Posted by Robin Bellinger, May 7, 2008 at 2:00 PM
The first time I really sat down and read Entertaining was when I was planning my wedding. I opened it looking for ideas and closed it thinking, “Yes, I could make all the food for our wedding, wouldn’t that be personal and fun?” Everyone talked some sense into me, thank goodness, and my self-catering ambitions were quietly dropped.
Don’t let this story deter you. Among the delusion-inspiring accounts of “Desserts for Forty: Soirée Dansante” and “Cocktails for Two Hundred: Country Fare,” one can find in this book ideas for relatively simple dinners at home. Last week I made tomato soup and French bread. I was too tired to make the green salad I had planned, but with a piece of Gruyère the soup and bread made a very pleasing meal indeed.
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, March 17, 2008 at 2:30 PM
This chicken soup can be served alone as a clear broth or with the addition of matzo balls, kreplach, lukshen, or soup nuts (mandlen). It's adapted from Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz.
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Posted by Lucy Baker, February 26, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Photograph from zero-g on Flickr
I always thought that kale was supposed to behave like spinach. Granted, I haven't done much cooking with it, but I assumed that when exposed to heat it would wilt and shrivel down to a fraction of its original size. So when I decided to make the potato soup with kale and chorizo from the March issue of Bon Appétit I didn't bat an eye over the fact that the recipe called for a lot of it—16 cups, to be exact.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, February 6, 2008 at 2:30 PM
Besides big roasts, slow braises, and stuffed pastas that are probably best for lazy-Sunday cooking, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking has much to offer in the way of weeknight dinner (if you’re accustomed to spending about an hour making dinner, that is). I love Marcella Hazan’s frittate but somehow always forget that eggs for dinner are allowed, so I usually end up browsing soups, salads, and vegetables for ideas. Recently I put Chick Pea Soup, Potatoes with Onions, Tomatoes, and Sweet Pepper, and Shredded Savoy Cabbage Salad to the test.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, December 19, 2007 at 4:15 PM
I’ve been poring over the recent French Onion Soup article in this month’s Cooks Illustrated. I apparently knew nothing about the topic. Their "Best" version calls for the onions to be baked for two and a half hours, and the pan to be deglazed three times. Even the “Quicker” version takes more than an hour an and half. Has anyone tried them? They really do look delicious.
But it made me think back to the onion soup I picked up about a year ago from the Grocery Guy. His is a hell of a lot simpler and relies on a quick ten-minute burst of high heat. It browns the onions and lends the dish a deep, rich flavor. I can’t really vouch for its merit compared to the Cooks Illustrated finely tuned masterpieces, but it works for me. It’s also apparently based on a Julia Child recipe. Some people like to be reminded that the tall one is watching over them in the kitchen, I just prefer the Grocery Guy calling me names. But that’s just me.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, November 17, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Sunday Night Soups, where each week The Gurgling Cod shows up to offer a soup appropriate to the week's Sunday Night Football game on NBC.
This week, the New England Patriots pay a visit to Buffalo and their Bills. Northwest New York State will never be confused with Provence in terms of developing a compelling indigenous food tradition, excepting buffalo wings, which while delicious (and worth making at home, by the way) do not translate feasibly into soup. However, few match-ups offer a better opportunity to get into the right frame of mind. Bill Belichick, while something of a polarizing figure, is famous for his relentless preparation. A soup that requires the same of its maker will give you a sense of what it takes to be a champion. A soup does not have defensive tendencies you can track, or even opposing coaches that you can videotape surreptitiously, until your former assistant and protégé snitches you out, but it can have chestnuts. Chestnuts are delicious, but peeling them is tedious, and can fray the fingers a bit. They give this soup a wonderful velvety sweetness, and give you the opportunity to experience the 99% of genius that is hard work.
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