Roast

I give a garlic-ginger coating to the portion of the pork I’m going to roast. It should be applied at least an hour before roasting, but I usually do it in the morning of the day I’m going to roast the tenderloin. This is particularly good with some roasted vegetables surrounding the pork—halved small new potatoes, a root vegetable such as a white turnip cut in half, a few slices of celery root, a split parsnip, or some chunks of winter squash. Rub them in light olive oil first, salt lightly, then scatter in a small roasting pan around the pork. If they aren’t quite done when the pork is, turn up the heat and give them another 5 minutes or so while the meat is resting.

This is my favorite steak. I like the chewiness of the cut and the faint marbling of fat, just enough to keep it well lubricated. And I find it a good size for the single cook. A skirt steak of approximately 14 ounces gives me three fine meals. First I have a piece of rare steak quickly sautéed and garnished with a little pan sauce of wine and shallots; then I have a few slices of it cold for lunch with a piquant sauce; and finally, later in the week, I’ll use what remains in a delicious baked dish with mushrooms and breadcrumbs, an inspiration of the late Mireille Johnston, whose books taught us so much of what regional French home cooking is all about—thriftiness, inventiveness, and good taste.

I use the same technique for broiling a chicken as I do for roasting it whole. I make a tasty mix of shallots, garlic, lemon rind, and herbs moistened with olive oil and rub that under the skin of the chicken at least an hour before cooking. The advantage of broiling is that it’s quicker, particularly if you do the preliminary under-the-skin stuffing in the morning. Then, when you get home, you have only to put the accompanying vegetables on a baking tray along with the chicken and you’ll have a full dinner ready in 30 minutes with lots of good left-over chicken to play with during the week. You can, of course, just get half a chicken (leg/thigh/breast piece) and have only a little left over, but I find the birds for roasting are apt to be plumper and more flavorful, particularly if you get an organic, decently raised chicken. And I like to have the gizzards, neck, and backbone for stock, and the liver for my own treat (see page 100).

Store-bought beef broth works just fine, but—just as with chicken broth—it simply doesn’t compare in taste to the homemade version. The trick with beef stock is to roast the bones first in order to achieve a nice caramelized flavor.

If you are looking to save money, taking the time to roast your own chicken really can go a long way. Plus this foolproof method makes for a delicious chicken every time. After trying this traditional, scrumptious recipe, don’t forget to make your own chicken broth from the chicken bones, which are rich in flavor. Talk about more cluck for your buck.

Roasted potatoes can be snore city. But when you do them well, they’re simple, totally rustic, and super-delicious. Fingerlings are perfect for roasting because they’re small and creamy, but a mix of red bliss and white new potatoes cut into bite-size pieces works well too. Don’t be afraid to use lots of olive oil, salt, and herbs here—and roast these lovelies until they’re brown, brown, brown. Remember, brown food tastes GOOD!

Any recipe that includes cauliflower makes me a happy girl. In this dish I roast cauliflower (which is one of the easiest ways to cook it) together with Jerusalem arties (a.k.a. sunchokes), and the payoff is huge: You get great flavor and a really sexy texture. Then I add some spices. The end result is a super-special, slightly exotic side dish—with a minimum amount of effort. This is the way I like to roll!

Making a whole fish is so cinchy that it’s almost not fair. It looks like you’ve put so much time and effort into it, and it’s so elegant and beautiful on a serving platter, but really, all you have to do is jam a fish full of herbs and lemon and toss it in the oven until its eyeball pops out! I think this is the coolest part—Mother Nature’s own pop-up timer—I bet that’s how they invented the pop-up turkey timer!

I’m a big fan of nice, thick lamb chops—and I’m an even bigger fan of nice, thick lamb chops deliciously browned all over! That’s exactly what you get with this recipe. Since you remove two bones from an eight-bone rack, these babies are thicker than a normal lamb chop. And, because you sear the chops on both sides—and the fat edge—before schmearing them with the lovely olive purée and finishing them in the oven, the inside stays tender and juicy, and the outside gets a beautiful, delicious, brown crust. Why is that so important? Because brown food tastes good!

In Tuscany, every town has a market day. This is when trucks carrying all kinds of delightful edibles pull into the center of town, open up their sides, and become little grocery stores on wheels. Of course my favorite truck was always the porchetta truck—who doesn’t love a truck that sells a delicious crispy pork product? Traditionally, porchetta is a whole pig that’s been boned and cooked for hours, until the skin gets totally brown and crunchy and the meat becomes wonderfully tender. It’s most often seasoned with garlic, sage, and black pepper—and while pepper is not usually how I roll, it’s appropriate in this dish to keep the classic flavors intact. What is totally unique in my version is to cook the pork on a bed of autumn vegetables—they soak up the lovely porky juices and help create the ultimate one-pot dinner for a crowd. Be sure to save some leftovers for a sandwich the next day!

Even the simplest roasted chicken always seems like a special dinner to me. I’m not sure why; maybe it’s because making a whole bird is like having a mini-Thanksgiving. The irony, of course, is that Thanksgiving is a huge deal and a ton of work, while there are few dinners faster or easier than roast chicken. All you have to do is buy a nice bird, lube it up, shoot it in the oven, and voilà! You have a beautiful chicken dinner. Add some gravy to that and mmmmm . . . Just for the record, I’m not a gravy strainer, but if you are, knock yourself out!

Everyone makes a big production over roasting beets when the truth is that you can literally throw them in the oven—no foil, no nothing, totally naked—and let them do their thing. Combine those beautiful beets with lovely fresh herbs and you get a gorgeous salad with different flavors in every bite. Who knew beets could be so exciting?

This can be cooked in a slow cooker, in a Dutch oven on top of the stove, or in a roasting pan in a 375°F. oven. Pick the way that suits you. Any way you cook it, you will find that the sweet pickle relish and barbecue sauce flavor the meat through and through.

Chicken coops have sprung up in some of the poshest neighborhoods. Once you become accustomed to eating well-raised chickens it is hard to tolerate flavorless commercially produced fowl. My friends Paul and Angela Knipple raise chickens in their midtown Memphis yard. They feed the chickens protein-rich peanuts; the result is wonderfully rich eggs and a flavorful chicken. Their rooster is named Karen. He was mismarked at delivery. Peanuts and chicken are found together in Asian dishes. Here those flavors infuse a whole roasted bird.

Premium Number One Beauregards are a popular variety of sweet potato grown in Vardaman, Mississippi. There are ninety sweet-potato farms within forty miles of this town, which even boasts a Sweet Potato Street running right into Main Street. With twenty thousand acres under cultivation, sweet potatoes have to be the state’s largest vegetable crop. Here a tart-sweet treatment and a dusting of crystalline flakes of salt elevate the down-home goodness of my favorite Beauregards.

My family knows that roasting is my favorite way to prepare Brussels sprouts (it’s one of my Thanksgiving specialties), so when my sister Emily found a version with kimchi in a magazine, she sent it straight to me. Kimchi, a staple in the Korean diet, is a delicious, tangy, fermented cabbage. It can be found in well-stocked grocery stores and in Korean markets. The flavor of the finished dish really depends on the kimchi, so find one you like. If you don’t like a lot of spice, just roast the Brussels sprouts as directed here and leave out the kimchi. Roasted Brussels sprouts on their own are both sweet and savory.

Tendersweet roasted garlic has a multitude of uses, either left whole, as in Thyme-Smoked Four-Inch Porterhouse Steak (page 168), or pureed, as in Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes (page 193). Keep the garlic oil for sautéing potatoes, making vinaigrettes, or brushing on fish before grilling.

Chances are, you probably have bacon in your fridge right now. And if you’re like me, you love it. Making bacon at home is not rocket science; people make a big deal about it because it takes some time and a little planning, but it is so worth it. The first step is curing pork belly with salt, sugar, maple syrup, and pink salt, which contains sodium nitrite. The main purposes of the cure are to prevent any bacterial growth on the meat and draw out some water. To store, tightly wrap in plastic and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. If for some crazy reason you don’t eat it all in a week, you can cut it into pieces, label and date it, and freeze for up to three months. Bacon is best smoked, but if you don’t have a smoker at home, you can roast the pork belly in the oven as directed in the recipe. When bacon is called for in recipes throughout this book, it is uncooked.