If Craig had his way, this post wouldn’t have this title. I just asked him, “Would you call the chili I made the other day the best of your life?” And he answered: “I don’t even think of it as chili because there weren’t any beans; just lots of meat and stuff. But it was certainly delicious.”
Luckily, when my friend Diana ate it, she said the words that justify this post’s title. “This is seriously the best chili I’ve ever had.”
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It’s hard to get excited about meatloaf. That is, unless you’re standing in the kitchen at Craft in New York and Chef Damon Wise (Tom Colicchio’s right-hand man) is mixing together ground beef, pork, crisp shitakes (that taste like bacon), golden soffrito, soy sauce, fresh oregano and Parmesan cheese. The resulting meatloaf–which Chef Wise called “Umami Meatloaf”–was, without question, the best I’ve ever had. And then, as you’ll see in the following Food2 video, I went and recreated it at home. All the proportions and ingredients and steps are listed in the video, but, just in case, I’ll share them after the jump. And now, without further pause, here’s one killer meatloaf:
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The thing about Thanksgiving is that people have expectations. They expect some kind of squash soup, they expect turkey, of course, and stuffing and taters (mashed and sweet) and all kinds of pies for dessert. Maybe that’s why I don’t like cooking it: the element of surprise is fairly limited (“Oooh look, he put cranberries in the stuffing!”) and even if you half-ass it, people will still enjoy themselves as long as there’s plenty of wine. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the challenge? It’s not just the tryptophan that makes Thanksgiving dinner a sleepy affair.
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When Anthony Bourdain cooks with Michael Ruhlman on the Cleveland episode of
Cassoulet is a dish that just makes sense. Why does it make sense? You take fatty, flavorful meat, put it in a big pot with moisture-hungry beans and bake the whole thing until the beans are infused with all that fat and flavor and the meat is cooked. It’s not meant to be a fancy dish–this is the kind of food French people make at home–and it’s infinitely variable, as evidenced by the infinite cassoulet recipes you will find in my infinite cookbook collection, recipes that vary the type of meat, the type of bean, even the amount of time it takes to make the dish (Bourdain’s recipe, in his “Les Halles Cookbook,” calls for three days). I didn’t have three days to spare on Friday night when I set out to make my very first cassoulet. So I turned to an under-praised, underused book in my collection: Daniel Boulud’s “Daniel’s Dish: Entertaining at Home with a Four-Star Chef”.
It’s a great recipe for its simplicity (it’s called “Casual Cassoulet”) and yet the recipe has a serious flaw: it’s meant to be cooked in a 15-Qt Dutch Oven. I completely missed that part when I shopped for my ingredients, so I prepped enough food for a pot 3X bigger than the one I had. Therefore, the recipe that follows is my adaptation of Daniel’s recipe for Dutch Ovens of a more realistic size. Daniel’s recipe calls for lamb shoulder, but I left that out too: sausage + duck + bacon = plenty of meat for one dish, thank you very much.
Since winter’s almost over, this is the perfect dish to make on one of our last cold winter’s nights. I promise it’s easy and I promise the pay-off is big. And so, without further ado, Cassoulet in 10 Easy Steps.
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Of all the food and drink pairings, the greatest, I think, is the pairing of red meat and red wine. Sure, you have your champagne and oysters, your blue cheese and port. But give me a caramelized cut of ribeye and pair it with a spicy Syrah and I’m in heaven–a very red heaven.
On Saturday, then, I wanted to bring this combination home after spending the afternoon cleaning with Craig. I ventured out to Union Market which is Park Slope’s more high-end mart. I go there when I buy meat and fish; everything else, I do ok at Key Foods. I was all set to buy ribeye but then I remembered: ribeye is expensive. $25/pound expensive and each ribeye was one pound.
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Here’s an easy dinner from Patricia Wells’s “Provence Cookbook.” In a food processor, combine 1 pound ground lamb, 1 small onion (peeled and finely minced), 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 2 teaspoons sweet paprika, 1/4 cup mint leaves finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper and roll the mixture into 24 meatballs “the size of a walnut.” Then heat 2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil in a skillet until hot and cook the meatballs until they are browned on all sides and cooked in the center. Serve with tzatziki, which you can buy (as I did) or make yourself. That’s it! You’ll feel like you’re in Morocco with Patricia Wells; especially if you make this while in Morocco with Patricia Wells.
Please remove your heart strings so I can tug them a bit: I am lonely! I miss Craig! He’s been gone all summer shooting his movie in Washington State. Well, he was in pre-production for the last few months; he just started shooting two weeks ago. The second day of shooting, he almost gave me a heart attack: he called me hysterical to say that, “The worst thing in the world that could’ve happened happened.” The equipment truck had caught fire in the night and it looked like all their film and equipment was destroyed. He hung up and I didn’t speak to him for another 24 hours and in that time I imagined the worst: that the movie was over. But when I spoke to him the next day he said it was a false alarm: a battery had overheated and exploded and covered everything with soot, but nothing was really destroyed. All was ok. And onward they go with the movie: he’s having a blast. And I wish I could be there but I have my book stuff to tend to. And he’ll be back in three weeks anyway. But in the meantime, I’m Mopey McMopeypants. I need some cheering up. Can’t someone kill a cow for me and give me its flesh to cook? They can? Yippee!
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