Sous-vide cooking is a technique, not a recipe. The principle is to cook a piece of meat slowly at a carefully controlled temperature no higher than the final cooking temperature of the interior of the meat. This results in supremely tender meat.
The steak cooked in the homemade cooker below reached an internal temperature of 131 degrees Fahrenheit after an hour and 53 minutes in the cooker.
A simple cooler for the summer, the Highball is just any spirit served in a tall glass with ice and soda.
There are many types of highballs, including the venerable Gin and Tonic, the Moscow Mule, the Cuba Libre (and its degenerate cousin the Rum & Coke), all the various Collinses...the list goes on longer than the summer does.
Made properly, this has only a jigger (an ounce-and-a-half) of liquor and the rest is ice and soda, so it's an easy way to relax on a lazy summer afternoon without getting drunk.
It's not illegal to add a touch of triple sec or other liqueur and a dash of bitters, and then you unlock a whole realm of classic cocktails repurposed as summer coolers!
I invented this for my sister at her request on the occasion of a big birthday. Like her, it is three parts Irish to one part Italian, with a little bitters to balance the natural sweetness...
Her friend Lesli called it a blonde Manhattan, and that's a pretty good description. It's a summer-weight cocktail made with Irish Whiskey and Carpano Bianca Vermouth (that's a bianco vermouth, not a dry or a sweet vermouth).
This is a light and refreshing version of the traditional Bread Pudding to enjoy after a summer cookout with family and friends!
This easy and delicious Burgundy-style recipe is no trouble at all to prepare. The chestnuts can come from a jar, so it's just a matter of adding stock and wine and braising for a while.
The dish is a fine accompaniment for beef or some savory roast pork dishes, and it is a classic accompaniment for roast goose.
Of course you could make this with fresh chestnuts, but the chestnuts in a jar work really well. You can get them at Whole Foods and sometimes at Trader Joe's and other high-end grocery stores. I get them at Ed Hyder's Mediterranean Marketplace in Worcester, or at Micucci's in Portland.
We had an excuse for another of our famous potluck lunches at Actifio, so we did it!
This menu was vast, as usual. I think we had 36 contributions, almost all of them home-made or made in the office (we have a pretty good kitchen!)
I don't have all the recipes, but I have a lot of them:
Fiddleheads are an exceptionally simple and exceptionally seasonal dish, great for a spring brunch.
After steaming them and chilling them, you can do all sorts of things with them. They are decorative, but they have enough flavor to be the vegetable accompaniment to a significant spring meal (maybe with shad roe?).
This dish is simple to prepare and delicious!
It takes longer to preheat the oven than it does to cut and prepare the onions for roasting - it really is simple.
These can be served hot or cold, and they are fine served cocktail-party style with toothpicks and small plates. The flavor is rich but complementary to many savories.
I served these at a wine tasting event at the Old Colony Club. They went well with a good Cabernet Sauvignon and a good Merlot.
This tasty treat with an unappetizing moniker is a variation on the old Bronx cocktail, with added bitters... I guess that's where the name comes from!
Try this with a citrusy gin like Plymouth Gin, or else with one of the softer New England-made American Gins like Barr Hill Gin, Karner Blue Gin, or Wire Works Gin
This homey lunchpail classic is really a nice cookie when prepared with good ingredients, and it's a nice change of pace and a welcome addition to many cookie-platters.
The texture is light and crumbly, never tough, and the toasty-peanut flavor is wonderful when they are fresh. In my opinion, this cookie does not store well, but if you make them with good ingredients that should seldom be a problem!
The distinctive look could be trademarked.
This is a main component of a New England-style St. Patrick's Day corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner, a New England Boiled Dinner, and the Plymouth Succotash, as well as Corned Beef Hash and some wonderful sandwiches.
This recipe is to cook and cool the beef to be used for hash or sandwiches.
You can start with corning the brisket yourself with the recipe in Salt Beef, where you will also find some interesting lore about this old favorite.
This is great sliced thin and served with almost any kind of cheese, especially farmhouse cheese and local ale!
I made this one with King Arthur Irish-style flour and NH buttermilk, but the supermarket stuff makes good bread too - this is an excellent recipe.
Here's a version of the New England and Canadian Maritimes classic, often served for breakfast with Baked Beans (but they're great with fried eggs, too!
You can buy fishcakes in a can. It's easier than making your own. But they're disgusting.
Some restaurants, especially clamshacks, sell fishcakes. In many cases they're no better than the canned ones. Sometimes they're 9-parts potato with a hint of fish essence.
These are not hard to make, and you get enough servings that it's worth your while. The mixture keeps in the fridge for some days so you can fry up a few fishcakes when you want them.
For a simpler, more historical version, see Yankee Fish Cakes.
Another New England classic, easy to make, with a wonderful old-time flavor!
This is good to make on a snowy winter evening when you've had just about enough of January or February and a little something special is in order, especially if it's not too complicated.
Sometimes I sprinkle some sugar on top before baking it, or some chopped up crystallized ginger, but honestly it doesn't need any of that claptrap - this is a fine classic recipe for a winter's evening!
I was preparing a recipe that called for a fowl. That's not so unusual; fowl are tough old birds, stringier and better suited for the stockpot than for roasting or frying. Fowl are used instead of younger birds when flavor is important and tenderness is not.
But I encountered an unexpected complication. At Compare Foods in downtown Worcester, I found Fresh Heavy Fowl and Fresh Light Fowl - what to do? The heavy fowl was much more expensive per pound (although still cheap), but I had no other clues. So I came home and did some more research. Here's what I learned.
Chickens are raised for meat or for laying eggs, and the birds that are bred to be good at one are not so well suited for the other. Of course, the ones bred for meat come from eggs, too, but those eggs are laid by big meaty mamas.
When either type reaches the end of her laying life, it is slaughtered for fowl. The meat-producer chickens become heavy fowl and the egg-producing chickens become light fowl. Since you're looking for flavor, the heavy fowl is the superior choice for stocks and stews.
