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Ok, after the last dud, this one is a real winner. However, I wish they would just quit with the obnoxiously long names.
Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup with Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho) Pho always seemed a little too complicated to make at home, like there was a mystery item, a certain something (like some nasty ingredient I probably didn't want to know about anyways) that gave it the delicious flavor. Happily, I was wrong. About the disgusting ingredient, that is. The secret to the broth is anise, believe it or not, and the ubiquitous fish sauce. You cannot skip these ingredients.
Note: You are going to be cooking your beef by pouring the boiling broth on top of it in the bowl. Your steak (6-8 oz. top round) will need to be sliced extra thin so wrap it and throw it the freezer right now so that in 20 minutes you can slice it more easily.Turn on your broiler. Set your oven rack 4-6 inches from heat.
Start by spreading foil over a baking sheet. Spread out (all peeled and thin sliced) one onion, 4 cloves garlic, and one 2-3 inch piece of ginger. Add 5 grinds of fresh black pepper and 1 whole star anise, bruised or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds. (I used the anise seeds, it turned out great.) Broil 5 minutes, turning once. Watch carefully! It is good if the onions get a tiny brown. A couple of mine became black and I had to toss them because I think the burnt flavor would permeate everything.
Scrape onion/spice mix into large 6 quart pot. Add 4 14 0z cans of chicken broth. (The authors hate boxed broth. I use it all the time and think it tastes fine.) Also toss in 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons fish sauce.
Bring to a gentle boil, cover and simmer 20 minutes.
While the broth is cooking, cook your 6-8 oz. of rice noodles to your preference. Some cooks prefer to just soak the noodles in hot water. I usually bring the water to a boil with the noodles in the pot and then immediately pull them off the heat and let them soak in the hot water.
While your noodles are cooking, prepare the veggie part of the meal. On a serving platter, arrange cilantro sprigs, fresh Thai or regular basil, thin-sliced jalapenos, a big handful of bean sprouts, and lime wedges.
When your noodles are ready, divide them into 2 large bowls. We had a lot of left over noodles. We could have easily served 4 versus 2.Slice your steak as thin as you can and divide into the bowls, on top of your noodles. (You could easily substitute chicken for steak.)
Ladle the boiling broth into the bowls and serve immediately. Top with your veggies and serve hoisin sauce and chile sauce at the table.
Easy to make and gives such a lovely presentation. Delicious. The jalapenos I used were so spicy our noses and eyes were running. But damn, it hit the spot!
73 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
The name is deceptive on this one. There are very few vegetables in this and they can be easily had at any time.
Spring Vegetables and White Beans Scented with Fresh Bay
This is one of those few recipes in here where you wonder if they actually really made this. It is under the vegetable main events (A very desperate chapter) but it is more like a soup than anything else and you don't get the idea that it is a stew until the last paragraph when it says "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil...." I thought it was going to be something to serve over rice. Hmm.
Anyways, combine 2 cups of chicken broth with 4 medium carrots (cut into 3" long matchsticks), 8 thin sliced cloves of garlic, and 2 fresh bay leaves, bruised. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until the carrots are cooked to your preference.
Add one can of white beans, 3 cups fresh baby spinach, salt and pepper, and stir to wilt the spinach. Cook, covered, for up to 5 minutes to heat the beans through.
Squeeze in some lemon, remove the bay leaves and "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil and sprinklings of grated Parmigiano."
BOR-ING.
It wasn't quite soup and it wasn't quite thick enough to serve over rice. The bay was completely over whelming, and it just have been called White Beans with Soggy Carrots in Bay Broth.
Skip this one. A rare lump of coal.
72 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
In every cookbook there exists one or two recipes that look incredibly technical, or just plain intimidating, is inevitably avoided at all costs, and this is one of them.
Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken with Rosemary and Whole Garlic Cloves
Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes"I have avoided this recipe from the beginning. If I wasn't committed to cooking everything in the book, I probably wouldn't ever have made it. Anything involving a garden variety brick placed on top of a chicken was enough to send me into shock without the idea of butterflying the chicken as well.
In truth, this recipe probably has the fewest ingredients of any of the other recipes and requires dirtying only one, maybe two pans at most.
First, you need a nice organic chicken, butterflied. The annoying thing is that while there are instructions on how to butterfly, there are no diagrams or photos. So you have to wing it and be confident that it will turn out exactly as it should.
I made the butterflying part easy. After picking out my chicken, I had the butcher at the grocery store butterfly it for me. He had a nice big cutting board and it took him less than 15 seconds. Problem one, down.
Problem two, find a brick. Or two bricks if you have a large chicken. So run out into the garden find your least mucky brick and then cover it in foil. The weight of the brick helps press the chicken down on the pan so it will brown and cook faster.
Next, you need to rub salt and pepper all over the chicken and press four sprigs of rosemary into it as well. The authors tell you to tuck the wings back, flat against the breasts, but I could never get the wings to stay put.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat in the largest, heaviest, non-stick skillet that you have. Place chicken, skin up in the skillet and place your brick on top of your bird. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the underside of your bird is brown.
Turn over with tongs and tuck 8+ cloves of unpeeled garlic, lightly smashed around the bird. If you peel the garlic, they will burn. Replace the brick and make sure the chicken is making good contact with the pan. Cook for 12 more minutes until the skin is crisp and brown. The temperature in the thighs should be 170 F. After 12 minutes, my chicken was nowhere near done . The oven was already on to cook garlic bread, so I actually transferred the chicken to a baking sheet and popped it in the oven for another 10 minutes(sans brick) and it came out perfect. The rosemary is really the secret ingredient here. The chicken ends up with a delightful rosemary essence, not over-powering at all.
While the chicken was cooking, I made the Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes". Basically, chop up a head of cauliflower, along with the core and leaves. Layer into a steamer basket, the leaves and core, then half the cauliflower florets, sliced garlic, salt, and the rest of the cauliflower. Steam, covered for 8 minutes. Once soft, puree in a food processor with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
Surprisingly, this was a little more high maintenance than it really needs to be. I make mashed-cauliflower all the time and instead of steaming it and messing up another pan and the food processor, I throw all the ingredients in a pot with 1/2 cup of chicken broth. (add more broth if nec. as it cooks.) Cover, and once everything is nice and soft, add your butter or oil or whatever, and use an immersion blender to mash it all up.
Either way, mashed cauliflower is delicious. I used orange cauliflower and that is its natural color. I also made a green tomato/tomatillo sauce that I served over the cauliflower. And I served our favorite garlic bread on the side as well. Don't forget a bottle of cabernet and you have a feast!
71 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
The larger the prawns you get your hands on for this recipe, the better.
North Shore Shrimp Scampi
This is easy and fast and tasty. The only thing difficult about this recipe is that you need to marinate the shrimp overnight.
The night before, make your marinade: Combine 1 1/2 pounds of shelled prawns with 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 7+ minced garlic cloves, and 1/4 teas each of salt and pepper. The authors recommend that if you are using frozen prawns you can boil them with lemon juice, but every restaurant I've ever worked in used frozen prawns and as long as they aren't old, they should thaw out fine without any bad effects.
When ready to cook, set a large skillet over medium-high heat. Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter with some salt and pepper. Stir in the shrimp along with the marinade and turn the heat down to medium low. Cook, turning once or twice, until done, about 4 minutes. With your handy tongs, remove prawns and set on serving platter.
The the heat up to medium-high and add 1/4 dry white wine. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat and melt in another tablespoon of butter. Pour onto prawns and drizzle with lemon juice and top with chopped parsley. Nice with plain white rice.
69 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
This recipe probably has the most appropriate name of any recipe in the whole cookbook. I am usually wary of generic sounding vegetable soup, but I am happily wrong about any preconceived ideas about this soup.
Simple Garden-In-A-Pot Soup
This soup is perfect for fall and winter weather. It also has no overwhelming taste, so it would be easy to modify the spices or veggies to suit your mood.This soup is made in three easy steps.
Start by thin slicing, in the food processor or by hand, 2 medium onions, 2 carrots, top third of 2 celery stalks with their leaves, and six large garlic cloves. Film a large heavy-bottomed pot with oil and heat at medium-low. Add the veggies along with salt and pepper. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring every so often to make sure that nothing burns or sticks to the bottom. This stage puts off the loveliest fragrance.
Raise heat to medium and add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons of dried basil, and 2 teaspoons of paprika. Stir constantly for 3 minutes to allow flavors to meld.
Then add 2 small zucchini, thin sliced, 1 rough chopped portobello mushroom, 1/4 head of green cabbage, thin sliced, a handful of chopped dark greens (spinach is good, I used chard), and 6-8 cups of your preferred chicken or vegetable broth. I used half chicken broth and half mushroom broth.
Now partially cover and let cook for 30 minutes. If you want a stronger broth, you can uncover and cook the soup down a few minutes longer.
Serve in large bowls with shredded Asiago on top. Delicious and very good-for-you-tasting.
68 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
This was a great way to use up all of the potatoes, greens, and eggs that I have been getting in our farm share. This recipe has such a fancy name that I was halfway through before I realized it could have just been called "Fancy Potato Salad".Scandinavian Flower Eggs with Sweet-Tart Mustard Dill Sauce
If you like eggs, mustard, and potatoes, this recipe is for you. Happily, I love all three so it was win, win, win.
Start by hard-boiling 8 eggs.
While your eggs are cooking, boil one pound of small red potatoes for 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. When cool, peel the potatoes and slice in 1/4" slices.
While the eggs and potatoes are cooking, start on the sauce. In a medium bowl, mix together 1/4 cup plain vinegar (or cider vinegar) with 1 clove of minced garlic and three tablespoons of minced onion. It is nice if you can sit this aside for 10 minutes to mellow while you prepare the rest. Then stir in 2 T of sugar, 3 T canola oil (NOT olive oil, too strong of flavor for this), 1/2 cup dark, grainy mustard, and 1/3 cup of fresh, chopped dill. Then add salt and pepper too taste. At this point, taste for sweet-sour balance. I actually used a little less mustard and another teaspoon of sugar, all said and done. The mustard I had was extremely strong flavored.
Now comes for the grand assembly of the salad.Take your serving platter and spread out 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to form a 9-10" circle.
Cover the mayonnaise with your potato slices, overlapping them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then pile 2-3 cups of thin-sliced lettuce on top of the potatoes, covering them. I used purple potatoes since that is what we had from our farm share and I like how they looked.
Peel and quarter your potatoes lengthwise and arrange on top of lettuce in a sunburst pattern, like a flower. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper, if you desire.
Before serving, zig zag dressing over the top of salad and top with diced, sweet onion and fresh chopped dill. I used a lot of onion and only a tiny bit of dill since there is so much dill in the dressing. Also, you will not need all of the dressing so you can serve the rest of it on the side at table or save it for another salad.
This salad looks lovely, but I have to say, it is a bit awkward to serve. The mustard sauce is delicious. Next time I might just chop everything up and assemble it like a more traditional salad and then I think you can just put a bit of mayo in the dressing instead.
Yum!
67 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
I must admit, I did not cook this. I had bought all of the ingredients and then I fell ill and since it looked like a fairly easy recipe to make, I convinced my husband Trevor to make it.
Oven-roasted Chicken Cacciatora
This is a easy, one pan dish. It is made with chicken thighs, but you could use chicken breasts if you wanted, just be aware that it will cook faster.
In a roasting pan, spread out 8 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on).
Scatter the following ingredients on top of the chicken:
-1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives
-4 thin slices hard salami, cut into 1 inch squares
-1 large red pepper, roughly chopped
-1 large tomato, coarse chopped
-1 red onion, coarse chopped
-leaves from two 4 inch pieces of rosemary
-10 fresh sage leaves, torn-4 minced garlic cloves
-1 teas fennel seeds, crushed
-1/4 cup dry red wine
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-salt and pepper
Roast chicken at 400 F for 30 minutes, basting occasionally. Chicken should be 170 F. Usually with any recipe of this type, you would brown the chicken pieces first and then de-glaze the cooked on bits to make the sauce. The authors skip this part to make it easier and less messy, but next time I will probably go ahead and brown them first as I like the look and taste. Alternatively, you can broil the chicken afterwards to brown.
Serve with a squeeze of lemon. 
This was simple and easy and you can easily adjust the ingredients to what you have on hand. The dish was tasty with the rosemary and olives, so make sure you don't leave those out!
66 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.
Ladle the boiling broth into the bowls and serve immediately. Top with your veggies and serve hoisin sauce and chile sauce at the table.
Easy to make and gives such a lovely presentation. Delicious. The jalapenos I used were so spicy our noses and eyes were running. But damn, it hit the spot!
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