I have always had a passion for beets. Never a picky eater, I enjoyed these somewhat polarizing purple root vegetables from an early age. I can still remember the thrill of seeing my pee, subtly pink, circling the bowl. In college, I seemed to be the only one helping myself to Harvard beets, a sweet-tart staple of the dining hall salad bar. Although beets are now widely embraced as part of the unavoidable farm-to-table syndrome, they rarely make an appearance in our home as they are one of the few things for which my husband simply does not care. With their assertive color and distinctive earthy sweetness, they’re not exactly the sort of thing you can just slip into a dish. Although I may roast a few on occasion for my own consumption, I am not in the habit of adding them to our morning juice or recreating the divine beet crumble from The Fat Radish. So you can imagine my delight when G urged me to go ahead and make that borscht I was daydreaming about. Not that I needed his permission, but it’s kind of lonely to cook up a whole pot of soup and then have to eat it alone. Cooking for one is a very specific thing that lends itself more to simple pastas, elaborate salads and the occasional pot pie, don’t you think?

brush up on your beets

The Brits call it beetroot. (They’ve got so many fanciful names for vegetables: mangetout for snow peas; aubergine for eggplant; marrow for squash; courgette for zucchini; swedes for rutagbagas.) The Beta vulgaris was cultivated all the way back in the second millennium B.C. somewhere along the Mediterranean, then it spread to Babylonia by the 8th century and as far east as China by 850 AD. It is currently a widely cultivated commercial crop for producing table sugar.

in the pink

Beets are a unique source of betalains, phytonutrients that are antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxifying. They’ve been shown to be an important contributor of two carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, which are especially beneficial to eye health and common age-related eye problems involving the macula and the retina. Another interesting tidbit is that only about 10% of people experience beeturia (the reddening of the urine), similar to how only a percentage of people can detect that weird post-asparagus pee smell.

beyond the pale, but not for long

There are so many different kinds of borscht, a Central and Eastern European staple: with and without meat; with beef; with pork; beets only, or loaded up with other root vegetables. One standard bearer is from Veselka, the longstanding East Village fixture and bastion of Ukrainian soul food, which is made with pork butt, beef stock and lima beans. Mine is a sort of hybrid of various kinds I’ve eaten over the years. It’s made with beef stock and meat and, in addition to beets, has turnips, parsnip, potato and cabbage. I use some allspice and caraway, but I go easy on the clove as it can be too strong if you’re not careful.

lose the fat

I don’t know if you’ve tried, but I find it incredibly difficult to get my hands on any conscientiously raised beef bones in Manhattan. Seems like chefs are snapping them up, plus so many good butchers now have adjacent kitchens that press them into service. Since this recipe also calls for meat, you can make the stock with oxtails or short ribs, and it works out rather well.

a loving spoonful

I roasted oxtails in a hot oven along with some onions and carrots until it was well browned and caramelized; deglazed the pan with a little white wine; then poured it all into a big stockpot with plenty of water to simmer for a few hours. I removed the meaty bones and stored them separately, and strained the stock to chill overnight. The next day, I discarded the layer of fat and was ready to assemble my borscht.

tails from my kitchen

Once cold, it’s easy to pull the fat from the meat, and the meat from the bones. If you’ve never had it, oxtail is rich and flavorful, much like short ribs or brisket. It makes a wonderfully gelatinous stock that’s full of nutrition.

follow the beet

Scrub the beets, wrap them in foil and roast them in the oven until tender. Cool slightly, slip off the peels and grate them coarsely. Of course they impart their beautiful magenta hue to the soup.

grate expectations

As you can see, I had two different kinds of beets. The larger, paler ones were much less sweet than the small deep purple ones. Isn’t the color extraordinary? (As an aside, I once tried to use beet juice to dye a caftan and it turned it yellow!)

from my salad days

Even knowing that I would have borscht for dinner, I couldn’t resist eating the extra few beets for lunch. I quartered them, tossed them with some orange slices, sheep’s milk feta and a spicy olive oil and sprinkled minced parsley and coarse sea salt on top. It was the ideal solo meal. And later, I affirmed once again that I do indeed belong to the lucky 10%.

Discussions of chili often lead to fisticuffs. (OK, I just wanted to say fisticuffs.) But it really is a very polarizing dish. The purists can go on and on about ground chuck versus cubed, beans or no beans, and the presence of tomatoes. Texans seems to feel very strongly that beans don’t belong anywhere near “real” chili—actually an anglicization of chile con carne—but some of them include tomatoes and way too many seem to think it’s OK to use chile powder rather than starting with whole dried chiles. I ain’t afeared of dried chiles, having more than a little New Mexico in my blood, so that was an easy call for me. And the fact that my friend Michael hates beans pretty much tipped me over into the all-beef category. After researching recipes online (here are just a few options) I opted for authentic Texas chili as interpreted by blogger homesicktexan. For one thing, she spells the dried pepper as “chile,” and the dish as “chili,” just like I do, so I gravitated to her immediately. Plus she adds beer, coffee and Mexican chocolate to her incredibly dense and musky stew. I’d never made chili this serious before, and I’ll never make any other kind again.

go the spice route

Many versions of chili are relatively simple: meat, onions, chile powder. But this one is loaded with spices and aromatics. Cayenne, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and allspice weave a warm and exotic melody through this hearty dish.

here’s the beef

Although ground beef is apparently acceptable, I’m very glad I went for cubed, even though it took me hours to chop up the 12 pounds I had. As it was, I worried that the meat was falling apart a bit too much after 5+ hours of cooking. I really didn’t want the end result to be super-gloppy and I can only imagine that it would be even more so with ground meat. Chuck is the cut of choice because it contains a lot of connective tissue, including collagen, that melts and adds richness during cooking, making it especially good for braising. It’s most likely what you use for pot roast.

chop, chop

I lost track of how long it took me to dice up this beef but, appropriately, I kept myself entertained with back-to-back episodes of Nip/Tuck. (As penance, I am only listening to NPR now.) I also spent a fair amount of time thinking about the animal I was breaking down. I thanked it and tried to honor it. I’m serious. When you’re handling something that was formerly alive, I think the least you can do is try to acknowledge the creature that gave up its existence so you could be nourished.

it also takes forever to brown 12 pounds of cubed chuck

The first step in preparing your chili—after assembling all your ingredients—is to toast your chiles and set them soaking (see below.) Then you brown the meat. Homesicktexan’s recipe calls for you to cook up some bacon so you can use the rendered fat. I only had a few slices on hand, so I made up the difference with some duck fat I had hanging around. You can’t ever go wrong there, but you could also use a mild olive oil or something neutral like grapeseed.

completely soaked

Once you’ve browned your meat, removed it to a tray and dumped in your pile of chopped onions to cook, it’s time to get your chile sauce going. Although you can make chili with chile powder, and there are probably some good quality, artisanal blends on the market, I really encourage you to start from scratch. Once you see how simple it is to work with chiles, you’ll be making your own enchilada sauce and tamales and pozole, and really digging the difference. It keeps in the fridge and freezer, so make a big batch and use it a bunch of different ways.

loving spoonful (resist the urge to slurp it down)

Although it’s called 7-Chile Chili, I actually used only 5 kinds. First, I couldn’t find any costeñas, and then I spaced and forgot to add the chiles de árbol. Oops! Not a big deal. You can mix and match the chiles depending on what you can get your hands on. You just need to learn a bit about their flavors and levels of heat. Chile heat is measured by Scoville units (see here.) Also, you should take care when handling spicy chiles. Some people (you know who you are) like to wear those thin latex surgical gloves. I don’t, but I am careful not to touch my eyes or any other mucous membranes, and when I’m done I scrub my hands thoroughly with Dawn. The ads are true: Dawn really does cut through grease, and it’s the oil and pith on chiles that carries the burning capsaicin.

This recipe calls for a lot of anchos, which are smoky and quite mild; fairly mild and rich pasillas; fruity guajillos; costeñas, which I couldn’t find and don’t know what they are; small but potent red chiles de árbol; chipotles en adobo, which are fiery smoked jalapeños canned in a thick tomatoey sauce; and, finally, powdered cayenne, also very spicy. I recommend you limit the very spicy chiles, as you can always add in more cayenne and chipotles if you want a hotter kick. Look for dried chiles that are pliant and glossy; they’re pretty readily available in most markets now because of the increasing Latino presence in this country. ¡Viva la raza!

bitch’s brew

You soak the chiles until soft, then whir them in a blender—or Vitamix, if you have one—with enough water to keep things moving, until you’ve got a lovely, thick brick-red purée. (I tripled this recipe because I was feeding 25 people, but I only wound up using about two-thirds of the chile. The rest is in the fridge, and I see pozole in our future.) You stir the chile into the beef and onions, add some beer, some brewed coffee and, later, some grated Mexican chocolate. Authentic? Who’s to say? Smoky-spicy-rich-sweet-funky-meaty-delicious? Yep. Dish it up and pile on the cheese, onions and cilantro. It’s chile today.

June is busting out all over. The delicate pink and white blossoms of spring have given way to lush peonies and roses and lilies. After a momentary blip last week, there is no more no sign of the sultry, damp days ahead when dogs will lie panting in the shade and we will press sweating glasses of lemonade to our fevered brows. Today all is bright green hills and turquoise skies. The kind of weather when thoughts turn to fresh salads. And the grill, of course. Summer means grilling. Oh, no! you say But I’m a city dweller. I can relate. I’m a grill widow. Where once I was only in charge of marinating, my hobbled husband has temporarily relinquished his patio post in front of the Weber, leaving me to face down this fiery challenge. For the moment, I have run screaming back to my stove, where it’s possible to make a perfectly acceptable steak. Heat up that cast iron pan really well, buy the best meat available and don’t overcook it. That’s the best advice I can give you. That, and serve it sliced thinly next to a simple salad of arugula and red onion. It’s heaven on a plate.

the best steak is humanely raised and well-marbled

I don’t think I need to go on any more about the importance of buying humanely raised meat, do I? My hope is that you will have found a local source, some small farm that takes good care of its animals. Organic has come to mean less and less, and I don’t think proscribing grass-fed makes any sense either, so just try to know your farmer, or at least your butcher, and learn about where your meat comes from.

My favorite steak is a well-marbled ribeye with the bone in. You really need that fat for juicy flavor. And I feel like the bone imparts extra flavor. To me, this is the most buttery and delicious cut. It requires nothing more than salt and a hot pan (or grill). Although I know tastes vary, I think the best way to eat it is medium-rare. Before cooking, I let my steak sit out so it’s room temperature, and salt it generously.  Then I set a cast-iron pan on the flame and let it heat up for quite a while. You want your steak to sear and get a deep crusty char on the outside, but remain juicy pink and tender within. Note: switch on your stovetop fan and throw open a window, as you will be generating some smoke!

no matter where you do your cooking, you want to get a deep crusty char

If you’re a steak novice, fear not. Nothing could be easier. But you either have to use a thermometer, or learn a simple technique for ascertaining doneness. Heat changes the texture of meat, and this is palpable. As it heats up, the protein strands tighten, causing the meat to firm up. This shrinks it and squeezes the juices out, which is why a rarer steak is preferable; a well-done steak is tougher, firmer and less juicy.

If you’re going to use a thermometer, here are suggested temperatures. But do bear in mind that meat will continue cooking after you take it off the heat, so aim for about 5 degrees lower. It’s essential that you let your steak rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it. Trust me, this makes all the difference. Rest the meat on a cooling rack, turning it over in the middle of the resting period. It will help the juices from pooling on the bottom of the meat (and leaking out onto the plate), and distributes the juices evenly throughout.

Here is a guide that explains how to test for doneness by feel. It’s very satisfying to be able to give your steak a poke and understand what’s going on in there. As with everything, practice makes perfect. And remember, you can always throw your steak back to cook a bit more, but once you’ve overcooked it, well…

Rare: 140º

Medium rare: 145F

Medium: 160º

An arugula salad is the perfect cool, crunchy and slightly bitter counterpoint to your hot, fatty steak. Taking a cue from classic steakhouse salads, I like to throw in some red onion. It can be a bit too pungent and aggressive, though, so try soaking your slices in cold water as you prepare your steak. It’s a neat trick that softens their flavor.

Passover is coming up next week, and more than one person has already asked me for a good brisket recipe. It’s a classic Jewish holiday dish, especially among the Ashkenazi, perhaps simply because it’s economical and delicious. It’s also incredibly easy to make, and turns out best if you braise it, especially if you’re using a “first cut” which has less fat. Passover, for the goyim among you, commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. Because the Jews had to flee quickly—is there any other way?—matzoh (unleavened bread) is eaten to remind us that there was no time for the bread to rise. This does not explain why brisket, which requires such long cooking, is also on the menu. Beef jerky would really be more like it. Anyway, this recipe comes from Martha Stewart, who is most definitely not of the tribe, but knows her way around a good pot roast.

onions, garlic, chile sauce and ketchup create a rich braising liquid

I love that this is a one-pot meal—if your Dutch oven is big enough to accommodate such a large cut of meat. Mine was not, so I seared it in a big skillet and transferred it to a casserole before baking. Either way is just fine. Once it’s seared on both sides, you whisk together some strongly flavored ingredients—hot coffee, Worcestershire sauce, honey, ketchup, chile sauce, soy sauce and garlic—for a tangy, sweet/sour brew that coats the meat. I added a bunch of sliced onions to this recipe, because I like both the flavor and the body they add to the sauce. I use my own homemade ketchup (still have some left from last summer’s batch) and I encourage you to make some, or at least avoid the high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden major brands in favor of something more artisanal. I did not have chile sauce on hand, so used 1/4 cup spicy Sriracha and a few tablespoons of tomato paste. It came out a bit too hot, so I would go easy on the Sriracha. (I toned it down by adding chicken stock and some tomato sauce.)

sear the meat in a hot pan until it’s nicely browned on both sides

a tangle of onions adds flavor and texture

Once you’ve browned the meat, cook the onions in the fat, scraping up any brown bits. If you’re not using just one pot, you might want to add a splash of water to the onions so none of the good caramelized bits are left on the skillet when you change pans. Then you just lay the meat on the bed of onions, smother the whole thing in sauce, cover it (with a lid or foil) and slide it into the oven. You flip it once, and it’s done in about 3 hours. I’m going to serve mine with some sweet potato pancakes and a big green salad. A little horseradish sauce would be nice with this as well.

photo by Sarah Shatz for Food52

COFFEE-GLAZED ROASTED BRISKET

adapted from Martha Stewart

serves 6

3 pounds humanely raised beef brisket (first-cut)

sea salt and ground pepper

2 tablespoons mild olive oil

1 large yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1/2 cup freshly brewed black coffee

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup chile sauce

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon Sriracha (hot chile sauce), optional

Preheat oven to 325º.

Season beef brisket with salt and pepper. In a large Dutch oven over high heat, warm oil. Add brisket, fat side down, and cook until well browned on both sides, 4-5 minutes each. Remove brisket to a plate, and add onions, sautéing until golden. Turn off heat and replace brisket on top of onions.

In a small bowl, combine coffee, ketchup, chile sauce, honey, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, soy sauce and Sriracha, if using. Pour over brisket.

Cover and bake in oven, flipping halfway through, until meat shreds easily with a fork, 2 ½-3 hours. Remove from oven. To serve, slice brisket the bias against the grain, drizzle with sauce and pass the extra.

SWEET POTATO PANCAKES

adapted from Jonaz on Food52

serves 5

2 3/4 pounds sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons soy sauce

3/4 cups flour (I use all-purpose gluten-free)

1 teaspoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

a combination of butter and oil, or lard, for pan-frying

Preheat oven to 325º. Roast sweet potatoes until soft, about 1 hour. Remove skin and mash, removing any dark spots.

In a large bowl use your hands to mix mashed potato with soy sauce; do not overmix, or the mixture will get too sticky to work. Add flour, sugar, salt and pepper and mix again with your hands until you a consistency that is soft, even and a bit sticky. If it is watery, add some flour. Do not overmix!

Spoon the batter into a small ziploc bag, and snip off one corner to pipe mixture through.

Heat a heavy, well-seasoned skillet over medium heat and add butter/oil or lard. Pipe 2” pancakes into the skillet, using a spatula to smooth as needed, and fry on both sides until deeply golden brown and crisp.

The snow’s gone but it’s not exactly shirtsleeves weather. My idea of a good time is still hunkering down in front of the fire, or under a duvet. Soon I’ll be donning my linen overalls and running up and down the aisles of Silver Heights Nursery buying scented geranium and heirloom tomato plants. But today I’m not above a good braise. Get ‘em while it’s cold. One last chance to slowly simmer and stew, to watch those lazy bubbles and that mesmerizing cloud of steam. So put aside thoughts of spring things for the moment and haul out your lovingly broken-in Le Cresuet, your stalwart Staub. You’ve just got time for one more stew before the mercury rises. Make it oxtail, the ultimate slow-cooker. Ick, you say. How can you eat a cow’s tail? How can you not? I firmly believe you honor that cow more by making use of its every beefy bit.

beautifully marbled and full of flavor

If you’re still buying factory farmed meat, all “sanitized” and wrapped in its styrofoam tray, chances are you’ll never cross paths with an oxtail. But if you can find a small butcher purveying local, humanely-raised beef, s/he’ll mostly likely be offering you all sorts of interesting bits and bobs, like cheeks and hearts and tails.

Oxtails make a delicious, rich stew full of flavor and nutrition. They are quite fatty, so they need a slow braise and then the broth must be skimmed. It’s easiest if you prepare this dish in advance, chill it, and then remove the fat once it’s solidified. But you can also just skim it off the top in a liquid form if you don’t want to wait.

star anise and fermented black beans

This recipe is sort of an Asian hybrid. It’s reminiscent of pho, the ubiquitous Vietnamese noodle soup, but requires fewer steps, and incorporates Chinese fermented black beans. Also flavored with star anise, garlic and ginger, it delivers big, lip-smacking umami. I used these wonderful dried Vietnamese rice noodles with green tea that I found at Whole Foods. I’ve never before seen this style of dried noodle made with brown rice. A real score. They cook very quickly, just by being immersed in boiling water for one minute, so they would be great for quick stir- fries or cold noodle salads. Don’t overcook them and remember to rinse them after or they get quite sticky.

brown rice noodles

BRAISED OXTAILS WITH CHINESE GREENS

serves 2

About 2 lbs oxtail pieces (2- to 2 1/2″ thick)

2 cups chicken stock

1/2 large onion, halved and thinly sliced

1/4 cup soy sauce

3 large garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

4 whole star anise

3 (1/4-inch-thick) rounds fresh ginger

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1-2 tablespoons fermented black beans

6 baby bok choy

4 scallions, sliced

rice noodles

handful of cilantro, chopped

1 lime, quartered

Arrange oxtails in single layer in large, heavy pot. Add next ingredients through the beans, and enough water to cover oxtails by 1/2″; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and simmer until very tender, adding more water by 1/2 cupfuls as needed to keep oxtails covered, about 3 hours. Cool slightly, then remove oxtails and set aside. Strain broth and refrigerate, uncovered, until cold, then cover. Now trim any remaining fat from the oxtails and slip meat from bones in small chunks. Discard fat and bones. At this point you can cover meat and refrigerate it, too. Meat and broth will keep like this for up to 3 days.

If you want to eat it sooner, remove broth from fridge once a layer of fat has solidified enough to be skimmed off. Once you’ve skimmed and discarded the fat, reheat broth over medium heat in a large pot, adding meat back in.

Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with boiling water and drop in two “nests” or portions of rice noodles. Let them sit until soft, about 1 minute, then drain well in a colander and rinse with cold water (or cook according to package instructions). Set aside.

Heat a large pot of salted water to boiling and cook bok choy until just tender, about 3-4 minutes. Slice and divide between two large soup bowls. Stir rice noodles into soup and warm for a minute or two. Pour broth and meat over bok choy. Sprinkle with scallions and cilantro, and add a good squeeze of lime.

I finished brining my corned beef and cooked it a few days early, so I could share the rest of the recipe with you now. I’d love to hear if any of you decided to go for it this year, in time for St. Patrick’s Day this week. I’ll post pictures of the meat, sliced and plated, on Thursday, but I’m equally excited about the vegetables. These are poached in the beef broth until they are beautifully tender and nicely flavored from the pickling spices. You can make just potatoes and cabbage, but I encourage you to branch out and incorporate parsnips, carrots, onions, and turnips or rutabagas. You could even add daikon or kohlrabi. Be sure you’ve got some sharp, grainy mustard on hand, or whip up one or both of these piquant sauces. The demise of winter is nigh, slain by the fair hand of spring.

these vegetables are a great counterpoint to the rich, fatty meat

leave the spice bag in while poaching the vegetables

CORNED BEEF & VEGETABLES

a continuation of this recipe

serves 8, with leftovers

1 12-ounce bottle Guinness stout
3 tablespoons pickling spice, plus cheesecloth or spice bag

3 medium turnips or rutabagas, peeled and quartered

8 unpeeled medium white-skinned or red-skinned potatoes (about 3 pounds)
6 medium carrots, peeled
4 medium onions, peeled, halved through root ends
4 medium parsnips, peeled, cut into 2-inch lengths
1 2-pound head of cabbage, quartered

Remove corned beef from brine and rinse well. Then place directly in a very large, wide pot. Add stout and enough water to cover by 1 inch. Wrap pickling spice mixture in cheesecloth  or spice bag, enclosing completely, and securing with kitchen string. Place spice bag in pot. Bring just to a boil, skimming as needed, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until beef is tender, about 2 1/4 hours. Transfer beef to large baking sheet. *At this point, you can cool the meat, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple of days.

Add vegetables to liquid in pot; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil gently until all vegetables are tender, about 40 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to baking sheet with beef. Discard spice bag. Return beef to pot and rewarm 5 minutes.

Cut beef against grain into 1/4-inch thick slices. Arrange beef and vegetables on platter. Serve with Horseradish Cream and Guinness Mustard (recipes follow).

HORSERADISH CREAM

1 cup sour cream or crème fraiche

6 tablespoons prepared white horseradish (about 4 ounces)

1 tablespoon finely chopped dill pickle

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives or green onion tops

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead.)

GUINNESS MUSTARD

1/2 cup coarse-grained Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons regular Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons Guinness stout or other stout or porter

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon golden brown sugar

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead.)

You don’t have to be Irish to love corned beef. Eastern European Jews are great connoisseurs of all manner of boiled meat, and New York deli is renowned for its sandwiches piled high with thin slices of this pink, juicy meat. But St. Patrick’s Day is coming up a week from Thursday, and that gives you plenty of time (you only need about 5 days, which means you should get started by Saturday at the latest), and the perfect reason, to make your own this year. In its original, peasanty guise, this traditional dish is as much about the vegetables: turnips, rutabagas, carrots, onions, parsnips, cabbage and plenty of spuds, of course. Not to mention delicious mustards and horseradish sauce. It’s a dish meant to usher in spring by using up all those roots stored for the winter. The date for celebrating St. Patrick—a 5th-century English missionary who converted a load of pagans to Christianity—fell during the fasting season of Lent, but prohibitions against eating meat were lifted so the Irish could celebrate their patron saint with dancing, drinking and feasting on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage. I think breaking my own fast with this is a bad idea, but we’ll see how things go…

If you make a big hunk of meat, you can share it with lucky friends, or hoard it to make such delectable offshoots as red flannel hash (with beets) and Reuben sandwiches (with homemade sauerkraut). I’m planning to serve mine with another Irish classic, colcannon, which is potatoes mashed with kale.  Champ is also traditional, potatoes mashed with parsley, scallions or chives. As with Eskimos and snow, the Irish have quite an extensive vocabulary when it comes to potatoes.

pickling spice blends, like Indian masalas, vary from cook to cook

Corning means to preserve something in a salty brine; corn was a generic term for grain and, in this instance, refers to the coarse grains of salt used for curing. In the days before refrigeration, it was an essential process for storing meat, especially from large animals like cows. Any cut of beef can be corned, but a tougher, well-marbled brisket is the ultimate choice. The recipe below, adapted from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie, calls for you to brine the meat for 5 days. The brine is flavored with a rich mix of aromatic spices, including whole clove, black pepper, coriander, mustard, bay leaf, allspice, red chile, cinnamon and mace.

about mace: it’s so delicious we should all be cooking with it much more

Mace is the bright red, lacy covering (the “aril”) of the nutmeg seed shell. Because the yield of mace is much less than that of the seed, it’s more highly valued. A pile of fruit large enough to make one hundred pounds of nutmeg produces just a single pound of mace. This outer covering is removed and broken into parts known as “blades.” As it is dries, it loses its bright red color and develops a sweet fragrance and a warm, sharp and highly aromatic flavor, more intense and slightly sweeter than nutmeg. The best quality mace will retain some pliability and release a little oil when squeezed. As with all spices, it’s best to buy it whole and grind your own. I use my coffee grinder.

the pepper, coriander and mustard get gently toasted

briny depths: kosher salt, brown sugar, garlic, pink salt

You may want to ask your butcher if he can spare you a little pink salt (you’ll need just 6 teaspoons), or order some here or here. (In New York City, it’s available at Kalustyan’s.) Pink salt is a cooking term for sodium nitrite, a chemical formula used as a color fixative and preservative in meats and fish; it also prevents the growth of Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium responsible for botulism. In very high doses, sodium nitrite is actually quite toxic, so it is dyed pink in order to avoid confusion with other substances in the kitchen. Make sure you use it carefully and only in designated amounts. A common concern about sodium nitrite is the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines when exposed to high temperatures. However, our bodies are full of nitrites, as much as 93% of which come from green vegetables, including spinach and celery. We naturally convert nitrate into nitrite, which works as a powerful antibacterial agent, particularly in an acidic environment like our stomachs. That said, you can choose to leave it out of the recipe, but your corned beef will not have the pink color, firm texture or precisely the flavor you might be expecting. Which is not to say it won’t be delicious. For a more detailed discussion of pink salt, and curing safety in general, see Michael Ruhlman’s post for Charcutepalooza here.

If you like to tipple as you cook, consider having a bottle of Bushmills at the ready. Bushmills is Ireland’s oldest working distillery, dating from the 15th century, when King James I granted Sir Thomas Phillips a royal license to distill uisce beatha, Gaelic for “water of life.” Most Irish whiskey is distilled three times, and peat is rarely used in the malting process, so it has a smoother finish than many Scotches. In other words, it goes down like a lucky charm!

And while you’re at it, now is the perfect time for you to throw together a batch of sauerkraut. Come on! It’s the easiest thing in the world and so deeply satisfying, not to mention incredibly healthy what with all that wonderful lacto-fermented natural bacteria that’s fabulous for your digestion. In fact, drinking the juice from your homemade kraut is super therapeutic. All you need is a head of cabbage, some salt, a jar and a little elbow grease. Here’s the recipe.

what a crock: cabbage, salt, caraway seeds and juniper berries

CORNED BEEF

slightly adapted from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn

Pickling Spice:

2 tablespoons black peppercorns

2 tablespoons mustard seeds

2 tablespoons coriander seeds

2 tablespoons hot red-pepper flakes

2 tablespoons allspice berries

1 tablespoon ground mace

2 small cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces

2-4 bay leaves, crumbled

2 tablespoons whole cloves

1 tablespoon ground ginger

Brine:

8 cups water

2 cups lager

1 1/2 cups coarse kosher salt

1/2 cup light brown muscovado sugar

1 ounce (5 teaspoons) pink salt (see above)

3 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons pickling spice

One 4-5 pound well-marbled (first-cut) beef brisket

Lightly toast the pepper, mustard and coriander in a hot, dry skillet, then smash them with the side of a knife to crack them. Combine these with the remaining pickling spice ingredients, mixing well. Store in a tightly sealed plastic container or glass jar.

Pour water and beer into a non-reactive container or roasting pan deep enough to contain the meat and brine. Add coarse salt, pink salt and sugar, stirring until dissolved. Mix in pickling spices. Pierce brisket all over with the tip of a small, sharp knife. Completely submerge brisket in liquid, then top with a heavy platter to weigh it down. (I needed two cans of tomatoes on top of the platter to keep my brisket submerged.) Cover and refrigerate 5 days.

Stay tuned for part 2 of making corned beef with vegetables, plus delicious sauce recipes, next Meaty Monday!

Guess what I learned today?! That it’s really hard to make uncooked sausages look appealing in a photo. Trust me, by the time they’re browned and sizzling on the plate, they’ll be a lot more appetizing. But I wanted to get this post up now, today, in honor of Meaty Monday and I’m not cooking them until tonight. Feel free to visit those other blogs if you want to run with the pack and cook something meatless. Over here, true rebels are sharpening our knives. Actually, there’s not really much work involved, since these lamb and beef sausages are from Dickson’s. They’re seasoned with cumin and Turkish chiles; sort of a riff on a Merguez sausage. If you’ve got access to sausages made from humanely raised beef, pork or lamb, Meaty Monday can mean dinner on the table in 15 minutes! We’ll be having ours with homemade sauerkraut and a delicious new mustard I learned about in Saveur‘s Chef’e Edition, on newsstands now. (Don’t know Saveur? Among my favorite food magazines…)

home-fermented sauerkraut is full of enzymes that aid digestion (and it tastes good, too!)

If your sausages are at all fatty, and most good sausages are—excepting weisswurst—then lactofermented sauerkraut (the kind you make at home that doesn’t involve any cooking at all) will help you digest them. The more I read about this stuff, the more I think we should all be eating small amounts of it on a regular basis. G told me that kimchi eaters get less cancer. Cabbage in general is very healing. Get you some now.

mustard from canada

The mustard is a crunchy, grainy, sinus-clearing concoction called Kozlick’s Triple Crunch. It was #56 in Saveur’s 100, the favorite of Jonathan Gushue, an Ontario-based chef who apparently can’t live without this blend of white, brown and black mustard seeds pickled in a little vinegar and honey. Naturally, I had to order some immediately all the way from Canada, and also their fig-&-balsamic mustard which does nice things to a piece of cheese. Happy (Meaty) Monday!

I’m a terrible friend. I’ve been horribly remiss in preparing you for the grand holiday feast. I’m (sort of) ashamed to admit that I don’t have a backlog of my own recipes and accompanying photos to offer you here, so I’m going to do another of my motley compendiums. Above is the roast leg of lamb with garlic sauce that I will be serving my sister and niece on the first night of their visit. Here’s the recipe. It looks pretty easy and, as a recent convert to lamb, I’ll be sticking my thermometer in and not trusting my own instincts. I recommend you do the same. On the side there will be a rich and buttery puree of celeriac and potato—do you really need a recipe? Oh hell, here’s one. (I think I’ll use buttermilk instead of the cream, though.) Also a simple arugula salad with a light champagne vinaigrette. For Christmas Eve dinner, we’re invited to some friends’ home for paella. I’m in charge of dessert; more on that another day. Inspired? Here’s a slew of good-looking paella recipes.

On Christmas proper, we’ll be roasting up a small, grass-fed goose we got from our friends at River Brook Farm (they don’t have a website; too busy farming). I’m going to use Lidia Bastianich’s recipe, but with apples and turnips instead of that whole weird pasta thing she’s got going on. There will be red cabbage with caraway on the side. Really, you need a recipe for that? OK, here. For dessert, I can’t wait to try this steamed molasses pudding with a rich vanilla sauce. I have a vintage pudding mold I’ve been dying to use. Fingers crossed.

photo by sara shatz for food52

Other options? Back in the day, at my mother’s house in Santa Cruz, I was known to whip up a Christmas roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Horseradish cream on the side. It looks quite glamorous but is dead simple. And there’s something so satisfying about pouring the eggy batter into the hot fat where it sizzles and puffs into wonderful, custardy goodness. I don’t think you can go wrong with this recipe from Saveur magazine.

Another of my mother’s favorites was a crown roast of pork. It makes for an incredibly elegant and dramatic presentation, and all you really need to do is sweet-talk your butcher and then pop the thing into your oven. This recipe has you fill the roast with a lovely bread stuffing. A gorgeous chutney and a crisp salad of bitter greens would round out this meal beautifully. (For the love of god, don’t put those absurd paper frills on the ends of the bones!)

Not doing meat these days? May I humbly suggest my recipe for a whole dorade baked in a salt crust? It, too, makes for a lovely presentation and constitutes much lighter fare.

Still searching for recipes? Feel free to ask me a specific menu question and I will do my best to help out. Or surf around on the Epicurious, Food52 or Saveur sites, where there are countless creative ideas for culinary celebrations. And please, please, drop me a little line in the comments section and tell me your plans…

This seductive soup is pronounced “fuh,” like the word for fire in French. I had wanted to post a gorgeous “pho”-to of a big, steaming bowl of it, but we ate the entire pot before I got the chance. So instead, here’s one of a woman in the market in Saigon scarfing down this wonderful national dish. Pho is traditionally eaten for breakfast in Vietnam, but it goes down like a charm for lunch and dinner, too. It’s great stuff for cold weather eating, but that doesn’t prevent South East Asians from having it in the raging heat. A rich but clear beef broth, infused with star anise, clove, cinnamon and ginger, it is traditionally served with slices of raw sirloin, shallots, bean sprouts, cilantro, Thai basil, mint, lots of slippery, chewy rice noodles, a squeeze of lime and maybe some chile. It’s not so complicated; mostly, it just takes time. I love how you char ginger and onions directly over the flame of your burner; it imparts just a hint of smokiness that is very reminiscent of outdoor cooking in Asia. As with all stocks, you make this ahead so you can skim off the fat, and it’s quite a healthful and nourishing dish because of the good nutrition from bones. Of course, I urge you to make this with meat from a happy cow, please. For its sake, and for yours.

enormous knuckle bones, short ribs and tendon made an incredibly rich stock

The recipe I use is from one of my very favorite cookbooks, and a fantastic one to start with if you have any interest in learning to cook Southeast Asian food. It’s Hot Sour Salty Sweet by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford. It follows their journey through the Mekong region that extends from China through Laos and Thailand to Cambodia and Vietnam. Gorgeous photos and wonderful recipes, many of them quite simple and straightforward. They replicate a lot of street food and home cooking recipes which, as you may know, is some of the best eating anywhere. I didn’t have some of the ingredients on hand, so I ended up making the broth from knuckle bones, short ribs and tendon, and serving it without the raw beef or the bean sprouts, and it was still plenty delicious. Feel free to improvise on this as would any home cook worth her salt.

HEARTY VIETNAMESE BEEF NOODLE SOUP (PHO BO)

from Hot Sour Salty Sweet

yields 3 quarts broth; serves 6 to 8

SOUP

5 pounds oxtails or beef short ribs

6 quarts water

5 star anise

One 2-inch cinnamon stick

5 cloves

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

2- to 3-inch piece (about 2 ounces) ginger

2 medium onions, cut in half

1 pound stewing beef, trimmed of excess fat

5 tablespoons Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce, or to taste

Salt to taste

1 pound thin or medium dried rice noodles, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and drained

GARNISH AND ACCOMPANIMENTS

2 cups bean sprouts, rinsed

1 pound eye of round or other boneless lean beef, very thinly sliced across the grain into 1- to 2-inch-long slices

½ cup Asian basil or sweet basil leaves

½ cup coriander leaves

3 shallots, thinly sliced

1 or 2 bird or serrano chiles, minced

lime wedges

salt & pepper

Place the oxtails or ribs in a large pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil. Boil vigorously for 5 minutes, then drain. Rinse out the pot well, rinse off the oxtails or ribs and place back in the pot.

Add 4 quarts of the water and bring to a boil. Add the star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, and peppercorns. Using tongs, char the ginger over a gas flame, then add to the pot; use the same method to char the onion pieces, then add to the pot. Alternatively, heat a heavy skillet over high heat, add the ginger and onion pieces, and scorch well on all sides before adding to the pot.

Let the broth boil gently, uncovered, skimming off foam and scum, for about 30 minutes. Add the remaining 2 quarts water, bring back to the boil, and continue to boil gently, skimming off foam. When foam has stopped rising to the surface, lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for another hour.

Add the stewing beef and fish sauce, bring back to a boil, and simmer, uncovered, until the meat is very tender, about 2 hours. Leaving the soup at a simmer, remove the stewing beef and cool slightly. Slice as thin as possible and set aside.

Remove the soup from the heat and remove and discard the bones and solids. For a traditionally clear broth, line a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth and strain the soup into a clean bowl. Let the stock cool, then refrigerate, covered, for at least 2 hours.

Skim off the layer of fat from the top of the stock and discard. (The soup can be made ahead to this point and stored in the refrigerator, beef and stock in separate well-sealed containers, for up to 2 days, or frozen for up to 1 month.)

About 20 minutes before you wish to serve the soup, remove the meat and stock from the refrigerator and set the meat aside. Transfer the stock to a pot and heat until warm. Strain through cheesecloth as described above (GFL: I skipped this step and it was totally fine), return to the pot, and bring to a boil. Taste for seasonings and add fish sauce or salt as desired, then simmer gently, half covered, while you prepare the accompaniments.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the rice noodles and cook until just tender but not mushy, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Transfer to a colander, rinse with cold water, and set aside. Blanch the bean sprouts briefly in the same boiling water, then set aside.

Provide each guest with a spoon and a pair of chopsticks. Set out the raw beef, along with small dishes of the herbs, shallots, bean sprouts, lime, and sliced chile. Offer salt and pepper as well.

To serve, divide the noodles among 6 to 8 large bowls. Top each serving with a generous pinch of bean sprouts, a few shallot slices, several basil leaves, slices of cooked beef, and slices of raw beef.

Ladle the hot broth over and sprinkle with the coriander.