David Eyre's Pancake

Every once in a while, a recipe comes along that has the power to deceive. This is one of them. These pancakes come billowing out of the oven in all their lemony, sugary, light-as-air fanfare and make you look like some kind of culinary genius; like someone who scoffs at normal pancake recipes, insisting upon something better and fancier and altogether more consequential. In actuality, this is just about as easy as recipes get. Seriously. Get your cast-iron out and make these immediately. You probably have everything you need right in your pantry, and you'll be rewarded with a sweet, tart, lightly toasted thing that's somewhere between a pancake and a crepe.

They're excellent for a lazy Sunday breakfast date with someone you'd like to impress. Mix up the batter while he's out grabbing the papers, pop it into the oven, and by the time he's stepping back over that threshold, you'll be lifting it out of the oven, apartment smelling divine, without looking like you batted an eyelash. xo

David Eyre's Pancake
Adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Ingredients:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions:
Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the flour, milk, eggs, and nutmeg in a bowl. Beat lightly. Leave the batter a little lumpy (don't overmix the batter or your pancake will be tough).

Melt the butter in a 12-inch skillet with a heat-proof handle (cast iron works best here). When it is very hot, pour in the batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the pancake is golden brown.

Sprinkle with sugar and return briefly to the oven for just a minute or two. Sprinkle with lemon juice, and serve with jelly, jam, or marmalade.

Crunchy Noodle Kugel a la Great Aunt Martha

I have a weird love affair with Jewish food, if you didn't already assume by my unnatural obsession with matzo brei. I didn't grow up eating it--in fact, I wasn't familiar with it at all until about the end of my college career when I found myself in a long-term relationship with a sweet Jewish guy who had an affinity for taking me home for holidays and random weekends where feasts of tasty food were always waiting to be consumed.

One of my favorite parts of those meals came in the form of a slightly sweet, baked noodle dish called kugel. It's a mixture of egg noodles, cottage cheese, sour cream, some sugar, a bit of cinnamon, eggs and butter that is thrown together and then baked in a very hot oven until the top is golden brown and perfectly crispy while the inside is transformed into a soft custard-like cake. And it is delicious. Some people say that nothing ruins a kugel like raisins do, and others think of raisins as a given. I included them in mine, but feel free to leave them out if you're not a fan.

And by all means, make this for the holidays. It's quite the perfect dish for the occasion at hand. xo

Crunchy Noodle Kugel a la Great Aunt Martha
From The Essential New York Times Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Ingredients:
1 cup raisins
Sherry
1 pound egg noodles
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 large eggs
3 cups cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt 

Directions:
Put raisins in a microwave-safe bowl or small saucepan and cover with sherry or orange juice. Heat on stove top or in microwave oven until liquid is steaming hot (about 1 1/2 minutes in microwave or 3 minutes on stove). Let cool while you prepare kugel mixture.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter an 11-by-17-inch jellyroll pan. Cook noodles according to package directions and drain well. Immediately return noodles to pot and add butter. Toss until butter melts.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest and salt. Drain raisins and add to bowl along with buttered noodles. Mix well.

Spread mixture in prepared pan and smooth top. Bake until top is crusty and golden, 25 to 35 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

James Beard's Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

I'm going to go ahead and say something: I don't understand people who say they like white meat more than dark. Or to an even higher degree, people who don't like dark meat at all. To me, in comparison to dark meat, white meat is so dry and flavorless, it may as well be cardboard. Really, what kind of person chooses a breast over a drumstick?! Well. Aside from a healthy one, that is.

Anyway, health matters notwithstanding, in my view the legs are by far the tastiest part of any bird (chicken, turkey, duck, you name it). That's why when I come across a recipe that calls exclusively for thighs or drumsticks, chances are I'm making it. Such was the case this weekend when I was perusing the poultry section of The New York Times Essential Cookbook and came across this beauty of a recipe. The famed James Beard loved it--apparently he used to teach it in a lot of his classes--and after I tasted it, I could see exactly why. The chicken comes out of the oven incredibly juicy and tender and fragrant. It practically falls off the bone. One bite, and I was sold. This is an easy one-pot meal that I'll be making over and over again. Go ahead and try it--it'll be worth your while. xo


James Beard's Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
From The New York Times Essential Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Ingredients:
4 stalks celery, cut into long strips
2 medium onions
40 cloves garlic, unpeeled
6 sprigs parsley
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
2/3 cup olive oil
16 chicken legs--any mix of drumsticks and thighs
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup dry vermouth
Sliced French bread, warmed or toasted

Directions:
Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Cover the bottom of a heavy 8-quart casserole with one-third of the celery, onions, garlic, parsley, and tarragon. Place the oil in a shallow dish. Dip one-third of the chicken pieces into the oil, coating all sides evenly, and place in the casserole. Sprinkle with one-third of the salt and pepper and a few gratings of the nutmeg. Repeat to make 2 more layers. Pour the vermouth over the chicken.

Cover the casserole tightly with aluminum foil and fit the lid over the foil to create and airtight seal. Bake for 1 1/2 hours, without removing the cover. Check the chicken for doneness; return the casserole to the oven if the chicken seems underdone.

Serve the chicken along with the pan juices, the garlic, and thin slices of French bread to be spread with garlic squeezed from the root ends of the cloves.

Chorizos Revueltos (Scrambled Eggs with Chorizo)

This breakfast reminds me so much of the ones my mother so often made me when we ended up moving to Hawaii. Eggs scrambled with some sort of spicy sausage (often Portuguese sausage) and a side of steaming hot rice are standard fare there--even McDonald's has it on the menu for your drive-through convenience. Little did I know that in addition to being a local Hawaiian favorite, it is also a much-loved Spanish breakfast (albeit made with chorizo).

When I stumbled upon a recipe for it in my nearly-constant perusal of The New York Times Essential Cookbook, I was so excited that I made it the very next morning and the morning after that. It's a supremely satisfying and unbelievably quick breakfast to make, and one that will easily impress anyone you whip it up for on a random lazy Sunday, even if it's for dinner. The trick is to crack open the eggs in a bowl and NOT beat them--instead pour them directly into the pan over high heat and break them up in there to get the swirls and threads of white yolk you see in the picture above. So much better than plain scrambled eggs and toast, wouldn't you say? Try it, trust me. xo

Chorizos Revueltos
From The New York Times Essential Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Ingredients:
1 1/2 ounces mild Spanish chorizo, thinly sliced, cut crosswise into half moons
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 large eggs, cracked into a bowl
Coarse sea salt

Directions:
Spread the sliced chorizo over the bottom of a large nonstick skillet and place over medium-high heat. When the chorizo begins to sizzle, add the olive oil to the pan. Pour in the eggs, then, using a wooden spoon, very quickly stir the eggs, breaking the yolks and turning the eggs over and over again, until just barely cooked, lifting the pan off the heat halfway through. It will take less than a minute.

Pour onto a serving dish, sprinkle with sea salt, and serve.