Posted by Adam Kuban, March 24, 2008 at 6:15 PM
The first of this week's recipes from Nigella Express is for a bacon-infused roast chicken. Roast chicken is always pretty easy to make, and this one is no different, except that the little bit of extra work it requires—frying up some bacon—pays off in a big way. The bacon and brandy glaze help bronze the bird and add beautiful flavor without becoming a distraction.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, March 17, 2008 at 3:30 PM
This dish succeeds almost in spite of itself. I mean, look at what the fish is up against; it has to fight against both bacon and mayonnaise for some kind of balance, with only a lemon to help its cause. But what wonders that lemon does—with a combination of zest and juice, it brightens every aspect of the dish making this seem somehow healthy. That doesn't mean it isn’t filling, though. The bacon makes the fish taste luscious and full bodied, almost like a pork chop, but without the grease.
I’ll thank Jamie Oliver and his great new cookbook, Cook with Jamie
, for this one. He just calls for a white fish, and although mahi mahi may be a little firmer than what he intended, it worked. And it couldn’t have really been easier, especially the sauce. The lemon mayonnaise is as simple to prepare as the name suggests. Jamie does recommend a homemade version of the mayonnaise, which would increase the prep time a little bit, but also acknowledges the jar stuff works fine in a pinch. I agree.
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Posted by Ed Levine, March 9, 2008 at 8:00 AM
Today's Sunday Brunch recipe is adapted from James Villa's excellent Bacon Cookbook. It makes a stack of thick, intensely flavored griddlecakes—especially if you use pure maple syrup. And if you do use pure maple syrup for this, make sure you don't use maple-cured bacon—as Villas says, the resulting effect is just too intense.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 21, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Today's Cook the Book recipe (adapted from Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver) is a slow-cooked leek dish that delivers the true flavor of the vegetable by asking you to keep the leeks whole while still finely slicing up the outer layers for an ultra leeky hit. Oliver says it's a great dish for dinner parties or to serve alongside a Sunday roast.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 3, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Though this twelve egg frittata, from the fertile culinary imaginations of Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton, is a great brunch dish, it can also easily be served throughout your Super Bowl gathering, because it's good warm, at room temperature, or chilled. So your guests can serve themselves before the game, at the half, and even right at the end when Lawrence Tynes is kicking his game-winning field goal.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, January 7, 2008 at 4:30 PM
I still can’t believe the fiancée cooked this for me. When I’m working late, it’s par for her to shun bacon, eschew oil, and cook as many vegetables as possible. So I was a little surprised when I came home to a bacon laden gratin with half a wheel of cheese melted on top. I kissed her immediately. I mean, really—what a wonderful thing to do. She found it in the North Market Cookbook. The cheesemonger said he got the recipe “from a French customer.” How intriguing.
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Posted by Jenn Sit, January 6, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Have you had enough bacon yet? Here’s another bacolicious dish to add to the growing collection—bacon and egg pie from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics. For almost a year when I was abroad at Oxford, I was sadly deprived of “streaky bacon” and given only British “back bacon,” which is basically Canadian ham (so not bacon!). Every bacon cheeseburger and Full English was delicious, but always a little sadder without the smoky crispiness of its streaky cousin. Now back at my home college, the house I live in is named The Rectory and our religious idol of choice is the Almighty Bacon. Whether it’s center-cut, turkey, or soy bacon, the smell of the sizzling stuff always finds its way upstairs to my bedroom on Sunday mornings. If the blessed bacon spirit finds you, too then you have to try this recipe, which can’t go wrong with a supporting cast of goat cheese, mushrooms, and peppers. I’ve been sending our #1 bacon-fanatic of the house so many bacon-related links from Serious Eats that she’s convinced that bacon is now the “in” thing. So what are you waiting for? Jump on the baconwagon and welcome to salivation...
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 14, 2007 at 2:30 PM
And here's a bacon-filled dessert you can make over the weekend, now that you've got some extra time. In Germany, these cookies are known as Speckkuchen, and, as James Villas, author of The Bacon Cookbook
, says, rarely do you find a pastry shop in that country that doesn't have at least a small selection of them.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 12, 2007 at 1:30 PM
You've probably had a salad with bacon bits at some point in your life. But why not go all in with this Wilted Spinach and Avocado Salad With Warm Bacon Dressing? It's from this week's Cook the Book, The Bacon Cookbook.
James Villas, the book's author, isn't too picky about the bacon used for this salad but does recommend using a young, crisp baby spinach.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, December 11, 2007 at 2:30 PM
You might also know this Alsatian Bacon and Onion Tart as tarte flambée or flammekueche. James Villas—author of this week's Cook the Book, The Bacon Cookbook—recommends trying to find fresh pot cheese in a specialty grocer, but if you can't, he says low-fat ricotta will work almost as well. He also recommends French ventrèche bacon or German Black Forest bacon, both of which may be found in finer butcher shops or online.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, December 10, 2007 at 2:30 PM
In their simplest form, Gougères, a savory French choux pastry, are only flavored with Gruyère cheese. But what if you have some bacon lying around that? That bacon needs a home. A light, puffy, cheese-flavored home. Bake a batch of James Villas's French cheese and bacon puffs from The Bacon Cookbook for easy, bite-sized appetizers. If you want to lighten the puffs, Villas suggests using equal amounts of shredded Gruyère and grated Parmesan cheese.
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Posted by Ed Levine, December 9, 2007 at 9:11 AM
Writers James Villas and Alexandra Grablewski have provided the friends of bacon lovers everywhere with a perfect holiday gift opportunity, The Bacon Cookbook: More than 150 Recipes from Around the World for Everyone's Favorite Food. We'll be featuring recipes from it all this week in Cook the Book, but I figured I'd give you a preview today with this yummy-sounding Southern Corn and Bacon Souffle. Villas and Grablewski acknowledge in their headnote that this recipe is more pudding than souffle, but I don't think it really matters what they call it. I call it delicious.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, December 7, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Soup rarely appeals to me (too much liquid, not enough chewing), but when the weather is bitterly cold (like now), nothing fills up your inner crevices as well as a bowl of hot, chunky soup. Tom Colicchio's simple diced potato-leek soup combines diced potato, leek and bacon in chicken stock flavored with butter and chives. You've got your vegetable, starch and meat all in one spoonful. Although it make go without say (since Colicchio didn't mention it), make sure you wash your leeks thoroughly before using them—otherwise you may find yourself eating a potato-leek-bacon-dirt soup.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, November 5, 2007 at 4:00 PM
How could this fail? With a bounty of apples, a huge hunk of locally cured bacon, and a nice chicken, I ran across a recipe that used all three in what looked like the perfect way. The chicken would be stuffed with apples and wrapped in pure porky delight. This meal appeared to be in the bag before I even turned on the oven.
But those apples didn’t quite work the magic I had imagined. Instead of infusing the meat, the waterlogged fruit decided to steam the bird, seemingly draining more flavor out of the chicken than if it had just been roasted normally. What a shame. Luckily the bacon saved the day. The pork basted the skin in glorious fat for the duration of the roast, leaving it succulent and full flavored. Ah, the miracles of bacon.
Oh yes, and there really should be three slices of bacon on that bird. I just didn’t have enough self control to wait and take a picture before I picked one guy off.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, October 26, 2007 at 4:30 PM
I’ve done this before. Not with the same ingredients, or procedure, but with the unlikely combo of pasta and seemingly inappropriate vegetable. It would seem to be too much starch for any one human to take on. But cooked correctly, the vegetable makes a creamy sauce without all the, well, cream. In other words: It works.
My experience has been with what the Silver Spoon calls linguine al pesto genovese, or potatoes and linguine with pesto. It must be some kind of a classic dish. But this one isn’t, which comes from the Real Simple and replaces the potato with squash. It also adds some bacon—always a welcome addition—and goat cheese. The effect is the same. After cooking with the chicken stock, the squash breaks apart and becomes part of the pasta instead of its own separate entity. Every noodle is coated with this fall-appropriate dish. Oh, and did I mention the bacon?
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 11, 2007 at 3:30 PM
In Louisville, Kentucky, says John T. Edge, author of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South, the Brown Hotel "has been the epicenter of the social whirl. Debutante parties, Christmas balls, weddings by the score."
The Hot Brown Sandwich, Edge says, was created by the hotel's chef a few years after the place opened and is "the ideal hangover food." Click through to the recipe, and see if you agree.
If you'd like to read more about The Brown Hotel, the Hot Brown Sandwich, and other Southern delights, grab a copy of Southern Belly for yourself.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 19, 2007 at 3:00 PM
The recipe that follows has been adapted from Nancy Silverton's A Twist of the Wrist. Nancy's version of an Italian bean soup purées canned beans to save time without sacrificing flavor.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 18, 2007 at 1:00 PM
The recipe that follows has been adapted from Nancy Silverton's A Twist of the Wrist. This is one of those unusual dishes that works well for brunch, lunch, or dinner. Serve it with a crusty baguette and a salad, and all will be right with the world.
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