Arugula

This hearty dish, which is a great way to reinvigorate leftover Foster Family’s Pot Roast with Herb-Roasted Vegetables (page 199), is inspired by Southern dishes featuring “low” cuts of meat. With savory layers of potato, roast, and poached eggs finished with the cool heat of the Horseradish Mustard Vinaigrette and brightened with fresh greens, this crowd-pleaser makes for a decadent Sunday brunch, but it can just as comfortably double as the main event at dinner. Serve with warm, crusty toast for a complete meal.

Like of lot of folks these days, I have gotten away from eating beef very often, but when I do, give me the real deal—a thick, juicy, medium-rare steak sprinkled with good salt. Given a choice between a well-marbled rib eye and a lean center-cut filet, I’ll take the rib eye every time, for the chewy texture and the deep flavor it delivers. Hanger steak, or the “butcher’s tender,” is another cut that lots of restaurants are serving these days as a less expensive but delicious alternative to tenderloin. You probably won’t find it at your average supermarket, but you might find it at an upscale market or a good butcher. It may not look like much, but it cooks up tender and tasty (as long as you don’t cook it past medium). These steaks don’t need any sauce, just something savory to serve alongside—my choices being a pungent salad (with the indulgence of some rich blue cheese) or some broccoli rabe with garlic and olive oil. Hold the baked potato.

Caesar salads may be ubiquitous on menus of all stripes, but a truly memorable one can be hard to find. Our version is unique because it pairs the usual romaine with arugula, which adds a peppery bite. I omit the anchovies from the dressing in favor of tossing them with the salad because I like the texture and the intense bites of salty flavor. Feel free to make this salad more substantial (and savory) with the addition of grilled chicken, shrimp, or even fried oysters. Adding a raw egg yolk to the dressing is optional, but it will create a richer, more stable body.

Orecchiette are small ear-shaped pasta shells; fusilli or farfalle can be used instead. You can also replace the arugula with two cups whole fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves.

Using canned beets keeps the prep time to a minimum, but you can substitute roasted beets if you wish (see note below).

Here is that American favorite, Chicken Cordon Bleu, deconstructed. This gorgeous dish pulls the soggy ham and cheese out of the stuffing, layering them instead over a crisp, juicy chicken cutlet. The rich triple cream cheese begins to melt when it hits the panko-crusted chicken, which then anchors the paper-thin slices of cured ham to them both. Baby arugula is tossed in a bright, acidic vinaigrette of Dijon mustard and red wine vinegar before being placed atop the dish. The peppery arugula and mustardy vinaigrette cut through the richness of the cheese and complement the salty ham. I serve this at lunch, but it would be wonderful at dinner as well.

Bob and Nancy Green live on the land Bob’s pioneer father settled in 1881 and Bob has been a rancher for most of his life. Now in her eighties, Nancy continues to indulge her lifelong passion for entertaining. She favors groups up to sixteen, because she can seat them all “gracefully” at her table without having to round up chairs from other parts of the house. Nancy keeps her guests happy with a good supply of cornbread, baked in a Texas-shaped skillet.

Lou Lambert, another one of my chef friends who grew up on a ranch, now owns two Texas restaurants—Lamberts Downtown Barbecue in Austin, and Lambert’s steak house in Fort Worth. Lou got the idea for his seared chickpeas when he was a kid growing up on the family ranch near Odessa. “We had a camp cook who would make hominy loaded with chili powder and garlic. I adapted his dish with chickpeas. I originally put this on the menu at the first Lambert’s on South Congress, and it has been a mainstay at all the restaurants since.” I’ve been coveting this recipe ever since I first tasted it at Lou’s first restaurant. Now that I have it, I know it will become a mainstay for me, too, especially when I have some entertaining to do.

Josh Raymer, the creative young chef behind Fredericksburg’s Navajo Grill, enjoys a little low-key partying at home on his days off. He and his wife, Julie, often invite friends in for a relaxed evening with simple food, a few good wines or a cooler full of beer, and some good conversation. Josh describes Hill Country parties as generally laid-back—dressing up means stepping into your “nicer” boots. But even the most casual affair on his stone patio includes music—Willy Nelson and the Texas Tornados are favorites. Decoration often consists of little more than bunches of herbs clipped from his carefully tended herb garden and plunked in jars. “We don’t do much.” Josh and Julie came to my garden party with their two-year-old son Hank and this equally irresistible salad. Don’t let the semi-boneless instructions frighten you. You can order neatly packaged, semi-boned quail from just about any commercial outlet, including Josh’s Bandera, Texas, supplier, Diamond H Ranch (www.texasgourmetquail.com). Semi-boned quail means the back, breast, and thigh bones have been removed, leaving the bird’s skin and its tiny leg bones intact. This allows the birds to be laid out flat for easy grilling.

This elegant appetizer or starter salad for a dinner party celebrates two loves: goat cheese and roasted beets. It takes more time than a simple tossed salad, but all can be done in advance for entertaining. Mixing red beets with golden and candy-striped varieties makes an especially gorgeous presentation. The CKC chèvre that I use is from Chrissy Omo, a local cheesemaking prodigy. (For more about Chrissy, see opposite page.) Although I highly recommend it, CKC cheese is hard to get outside of the Austin–Hill Country area. Support your local cheesemaker by checking out neighborhood farmers’ markets.

This hearty salad is packed with so many vegetables that I often serve it as a main course. It’s a real lifesaver when guests announce, “Oh, by the way, did I mention I’m a vegetarian?” It welcomes just about any edible treasure from the farmers’ market or my garden, from sliced sugar snap peas to colorful nasturtium flowers, slender French green beans to crunchy cucumbers, plus all kinds of peppers. Think seasonally: try fall veggies like roasted acorn squash, steamed broccoli florets, or fall lettuces, or bias-cut and steamed spring asparagus. Any good artisan bread will do, but I prefer a dense white or whole-wheat sourdough; try day-old loaves from your bakery.

Every summer I have out-of-control basil growing in my garden, and it’s a serious challenge to come up with ways to use it all. It sometimes seems to grow faster than I can pick it. Then there is my garden arugula and several bountiful bushes of candy-sweet cherry tomatoes of varying colors. This salad guarantees that no cherry tomato or basil leaf goes to waste. For parties, I take a huge platter-size version of the salad, drizzle the pesto vinaigrette over the fresh mozzarella, and leave a small pitcher of the vinaigrette on the side for those who can never get enough of the deliciously pungent stuff.

This is not the tuna sandwich of your childhood, but it hits all the right notes: richness from the oily tuna, starchy goodness from the chickpeas, bitterness from the arugula, a little tang from the artichoke hearts, and a hell of a tang from the Herbed Lemon Confit (page 4). If you don’t have some of the latter in your refrigerator, store-bought preserved lemon slices will do.

A sweet-sharp salad with a creamy dressing. Avoid the temptation to overmix the salad, as the beets are inclined to send everything a very unfetching shade of marshmallow pink.

A paillard is a piece of meat that has been pounded thin and seared. The purée in this recipe is fragrant and colorful, with a powerful tomatoey tang. Leftover purée can be used as a dip for vegetables or tossed with pasta. Do not reuse any purée that came in contact with the raw chicken without first boiling it for one minute. Start this recipe early in the day to allow the tomatoes and nuts enough time to soak.

Here is an elegant summertime recipe that you can pull together quickly, with minimum time at the stove. You can use fresh or canned crabmeat, and fresh or frozen shrimp and squid. My local supermarket sells frozen squid that has already been cleaned, which is what I use when I cook this dish at home. The sweetness of the seafood in this recipe pairs nicely with the tomato dipping sauce, while the arugula adds a nice contrasting zing.

Not that long ago, for most of America, “cheese” meant pre-sliced singles wrapped in plastic, or insipidly flavored orange wheels produced in America’s heartland. Any cheeses considered “gourmet” were imported from Europe. Fortunately, artisanal cheesemaking is now thriving all over the country, including the South. I love the fresh goat cheese from the Wehner family’s Green Hill Dairy and Sweet Grass Dairy in Thomasville, Georgia. Their cows and goats roam freely in the woods and graze in lush, green pastures. This idyllic existence, the family maintains, makes them so content that they produce the most delicious milk, which, in turn, makes the best cheese. Sweet, roasted Bosc pears, tender baby arugula, and mild creamy goat cheese make this simple, elegant salad sing.