Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'Molly Stevens'
Molly Stevens Makes Porchetta
I was delighted to see that Molly Stevens, author of one of my favorite cookbooks ever, All About Braising, left a comment on my Porchetta post yesterday. "Glad you made it to Porchetta. It is truly amazing. I got so inspired on my last visit that I endeavored to make porchetta at home." And, indeed, here's a link to Molly's porchetta post, with a recipe forthcoming. Who among you will attempt to make it first?...
Coq au Vin
Dear New York Weather: it's almost June, and yesterday I was wearing a sweatshirt and I had the heat on. And it's almost June! I understand you have your peculiarities, that you're grappling with a diminishing ozone and toxic emissions, but I bought some cute new short sleeve shirts from UniQlo in SoHo (what a deal!) and I want to wear them, ok? But in the meantime, I forgive you because if it weren't for your unseasonable chill, would I have tried my hand at Coq au Vin, a traditional cold weather dish? The answer, I think, is no. And what a loss that would've been because this dish, this French classic of chicken braised in red wine, may be one of the best dishes I've ever cooked. We devoured it....
Chicken Stock, 1 2 3
It's cheap and easy to have homemade chicken stock on hand: all you really need is time. And thyme. But mostly time. Sure, it can be expensive--I still can't get over The Barefoot Contessa's recipe which calls for not one, not two, but THREE whole chickens that you boil for three hours and discard. That seems extraordinarily wasteful, don't you think? I've played around with lots of stock recipes, but my latest foray into stock making was a pretty happy one. The recipe comes from Molly Stevens and it's simple and straightforward and cheap, cheap, cheap....
Braised Lamb Neck Provençal
First of all, let's give credit where credit is due: look at the "c" I put in the word "Provencal" in this post's title. That "c" has the appropriate squiggle in it; I copied it from the Wikipedia page for Provencal. What does that squiggle denote? I have no idea, but the squiggle is there and who do you have to thank? Me, that's who. Second of all: lamb's neck. Are you grossed out? You really shouldn't be. I first ate lamb's neck at the offal dinner Chris Cosentino cooked at the Astor Center last year (watch video here). Unlike the raw venison liver I consumed, or, for that matter, beef heart tartare, the lamb's neck was the least forbidding of the dishes served; on the plate, it looks no different from a braised lamb shank (except for the shape) and it tastes twice as good. Why? It's a fattier cut of meat....
Braised Cabbage
Last week, on a chilly night, I wanted a healthy, inexpensive dinner. I popped open one of my top five favorite cookbooks ever, Molly Stevens's "All About Braising," and re-read her recipe for braised cabbage. I'd read it a few times before but was never quite convinced that braised cabbage could taste all that good. Boy, was I wrong! There's a reason she calls it "World's Best Braised Green Cabbage"--it's tender, flavorful, and, paired with Rachel Wharton's Bodega Beans, a deeply satisfying, cold-night vegetarian dinner. Here's the quick version. Preheat your oven to 325. Oil a 9 X 13 baking dish. Cut a 2 lb green cabbage into 8 wedges. Lay the wedges in the dish. Then scatter one thickly sliced yellow onion over the top, along with 1 large carrot cut into 1/4 inch rounds. Drizzle 1/4 cup olive oil over the top, and 1/4 cup chicken stock or water. Season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes; cover TIGHTLY with foil and bake 1 hour. Remove, flip the cabbage over, re-cover with the foil, and bake another hour. Once the cabbage is tender, remove the foil, increase heat to 400 and let the vegetables brown, another 15 minutes more. That's it! Sprinkle with fleur de sel and serve. As a nice corollary to this recipe, I wrote a piece a few months ago about my grandmother's boiled cabbage from childhood. I didn't have the stamina to submit it everywhere for publication, so I've decided to publish it below. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Molly's cabbage....
Molly Stevens' Braised Monkfish with Cherry Tomatoes & Basil
"Now is the winter of our Molly Stevens," I wanted to say at the start of this winter. I wanted to say that because Molly Stevens' book, All About Braising, is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. I love this book because the recipes are flawless and, not only that, the results always exceed my expectations. Craig will never think of parsnips the same way again after Molly's Chicken Breasts Braised with Hard Cider and Parsnips--Molly can transform anything with the flick of her magical wrist. So this winter I wanted to Molly out; I wanted to braise the whole winter through, browning, deglazing, and simmering until our kitchen itself was a braise. Only it never really got that cold and, truth be told, I was often so tired from Food Network meetings and tapings that a long braise didn't really appeal to me when I came home. (Hence the popularity, I suppose, of 30 minute meals, etc etc.) But recently at the Chelsea Market, where Food Network is located, I met a monkfish. There's a fish store there and sitting on a counter, extravagantly arrayed, were fillets of monkfish--a truly ugly fish--and suddenly my mind leapt over the rooftops back to my bookshelf in Brooklyn where Molly's book rested. "Molly has a recipe for monkfish!" I recalled. "Monkfish braised with cherry tomatoes and basil." I bought 1 1/2 pounds of monkfish fillets and brought them home and sure enough Molly's recipe called for 1 1/2 pounds of monkfish fillets. The recipe was a cinch to put together--the whole thing was prepped and cooked in approximately one hour--and the results, as expected, were tremendous. As I placed the plate before Craig, I felt like I was serving restaurant quality food. And, essentially, I was. "The fish is so moist and tender," said Craig, digging in. "And the sauce is so flavorful." Monkfish is called the poor man's lobster, but we didn't feel like poor men eating this. We felt like kings. Let Molly work her magic in your kitchen after a hard day's work. Here's how you make it......
