon fillets and cream cheese that we could easily make at home.

Vanilla salt can add that mysterious sweet note that gives depth to many dishes without any actual sweetness. Its floral, fragrant aroma teases you into expecting sweetness and its deep flavor adds nuance to the background notes of a dish. We enjoy pairing it with fish, root vegetables, and other inherently sweet ingredients because this aromatic salt helps enhance their natural sweetness. Sometimes the flavor of vanilla can be overpowering and adding it this way can be just the right touch. We also use it for sweet preparations—for example, as a finishing salt for caramels, or lightly sprinkled on a chocolate tart.

What would a French or any festive meal be without a little chocolate? Françoise Tenenbaum, a deputy mayor of Dijon, shared her entire recipe book with me. When she has time in her busy schedule, she rolls these chocolate truffles at home to serve for parties. They are also perfect for Passover.

We love the balance of salt, sugar, and pepper with the intense savory flavor of meat. Although we dubbed this Beef Seasoning, we use it on anything and everything, from hot smoked salmon to grilled eggplant, when we feel it’s appropriate. It’s a wonderfully balanced seasoning that brings out the inherent savoriness in food. We’re not afraid to substitute different peppers either. Togarishi, a Japanese pepper blend, hot smoked paprika, green chile powder, and harissa powder can add subtle nuances to the finished blend. What’s important when choosing your pepper is making sure it’s one you feel passionate about.

When I interviewed Gilles Choukroun, one of the darlings of a new generation of French chefs who are injecting playfulness into French food, he had just opened the Mini Palais, a beautiful restaurant in Paris’s newly renovated Grand Palais exhibition hall, across from Les Invalides. In addition to his nascent restaurant empire, Gilles is also the father of Generation C, which stands for “Cuisines et Culture,” a group of chefs who teach cooking to the disadvantaged in Paris. Gilles, whose father is a Jew from Algeria, experiments with the spices and flavors of North Africa to accent his French food. One of his signature desserts is this refreshing citrus-fruit soup. It makes the perfect ending to a North African meal, especially with cookies on the side.

The original Soufflé Rothschild, created for James Rothschild by Antonin Carême, was a baked soufflé embellished with gold leaf. Since then, there have been all kinds of “Rothschild” soufflés, salads, and other dishes— the name is used to denote extravagance or richness. This frozen soufflé Rothschild was conceived by the famous pastry chef Gaston Le Nôtre, for a grand dinner at the home of one of the Rothschilds. It was served to me at a dinner party in Paris, and is one of the most delicious desserts I have ever tasted. Neither an ice cream nor a sorbet, it is technically a bavaroise glacée, a frozen parfait based on eggs and cream. The best part of this recipe is that it is quite quick to make. Just watch— your guests will sneak back for seconds and thirds!

This typical Alsatian mustard sauce is served with pickled or smoked tongue or pickel-fleisch; it has been eaten with fresh and salted meat or fresh and dried fish for centuries by the northern Jewish communities in France.

Preserved lemons are in indispensable item in my pantry cupboard. I use them all the time and believe they are best made at home. Although I have tasted lemons preserved in water or an equal mix of lemon juice and water, I much prefer them preserved in pure lemon juice. Many people scrape out and discard the pulp when using the lemons, but I often include the preserved pulp. I blend a preserved lemon in with my hummus, sprinkle the rind on grilled fish, and stuff my chicken with a whole lemon, and I dice preserved lemons and mix them into salads, rice dishes, and vegetables. In addition to regular lemons, you can also use Meyer lemons or, as Irene Weil does, even kumquats.

At a recent Kiddush after a Bat Mitzvah service in France, the wine was French, unlike the sweet wine usually served at American synagogues. The food was elegantly prepared, as only the French can do it: spread out on a large table were thin slices of smoked salmon on toast, eggplant rolled and filled with goat cheese, a North African sautéed-pepper salad, squash soup served in tiny cups, and celery-root rémoulade. If you have never eaten celery-root salad, then start now! And if you’ve never made mayonnaise before, it’s an exhilarating and rewarding experience that I highly recommend. Any leftover mayonnaise can be kept in a jar in the refrigerator for a few days.

The seeds of cultivated fennel, like eggplant, are said to have been brought to France by Jews and other merchants. Of course, wild fennel grows everywhere in the south of France. I have tasted this salad in many North African French homes. It is very simple, and a lovely counterpoint to all the more elaborate salads of the North African tradition. Once the fennel and celery have begun to wilt a bit, the flavors all come together. If pomegranates are not in season, substitute dried cranberries or cherries.