Spiced-Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream

For my birthday this year, Paul took me to Craft and we did it up: oysters, suckling pig and a big red wine. To end the meal, we ordered a slew of ice creams engineered by Craft’s pastry chef/genius, Jenny McCoy. Her ice cream is like nothing I’ve tried before (and trust me, I have sampled my fair share of ice cream).

She makes a kiwi ice cream that not only tastes exactly of kiwi, but manages to capture the texture and bite of a kiwi too. It’s insane. When I decided to finally dust off the ice cream maker my sisters gifted me a few Christmases ago, I scoured the interwebs for some of her recipes. I found two, and this is what I learned: balanced proportions of cream + sugar + whole milk + egg yolks = deliciousness.

I also consulted David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, and then I was off to the races. Although my first few attempts were flops (I was determined to use bar chocolate at first.…mistake), I eventually reached something I loved. By the last batch, I achieved my aim: airy, creamy, must-consume-immediately ice cream. Read more »

Halibut au Pistou with Shallots, Peppers and Fingerlings

Over the summer, I attended my first wedding. (I am twenty-six years old—it was a long time coming.) I am not sorry to say it set the bar quite high for all future nuptial celebrations. For one thing, it was held in the Irish countryside in the flush of summer. We heard mass in an aged church, led by the groom’s Irish-priest uncle. And then there was the party, impossibly posh and lovely, which continued far into the evening.

My mother is fond of saying that wedding food is terrible. “Enjoy the canapés,” she says, “because everything else will be awful.” But this is a false doctrine at 100% of the weddings I’ve attended so far. Yes, hors d’oeuvres were served, along with tall flutes of Cava on the patio (that is, before it started pouring; we were in Ireland after all). But a multi-course dinner (replete with fish forks and wine pairings) followed. And then there was a dessert bar. (Here the details start to get fuzzy. Can you blame me? It would have been a crime to let all that wine go to waste.) At some point I remember giggling with my sister over my parent’s, uh, spirited dancing. Around midnight, they set out fish and chips and other miniature fried things….Let’s just say this was not a wedding for the faint-of-stomach. Read more »

Research Chili

The fact of the matter is, I have never made chili before. Not really. I didn’t grow up in a “comfort food” household, and I do not spend my days herding cattle. I have no hockey team to feed. And since you can’t exactly whip up a single portion of chili, it never occurred to me to throw together a pot full. (A silly notion, considering how beautifully chili freezes.)

As a result of my chili ignorance, I was only vaguely aware of the rules surrounding the dish—beans vs. no beans, what cut of meat to use, what variety of chili pepper….and so on. I arrived at this recipe the same way any self-respecting nerd would have: I read everything I could get my hands on. Read more »

Pork Loin with Cider-Braised Leeks and Apples

Like all the best recipes, this pork looks like more effort than it actually is.  There are no fancy techniques here, no sudden movements. This dish will forgive you if you get distracted and walk away from the stove for a minute. Still, it looks pretty nice all plated up, either family-style on a serving platter or on individual dishes.

The best part? The whole thing is done in an hour, so it’s certainly manageable on a weeknight. You can use the final 20 minutes of cooking to throw together a salad, some potatoes or some other tasty root vegetable. Or you could pour yourself a glass of wine. Why not? It’s cold outside. You deserve it. Read more »

Madeleines

For Christmas this year, Paul’s grandparents gave me a book called La Cuisine Authentique de nos Grand-mères (translation: The Authentic Cooking of our Grandmothers). It is easily one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. I am currently working my way through all 400 butcher-paper pages, albeit slowly; there is only so much français a girl can read at a time, even when it pertains to la cuisine.

The book is full of the kind of French home cooking that made me fall in love with spending time in the kitchen in the first place. Best-quality ingredients are emphasized, and the recipes encourage slowing down for a minute. You simply cannot flambée les bananes au rhum with your mind on other things. (Well, I suppose you could, but in that I case I suggest you keep a fire extinguisher on hand.) Read more »

Key Lime Tarts

Key lime pie is my very favorite dessert, of all time, in the world. That is–when it is done properly. Because, to sound like a snob, it is almost never done properly. The next time you are in the supermarket, take a gander to the bakery department. You might find a key lime pie there, but more likely it is only something masquerading as a key lime pie. Have a look at the ingredients. Are there more than five? Take a look at the color. Does it look like an experiment in florescents gone bad?

Real key lime pie, the kind you find in restaurants in southern Florida, only has four ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, key lime juice, key lime zest and egg yolks. It is pale yellow, almost white, and has the consistency of thick custard. Read more »

Sage-Candied Walnuts

I have never cared much for nuts. I know there are women who count small handfuls of almonds as a satisfying afternoon snack. Alas, I am not one of them. The addition of walnuts and macadamias have long been reason enough to snub my nose at salads and muffins alike. But I am starting to change. I blame it on a shop near my apartment, The Nut Box. I only stopped by in the first place because the store looked so.. well, organized. Blonde wood compartments house rows upon rows of neatly packaged and clearly labeled nuts, and I am the kind of person who stops into The Container Store for fun.

I was throwing a party over the weekend, so I thought, “what’s the harm in picking up a few things?” (Answer: there is never harm in picking up a few things, especially when “things” are obscure food items. Bonus points if you have no clear idea when or how to use them.) Read more »

9 Bites to Serve at Your Next Holiday Party

If you are anything like me, when you cook for others, you tend to spend more time in the kitchen looking after the food than you do looking after your guests. In my mind, the best way to ensure my invitees are having a great time is to serve them the best possible meal. Still, this tendency of mine drives Paul nuts, and besides, it becomes more difficult the more people I pile into our apartment. To combat this issue, I have been working on some hors d’oeuvres that can be made a few hours ahead, piled onto a serving platter and forgotten until the first guest arrives. Most of these will work for any number of occasions, but as the holiday season is upon us, why not try them out now? Read more »