Soup/Stew

Nutritious sweet potatoes need little embellishment to make a flavorful soup. This one is made extra easy by microwaving the sweet potatoes ahead of time, sparing the cook from having to scrape and dice them. Just scoop, mash, and heat for a comforting, nearly-instant soup.

This nicely flavored miso soup is made more substantial with the addition of tofu. Fresh shiitake mushrooms impart the best flavor to the broth. Follow with an Asian-style noodle dish, such as Asian Sesame-Soy Noodles (page 85).

With a generous portion of tofu, this soup is perfect to team with a light noodle dish.

If you find yourself with too much lettuce and some leftover rice, here’s a great way to use both.

A trip to an Asian market to find exotic noodles is no longer necessary. Most well-stocked supermarkets feature an array of imported noodles in the Asian foods section. See the menu with Instant Tofu and Mixed Vegetable Stir-Fry (page 144).

This comforting classic thickens considerably as it stands, resulting in a generous quantity of soup. Each time you reheat it, thin it with additional water, and adjust the seasonings. Or, once your original batch cools, consider freezing half of it for later use. This soup is a meal in itself. All you need is a good bread and a salad—simple or bountiful, as you prefer.

Here’s a great way to take advantage of late summer’s sublime tomatoes. Use the ripest tomatoes possible.

This is a soothing remedy when you are coming down with a cold—though you need not wait for a cold to try it!

This soup is simple but labor intensive. If you want to immerse yourself in the summery, sensory experience of peeling fresh tomatoes and scraping kernels off of corn cobs, you won’t regret it. This is an appealing accompaniment to a late summer meal of grilled vegetables and veggie burgers.

Here’s another nearly-instant cold soup. While cucumbers may not be the most nutritious of vegetables, they are undoubtedly one of the most refreshing. On a very hot day, if you want to be as cool as one, serve this lilting cucumber soup.

Fresh herbal overtones lift the flavor of this instant soup. White beans make a creamy base for soups, dips, and sauces.

Potatoes, barley, and buttermilk are a trio that I find blissfully refreshing in the summer, served cold in a soup.

This features a base of canned beans and is best served at room temperature.

The thing about hors d’oeuvres is that they should not only taste good, but they should look really cool, too. These do just that. You need espresso cups, sake cups, or fancy shot glasses for these. These “pea shooters” are great to make ahead and put together at the last minute. Drinking an hors d’oeuvre is the cool way to go!

For me, commercially produced curry power tastes just that: commercial. You would never find prepared curry powder in an Indian restaurant, and because the spices are combined fresh, the flavors are robust and explosive. If you like a light curry flavor, use half the spice mix. If you like a spicy curry—use it all. I won’t be mad at ya. Serve the lamb curry with Perfect Steamed Jasmine Rice (page 240) or basmati rice. This is Bombay the right way.

Chicken Cacciatore is a dish that time has forgotten. It’s simple, rustic, and truly Italian, and my buddy Frankie DeCarlo likes it, too. I would serve this with Soft Polenta (page 244). If cutting up a chicken intimidates you, buy precut pieces or have the guy at the meat counter do it for you—that’s his job, right?

I had this dish in a noodle shop in Australia. When I asked the Thai owner for the recipe, he had an odd reaction; out of nowhere this little guy pulls out a karate move and takes a swing at me. In the end, he chased me out of the kitchen with a cleaver, but not before I swiped the recipe. It was worth it. If you are not able to get your hands on kaffir lime leaves, up the lemongrass to 4 stalks. But do make the effort to try to find them in your area or look for them on the Internet; there really is no substitute for their amazing flavor.

Good clam chowder starts with really good, fresh clams. It’s easy to find them if you live on the coast, but even if you’re landlocked in Ohio, you can ask the guy in the seafood department to order them. I use both cherrystones, which are large and meaty, plus smaller littlenecks, which are more delicate and should be cooked only briefly. I don’t care for bottled clam juice because of its high sodium content.

In culinary school, beef bourguignon is one of the first dishes you’re taught that truly represents French cuisine. It’s basically beef stew with a deep red-wine flavor. The kicker is that it’s one of the easiest recipes in this book. Serve this with creamy mashed potatoes and I swear you will feel like Paul Bocuse, and you don’t have to go to cooking school.

This recipe is a hybrid from different schools of thought. The texture is that of shredded beef, which is authentic Texan, but the flavor is the American Southwest. The dried chilies and the chocolate give this dish an amazing rich, smoky depth. If you’re a purist and think adding beans is a sacrilege, leave them out, but they do work really well here. This is truly one of the best dishes I’ve ever made.