When celebrated food writer David Lebovitz is coming to dinner, you have a lot of planning to do. Do you make something fancy? Something casual? Something French? American? After lots of cookbook perusing and soul-searching, I remembered a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe I saw in The Guardian for Swiss Chard lasagna with Gruyère and hazelnuts. And I thought: “Now that’s something David won’t be expecting!”
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When Craig told me our friend Lucci was coming for dinner on Monday night, I said “great!” I figured I could throw something together, it being a Monday and all. But when Monday rolled around I was at a loss. Do I make something complex, like a stew? Do I make a simple and satisfying soup, like a ribollita? And then it came to me in a flash: Crispy Parmesan Chicken with Escarole Salad. Aka: the fanciest-looking, easiest dinner in the world.
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When Craig and I first started dating back in 2006, my friend Patty asked what sign he was and when he said Aquarius she weighed that against the fact that I was an Aquarius and concluded: “It’ll never work. Two Aquariuses? I don’t see it.”
Seventeen years later, we’re still two Aquariuses battling it out. And February is of course our favorite month because we both get to celebrate our birthdays. For my birthday this year, we went to Antico Nuovo and ate pasta and ice cream and had a grand old time. For Craig’s birthday this year, we went out to Kato and ate an extravagant tasting menu of exquisitely plated seafood dishes. But before that, I threw another birthday bone Craig’s way (I’m such an Aquarius) and made him a dinner he’s always wanted me to make: his mother’s enchiladas. Only I dialed them up a little and turned them into birthday enchiladas.
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It’s funny the things that inspire us to cook dinner. I was recently scrolling through TikTok (as one does these days) when a video popped up of Emeril Lagasse making a roux. I’ve long been curious about the process of making a true roux; from everything that I’ve read, it’s a long process — you have to stand there, like you’re making risotto, only instead of twenty minutes, it can take up to an hour. But that process of stirring flour into fat and slowly toasting it creates a base for your soup or stew or gumbo or, in this case, chicken sauce piquant, that not only boosts the flavor, but thickens things into a rich and decadent gravy.
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Keep your ferments, your sous vide pork chops, your deconstructed French Onion Soup; when it comes to dishes that I’m interested in, I’d much rather eat the favorite thing that you ate in childhood — especially if it’s something that your mother made for you with love. That’s the case with Aaron Hutcherson’s baked chicken thighs with butter and onions. It’s a deceptively simple dish that his mother made with a homemade spice mix, bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, and just enough butter to give everything some pizazz. It’s a weeknight dinner that feels good enough for the weekend.
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Have you ever been in a cooking rut? Sometimes I literally have no idea what to make for dinner even though I have a cookbook shelf overflowing with books and I read about food on the internet for 85% of my day.
Thankfully, I started this new podcast and my guests send me recipes to make that I would never think of making on my own. Case in point: this Keema Pau which was suggested to me by my guest this week, Karan Soni, who you may know from the Deadpool movies or the show Miracle Workers. Karan and his partner Roshan came over for dinner and noticed the Dishoom cookbook on my shelf and Karan lit up: he cooked his way through it during the pandemic and absolutely loved the food that he made. So when I asked him to send me a recipe for the pod, he referred me to page 109, which has the recipe for Keema Pau.
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Would you believe that I’ve cooked lamb necks, lamb shoulders, lamb legs, but never that most famous lamb preparation of all… a classic rack of lamb?
The reason’s actually pretty simple: rack of lamb is expensive. And as confident as I am as a meat cook, I’m always scared that if I splurge on something as decadent as a rack of lamb, I’m going to screw it up. And meat is hard to fix once you overcook it. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry with this particular rack because it was a gift! Well, I received a gift certificate for $100 for an online butcher and I chose one 1 1/2 pound rack of lamb that, with shipping, worked out to the full $100. (I know, that’s insane, but now you know why I’ve avoided cooking lamb racks for so long.)
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The best pierogi I’ve ever eaten in my life — one that ruined all other pierogi for me — was at Michael Symon’s now-closed restaurant Lola in Cleveland, Ohio. I still remember what it looked like: a half moon of crispy dough stuffed with beef cheeks. It was maybe one of the most decadent things I’ve ever tasted; somewhere between an empanada and a calzone; the amount of labor that went into it was evident with every bite. I vowed to make it some day from Symon’s cookbook (which has my favorite chili recipe) but never did.
Enter Nicole Rucker, this week’s guest on You’ve Got to Taste This. Nicole’s in a cookbook club (sorry men, it’s women only) and one of the most successful recipes they’ve ever tested happens to be the pierogi recipe that she sent me to make this week. They come from Zuza Zak’s cookbook Pierogi, which makes sense, and they’re stuffed with this magical mixture of caramelized pork blended with soaked dried fruit, boiled in salted water, and then sauteed in copious amounts of butter. Needless to say, they were an absolute trumph.
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