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Posts from the ‘Foundation recipe’ Category

Sep 16

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Classic frittata recipe (with smoked salmon, fresh corn, and herbed goat cheese)

A frittata is a beautiful, easy meal to make. Combine eggs with meats, vegetables, herbs, cheese, or pretty much any other prepared ingredient you have around, and within 20 minutes you have a delicious, healthy, fancy-seeming meal. As an added bonus it’s perfect for making ahead, since you can wrap and freeze it for up to 1 month or at the very least save the leftovers (which are equally good room temperature or warm) for breakfast or lunch the next day. (A slice of frittata and some bread make a pretty delicious sandwich, I might add.)

Salmon_frittata

Cooled

And this is exactly the sort of dish I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve mentioned on the site before that I’ve been putting together a guide to these sorts of basic, foundational recipes, all of which act as a backbone or a stage for whatever vegetables, proteins, grains, or other items I happen to have in my kitchen or that look good at a market stand. These recipes make it easy to eat seasonally and help me avoid the sort of puzzle-piecing anxiety that results from grocery shopping without a plan in mind, and for most people having these sorts of recipes around can open a new world of quick, easy, healthy home-cooked meals. I love to talk about these sorts of “anything goes” recipes because they do wonders at making people more interested in cooking, more comfortable in the kitchen, and more at-ease with letting go of recipes and diverging from planned-out shopping lists.

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May 31

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Classic risotto recipe and caramelized onions (plus mushrooms and bacon)

Risotto_2

So you’ll have to bear with me a little, here. I realize risotto probably isn’t what most of you are thinking about, as you head into the warmer part of the year. Particularly one topped with things like mushrooms, caramelized onions, and crispy bacon. (Delicious as they are.) Vienna seems to be stuck in sort of a 55-and-raining holding pattern, and our compasses are set toward soups and stews and roasted vegetables and home-baked bread and other things that help our little apartment stay warm, instead of turning toward summer. But risotto is one of those things I keep in my back pocket through the entire year, an easy way to pull together something basic but a little extravagant at the first sign of a cool evening.

Risotto itself has a reputation of being particularly finicky or difficult, but I actually find it to be pretty straight-forward. It requires a bit of mostly dedicated time, yes, but it’s mainly a series of adding things to a pan and giving it some basic supervision until it’s done. And once you get comfortable with it, the process requires less and less supervision. What you get back from that bit of work is something comforting, hearty, and lighter and healthier than restaurant versions. I actually spent many years feeling meh about risotto after eating a series of heavy, filmy restaurant versions, and it wasn’t until I started making it myself that I realized what a different sort of creature it is when it comes from a home kitchen. Read more

May 22

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Best-ever basic lentils (plus feta, caramelized fennel, mushrooms, and tomatoes)

Lentils_caramelized-fennel_feta

One of our favorite activities in Vienna is to pass the afternoon in various cafés and coffee houses. Vienna is famous for them, I suppose as many European cities area, and most still exude the same old-school style that they have 50 years (or more – one of our favorites looks almost the same as it did circa 1900). Waiters in tuxedo-like uniforms, chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and glass cases packed with frilly strudels and dense cakes and other confections. Coffee drinks and towering ice cream sundaes arrive on tiny metal trays, each accompanied by the traditional small side glass of water (I’ve heard many reasons for why, all logical but completely different, so I still don’t know the answer). You can generally also order fancy wine spritzers, coffee with Gran Marnier and whipped cream, a sip of brandy, or a variety of other beverages destined to make your day feel a little more elegant.

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May 11

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Setting up shop

What I really want to tell you about is how I managed to cook this entire meal without getting a speck of anything on my shirt, particularly notable since our kitchen in Vienna did not come supplied with an apron (or many other things).

Spring_polenta_2

And there’s certainly a lot more to say – about our time in Vienna thus far, about how amazing it feels to have our own kitchen space, and about all the little confusing things about going grocery shopping in another country. Or about how easy it is to burn things in the thin, aluminum pans that sorely stock our kitchen here, or how the stove really only goes down to medium-high, and that effectively using anything lower requires some MacGyver-like manuevering. But for now I have a few more important things to move on to. Read more