The Convergence

   At the pinnacle of foods that gain something grand by being wrapped in pastry is probably Beef Wellington.  I like a good Wellington, especially if someone talented has made it for me; making the dish is involved and enervating, which should make the reward of gentle filet and tender flake that much richer, but leaves me, instead, craving a humble sandwich.  Coulibiac, the Russian dish of salmon, rice, mushrooms, greens and dill is unquestionably grand.  I can’t help thinking it has something Hot Pocket about it though—an all in one entree as convenient as it is clever.  

    No; the best dishes are those that are ordinary in a bowl but elevated to magnificence when ensconced in pastry.  At the top of that short list is beef pie, as honest as it is deep.  I suppose it is no coincidence that making a proper one requires the marshaling of my favorite cooking disciplines—those fundamentals that separate cooks from weekend hobbyists.  But I’m just as drawn to its versatility.  A beef pie, even a cold one, is a terrific lunch.  Hot from the oven, though, it can be as grand as a goose.  In fact grander: beef pie is my Christmas dish of choice.

Make a rich stock from beef bones and vegetables.  Braise several pounds of beef cut from rump, shin and shoulder in mirepoix, red wine and stock.  Chill.  Make a few pounds of pastry.  Line a dish or dishes with pastry, chill.  Put braised beef in pastry-lined dish(es).  Roll out lids and cover, crimping layers together.  Cut steam holes on top.  Bake in three hundred and fifty degree oven until hot throughout and golden. 

One, Please

The scant aromatics for a small stew.

    I was sixteen and returning with my parents from visiting family in Switzerland when, on somewhat of a whim, it was decided that I should join a friend who was spending the summer in Paris under the pretense of having an internship.  The two of us caromed wide-eyed for a week or so between the obvious sights and the less trod.   On our last evening we found what I recall as a decent, if typical restaurant somewhere near the Place de la Bastille.  I faced my friend at a small table, and we ate three courses of solid bistro food washed down with cheap Beaujolais—which might sound hopelessly banal if, for a moment, one forgets how green in matters of food and drink the average teenager is.  Directly behind my friend, facing me, was a gentleman neatly dressed in odd jacket and neckerchief.  He ate alone, though ate is hardly the best verb in this instance.  He considered his progression of dishes—none of which had been offered us—as one would semi-precious stones.  He swirled and sniffed at his wine, tumbling half ounce increments in his mouth until his demi was finished.  When his digestif arrived, he held it to the light before hovering a quivering eye over the rim, testing, one can only imagine, the rate at which the volatiles escaped.  

    I might not be able to say with certainty what my friend and I did during our time in Paris, the events since muddied by subsequent visits.  But I will never forget that magnificent man, his great, watery eyeball, or the bloom of satisfaction that grew in place of the contemplation that had rippled across his face until the end.  He was savoring things, I would come to understand, and he meant to do it alone.

    But to eat alone requires rehearsal, as diving into a public, wine-complemented meal might confound rather than edify.  An unadorned ham sandwich is a good place to begin, as it serves to divine preferences.  Permit the sandwich to make itself; nine out of ten times, mine manifest as shaved rosemary ham on day-old baguette.  The tenth might appear as jamon serrano on toasted pullman, if not for variety, then to calibrate expectations.  What if I had been wrong about the first nine sandwiches?   

    Baseline established, venture out.  Few share my enthusiasm for salad, and so I often prepare ambitious ones full of nuggets of bacon and brioche when I eat alone.  A chicken is meant to share, but duck confit is ideal for the individual.  I have a secret passion for overcooked steaks and chops, where the flesh is less about succulence than the pleasure of correctly using both incisor and molar.  Also, hot English mustard seems less criminal than it would slathered on painstakingly cooked morsels.  Tough joints, richly braised, are terrific for feeding groups, but a few scraps of stew meat in broth and mirepoix is a fine solitary meal.  Here the small effort and long cooking period feels particularly rewarding.  Where a crowd might want starchy potatoes or noodles for the braising sauce, I’m happiest with day-old bread; any staleness just means greater capacity for drawing in sauce.  A solitary meal permits those sybaritic tendencies.

A solitary meal.

    The same self-indulgent spirit should be extended to what gets drunk.  I’m reminded of Bertie Wooster who often pesters Jeeves for half a bot of something to accompany his late night omelette or plate of sandwiches, in that I have respect for the classic pairings, but as long as I am not in danger of breaching someone’s cemented expectations, I serve myself what I please, or, as is often the case, what’s on hand.  If the latter, scraps of red and white often haunt my fridge, and what doesn’t go in a pot for a sauce  gets unceremoniously poured in a jam jar alongside dinner.  If the former—drinking whatever I fancy—I am usually led to something bubbly.  Champagne is unique amongst other wine, as it accompanies no food perfectly, but everything else so well.  Would eyebrows be raised at the sight of pink Champagne next to a small beef daube?  I can’t say, as I’m always alone when it occurs.

    Of course the instant an additional set of preferences is introduced, the possibility for perfect indulgence is compromised.  My wife would be sorely disappointed if nothing more exciting than semi-stale bread came with her stew.  She doesn’t tolerate salad, and, while it is remarkable that we have successfully formed any sort of union whatsoever considering the egregious position, she won’t touch Champagne for fear of heartburn.  Some things, it seems, really are best practiced alone.  

    Dining out alone is doctorate level, and if arrived at, does not require explanation.  I will say this, though.  I spent a pleasant (if unreliable) three years reviewing restaurants in Chicago for major print and online media.  I was given significant budgets and always instructed to exhaust them, a task that never posed difficulty.  Friends gladly joined, which maximized the dishes that could be tasted, and I’m certain the gig played a significant role in meeting and keeping the woman who would become my wife.  There was a problem though: through all the companionship and budding romance, intelligently tasting anything was a challenge, and the restaurants I was assigned deserved (and editors demanded) more than cursory treatments.  And so I often returned, on my own dime, alone.  Only then did the discordant clove reveal itself despite the squab being so ideally roasted.  Today, even without a looming deadline, the same holds true: eating alone amplifies the senses.

Elemental

    Amidst pumpkin pralines and toffee tiramisus, curiosity has a way of temporarily luring me from my general mistrust of sweets and desserts.  I don’t feel shame when I indulge; rather, only moments following the second or third exploratory bite, I retreat to the comfortable notion that I’m happier with a beef pie.  I’ve been called smug, and shrugged in semi-agreement.  

    But there is one member of the dessert world that consistently appeals—pound cake.  I like how it exists, uncertainly straddling genres while remaining fundamental.  It is cake, as is anything made of butter, flour, sugar and eggs.  This point is made especially well with a bundt pan, which surely produces the most festive cake shape.  But done in an ordinary rectangular pan, pound cake resembles the humble pullman loaf—a utilitarian shape for passing slices and convenient storage.  It might be my imagination, but a slice of pound cake from a pullman pan feels austere compared to the same from a bundt pan.  

    Pound cake is also a pillar of basic baking technique, stripped bare of ornament and pomp.  Creaming sugar with butter is how so many sweet recipes begin that it often seems a purely ceremonial step, like the clockwise rotation of a chawan during a Japanese tea ceremony.  But creaming is essential to a pound cake, as is beating the eggs; without raising agents, the dense batter would merely stiffen if not for all the incorporated air.  Density is also why a pound cake does best started in a cool oven, which allows ample time for the batter to warm up before setting shape.   

    A word on flavorings.  Nutmeg, or its lacy covering, mace, is traditional, as is vanilla and brandy.  These all work well together in a muted way.  Lemon peel doesn’t seem much of an affront either, although its use might embolden festive experimentation with candied fruit, nuts, or chocolate, but folding them into a pound cake ruins its elemental balance.

One pound of butter
One pound of sugar
One pound of eggs
One pound of flour
Dash of brandy
Vanilla extract
Scant nutmeg
Pinch of salt
Restraint

Cream the butter and sugar and then continue beating until pale and well aerated.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs until frothy.  Add flour and egg mixture to whipped butter in alternating stages until all in incorporated.  Mix for an additional minute.  Incorporate well remaining flavorings.  Pour batter into either a pullman loaf pan or a bundt pan that has been well greased with butter and dusted with flour.  Put in a cool oven and set to bake at two hundred and seventy five to three hundred degrees (f) for between seventy and one hundred and ten minutes.  Some experimentation is likely required to get time and temperature correct.  A toothpick, plunged into the thickest portion, should emerge cleanly when cooked through.  Let cool on a wire rack.

The Correct Roux

Part two of two.    

Roux, about where it should be.  

    Preparing Brussels sprouts, peeling potatoes, washing produce and other odd jobs as the cook sees fit are fine to dole out to friends and family.  Roux is a solitary business though.  The reason should be obvious; any task that looks simple but requires careful attention is best done without supervision, particularly from well-meaning but ultimately untrustworthy aunts.  If necessary, employ a diversion: why, are those potatoes browning too quickly?  If a dear aunt still won’t budge, have faith in the making of roux itself: stirring flour into butter really is as mundane as it sounds.  

    But it is also one of those skills the subtlety of which is easily lost on the observer.  The person making roux might as well be painting a shed, an activity that has never attracted an audience.  But if the cook loses concentration, overdoing a roux is easily done, as is undercooking one.  The former introduces a nutty and deep taste that is occasionally called for, but can be a distraction.  The latter leaves a gummy paste tasting of raw flour.  A medium roux—a dirty blonde, one might say (not around the aunt though)—is ideal.  Achieving the correct level takes patience, but an equal measure of restraint as well.

Gravy: molten blanket.

    A well-flavored stock, no matter how carefully made, is never a sauce.  A few moments after it has been ladled into a proper roux, however, the purest, humblest of sauces begins taking shape.  But its name—gravy—is as loaded with connotation as a good one is with flavor.  Poor ones are gelatinous or mealy and taste remotely savory, although few could say what the animal origin is.  Others are doctored with all manner of spices and seasonings so as to obscure either lousy stock or meat.  These mistakes are particularly regrettable once the real thing is tasted.  A good one is velvety, mouth-coating and obviously from the animal it adorns—a harmonious blanket both for the food and the palette.

Roux:  Melt a quantity of unsalted butter in a sauce pan, taking care not to scald or brown.  Stir in slightly less all-purpose flour than butter until smooth.  Continue stirring until the color of straw and redolent of freshly baked brioche.  The roux should be flowing but viscous.  Do not taste—it will scald badly.  

Gravy:  Once the roux is ideal, begin ladling in hot stock, stirring constantly with a whisk to maintain a smooth, lump-free consistency.  Brandy may be added in small quantities along with the stock, but resist any urge to further season with spices or herbs.  Season well with salt.  Boil hard for a minute, reduce to a simmer, and continue simmering until desired thickness has been achieved.  Strain through a Chinoise or cheese cloth if necessary.  Gravy is best served in a pitcher rather than a gravy boat.

Turkey, a lean bird, is an excellent candidate for gravy. 

Taking Stock

Part one of two.

   Common wisdom regarding the American holiday season is, usually, of the hard-boiled sort.  Where restraint is not encouraged, abstinence usually is.  The common theme might be to just let it go, where the it could as easily be the contentious politics of a ginned-up uncle, or, as they too are prevalent during this time of year, a ham.  But the marathon between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is a long time to maintain so implacable a charade.  Which is why I do the cooking; when done correctly, food preparation is full of levity.

    But here too I must preach some restraint.  Regardless of cultural background, and however fine the intentions, elaborate meals have a way of submarining even the most congenial families.  Those more fractious nuclei, my own dear family very much included, depend upon the digestible and familiar to maintain its delicate equilibrium.  Even a single exotic tart might set the orbits wobbling; the friction from an ambitious fish dish would be terrible.  Curry—even mentioned, let alone present in the air—would sunder electrons.

    But simple meals of roasted meat or fowl and buttered vegetables need not be bland.  I should say, they need not be, as long as the home cook masters the making of stock, roux, and, the union of both in that most venerable lubricant of the holiday season: gravy.

Stock: Ingredients

Several Pounds of bones, preferably of the same species as the accompanying roast

Three to five white or yellow onions, quartered but with skin and paper left intact

Two or three large carrots, split and peeled

Two or three large stake of celery, cleaned

A small bunch of parsley

Two or three bay leaves

Several sprigs of thyme

Several peppercorns

Cold Water

Method:

In a large roasting tray put bones and vegetables and put into a preheated oven to roast until well browned (but not burned).  Transfer to a large stock pot.  Deglaze the roasting pan with some of the water and add to the pot.  Add the remainder of the water to within two inches of brim.  Add the herbs and peppercorns.  Make certain everything is covered by water, but resist the temptation to stir.  Put the pot on a rear hob and bring up to a boil.  Skim the scum that accumulates on the surface.  Reduce to a true simmer.  Simmer and occasionally skim for three to four hours.  Carefully drain through a colander or chinoise into another, smaller stock pot.  Wrap carefully and immediately refrigerate for later use. 

Simmer Down

The prize at the end of the ordeal.

Part two of two.

    The critical first step to a quality braise is a deep browning of the meat.  This might seem a strange starting point considering the slow, long cooking time ahead, but braising properly depends as much upon the first few minutes as it does on the passive stretches to come.  And to that end, I must first broach a prickly subject: the much loved, but irreconcilably unnecessary electric slow cooker.  These devices have gained popularity as the ultimate expediency—a sort of force-multiplier for the harried professional.  Whether enthusiastic but talentless or just the latter, anyone can plug one in, plonk in a hunk of tough meat, a few other questionable ingredients, and disappear for a day.  Upon returning, the slow cooker will have filled the home with homey aromas, a quart or two of mediocre stew and the false impression that cooking has taken place.  That the result is better than takeout is its validation for consuming three square feet of storage space.  

    A meal cooked in a slow cooker is no more a proper braise than a cheap Caravaggio print is a masterpiece.  True—a braise requires low heat and time, both of which the slow cooker can muster, but the delivery is without the complexity and nuance of a proper foundation.  To build that foundation, what’s needed is an enameled cast iron dutch oven, the heavier, the better.  I have a twelve-quart oval beast, blue on the outside, black as coal within.  It performs consistently a dozen times each month.  It will outlive me.  Find me an electrical appliance that can boast the same.

      Browning the meat for a braise requires more time than one might think.  I allow at least fifteen minutes.  Begin by heating the dutch oven on medium high until a drop of neutral oil gently smokes (if it furiously smokes and runs, allow the pot to cool for a minute).  I find it’s best to brown the fattiest side first; not only is this the likely presentation side, but much of the fat will render, aiding the browning of the other surfaces of the joint.  Brown until uniformly and deeply brown—more mahogany than oak in color.  Repeat for each side, until all surfaces, including the narrow ends—which will require active holding with tongs—have achieved the same rich hue.  Remove to a platter and prepare for the fast-paced critical building of the braise.

    In the dutch oven is now the beginning of the braise’s foundation—what the French fondly refer to as fond.  These browned bits of meat—some stuck to the bottom, others suspended in fat—will contribute concentrated flavor once they have dissolved into the cooking liquid.  But before liquid, crucially, comes aromatics and thickeners.  Begin with the former—several cups of medium sized mirepoix, a few sprigs of thyme and salt and pepper.  Add it all directly to the fond, scraping and and loosening any stuck pieces.  As the mirepoix cooks, it will begin releasing moisture, which, in turn, will aid in dissolving the fond.  Next up is a thickener in the form of concentrated tomato paste; add three or four tablespoons directly to the mirepoix, stirring until evenly distributed.  Tomato paste is high in sugar, and a minute or so after being added those sugars will begin to caramelize.  This is ideal; the paste will go from red to rusty orange, then brown, and eventually deep mahogany.  Do be careful not to burn it though.  Finally, liquid.  Red wine is all but mandatory—a bottle of Beaujolais is ideal.  Stir for a minute or so until all the tomato paste and fond has dissolved in the wine.  Stock isn’t mandatory, but welcome.  Either way, one or two additional cups of liquid might be necessary, and stock, more wine or water will do.   The final step is to return the pork shoulder and the collected juices that have leached from the joint while it rested.  If the braising liquid in the dutch oven comes about halfway up the side of the shoulder, bravo.  Cover and put in an oven not hotter than two hundred and fifty degrees.  

A shoulder browning in a dutch oven.

    There is an arc to braising that begins with a docile slab of pork on the counter and ends with a quietly aromatic pot in the oven.  The half hour in-between can be frenetic—something best countered by being organized.  I line all the ingredients up in order of use: pork, mirepoix (and other seasonings), tomato paste, wine.  Concentrate on each step, and the pot will be in the oven making the neighbors jealous in no time at all.  Three hours later, and a pork shoulder has been braised.  

    Once braised, there is one last decision to be made, however.  French or Italian?  Most likely, the French would carefully remove the braised shoulder to a sheet pan or oven-safe platter to be roasted at a higher heat.  In the interim, the sauce would be degreased, reduced further, strained and possibly butter-enriched.  Once crisp, the braised shoulder would be sliced and served anointed with the sauce alongside some perfectly boiled potatoes.  The Italians, who I find more sensible in these matters, would remove the shoulder to a platter, and add a kilo of freshly boiled pasta to the braising liquid, instantly creating two courses: primi (the pasta) and secondi (the pork).  There are no wrong decisions though; done properly, a pork shoulder is failsafe.  Just no appliances, please.

A Slow-Simmering Mystery

Part one of two:

A braise might be a slow cooking method, but it pays to be organized at the outset.  

    Many years ago when I was still catering private events, I was asked to do a cooking demonstration as part of the weeklong promotion surrounding the redesign of the food hall of Chicago’s storied Marshall Field and Company (now, sadly, Macy’s).  I was flattered, and sent an outline to the public relations representative illustrating the finer points of braising a pork shoulder, all crammed into the twenty allotted minutes.  For one reason or another, though, the event was shunted, rescheduled, and, as these promotional things often are, eventually cancelled.  Or so I thought.  Some year or two later, a friend showed me a remarkable artifact; in amongst his wife’s recipes was a program schedule in Marshall Fields green, scrawled with her notes on cooking times and seasonings.  At precisely 2:15pm, she witnessed someone giving what I hope was a good demonstration on the braising of pork shoulder.  This mystery brasier had not only used my recipe; the villain had stolen my name.  

    As identity theft goes, I am perhaps fortunate that mine was swiped in so victimless a way.  I’m not excusing the bumbling ways of the public relations person, nor the scoundrel who no doubt lacked the charisma required for dissecting the noble act of braising.  I just believe in the mollifying effect a pork shoulder has on general injustice.  Even if done with mediocre ingredients and little care, it can be good.   Done well, though, braised pork shoulder is sublime.  

    In one of the more confusing aspects of butchery, shoulders are referred to as butts.  To muddy things up further, the whole shoulder complex of a pig is almost always sold in two pieces, each with its own cute nickname: Boston butt and picnic shoulder.  The former contains the shoulder blade ensconced in thick muscles and ribbons of fat, the latter, the joint where the foreleg meets the shoulder and typically quite a bit of skin.  Boston butt has two distinct advantages for braising.  Firstly, the meat-to-bone-to-fat ratio is perfect.  It’s also a more practical shape, which is to say less leg-like and generally sawed into rectangular blocks.  So: Boston Butt.  Three to four pounds worth should be sufficient.

    Braising, in its simplest sense, could be said to be slowly cooking in a moist environment.  But so unfilled-out a description not only opens the door to all sorts of variance, it robs some of this method’s famous richness.  I prefer to revel in the details, something that begins with a surface understanding of muscles.  Those that work harder than others are necessarily more developed and, subsequent to being butchered, tougher.  A mature pig’s shoulder is, therefore, a large, tough and fibrous thing full of sinew and intra-muscle fat.  It would be inedible if merely cooked through, but if cooked for a long period of time in a low heat and moist environment, the sinew melts away, the fat renders and bastes, and the once fibrous meat becomes a series of tender nuggets and shards.  One might boil the shoulder whole, which might render it tender, if somewhat flavorless, or slowly roast it, which would create flavor but at the risk of dry meat.  Braising effectively bridges the gap between the two.

    The most desirable aspect of a quality braise, though, is consistency.  Where the success of deep-frying depends upon timing, or the bracing simplicity of preparing raw fish is subject entirely to the quality of the ingredients, braising is far more forgiving.  This is perhaps why that impostor at Marshall Fields got away with his scheme—a braised pork shoulder is always good.  But that’s not to discount proper technique.  Part two will explicate what, when and how to braise correctly.

Raw Deal

    I’m often accused of being too idealistic, especially as concerns vegetables.  When asked by an acquaintance what should be done with some fresh produce, my answer is likely to be “eat it.”  Few like this answer.  What people want is involved discussions of methods and cooking times, seasonings and gimmicky preparations.  I’m tired of arguing; if eating pristine vegetables raw is a philosophy, then so be it.  But neither do I have an agenda; I’m just convinced that it is often misguided to try and improve upon what a good farmer can coax from the soil.  

    Sadly, the instant vegetables are discussed the emphasis predictably shifts to health.  My understanding is that some raw vegetables retain higher levels of nutrients than their cooked counterparts while others, most notably, capsicum, achieve higher levels following a shake in the pan.  The problem is the vegetable enthusiast, a type of extremist foodie who wishes nothing more than to radicalize the moderate vegetable eater to their cause—whether that cause be bales of raw kale or buckets of lycopene-rich stewed peepers.  I refuse to choose; I enjoy vegetables too much to be governed by so narrow a (vegetable) world view.  I boil, braise, sauté and eat raw in equal measure.  My guiding principle is no more idealistic than good taste.  

    That said, the raw vegetable does deserve a closer look.   A good start to a meal is refreshing, balanced, texturally interesting but not too strongly flavored.  For these reasons raw vegetables are difficult to beat.  Baby carrots trimmed of their tops and scrubbed are ideal for dipping in premium olive oil and sea salt.  Radishes anointed with salted, cultured butter are excellent too.  Cauliflower has terrific texture—a toothsome, crumbling resistance rather than the crisp snap common of most vegetables—but the standard white variety has always seemed rather uninspiring.  These days baby cauliflower seem to show up in farmer’s markets in an array of colors, from deep wine to palest green.  Sliced thinly, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, guests will be as dazzled by the presentation as they will be puzzled at how delicious so few ingredients can be.  

Cauliflower, olive oil, salt, pepper.  

    Speaking of slicing thinly, raw vegetables require either developed knife skills (and a sharp blade) or a mandolin slicer.  I dislike job-specific gadgets, but must make an exception for the latter, which is a simple board with a fixed, graduated blade.  There are expensive food-service versions with precision-mounted adjustable blades and stands, but cheap, handheld Japanese models work just as well (and somewhat assuage the guilt felt over acquiring a kitchen gadget).  And as it happens, autumn is the ideal time of year for thinly sliced vegetables, as heartier roots, bulbs and stalks stand up well to the rigor of the preparation.  A good mandolin will make fast work of anything from dense beets to fibrous broccoli stalks.  The resulting mound will be crisp and pleasantly colorful, virtually crying out to be made into a first course for a cool weather meal.  If there are any raw-vegetable skeptics left, the following salad should bring them round.

Shaved Raw Winter Vegetable Salad

Using a mandolin, thinly shave rounds of carrot, beet, celery, fennel, peeled broccoli stem and apple.  Dress lightly with a good vinaigrette.  Mound in the center of individual plates or large service platter.  Sprinkle with chopped parsley and black pepper.  Using a vegetable peeler, shave slivers of aged Manchego cheese over the salad and serve.

Using the Gourd

A gathering of winter squash.  Clockwise from lower left: Acorn, Delicata, Turban, Kuri, Butternut.  

    Squash soup has a short window.  Strange, really, as winter squashes are available as early as September, and, if stored correctly, would last right through to spring.  But a piping bowl of golden soup seems irrelevant outside of, say, a six week period between October and November.  In the pro column: a short life span justifies overindulgence.  

    Choosing the correct squash for soup is critical.  I prefer squash from the cucurbita moschata genus, the hard and smooth skinned squash that include cheese pumpkins and butternuts.  These have sweet, dense flesh with little fiber or graining, few seeds and very good flavor.  Acorn squash (cucurbita pepo) is another good candidate, but others from that family are less desirable for soup: spaghetti gets is name from the stringy composition of its flesh; delicata, as its name suggests, is mild.  A good soup is both smooth and rich.

    Don’t trust those recipes that begin with chopping winter squashes.  Breaking a squash down into chunks is not just unnecessary; it’s downright dangerous.  A butternut squash is an awkwardly shaped, wobbly and heavy thing on which to be practicing knife skills.  Instead, just split it lengthwise.  This is done most effectively with the heaviest knife in the drawer and controlled thumps with the heel of the non-dominant hand.  Once split, scoop the seeds and strings, if any.  Slather on a stick or two of softened butter, wrap cut-side up in foil and roast.  Two hours in a three hundred degree oven should do it.  

    As much as I care for the safety of fingers, there is another reason I urge minimal processing of the squash.  The raw flesh itself is dense and unpalatable.  To coax from it deep, sweet and nutty flavors, the water content must slowly evaporate, leaving behind cooked sugar and starch.  A whole or split squash not only requires a long cooking time at a low temperature, it encourages greater concentration as less exposed surface area is available to immediate evaporation, and subsequent browning and, inevitably, drying.  I’m not interested in browned or caramelized squash; I want evenly cooked, concentrated and golden flesh. 

    Once cooked, the flesh should be scraped from its shell into a sieve and pushed through to remove any stringy fiber.  The result should be thick, evenly colored and fragrant.  This is a squash base, unseasoned, unadulterated and ready for any number of applications.  I must pause here to address this moment—one where squash preparations often go pear-shaped.  Perhaps because of the romantic, autumnal connotations, perhaps because of the flowing Gewürztraminer, perhaps, even, because of the exotic and voluptuous shapes—whatever the reason, the urge might strike to add a host of ingredients, from molasses to cinnamon.  I will counter with this more humble suggestion: try the cooked squash.  Determine the sweetness; look for the muted, savory vegetable character.  If, after a minute’s full consideration, the urge to unleash the full force of the spice rack is overwhelming, have at it.  I can only speak from experience; I want my squash soup to taste of squash.

Melt half a stick of unsalted butter in the bottom of a heavy stock pot.  Sprinkle in two tablespoons of flour, stirring until smooth.  Add more butter if the roux looks dry; it should flow.  Cook the roux, stirring continuously, for four minutes over medium heat, or until it just starts to brown and become fragrant.  Add two cups of finely cut mirepoix, a sprig of thyme and desired seasonings to the roux, cooking until softened.  Add the squash base, stirring until incorporated.  Continue cooking over medium heat for an additional five minutes, taking care not to burn the squash.  Add a half cup of dry white wine, stirring to incorporate.  Once evaporated, slowly add six cups of room temperature water or light, clear chicken stock, stirring continuously.  Bring up to boil, reduce to a simmer.  Simmer for an hour before blending—either in a blender or with an immersion blender.  Stir in a cup of lukewarm heavy cream.  Adjust seasoning.  Gently simmer for an additional five minutes.  Serve using garnishes judiciously (i.e., rendered bacon, soured cream, buttered croutons, toasted squash seeds, toasted pine nuts, chopped fresh herbs, etc).

Incorruptible

    Arguments against innovation always lose.  One might, if a good orator, make a case for romance, but challenging expediency or questioning the value of change—these points are futile.  No one likes a cornered luddite, anyway.  There is, however, a single exception: two parts onion, one part carrot, one part celery.  This is the noble ratio of mirepoix, and it shoos away trifling attempts to innovate like fruit flies drunk on house wine.  

    The ratio, 2:1:1, is crucial to maintaining balance.  Each component contributes something specific: onions, the familiar and rounded savory character; carrots, sweetness and body; celery, a dry vegetal note.  But the ratio alone won't guard against imbalance; one must also choose wisely within each component.  The onions should be medium white ones.  Yellow onions are too sweet, purple ones turn things pink.  The carrots should be mature; baby carrots are best appreciated raw.  The celery should be mature as well, but the outermost stalks must be peeled of strings.  Strict? Yes.  But that’s how it goes when in pursuit of consistent harmony.

    Size must be carefully controlled.  Intended cooking time determines how large or small the mirepoix should be chopped.  Quick broths, for poaching, say, a few pieces of salmon, need as fine a dice as possible so as to maximize extraction.  Sauces, if they are to cook for more than forty minutes, need a medium dice.  Soups and braises require a dice large enough to resist disintegration during the long stretches of simmering.  Stocks, which can cook for several hours, call for no more preparation than splitting the onions, carrots and celery stalks lengthwise.  Those large pieces, by the way, are the prize for the cook who has spent all day making stock; eaten with rock salt and butter, they are delicious.  

    Making mirepoix (and peeling potatoes) is how the youngest apprentices earn their daily meals in the traditional French brigade system.  It's not a task soon forgotten.  In part, this is because making mounds of mirepoix is labor intensive.  To the kitchen hand, it is an involved, back breaking, finger-nicking method for creating flavor.  By the time those novices begin using the fruits of their labor, a reverential respect has grown.  The home cook might not have this advantage, so it is understandable that mirepoix might be viewed with skepticism.  This is perhaps where innovation creeps in: why chop all those boring vegetables when this sexy new seasoning exists?   The answer, of course, is because mirepoix is the very matter on which most of western cookery is based.  It is the universal taste of savory.  It is the incorruptible holder of all culinary debt.

A bowl of medium-dice mirepoix, ready for anything.

Using the Noodle: Part Two

Onion and radicchio frying in pork fat rendered from mortadella.  The mortadella gets added at the end to preserve its crispness.

    My preferred brand of pasta has the following note on the package: “It as difficult to extimate an exacte cooking time for the artigianal pasta. We suggests that you cook until al dente—7-10 minuti.”   What does it say about correctly cooking pasta when its manufacturer won’t commit to anything more concrete than a figurative expression and a thirty percent margin for error?  As far as I am aware, there is no standardized scale for toothsomeness; besides, I have never met two cooks who can agree on what constitutes al dente.  However, pasta must retain some of the body that has been hard-won in Gragnano.  It shouldn’t be crisp, but it should provide resistance enough to require real chewing.  This is because dry pasta is a meagre product of a historically hard-scrabble region; that eating it should mimic some of the pleasant resistance one would encounter from something substantive and expensive, like a piece of meat, makes sense.  Properly cooked pasta should slow the eater down, forcing both consideration of the flavor and the satisfaction that comes with purposeful eating.  

    So these mystical few lines are at the heart of pasta cookery.  But that’s not to say there aren’t preferences.  My suggestion is to cook enough pasta until you have developed one, and then learn to consistently arrive at it.  This is best achieved by treating dry pasta as you would a visiting royal;  water, sauces, additional dressings, utensils, table settings, wine and guests must all be ready and waiting.  Once the pasta arrives, all must fall into strict attendance to its tight schedule.

Liquid gold.  Starchy water should be added to almost every type of sauce or dressing for pasta.  It is the glue that holds all the magic together.

    When all is ready, it is time to “drop the pasta.”  Except don’t drop it; ease it in.  The next few moments are critical.  First, season the water with quite a bit of salt—say two tablespoons for a pound of pasta.  This will have the dramatic effect of bringing the water, temporarily brought off the boil by the introduction of cool pasta, back to a rolling and fizzing boil.  The initial starchy coating will begin to dissolve; this is a good sign, but also fraught with hazard.  Starch acts like glue, and in the first three minutes of boiling, will encourage your pasta to stick to the pot.  You must stir, easing any adhered pieces from the bottom, but with a gentle hand so as not to break the still-brittle pasta.  Once the water is opaque, most of the immediately  available starch has dissolved, and there opens a small window to further attend to the other components.  Do not stray far though; a watched pot may seem not to cook, but a neglected one will turn out inedible mush in no time at all.  Out of respect, I usually just silently observe.

    Once the pasta has reached a level of doneness slightly less than your pre-determined ideal, you must burst into action.  Begin by reserving two cups of starchy water.  Next, drain the pot slowly over a colander securely placed within a clean sink.  I will pause here to address the matters of rinsing, and by extension, starch.  Some people are under the false impression that  running cold water over the hot pasta will lock in the correct level of doneness.  This is catastrophic for two reasons.  Firstly, whatever carefully attained level of doneness you have achieved will be ruined when trying to reheat the now chilled pasta in your sauce.  Secondly, the running water will rinse away crucial surface starch—the adherent that encourages the magical binding of dressing and pasta.

Spaghetti with shredded mortadella, onion and radicchio.  A very good way to make room in the icebox.

    The assembly of pasta and dressing will require the marshaling of all your culinary abilities.  Here is how I do it.  Once the pasta is safely transferred to the colander, immediately pour it into the vessel in which the sauce or dressing has cooked.  Begin mixing with tongs.  If the result seems dry, loosen with the reserved, starchy cooking water.  This is also the point at which other components, like cheese, parsley, olive oil or butter should be added.  Adjust seasoning if necessary, and serve.  All of the above, however, must be executed in under a minute.  If done correctly, the pasta will have reached its toothsome ideal just as the sauce and other components have correctly adhered, evenly coating, but not overwhelming, each strand.  The other sign that things have gone well is ten minutes of silent eating.

Using the Noodle: Part One

A kilo of the good stuff.

   Poor pasta.  It suffers gravely in the hands of home cooks.  It is simmered in tepid water until mush.  It is rinsed.  It is drowned in sweet sauces and buried in pre-ground cheese.  The result is ignominious fodder, no more important to a buffet than the iceberg lettuce used to feebly decorate the borders.  It is a sad fate considering a spaghetto's potential.  In that single, brittle strand are only two ingredients—water and wheat—but vast application.  Let’s disembarrass ourselves of poor technique, and get at it.  

    In theory, quality dry pasta can come from anywhere.  In reality, the best comes from Gragnano in Campania, Italy.  This is my least favorite aspect of pasta; I prefer the accessible and familiar to the rare and mythical.  But I won’t begrudge those artisanal pastificios their monopoly; they just make better dry pasta than anyone else, anywhere.  They do so with durum wheat, a high-protein cultivar, and low-calcium mountain spring water.  The dough is slowly extruded through bronze dies, which roughens the surface of the shapes, and then dried at low temperatures.  The results are as yellow as country butter but with a powdery, textured appearance that transforms a pot of boiling water into the crucial, starchy nectar required for later assembly.

Three ingredients.  

    If an average home cook is under the impression boiling pasta is easy, then something, or more likely, several things are wrong.  The most difficult aspect of making a pasta meal well is the boiling.  I begin by determining dinner time.  An hour or more before the appointed time I fill my largest stock pot, an unwieldy and battered thing that holds eighteen quarts, with about ten or twelve quarts of water drawn from a tap that has been permitted to first run for at least a minute.  I wrestle the pot to my most dependable hob, put a lid on it, and blast it with the highest heat my stove can manage.  This is a good time to get cleaned up and changed for dinner.  When the water is rapidly boiling… give some thought to what you’d like to dress the pasta with.

    I have made or had made for me enough plates of pasta to feel comfortable in saying the most successful combinations feature no more than three or possibly four ingredients.  For example: chili flakes, garlic and cherry tomatoes.  Or: pecorino, black pepper and parsley.  Complex tomato-based sauces that have been cooking for impossibly long periods of time, while rarely offensive, are almost universally muted.  Besides, the best rich and long-cooked pasta sauce is the cooking liquor from a braised piece of meat.  No—in my experience, dry pasta is an exercise in minimalism and economy.  Have some mortadella that needs to be used?  A radichio?  An onion?  Perfect.  Thinly slice all three, and beginning with the meat, fry in olive oil.  Is it a sauce?  No: it is a dressing—an austere enhancement to the magnificence of the pasta.  You wouldn’t try and improve upon the beauty of a Vermeer by submerging it in a gaudy frame, would you?

Part two will deal with boiling, draining, the theory of doneness and the heart-stopping few moments of marrying pasta and dressing.  

What the Fricassee?

Classic chicken fricassee made with all white meat.  The flavor will be deeper and richer if made with whole chicken parts, but the boneless skinless version is not without charm.  

    Everyone knows what a fricassee is; most just don’t realize it.  Ready?  The chicken filling in pot pie is a fricassee.  A white stew—nice in pastry, but just as good without.  Funnily, even the strictest version of the technique can be understood in three steps—sauté, deglaze, simmer—and yet the French name and confounding array of descriptions for what the procedure entails is, if not an immediate turn off, an eventual deterrent.  Why frica—whatever, when we can make a casserole?  Why indeed!  Because the fricassee is a noble preparation found in fourteenth century recorded cooking guides, and, it should not be overlooked, an easy way to elevate a busy weeknight.  Casseroles are neither.

    I usually like to singe away the colorful comparisons and romantic allusions that grow like lichen and describe cooking techniques in clear, declarative statements.  But the fricassee lends itself to a particularly helpful parallel—that of a brief braise.  The steps between techniques are identical:  Sauté meat in fat.  Remove to plate.  Add aromatic vegetables and herbs and sauté until wilting.  Deglaze with wine/water/broth.  Bring up to boil, reduce to simmer.  Return meat and collected juices, cover and simmer.  Those could be instructions for both a fricassee or a braise, the differences being the simmering time—twenty minutes for the former, three hours for the latter—and the amount of color on the meat in the initial step.  These are important differences though; a braise is dark and deeply flavored, a fricassee is both lighter in color and flavor, a dish for intermediary seasons rather than the depths of winter.  And it is the initial choice of meat that dictates the technique.

    Because they are white, quick cooking and mild, chicken and veal are the classic meats for a fricassee, but not all are ideal.  Save the older stewing birds for a dark braise; instead have a small fryer cut into eight pieces by the butcher.  I don’t ordinarily suggest boneless, skinless chicken breast, but alongside the paillard, fricassee makes another good use of an otherwise unexciting cut.  Veal is slightly more complicated.  Traditionalists might disagree with me here, but a fricassee is a quick cooking dish, so tender, quick-cooking pieces of veal, like cutlets, filets and loin are the only real candidates.  If you must use tougher pieces of stew meat they should be first simmered for an hour in seasoned water.  Actually this isn’t such an imposition; the resulting veal broth is perfect for the fricassee.

    Finally, a fricassee is significantly thickened—the aspect of the dish that seems to stumble most home cooks.  I have seen recipes calling for egg and cream liaisons where yolks are first tempered and then carefully incorporated into the final stew, but the results I achieve with flour are satisfying.  I begin by dusting the raw chicken, raw veal or simmered veal pieces in flour and sautéing in butter, careful not to brown.  Some of the flour will come off in the hot fat, making the beginning of that most dependable thickening agent—a roux.  Once the meat is removed, and if necessary (it usually is) I add more flour and butter, taking a minute or two to make a smooth paste.  Then proceed as above: aromatics, liquid, return meat and simmer.  This two-stage method all but guarantees a correctly thickened result.  Serve over noodles, potatoes or in the cooking pan alongside crusty bread.

    I took a swipe at casseroles earlier and I meant it.  The problem isn’t the technique; casseroling is really just baking pre-prepared components in a serving vessel.  Shepard’s pie is a casserole, and I would never put that classic down.  The problem is with the genre, which values assembly over technique and cleverness of theme over good taste.  While fricassees and casseroles don’t really share DNA, they seem to occupy the same compartment of the home cook’s brain, namely, an easy and comforting solution for  a hurried weeknight meal.  The difference is a fricassee doesn’t rely upon a layer of molten cheese and a snappy name; its good taste is derived from seven centuries of satisfied diners.

Bringing Out The House

    It was Anthony Bourdain who first exposed the handful of questionable and off-putting practices of the modern restaurant that had diners, critics and restauranteurs worked into a lather sometime in the early 2000s.   While in university I worked at a few less-than-magnificent restaurants myself, and while I don’t have the shocking tales of kitchen underhandedness (nor the acerbic delivery) Bourdain does, there was one dishonorable practice that I won’t soon forget.  The “house wine” at one vaguely Italian place was really just the combined by-the-glass wines that were in danger of going off.  The funny thing is, people ordered it all the time.  Maybe they appreciated the randomness of my boss’ meritages, or the four dollar price tag.  But I’ve always suspected some of its popularity was due to the designation; something house always appeals.  

    The term has fallen from favor lately, perhaps because of the abuses outlined above, but outside of the restaurant the concept of house comestibles is charming.  This is especially true when applied to something edible.  Guests to my home have learned to expect two ramekins, one filled with brined Picholine olives, the other with Marcona almonds.  I realize olives and nuts served with drinks or as a buffer between a lagging roast and a hungry room of dinner guests is hardly revolutionary.  But the success is in the specifics.  The unpitted Picholines I serve are perfectly balanced—no small feat considering most are bitter or sour salt bombs.  The Marconas I prefer are unblanched, and their papery brown skin adds a noticeable tannic note that offsets the richness ideally.  

    I love a good cheese course, either served the British way following dessert or in the continental fashion before dessert.  Several cheeses have become favorites—Manchego, Robbiola, Lincolnshire Poacher—but one cheese in particular makes a frequent appearance: SarVeccio from Antigo, Wisconsin.  This is a hard, dry parmesan-style cheese (not to be confused with Pamigiano Reggiano, which is inimitable).  It has a latent sweetness and a softly granular texture that is ideal for hovering around dessert.  I admit, though, at least part of the reason this has become a house favorite is the shock most guests register when discovering it is from Wisconsin—home of countless anonymous and largely uninspired cheeses.  

    My house drink is not a specialty cocktail (which is far too fussy a signature to be fiddling with as guests arrive) but a potent spirit for after dinner—namely, Armagnac.  Again, the charm is in the specific.  Several years ago I was introduced to the Bas-Armagnac house of Delord.  Their offerings range from young VS Armagnacs to highly collectible vintages (1946, I’m told, is in demand).  But it is Delord’s more humble Napoleon, a blended spirit aged a scant 10 years, that quickly became a familiar site after meals.  It is rich and raisiny but somehow still fresh—a combination that satisfies both habitual brandy drinkers and novices.  

    Accessibility is really the point of a house comestible.  I appreciate rare and sharply flavored foods and drinks, but there seems little purpose in forcing challenging things on an unwilling audience.  In a dining landscape where innovation and exoticism have become the rule, I am far more satisfied when a guest reveals they know exactly what to expect when they sit at my table.  Familiarity can be its own sort of luxury.  

Continental Drift

The crescent shaped savior of many a hungry traveler.

    To appreciate the continental breakfast is to first understand its opposite—The Full English, a hearty plate of eggs, back bacon, blood sausage, beans, mushrooms, broiled tomatoes, and, as my mother likes to put it, lashings of toast.  Given the unhappy choice, it would probably be my last meal.  In fact, it is so lavish a spread, I imagine the Full English has inadvertently been a last meal.  And that’s really the problem; we no longer need a belly bursting with the rich fruits of the homeland to go forth and create empire.  A roll, a small pot of yoghurt and some fruit, it turns out, is a very civilized way to start the day too.  

    The name itself is the essence of mild English derision.  Was the Englishman abroad too preoccupied with his missing breakfast to bother using the formal names of the countries he visited? Or did The Continent just have a sort of carefree mystique, similarly attained by the term out west when used by Americans headed to California?  Maybe both, perhaps neither;  importantly, continental came to be mean anything in distinction to that which is British.  Applied to something as sacred as breakfast, one can practically hear the raised eyebrow.  

    I think an anecdote at this junction would best color the surprisingly dramatic effect the appearance of a Continental Breakfast can have.  I was a boy of, say, fifteen, traveling with my parents, first from relatives in Wales, then on to London, and then (here it comes) to The Continent.  My father’s side of the family is spread out over Germany, France and Switzerland, and we struck upon the idea that it would be fun to rent a car and do a sort of miniature grand tour through these and other places—the Italian Alps, Austria, Liechtenstein.  The British leg of the trip went well, filled with long walks in an old forest, castles, and, even once removed from the rolling countryside and in London, several mornings that began with the sort of earnest, multi-component meals as described above.  And then, rather suddenly, we were in Switzerland.  I should have anticipated the change in morning menu—it wasn’t my first time on The Continent, but somehow that initial meal of bread, jam, a few slivers of gruyere and muesli almost knocked me off my stool.  Part of me felt cheated; the rest, light and satisfied.  Whatever eyebrow arching had taken place that first Alpine morning quickly transformed into a wrinkled and upturned nose at the thought of anything more substantial before the PM hours.  By the end of the tour, I could hardly fathom the Full English.

In theory, penance for pastries.  In practice, rich, tangy, full-fat yoghurt with fresh berries and tasted oats.  

    Of course, to the inhabitants of the places we visited, I was just experiencing breakfast, or, it should be said, a sort of romanticized version available at small hotels and cafes when moving through much of Europe.  (The sad reality is that from Mitteleuropa to the American Midwest, food is often packaged and canned and generally abysmal outside of places that preserve tradition for the sake of commerce).  But there is unity in the principle behind the continental breakfast, namely, a desire to begin the day with the appearance of austerity.  At the heart of the meal is the promise of some small pastry anointed with impossibly delicious jam alongside a milk-enriched cup of coffee.  One is almost unthinkable without the other, but even together, something else is needed.  The ideal foil has at least the veneer of health: yoghurt with granola, muesli, bran flakes or fruit.  A few shavings of ham or semi-hard cheese are quaint additions, hinting to the groggy tourist of the pleasures available at lunch.  Juice is also part of the deal; it should be served in something only slightly larger than a jigger so as to give the impression of being a health tonic.  A second cup of coffee, preferably this time black, is the final stroke and brings the diner to modesty’s precipice before shunting him out the door to see the ruins or the masterpieces or whatever.

    Happily, this civilized start to the day can be recreated anywhere, and several times each week I start the day with some combination of baked good, yoghurt, fruit, grain, coffee and juice.  A mix-and-match matrix featuring several columns of possible components was a tempting, if pithy way in which to end, but I came down on the side of that other European quality: the appearance of modesty.

The Multiples Advantage

    In addition to a general aversion to kitchen gadgetry, I despise sets of things.  Why would I ever need a very small, a medium and a gigantic frying pan?  My advice to those who need to fill a new kitchen with pans is to buy multiples of the medium size—the standard twelve inch pan.  Like a line cook at a busy restaurant, I have a stack of these loyally waiting just next to the range.  This is a basic efficiency; there is no application for a miniature frying pan that the standard one can’t accomplish, and if cooking in volume is really necessary, I switch to a large brazier.  In other words, small and large frying pans are irrelevant, but a medium one is just right.  Is this really so exotic a concept?  For professionals, not, but the humble home cook usually finds the idea (or me) peculiar.

    And yet I have never been in an amateur kitchen that doesn’t possess some favorite pan, or knife, or spoon, or apron…  I had a friend who made a good soufflé, but he could only do it using his favorite soufflé ramekin.  It shattered one day, and he quit soufflés for good.  Despite a number of others, my mother uses an old sauce whisk that has long lost its handle.  She grips at the little metal stub feverishly each evening so as not to lose it in the dressing.  This is insane!  I don’t begrudge the desire for the consistent performance of a favorite; I just don’t understand why dinner must screech to a halt if some piece of equipment is in the wash.  Instead I’m preaching perpetually available consistency.  

    To return for a moment to size: it is not universally ill-advised that it should vary.  Stainless steel bowls are the unsung heroes of the efficient kitchen, marinating meats, storing leftovers, serving as impromptu Champagne buckets.  But six bottles of bubbly and a ten pound bag of ice won’t fit in a two quart bowl, and a sixteen quart one is far too large for storing a few cups of concasse.  So one resorts to sizes in, say, four quart increments from two to sixteen.  This works well, but, once again, only if there are multiples in each size.  If one very large bowl is needed, the chances are good that another will for the same meal.  Incidentally, the twelve quart stainless bowl is the most useful—I have at least four of them in constant rotation.

    A confounding and mercurial force is at work preventing all of this kitchen prudence: the packaged deal and its silver-tongued appearance of value.  When my wife and I registered for our wedding, a very slippery salesperson escorted us about the kitchen department recommending sets of all the, as she put it, essssentials.  When challenged on what was so essential about a three inch braising pot, her response was the full pitch: you never know…and the set is such good value.  I do know, and no it isn’t.  Packaging things is always a tactic to get the consumer to spend more, not less.  And throwing in a few specialty pots for which there is little need is an inexpensive way to create an impression of value.   She was not amused when I confiscated the little gun from her and zapped three identical pans.

The Common Bird

    In Melanie Dunea’s efficient, if morbid, My Last Supper, 50 of the world’s more accomplished chefs reveal what they would choose to eat during their last, earthly meal.  Some of the responses are appropriately extravagant—grand menus of luxury ingredients and rare vintages.  Others are self-consciously restrained, although, as Eric Ripert demonstrates, not necessarily humble: “It would be a simple dish, a slice of toasted country bread, some olive oil, shaved black truffle, rock salt, and black pepper.”  The common theme found in the bulk of fictitious last meals, though, is hit upon in the forward, written by author and food personality Anthony Bourdain: if cooking is a demonstration of control, eating requires submission.  I think Bourdain is on to something; my last meal would be a roasted chicken, a dish that begins with control but, somewhere near the halfway point, resolves to submission.  

    The temptation is to write romantically about the experience that comes with roasting hundreds of chickens—the way the thighs plump and the skin tightens, the correct hue of running juices, the telltale smell, even the slight alteration in sound that signals a chicken is approaching doneness.  But the novice wants temperatures and times, and many modern ovens are digitalized to the point of requiring, at the very least, an estimate of either before they will operate.  I will say this: Chickens tolerate high heat but universally begin drying out with cooking times in excess of 90 minutes.  My ideal scenario is a chicken that has been in the oven for one hour at around 465 degrees.  Of course that means almost nothing considering oven performance varies as much as that other shifting variable: chicken weight.  

    Chickens are categorized by their fate: fryers and roasters.  The former refers to retail weights between 2 1/2 pounds and 3 1/2 pounds, the latter from 3 1/2 pounds to five pounds or so.  There is no discernible difference in flavor, so the choice is one of volume, or, as I’ve discovered, number of a particular part.  I now prefer two small fryers to one large roaster because four legs are better than two.  They also cook more quickly and at slightly higher heat.  Capons (castrated males) and roosters (mature birds that have had their way with countless hens) can also be delicious but require special preparations.  Namely, the fat that renders from a plump capon will need managing during the roast, and roosters are too tough to do anything to but stew.  

    The canard about something mild tasting just like chicken is a sure sign that something is going dramatically wrong with most chickens.  A compound butter is a good corrective.  An average roaster needs a quarter pound of softened butter with a fresh herb mixture of rosemary, thyme, tarragon and parsley.  The idea is to make butter and chicken intimate: inside, outside, under skin, beneath wings and between thigh and breast—spare no crevice.  As for elaborate trussing, I find tucking the wingtips and a simple square knot around the legs is sufficient.  Season with salt and pepper and let sit at room temperature for half an hour.  Roast.

   But don't just roast.  Roast!  Timid hovering will make for an uncertain chicken.  Peering through the oven window will lead to opening the door, which in turn will encourage the use of a thermometer, a device that takes just long enough for the roast to lose its momentum, all but guaranteeing pallid skin and less succulent flesh.  Whatever control exists at the outset—variables of weight, seasoning and temperature—must be traded for submission to the fact of a chicken in a hot oven once the door is shut.  Do this enough and any fear of under or overcooking will dissipate.  As for fear of last meals?  A good chicken might just cure that, too.

The Case for Concassé

Concassé in the flesh.  Actually Concassé is the flesh.  

    Demi-glace and roux get all the attention.  Unfair, really, as today fewer dishes call for a rich base.  Far more likely are meals with raw components and uncooked sauces, or, my favorite, a well-roasted piece of meat anointed with its own cooking liquid alongside some gently treated vegetable.  And yet a classic and fundamental method trundles along, loyally serving with barely an honorable mention.  Pity: tomato concassé is easy, delicious and versatile.  

    Perhaps the maltreatment begins with the name, derived from the French verb concasser—to crush or grind.  One could be forgiven for confusing the finished product for irregular pulp, but like most culinary fundamentals, tomato concassé is far more prescribed:  Clean, remove the stem root and score with an x one pound of ripe tomatoes.  Bring a large pot of water to the boil and prepare a large ice bath.  Boil tomatoes for 30 seconds before immediately plunging into ice bath for another minute.  Remove to a colander.  Peel skin, half widthwise, de-seed, and roughly chop into pieces approximately 3/8ths of an inch square.  This is specific stuff, and plainly free of any grinding or crushing. The novice will immediately discover that concassé's bluster is in the appearance of careful technique; the doing itself is easy.

    Apparent expediencies exist.  Canned tomatoes aren’t bad, but also effectively demonstrate the advantage of small batches of fresh concassé.  The benchmark for canned tomatoes is Italian. San Marzano, a type of plum tomato, has a high flesh-to-skin/seed ratio, the most consistent examples of which come from Apulia and Campania in the south.  I’ve also seen rare cultivars grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius selling for more than a tenner a can.  High or low, canned tomatoes are no more concassé than a bouillon cube is stock.  Canned tomatoes will be skinless, but not seedless. They are mostly cooked through as opposed to blanched.  They are also packed in a puree; the flesh is necessarily waterlogged, which is fine for the long-cooking scenarios of Italian sauces, but unsuitable for quicker application.  Concassé is the opposite in almost every respect: obsessively seedless and skinless, essentially raw, and comparatively drained of liquid—not dry, but concentrated.  The taste is rounder, fruitier and far more vibrant.  

The canned Italian stuff: not bad, just not concassé.

    Concassé is an ingredient rather than a one-dimensional preparation.  Anyone who has spent time perusing Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire will have noticed, often with a frown, that the terse descriptions feature ingredients like “1 deciliter of fish glaze” or “500 grams of forcemeat.”  Of course Escoffier might not have anticipated the amateur referencing his tome.  But the principle of well-understood components serving as ingredients is fundamental to more advanced cookery.  Put another way, if one wishes to improve as home cook, recipes are far less important than technique and ingredients.  Just like roux or a simple pan sauce, tomato concassé is endlessly versatile.  Concassé becomes a familiar and luscious spaghetti sauce when simmered with sautéd mirepoix.  It is essential in rich winter braises of oxtails or short ribs.  Seasoned with salt, concassé is also useful alone: as dollops on a plate of mashed potatoes and roasted chicken, on goat cheese canapés, or as a spread on a sandwich.  

    The lynchpin of all this famous ease, flavor and versatility is the tomato itself.  In case the smarty-pants bit of trivia has been forgotten, tomatoes are fruits.  This is significant; generally speaking, fruits are sweeter and less fibrous than vegetables, but tomatoes also have a pliable vegetable character alongside vibrant acidity.  These characteristics get amplified in concassé and the result is an ingredient that instantly adds desirable complexity to a dish.  Underrated indeed.

The Skinny

Paillards, post grill.  Notice they aren't so thin as to shred.  One quarter to one half inch is best.  

    The worst part of making this dish is having to stand in front of a glass case brimming with well-larded red meat and request, out loud, that most anonymous and constant lobe: boneless, skinless chicken breasts please.  I’m always tempted to substitute adjectives; tasteless and soulless seem more accurate anyway.  I can almost hear the butcher’s inner dialogue as he wonders, once more, why his customers pass on the richest fruits of his labor in favor of the dullest.  Allow me to offer a reprieve to both parties.  Ask instead for several chicken cutlets, pounded to a 1/2 inch thickness and separated by wax paper.  There are enough specifics there to suggest a more interesting preparation than mere health food.  Those morsels are the start of that most ignored classic, chicken paillard.

    I say ignored because, of the dishes that begin with pounding flat a piece of meat, the paillard is usually unfamiliar to guests at my table.  What drove the world’s schnitzels and Milaneses, the saltimboccas and tonkatsus to popularity over the humble paillard is a mystery to me.  I’ve nothing against the breading and subsequent frying that most flattened meat undergoes, although if blindfolded, I wonder how many diners would be able to say which similar cutlet was pork, chicken or veal.  Perhaps that’s why I love paillard; it is singular in resisting the fryer.

    But back to the pounding.  Why lay into a cutlet with a mallet anyway?  Is it the crudest, fastest way of tenderizing less prime cuts?  Is it a way of thinning meat for quick, a la minute cookery?  Can a flattened cutlet be stuffed or rolled around some filling?  Does a flattened piece of meat look bigger and fill a dinner plate?  Yes to all of the above, with the common principle being manipulation.  I could tell half a dozen stories of using frying pans, Champagne bottles, rolling pins and pestles to flatten meat, a few of which ended humorously, but the more interesting anecdote is this: I have it on first-hand authority that butchers are secretly thrilled to flatten whatever you request.  No doubt something to do with getting back to the fundamentals of the profession—or perhaps it’s a release for the accumulated anger behind the popularity of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  In any event—leave the pounding to the professionals.  

Paillards dressed with fried potatoes, arugula and marinated tomatoes.  Chilled Beaujolais, anyone?  

    A considerably gentler touch is required for cooking.  Begin with the marinade.  I find an oily mixture of herbs, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and white wine is the best, as long as at least half of the result is olive oil.  Let the pounded chicken sit refrigerated in this mixture for an hour or so, but bring it back to room temperature before cooking.  Prepare a very hot grill.  Place each paillard at a 45 degree angle.  Close the lid for two minutes.  Rotate each paillard 45 degrees and close the lid for another two minutes.  Flip and close for another two minutes.  There is no need to rotate again; the first side is for presentation.

    Witnessing this dish from start to finish, one might be struck by the brutish, almost unrefined method.  The results are anything but though.  This is elegant, light fare—the sort of thing well-turned-out guests at good hotels order for lunch, or, as it might be put, luncheon.  Oh, and in case your grade school French is rusty: chicken pī-ˈyär.  There's no place for embarrassment at luncheon.

The Full Complement

One or two courses?

    Indecision.  Conspicuousness.  Mediocrity.  Subterfuge.  Disappointment. A classic dish with a resume like this should already have perished alongside the ham in aspics and salmon molds that haunt an American culinary past.  A silly, rhyming name (made much worse by a juvenile contraction) should have been the death blow.  Surf n’ Turf persists, though, a recurring zombie of seaside and landlocked restaurants from sea to shining sea.  Maybe that very appeal of bicoastaliality is the dish’s lifeline; perhaps the symbolism of a plate groaning beneath the fruits of a wholesome land and a fecund sea is just too good to cast aside.  But then why isn’t Surf n’ Turf our national dish?

    The classic preparation is either a demonstration of restraint or an opportunity to check off the list of regrets that opened this short essay.  Ideally the beef is premium, relatively lean and not too large.  A small filet mignon—better, perhaps to call it petite—is the unrivaled correct choice when grilled properly.  Next to that morsel: a modest lobster alive when boiled.  Lemon and parsley are welcome, Béarnaise sauce borderline.  So what’s the problem?  Cost.  Two premium proteins, even if dining at home, is an expensive premise.  Restaurants manage the issue by altering expectations.  A single filet becomes filet tips or shell steak smothered in mushrooms (effectively hiding the diminutive portion), and the lobster loses its claws and body—the tail is “butterflied,” which is menu code for “pushed out of the shell to make it look bigger.”  Everything swims in sauces or hides beneath a shower of parsley.  Lemon wedges fill in any remaining gaps.  Cost is driven down, but the consumer price remains lofty.  

    The other route—one I endorse to an extent—is to alter the theoretical premise of the dish.  Higher concept restaurants have been doing this for years.  I’ve had scallops filled with braised beef cheeks.  I’ve also had bone marrow foam alongside razor clams.  This might sound avant guard, but the idea trickles down the line (and far back, historically).  Bacon-wrapped scallops?  Crab-topped steak?  What about that Victorian classic beef and oyster pie?  Spanish paella?  Food from the Azores seems not even to draw much of a distinction between surf and turf: pork, sausage, mollusks and fish appearing in conjunction is standard.

    I find the best approach is to think in terms of dishes.  One pork dish, and one scallop dish.  One platter of barbecued chicken alongside a poached salmon.  Skirt steaks grilled and served with roasted tomatoes and a dish of rare tuna, sliced over arugula.  When two dishes are made, options multiply.  One or the other can be eaten; one can be eaten, then the other; they can be eaten together.  The user determines the level of harmony, from none, to two proceeding courses, to an experimental pairing of land and sea.  

    Harmony is really the point.  Azoreans know well that pork fat enriches otherwise lean shellfish.  Meaty oysters seem at home with braised beef and bacon has never detracted from a scallop.  These examples rely upon each other, which, sadly, reveals the downfall of classic surf n turf.  Filet with lobster is a pairing based upon pretense—the expectation of luxury—rather than palpable harmony.  Apart they are noble; together they are complementary in name only. 

Pork tenderloin shares a grill with large scallops.  Whether they share a plate is another matter entirely.