Roast

As satisfying to me as a big, chewy, still-hot everything bagel schmeared with lots of cream cheese, but these have better crunch and way less carbs!

A friend recommended that I add a little fresh dill and lime juice to my regular Bloody Mary concoction. I gave it a shot and it was great! The dill and lime punched up all the flavors without taking them over. I’ve applied that trick to these burgers.

Take a pizza Margerita, make it on a tortilla, then fold it like a quesadilla and you get a pizza-dilla!

In France, I had some cèpes (wild mushrooms) cooked in duck fat—yummo! Being that I don’t kill many ducks and that I like wearing small sizes, I make these with EVOO at home. (Man, nothing beats that duck fat though! You should taste the potatoes boiled in it!)

This simple feast brings together all my favorite flavors from a short, sweet stay in Bordeaux.

Serve with steamed green beans or broccoli, your choice, if you want to include a veggie on the menu.

I love this dish, Pasta alla Norma. Traditionally, it is made with 1 whole cup of EVOO and lots of chopped baby eggplant. It’s good, but if you don’t find just the right eggplant to use, the dish can be greasy and bitter. The recipe below is a take-off on Norma that includes all the same elements, but it is never bitter and uses much less oil (making Norma’s figure a little better!).

This is a fun spin on traditional roasted turkey. It cooks evenly, slices beautifully, and cooks much more quickly than the whole bird. We’ve even used it on Turkey Day with great success. The Jaccard is a spring-loaded meat tenderizer that has fifteen, sixteen, or forty-eight blades, depending on the model you purchase. It creates tiny, evenly spaced holes throughout the flesh, shortening the muscle fibers. This allows seasonings to penetrate to the interior of the meat, speeds the cooking time, and helps it cook more evenly. It may seem counterintuitive, but it actually works very well. You can skip this step if you don’t have a Jaccard, but we really recommend keeping one in your kitchen. It’s a very handy tool to have around.

We like roasting in salt because it transfers heat and flavor beautifully. Here we’ve combined the salt with ginger and egg whites to form a crust around the whole beets. The roasting process sweetens and intensifies the flavor of the vegetables. The roasted beets peel easily and have a gentle, tender texture. Their surface layer will be well seasoned and the flavor of the ginger will have permeated their interior. Remember, almost any aromatics can be blended with the salt: lemongrass, cumin, star anise—the pantry is your palette.

In this recipe we use the olive sauce both to glaze the fish during roasting and to serve alongside it. It has an elusive sweet, savory flavor that will have your dinner guests smiling. It’s also a good use of leftover coffee. Leftover sauce is wonderful with grilled steaks and tossed over roasted potatoes.