Apple

If you really want to replicate the Chef Shack’s most popular fall dish, go organic with the eggs and milk, try to get your hands on some bacon beer brats (they use Fischer Farms), and crisp up the bread in a deep fryer. If that sounds out of reach for you, your favorite pork sausage links will do, and a griddle or frying pan should work almost as well.

Use any tart apple for this sauce. I personally like Braeburns, Mutsus, or Jonagolds. In a pinch, use Granny Smiths. It’s up to you whether to serve this warm or chilled. Excellent with Potato Pancakes (page 213), it is also called for in the Whole Grain Apple Waffle recipe (page 137), among others. This will keep for up to one week in the refrigerator.

This compote has a little kick to it, courtesy of the cayenne pepper. It’s excellent with pancakes, oatmeal, or even as a topping on yogurt, and it can be made up to a week ahead. If storing for later use, cool the compote completely before covering it with a lid or plastic wrap. This will keep in the refrigerator for up to one week. If the compote is cool, reheat it over low heat to serve hot. It can also be served warm.

Apple butter, an intensely fruity and concentrated spread, is perfect with your choice of muffins, scones, and quick breads. Use Mutsu, Jonagold, Braeburn, or any other tart/sweet apple. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to a month or you can freeze it in an airtight container for up to six months.

This is a great fruit dish in the autumn, when the apples and pears are at their peak. Make it a few hours ahead of time, if you like, and leave it at room temperature until ready to serve. You may want to heat it briefly in a 300°F oven before serving. Choose a tart apple, such as Granny Smith, or any good local apple. This could be served as a side dish, as a starter, or even as dessert!

This dish can be served as a sandwich filling or as a stand-alone salad accompanied by favorite lettuces and veggies. We use canned tuna packed in spring water because it’s lighter than tuna packed in oil, and we make sure the apple is tart and crisp. Granny Smith apples are fine, but also Mutsu, Honeycrisp, or any good local crispy, tart apple will do. Add half the dressing at first and see if you need more—it’s up to you how well coated you want the tuna and apples to be.

Tart apple, smoky bacon, and rich Cheddar cheese all come together for a flavorful autumnal treat with this unique sandwich. Certain elements of this sandwich should be thick—the bacon and the bread—and others should be thin—the apple and the Cheddar. Use a crisp, tart apple such as Granny Smith, Mutsu, or Honeycrisp. Use the best bacon you can find as well. I like to make this sandwich in a cast-iron skillet because it makes for a uniformly deep golden crust, which I cherish above all else in a grilled sandwich.

Cheddar and apples are great together, and the combination gets even better when you add some superior-tasting slab bacon. Any sweet-tart apple—Macoun, Mutsu, Greening, Winesap—works well here.

My family goes crazy for this coffee cake, one of the most requested items in my recipe box. This moist, tender cake is delicious cut into squares and served either warm or at room temperature, perhaps in a basket alongside muffins and slices of quick bread. It works especially well with a tart apple such as Granny Smith, though at apple picking time, it is a joy to go to the market to find the tartest, crispiest apple you can. Mutsu, Jonagold, Honeycrisps, and Winesaps are just a few examples. Well wrapped, this cake can be frozen for up to three months. Thaw it overnight at room temperature before serving, and store it, covered, at room temperature.

The fry-up has always appealed to me, in particular the bits that stay put at the bottom of the pan, the crusty scrapings that brown rather too much. I call them “the pan-stickings.” One of potato and duck fat is a deep-winter supper of immense pleasure; another of herb-speckled sausage meat and zucchini. This is robust cooking, crisp edged and flecked black and gold. It is not for those days when you want something genteel or elegant. This is the sort of supper to pile on a plate and eat with a cold beer. The latest of my fry-ups is extraordinary in that two generally sweet ingredients come together to produce a deeply savory result. The key here is not to move the ingredients around the pan too much, letting them take on a sticky crust while allowing them to soften to a point where you can squash them with little or no pressure. The caraway seeds, which people tend to either love or hate, are entirely optional.

This extraordinarily deep-flavored stew is one for a day when there is frost on the ground. The inclusion of applesauce isn’t quite as daft as it sounds, and there is much magic to be found at the point where the sharp applesauce oozes into the onion gravy. Boiled potatoes as big as your fist, their edges bruised and floury, are the ideal accompaniment.