From SAVEUR Issue #142
"I can easily make a whole meal of onion sandwiches," James Beard wrote in his book Beard on Food (Bloomsbury USA, 1974), referring to raw sweet Spanish onions on homemade bread, with plenty of butter and salt. Indeed, many sweet varieties of onions are so mild that they are delicious in the raw, tossed into salads, layered atop burgers, and added to anything that can benefit from their bright, juicy crunch. Keep reading »
From SAVEUR Issue #141
As we put together this issue's story on fermented foods ("Preserving Plenty"), it took me right back to my mom's kitchen, circa 1974. Mom and I loved our Salton yogurt maker, but I've since learned that making yogurt doesn't require any special equipment. I start by bringing six cups of milk to a boil, at which point I transfer the hot milk to a bowl to cool slightly. Keep reading »
From SAVEUR Issue #141
I blame Julia Child for our national aversion to soft vegetables. It wasn't until she started urging American cooks—in her books and on her PBS series, The French Chef—to blanch everything from green beans to kale and then shock them in cold water, that a bright green color and firm texture were programmed in our minds as the platonic ideal. Well, I grew up on soggy broccoli rabe, and that's still my favorite way to eat it. Granted, broccoli rabe that's cooked just beyond its bright green state yet is still unpalatably bitter is a foul punishment. But something happens if you keep cooking it past that point. Eventually it becomes mellow, unctuous — creamy, even — the stems melting away in the mouth as ethereally as the florets. Keep reading »
In The Boys' Club Hunter Lewis aptly describes the way the aroma of roasting meat lures us to the table. But whatever primal instinct compels us to dig right in, giving meat the to rest can make a big difference in both flavor and texture. Keep reading »
Credit: Todd Coleman
From SAVEUR Issue #141
No matter what part of the whole tenderloin your cut comes from, it's a good idea to tie the meat with kitchen twine before cooking. A tenderloin's thickness varies quite a bit from end to end, particularly if the cut includes the narrow tail.Keep reading »
It began with a half-bushel of round, ripe, yellow peaches that a friend brought back from a family farm in Maryland and deposited on my kitchen doorstep. I ate a few, and then a few more, standing over the kitchen sink, the juices dripping down my arms. They were so ripe the skins lifted off with a gentle tug from a table knife and so delicious, so delicious, so delicious I hardly know where to begin to describe the flavor, the aroma, the sensation in my mouth. Peaches are the very definition of seasonal fruit—you cannot enjoy them except ripe from the orchard. The so-called "peaches" we find in our markets the rest of the year are hard round croquet balls by comparison—and they taste like it too.
But once the initial greed was sated, what to do with the rest of the magnificent bunch? My Facebook appeal was met with a variety of responses, some hopelessly complex ("make a lemony glaze with rosemary and peperoncino," advised a friend in Umbria), some suspiciously simple ("cuppa sugar, cuppa flour, cuppa milk," topped with peaches and baked). But Gabriella Becchina, who lives on a gorgeous olive oil estate in southern Sicily (her family makes Olio Verde), intrigued me. "Why not," she asked, "a simple quatre-quarts with sliced peaches sunk in the cake batter?"Keep reading »
From SAVEUR Issue #136
Tapioca pudding always has a delightful texture thanks to the little tapioca pearls in it. But the latest version developed in our test kitchen is off the charts: miraculously light and frothy, with enough body so that the pearls stay aloft rather than sinking to the bottom, as they sometimes do. The secret? Keep reading »
Every summer, my aunt Laura, husband and kids in tow, heads to Block Island, Rhode Island for a few weeks. They seem to pick up new tagalongs each year, so that now, fifteen years into the tradition, their beach crew through the weeks numbers around 50 friends and family members, many of whom have been coming almost as long as Laura has. Keep reading »
With a luxurious three-day weekend stretching before us and (from where we sit) not a cloud in the sky, Independence Day weekend calls out for grilling, picnicking, and relaxing out of doors. Whether you dive in deep with plans to make a home-smoked Texas-style brisket, you need a foolproof potato salad recipe to bring to a pot-luck, or you're looking to get as much mileage as possible out of a homemade dessert without turning on the oven, we've got you covered with our Independence Day guides »
Though the terms are often used interchangeably, what separates barbecuing from grilling is low, slow heat and smoke. While grilling requires contact between food and flame, barbecue relies on indirect cooking—putting distance between the coals and the meat, and allowing radiant heat to cook the meat inside a closed chamber. Keep reading
Credit: Brenda Weaver
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