Leafy Greens

I’m not a cooked spinach fan, but I do like spinach served fresh in a salad. (And I love any salad that has bacon as an ingredient!) I’m also not a mushroom gal, so I leave these out when I make it, but it’s good either way.

I’m the hick who always asks the uptown restaurant waiter if they have Thousand Island dressing. They usually give me that look (you know the one), then politely inform me it is not on the menu. I know there are lots of wonderful dressings out there, and I’ve sampled most of them, but I always come back to this one. I usually whip it up and pour it over a big iceberg lettuce wedge.

There are as many varieties of coleslaw as there are shades of pink, especially in the South! A lot of coleslaw recipes have sugar as an ingredient, but this one gets that bit of sweetness from sweet salad pickles, which don’t mask the fresh flavors of the cabbage and carrots. We serve this every Fourth of July with Barbecued Pork Ribs (page 84) and Easy Baked Beans (page 133).

Used correctly, wines should intensify, enhance, and accent the properties of a dish, not overpower it. With years of experience in winery kitchens, Chef William Cornelius has mastered the fine art of cooking with wine. Using Vidal Blanc as the key flavoring component, he adds a remarkable richness of tropical fruit and a slightly spicy finish to this preparation of bay scallops.

We can’t explain why this helps cure hangovers, but it does. It’s like a vitamin with a sugar coating (the coating being the bacon and butter).

Back in the day, when there was Sally Wong, when there was yellow pepper, and when there was tuna, David was doing endive salad and roast chicken. Although nonrevolutionary, this salad is always delicious. It’s on the menu often, especially in the winter when the garden is under a snowbank and the Parc Vinet Salad (opposite page) is a distant memory. Use Stilton in this salad; it works much better than other blues.

This is only a Parc Vinet salad when the garden is lit with the floodlights of the Parc Vinet ballpark directly behind all three restaurants and we’re harvesting enough greens to fill a bowl. Although this light salad seems a bit un–Joe Beef, it is in fact the best partner to a browned-out meal of wine reductions, marrow, and other consorts. We use whatever herbs and greens we have to make it, and this is what you should do, too. Let’s say 40 percent bitter greens, 40 percent sweet greens, and the rest in fines herbes. Just don’t go and put in rosemary. If it’s got woodsy stems, keep it out of the bowl. And do not use commercial salad mix. That’s not the point of this salad.

It’s true, at least for Fred, that an egg cooked in meat is the best. So much so that when we make braciole, he’s known to dig like a gopher to reach the eggs inside, leaving a hollow meat box to crumble on itself. The following is a short recipe where the egg gets that viande taste that Fred loves.

This is part of our mise en place at the restaurant. We mix it with mayonnaise (page 175), serve it straight up with potatoes or fish, or use it to punch up sauces, soups, stews, or anything raw like tartare. Do not use woodsy herbs like rosemary, thyme, or sage in this purée, and be sure to wash all of your herbs well.

This is the one stew you can get away with in the summer, yet crave in the winter. Veal chunks from the hind shank is the best meat for this; cheeks or shoulder is another option. All but the rear leg muscle will work. Of course, mashed potatoes or a marrow pilaf (rice baked with bone marrow instead of butter) is the perfect buddy. As a finishing touch, we like to pimp our blanquette de veau with truffles, cock’s combs, foie gras, or small slices of lobster. It lends regality to an otherwise hearty and simple stew.

Every Super Bowl spread needs a refreshing salad to counterbalance the array of must-have dips, cheesy snacks, and meaty mains. Because the elements of this are all chopped, it's a salad that's easy to toss, easy to serve, and best of all, easy to eat.

Orzo is the Italian word for barley, and the slender, grain-shape of orzo pasta makes for a no-fuss, neatly consumed salad, particularly if you are balancing a plate while perched on the edge of a sofa or standing around the TV watching the Super Bowl. Although the salad makes for a great accompaniment to the Stuffed Sliders Your Way, your vegetarian friends will thank you for providing them with an option they will really enjoy as their main dish.

Colcannon, a classic Irish combination of mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale, is standard winter fare. If that sounds, well, boring, trust us, this version is anything but that. We freshen it up by cooking the potatoes and cabbage separately, then we make it easy to serve for a party by adding an egg and baking it in a pie pan, so that you can cut it into wedges.

Pounding beef into thin "Milanese"-style cutlets makes portions look even bigger than they are. This recipe also works well with veal, pork, or chicken.

Iceburg and watercress get stir-fried with just a little bit of flavorful sausage in this lightning-fast weeknight dinner.

To easily roll out chilled store-bought dough, soften it first on a baking sheet set over a bowl of hot water.

A leftover ham bone makes a great substitute for the ham hock in this pasta recipe. The rest of the flavor comes from braised greens, smoky potlikker, and hot pepper sauce.

Chopped walnuts nicely complement the rich walnut oil in the dressing.

A bit of salty country ham goes a long way in this quick greens sauté.

This dish flips conventional Southern cookery on its head. Rather than cooking greens nito submission, they’re quickly brined to soften their texture and mellow their bitterness, then married with the sweet, salty, and creamy elements of a composed salad.