photo by: Alan Richardson
This recipe for poached halibut with lemon and capers sounds so good and easy – you know I’m a sucker for recipes with a low number of ingredients.
Throw together a simple salad, or choose a fancier one like Rachael’s Beet and Walnut Salad.
Slice crusty bread and you’re done.
Craft is my favorite restaurant in New York. It has simple, mouthwatering food and fantastic service – and best of all, no gimmicks or faux coolness. It’s just good. And it was five blocks from my apartment.
Anyway, this is not meant to be an advertisement for Craft. Tasting Table is doing a sous chef series and their first recipe is from Craft sous chef James Tracey, for Roast Chicken. I’m going to have to try this.
See the instructional video HERE
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Stuff the chicken cavity with the rosemary, thyme, sage and garlic and season it liberally inside and out with salt and pepper. Using butcher’s twine, truss the chicken.
2. Place a medium roasting pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat and add the oil. Using tongs to move the chicken, cook the legs and thighs on both sides until the skin is golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
3. Add the carrots, turnips, rutabaga, cippollini onions and brussels sprouts to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to brown at the edges, about 5 to 8 minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, add the butter and transfer to the oven. Roast the chicken, basting every 15 minutes, until the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced with a knife, about 60 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a large cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes before carving. Remove two garlic cloves from the chicken and reserve.
4. Place the roasting pan over high heat and add the reserved garlic. Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring frequently, and cook until the vegetables are glazed and the liquid has reduced by about one-third, about 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Transfer the carved chicken to a serving platter, spoon the glazed vegetables around it and serve immediately.
fishex.com
Guy Fieri made this dish – pappardelle pasta with scallops, lightly wilted argula, mushrooms, and a light drizzle of truffle oil – on his show recently and the way he made it just looked so yummy and easy. Perfect for a one-dish dinner party. Just make it, serve it, and voila, you’re done! Maybe buy a tub of ice cream for dessert if you’re really ambitious :)
Scallops are an ingredient I’m kind of terrified of. They seem so easy to over- or under-cook. Luckily, I found Tasty Kitchen’s extremely detailed tips on how to properly cook this intimidating ingredient:
1. Cook your pasta in salted water: Bring a big pot of water to boil and add enough salt so it’s slightly salty. This gives your pasta flavor and you’ll end up using less salt or sauce in your dish.
2. Everything ready to go: This dish cooks up so quickly that you really need to have all your ingredients prepped and close by. You don’t want the seafood to get cold while you’re furiously chopping tomatoes.
3. Dry seafood: Before you begin cooking, you really want to pat your seafood very very dry. And I don’t mean a sloppy dry. Use a couple of pieces of paper towel and really make sure that you blot all the moisture away. The reason this is so important is because seafood cooks really quickly. Any moisture on the seafood will end up steaming the seafood instead of pan-frying it.
4. High heat or low heat—no middle heat: Here’s my rule for cooking small pieces of seafood, like scallops, shrimp, or chunks of fish. Either go high heat or low heat, but not in the middle. The high heat will give you a wonderful sear, that charred crust that I will give up my Gucci purse for. A low, slow heat will gently cook the seafood so that it has a silky texture, but that’s for another lesson.
5. Don’t overcook your seafood: I know it’s obvious, but I do have to say it. For scallops and shrimp, they really only need a couple of minutes on each side. If you’re using small bay shrimp (about the size of a small marshmallow) – 1 1/2 minutes on each side or less.
I have to screw up my courage and just cook scallops eventually, because a) I love them generally, and now b) I really want to make Guy Fieri’s pasta dish.
This recipe from the Barefoot Contessa sounds easy and has a low number of ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen – always something I look for in a recipe!
Photo by Quentin Bacon
Click here for the recipe page.
- 1/4 cup good olive oil
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic (9 cloves)
- 1/3 cup dry white wine
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1½ teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on (6 to 8 ounces each)
- 1 lemon
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, and cook for just 1 minute but don’t allow the garlic to turn brown. Off the heat, add the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, and 1 teaspoon salt and pour into a 9 X 12-inch baking dish.Pat the chicken breasts dry and place them skin side up over the sauce. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and tuck it among the pieces of chicken.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts, until the chicken is done and the skin is lightly browned. If the chicken isn’t browned enough, put it under the broiler for 2 minutes. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the pan juices.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/eggs-in-baskets-recipe/index.html
I saw these Baked Eggs on the Food Network today and they look SO. GOOD. Let me break it down for you:
Are we on the same page now? I MUST make these.
What a great dish to serve for a brunch! You can make them ahead, pull them out of the oven at the right time, and serve easily while you get to sit down with your guests. Put out a bunch of accoutrements so your guests can ladle on whatever they like: bacon bits, sour cream, salsa, extra cheeses of different kinds, green onion, ketchup, olives and olive tapenade. So fun and so YUM.
For dinner, I paired Ina Garten’s Parmesan-Roasted Broccoli with her Sole Meuniere. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to put cheese with fish and I. Don’t. Care. I love parmesan in any situation, and the pine nuts and lemon on the broccoli matched perfectly with the lemon flavor on the sole.
It was a gorgeous meal, and honestly, so simple that I often make it for myself when I feel like putting a little extra effort into my dinner and making something special.
Sole Meuniere (adapated from Ina Garten)
Combine the flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon Vege Sal, and 1 teaspoon pepper in a large shallow plate. Pat the sole fillets dry with paper towels.
Heat 3 tablespoons of butter in a large saute pan over medium heat until it starts to brown. Dredge 2 sole fillets in the seasoned flour on both sides and place them in the hot butter. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook for 2 minutes. Turn carefully with a large spatula and cook for 2 minutes on the other side. While the second side cooks, add 1 teaspoon of lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the pan (be careful that you don’t add much more than 3 tablespoons, or it will be too lemony). Plate the fish and pour any remaining sauce over them. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve immediately.
A farl, according to Merriam-Webster, is an oatmeal or wheat flour thin triangular cake from Scotland. Torrey posted this recipe and I made it for a healthy breakfast when my dad was visiting. There’s nothing sweet in the recipe, so honestly I wasn’t expecting a lot, but I knew if Torrey liked it it had to be good so I ventured forth.
Aside: I have discovered that I LOVE BUTTERMILK. That is all.
The farls came out thick, soft, crispy on the outside, and with a lovely flavor that really doesn’t need anything changed. The buttermilk did its work well! These would be perfect for simple and healthy breakfast entertaining. Just cut into triangles and put out all sorts of garnishes: butter, jam, soft cheeses, yogurt, honey, maple syrup, nutella, marmalade, clotted cream, some fruits.
I served them with butter and jam, and later, ate them with a soft Brie-like cheese and cured meats. Then I left town for a week, and when I came back they were still moist! Amazing. I dipped a piece in greek yogurt for a tangy snack. In other words, I highly recommend with anything you can think of.
Please continue for the recipe.
