Salmon Chreime

Syrian Jewish cooking at its best...

Mercimek Koftesi

My new favorite lunch.

Fluffy Mile-High Apple Cake

Yet another fantastic apple cake recipe-- one can never have too many!

Pasta Caprese

Don’t skip the step of freezing the mozzarella, as freezing prevents it from turning chewy when it comes in contact with the hot pasta.

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

An oldie but a goody...

Goi Chay

Emily Ho posted this:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/salad/recipe-goi-chay-vietnamese-vegetarian-salad-067437

Roasted Eggplant Salad with Scallions and Cilantro

Ga Nuong (Vietnamese Grilled Chicken)

Perfect!

Bean Mole With Roasted Winter Squash

So good...I used unsweetened chocolate for this and added a few spoonfuls of brown sugar. I might throw in creamy peanut butter or sesame paste instead of ground almonds next time. Top with Greek yogurt to temper the heat.

Japanese Turnips With Miso

Fantastic!

Banana Oat Bran Muffins

1 and 1/8 cups oat bran 1 tablespoon ground cinammon 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/8 cup brown sugar 2 frozen bananas, thawed and mashed 1 large egg or 2-3 egg whites 2 tablespoons vanilla extract 1 tablespoon agave or honey or maple syrup, or more to taste 1/4 cup raisins or craisins or whatever is on hand (optional nuts, roasted fruit chunks, etc) Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray 6 cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir together to combine all ingredients. Divide batter among muffins cups. Bake until a metal tester comes out clean -- 12-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Slow Roasted Glazed Pork Shoulder

Really a perfect dish to serve to company.

Peggy's Cole Slaw

(Tom Casey's Cole Slaw)
Makes about 6 cups
2 #head cabbage
3/4 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream
3T wine vinegar
1t dill seed
salt and pepper
slice cabbage thin, transfer to bowl. Cover with ice water for at least 2 hours. Process all other ingredients. Drain cabbage very very thoroughly. Toss with dressing.
Best served 1-2 days later. Keep in fridge until.
"This is really delicious."

Clam Chowder for Niall

Niall,
This first test batch of chowder left Bill speechless. He uttered all kinds of grunts and other appreciative noises, but otherwise pretty much stayed face down in the bowl until it was gone. I'm keeping this recipe as is. The whole thing took 20 minutes from start to finish, including prep.

It is very basic, and the only thing that sets this chowder apart are the two techniques described in the directions for the recipe below. I know it will offend your chefly sensibilities to NOT ADD LIQUID to the clams when you steam them, and if you must cave on this point you could add a splash of white wine, but trust me when I tell you it isn't necessary. This is how I solved the problem we spoke about -- of how to get the broth to taste like a big bowl of steamers and not like that nasty bottled clam juice...

The linguica is really key, and I hope you won't leave it out just because the folks out there haven't been converted yet. The pancetta gives the chowder a clean, mild porkiness, and the linguica lends a tremendous amount of flavor. I can overnight you a pound or two of the good stuff from Lopes Sausage if you don't have access to a source.

The parsley does change the traditional all-white aspect of NE chowder, adding little flecks of green to the bowl. I'm cool with that and I think the fresh herbs offset the richness of the dish, but you could leave them out if the green is too off-putting.I didn't add any salt to the pot at all, but the dish came out perfectly seasoned between the clams and the pork products. Enjoy...

1/2 cup pancetta, diced small
1/4 cup linguica, diced medium
12 littleneck clams, scrubbed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small yellow onion, diced large
2 cups red new potatoes, UNPEELED, diced large
1/2 pint heavy cream
2 cups evaporated skim milk (I used regular whole milk and the flavor was phenomenal but the milk did scald. Up to you. I would use evaporated skim milk next time to approximate the texture of regular milk.)
handful chopped parsley
chopped chives (optional)
Ground black pepper, to taste

Turn the flame to medium-high under a large saute pan with a tight fitting lid. Add the pancetta and linguica and let them just barely begin to render -- about a minute. Add the clams, put the lid on the pot, turn the heat to high and walk away for 7 or 8 minutes. Do not take the lid off.
Prep all the other ingredients.

After 8 minutes, all the clams will be wide open and they will have generated a lot of clam liquor. Pour the contents of the pan into a very fine strainer over a small-to-medium-sized pot. Set the strainer with the clams and pork products aside to cool.

Turn the heat to medium under the pot with the clam liquor and add the remaining ingredients. Cook UNCOVERED until the potatoes are just cooked through, about 8 - 10 minutes total. This allows the liquid to reduce a little while the potatoes are soaking up all that good clam broth and cream.

Towards the end of the cooking time, take the cooled clams out of their shells and cut them in half. (This is super quick once the clams are cool. Don't say the prep crew doesn't have time to do this!) Discard the clam shells.

Once the potatoes are cooked through, add the clams and pork back to the chowder. Let cool for a couple of minutes and taste for seasoning. This makes 5-6 servings, and the chowder is good for several days.

Those two techniques -- steaming the clams first to get their liquid (and ensuring big pieces of clam) and then letting the liquid thicken a bit while the potatoes cook in it uncovered are my Xmas gifts to you, even if you already have them.

Love,
Ruthie

Flounder La Bella Fortuna

I miss Art Bloom. It sneaks up on me sometimes. I used to go and visit him regularly, and I was remembering recently how a friend and I once made the long drive from Bard to P-Town, just to watch the Academy Awards with Art. He was delighted that we had come to see him, and made his standard "special occasion" meal for us; which always took just as long to prepare as it did to eat -- probably 8 hours from shopping to dishes. The courses were always pretty much the same: some variation on steamed mussels, broiled bluefish, lobster and corn, maybe a salad; and vanilla ice cream for dessert. There was lots of wine and bourbon, of course, to go with all that good local seafood.

I remember every detail of the room looking over the bay. The way the light changed from season to season; how it felt to lie on my back and read with the little orange cat Fire sleeping on my chest, and the sound of distant foghorns and the tide coming in. Art and I would talk about Niall and Scott and Beverly; about music and movies and books and relationships. We had adopted each other as family, and those memories of visits to "the kibbutz" before Art got sick are very precious.

Art's special occasion bluefish came from Howard Mitcham's Provincetown Seafood Cookbook - still one of my all-time favorites. Mitcham, a wild man in the venerable P-Town tradition of brilliant and insane kitchen innovators, was still around when I was a kid, and my parents once took me to the restaurant where he did a very brief professional stint, to eat the Haddock Almondine that he had made famous.

I bought some flounder the other night, and enjoyed a little riff on Art's fish, with some updates of my own. The traditional recipe as I remember it, involved squeezing a lemon over a piece of bluefish or halibut, seasoning it with salt and pepper, and then spreading mayonnaise over the fish before broiling, about which Mitcham says:

"Now listen: when I say fresh homemade mayonnaise I mean exactly that. If you try to squeeze by with that cheap commercial mayonnaise then you will have defiled a fine fish who sacrificed his life for your enjoyment."

I seasoned our fish with sumac and pimenton, salt and pepper, squeezed a lemon over it, let it sit while I preheated the broiler and then spread a little mayonnaise and dijon mustard mixture over the fish and topped it off with a mix of panko and parmesan before broiling. Bill was completely knocked out by the sweet, fresh flounder and it disappeared in a flash. Simple and delicious.

flounder or  swai filets
salt
pepper
sumac
pimenton
garlic powder
dijon mustard
mayonnaise
lemon
panko
grated parmesan
chopped parsley for garnish