Off Topic: Risotto
Earlier this year (May, 2010) Cook’s Illustrated featured a recipe for “Almost Hands-Free Risotto.” Got my attention. I’d been tinkering with risotto and had some success but hadn’t yet found the perfect recipe. The game-changer in this one is the cooking vessel. …
Off Topic: Stir-Fried Thai-Style Beef with Chiles and Shallots
This is one of our favorite stir-fry dishes and if I can only convey one thing to you about this recipe it is this: do NOT fear the fish sauce. Believe me, I’m as adverse to the stuff, in its undiluted form, as anyone. When I’m pouring it out I actually hold my…
Around My French Table: Souffle
A true rite of passage: I made my first souffle. And I see the world differently now. Mostly because I measure time in terms of how much of it will elapse between souffles. Souffle needs to fire its PR agency. It has allowed itself to be placed, in popular…
Off Topic: Cream of Tomato Soup
Like you and your parents and Andy Warhol, I grew up on Campbell’s Tomato Soup and it will always hold a special place in my heart (and that place is with its fist firmly around my arteries). But after finding this Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Ultimate Cream of…
Around My French Table: A Complete Dinner
You know a cookbook is good when you have to tell yourself to stop cooking from it and move on to another project. But before I do, let me tell you about the entire meal I made from this book and and the friends I served it to. First, meet Mo and Colin: …