If you’re like us and have a bounty of tomatoes and basil from your garden (or your local farmer’s market), this is the perfect meal to take advantage of these summer staples. And the recipe, from America’s Test Kitchen, is as easy as the Italian island of Capri (the supposed birthplace of the caprese salad) is beautiful. It’s so easy that it barely even constitutes a “recipe” in the strict sense of measured ingredients and detailed instructions. The most important take-away from the recipe is the technique of freezing the mozzarella cheese before adding it to the hot cooked pasta to keep the cheese from melting into a gooey mess. The rest is simple: whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, a shallot and salt & pepper for the dressing and marinate the tomatoes in it; boil the pasta; combine the pasta, mozzarella and tomatoes; then add the basil just before serving. The flavor combination of vine-ripe tomatoes, creamy mozzarella and homegrown basil is as fresh as it gets. Adding al dente pasta provides a hearty texture and elevates a simple side salad into an ideal summer main course.
Category: Main Courses
Chicken with Sherry Vinegar
One of Dan’s oldest (but still younger than him!) and dearest friends bought him the cookbook “French Classics Made Easy,” in honor of his birthday and our of-a-lifetime trip to Paris. (Thanks Carrie!) She’s the kind of friend who never forgets a birthday and always makes you feel like the funniest person in the room (even though she actually is the most funny person in the room at any given time.) This chicken dish — “poulet au vinaigre de xérí¨s” — is the first recipe we’ve tried from the book, but it certainly won’t be the last. Not only was it easy to make with simple ingredients — chicken thighs, butter, olive oil, onion, sherry vinegar, shallots, garlic, white wine, tomato paste, parsley and salt & pepper — but it genuinely tasted like a classic French dish, with rich, complex and buttery flavors. This dish evokes the same qualities as a good, lasting friendship — satisfying and familiar, yet memorable and significant — all with minimal effort.
Seafood Paella (on the grill)
We’ve previously made a couple of different kinds of paella (a version with chicken, sausage and seafood, as well as one made with leftover turkey), using the stove-top method of cooking. After a lovely dinner party at a friend’s house several weeks ago (thanks Sally!), we were inspired to try an all-seafood paella cooked on the grill instead of the stove. One of the reasons for cooking this dish on the grill is that the heat will be more evenly distributed across the entire pan and its contents. Generally, paella pans are wider than the size of the typical stove burner, so the ingredients in the center will cook a little faster than the outer edges. No big deal, since the proteins cook in the center and the outer edges are mostly rice, but authentic paella should ideally have a crispy layer of caramelized rice along the bottom and sides called “socarrat.” (We have yet to perfect the socarrat, but cooking the paella on the grill gives us a better shot at doing so. And the paella is still delicious even without that crispy layer.) Grilling the paella or using a paella pan is by no means required — in our humble opinion, the only true requirements for paella are rice and saffron — so feel free to make do with whatever other ingredients you prefer and means you have available. This version is simply our take on the recipe from this article, using the seafood we like and a few techniques borrowed from other recipes. No matter the protein (although beef might be a bit strange) or cooking method used, it doesn’t get much better than a big pan of flavorful, saffron-infused rice cooked in a rich broth along with sweet and savory protein, red peppers and other veggies that add a bit of bite.
Shrimp Burgers
Sounds weird, tastes delicious. Really! If you like shrimp and want the texture of a hamburger without the red meat, these burgers are a tasty and more healthy alternative. And they are a vast improvement over our attempt to make veggie burgers, which was a one-bite-so-bad-throw-away-and-order-pizza moment. This burger recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s “Light & Healthy 2012” magazine is also easy to make with simple ingredients: 1-2 slices white bread, 1 pound shrimp, 3 tablespoons light mayonnaise, 2 green onions, 2 tablespoons fresh minced parsley, 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, a pinch of cayenne pepper and 2 teaspoons canola or vegetable oil. Topped with creamy chipotle chile sauce and served on a toasted English muffin with lettuce and tomato, these shrimp burgers taste almost like a lighter version of a po’ boy, without the breading and frying, and satisfy a craving for protein in patty form.
Buttermilk Fried Game Hen
Birthdays just may be the ultimate special occasion. The single day of the year with the sole purpose of celebrating your very existence. Whether it’s a milestone entry into a new decade or simply the passage of another year, the day you came into the world is a cause for celebration. And indulging in a favorite food — especially one you don’t allow yourself very often — is the perfect way to commemorate you. This year for my birthday, Dan honored me with a rare treat — homemade buttermilk fried game hen. He used the recipe found in Chef Thomas Keller’s beautiful book, “Ad Hoc at Home” (click the link for the book, then scroll down for the recipe.) Not so coincidentally, Ad Hoc is one of our all-time favorite restaurants and the book, according to Chef Keller, is “a big collection of family meals and everyday staples, delicious approachable food, recipes that are doable at home.” While the recipe is indeed quite doable at home, it is time-intensive and involves many steps. Justifiably so, for a decadently delicious dish worthy of a birthday.
Asian-Glazed Halibut
Asian flavor makes just about anything taste better, even fish. Thanks to my aversion to any fish that tastes too fishy, we have experimented with all kinds of sauces to make fish more appetizing, including citrus, BBQ, Southwestern and Italian style sauces and toppings. While we usually cook with tilapia at home, halibut is another mild flavored fish that is easy to prepare in several different ways: baked, broiled, grilled, pan-sauteed, poached or fried. Because it is thicker than tilapia, halibut holds up nicely in a heavier sauce or glaze. Breaking out of our tilapia rut, we adapted this recipe into an Asian-inspired marinade and glaze for fresh halibut, pan-seared and finished in the oven. The marinade keeps the halibut from drying out and infuses the fish with spicy, tangy and fresh flavors.
Steak Salad (w/ leftover steak) & Blue Cheese Vinaigrette
Although we don’t cook steak at home all that often, when we do, we usually have leftovers. Dan appreciates a good deal almost as much as a giant slab of red meat, so whenever he sees a bargain on nice, big steaks at the grocery store, he buys them and freezes them for later use. Then, when a special occasion calls for steak (for Dan, the occasion would be a random Tuesday), we’ll have enough left over for another, separate meal (thereby creating two special occasions.) Dressing up a simple green salad with leftover steak is an easy way to create an elegant weeknight meal. Adding homemade vinaigrette and roasted onions ups the fancy factor even higher.
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Spicy Cajun Shrimp
Even though we’ve only been there once together, New Orleans is one of our favorite places (and if you’ve ever been, it’s probably one of yours as well), due in no small part to the amazing food there. Whenever we’re lucky enough to visit a place with uniquely exceptional food, we like to find cookbooks with recipes from the local area. During one of our many strolls through the French Quarter a few years ago, we stopped in a small used bookstore and picked up the book “Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from the Times-Picaune of New Orleans.” This book is a special as New Orleans itself, and is filled with old recipes exchanged via a food column of the Times-Picaune, by locals struggling to rebuild their lives — and recipe collections — after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. This particular shrimp recipe was submitted by a reader who cut it out of the paper many years ago and adapted it by reducing the amount of cayenne pepper, even though her family enjoys spicy food. (Okay by me if it’s okay “bayou” — the dish is plenty spicy even with the reduced amount!) The recipe is quick and easy to make with simple ingredients: shrimp; cayenne pepper; black pepper & salt; red pepper flakes; dried thyme, basil and oregano; butter; garlic; Worcestershire sauce; tomatoes and beer. The plump shrimp cooked in a spicy, rich sauce evokes fond memories and takes us right back to the Big Easy.
Greek Lasagne (“Pastitsio”)
Again with the Greek food? Apparently, once we try cooking a certain type of food and have some success, we continue to roll with it. Unlike Souvlaki, and Greek-spiced Shrimp, this dish is not one we immediately recognized as Greek cuisine. But once we tasted it, we could easily imagine it as a signature comfort-food recipe handed down through generations of Greek families. But this version, found in Cook’s Illustrated’s “Light & Healthy 2012” magazine, is probably a lot more low in calories and fat than one a grandma likely used to make. Pastitsio is typically made with a beef- or lamb-based meat sauce, pasta, a rich béchamel sauce and cheese. This healthier version replaces the beef/lamb with ground turkey, incorporates a béchamel made with low-fat dairy ingredients and reduces the amount of cheese. Although this recipe is the only version we’ve ever tried, we certainly did not miss any of the more fatty, higher-calorie ingredients in the finished product, which was plenty rich and hearty. Just like (a calorie-conscious, red-meat-abstaining) Grandma used to make.
Roasted Red Pepper Soup
Here’s a soup would be perfect for your next dinner party, or any occasion when you want to impress someone with an elegantly savory dish. As exquisite as this soup tastes, it is remarkably easy to prepare with just a few ingredients: butter, garlic, red onion, flour, a jar of roasted red peppers, a chipotle chile, fresh thyme, chicken broth, heavy cream and white bread for homemade croutons. Given the simplicity of the ingredients and the fact that the recipe comes from a book of “quick-from-scratch” meals prepared in less than 60 minutes, we were shocked by the complex, layered and delicious flavors. This is restaurant-quality soup: something you might expect from a quaint, yet still fancy, little French bistro. In France.