Dried Fruit

This traditional Scottish soup is made with chicken stock, leeks, and potatoes. If you make this soup ahead, you may need to add a bit of water or stock when reheating it.

Instead of raw shallots, try using the same quantity of roasted shallots. Remove the skins and slice into thirds. Unbaked empanadas can be frozen up to 3 weeks; without thawing, bake in a 375°F oven for about 30 minutes. Baked empanadas can be refrigerated up to 1 day or frozen up to 2 weeks; reheat in a 350°F oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

You can make the goat cheese filling one day ahead and refrigerate it. These hors d’oeuvres can be assembled several hours before serving. Loosely cover them with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 3 hours. Bring to room temperature before serving.

When you look at recipes for European holiday breads like panettone, stollen, tsoureki, and christopsomo, it seems as if they are all related, often sharing similar ingredients and proportions of fat and sugar. Often, the main difference is in the shaping and in the history and symbolism of each bread. But heaven help any of us if we propose that thought to someone who grew up with any of those breads. I once made stollen, panettone, and kulich (Russian Easter bread) from a recipe for multipurpose holiday bread for a group of chefs and explained my theory of their similarities. Later, one of the American chefs told me I had offended some of the Germans who grew up on stollen and who were adamant that stollen is nothing like panettone. So I will resist the temptation to call this formula a multipurpose holiday bread (though I have made many types of bread from it) and instead limit it to its application as Dresden stollen. Dresden is considered the spiritual home of this traditional Christmas bread. The bread symbolizes the blanket of the baby Jesus, and the colored fruits represent the gifts of the Magi. As in nearly every festival bread, the story aspect of this loaf is culturally important, for it is a way parents teach their children about their heritage. When such a story is accompanied by the flavor memory of a particular food, you have a tool much more powerful than didactic or pedagogical teaching. I’m convinced this must be the reason I offended those Germans that day when I implied that a stollen was like a panettone. Perhaps in taste and ingredients, yes, but never in association.

Panettone is a traditional, rich Christmas bread originating in Milan. There are many folktales about its origins, the most popular being that it was created a few hundred years ago by a humble baker named Tony to woo his beloved, the daughter of a rich merchant. More importantly, he had to win over the father to the idea of his daughter marrying a baker, so he pulled out all the stops, filling his bread with the baker’s equivalent of the gifts of the wise men: butter, brandied dried and candied fruits, nuts, and sugar. The merchant was so impressed that he not only gave his daughter in marriage, but also set Tony up with his own bakery in Milan with the promise that he would continue to make his bread, pane Tony. For many years the standard panettone found in most bakeries and cookbooks has been one made with commercial yeast, a good but not great rendition. The best and most traditional versions are made by wild-yeast fermentation, augmented by a small amount of commercial yeast. Recently, one of the largest panettone bakeries in Italy changed its formula from commercial yeast to wild yeast, returning to the more traditional method that had all but been abandoned. The bakers discovered that not only does the bread have a longer shelf life due to the increased acidity, but it also outsold the commercial-yeast version. This added up to a huge increase in profits and, more importantly, to happier customers. The following formula will produce a long-keeping loaf that could easily become a perennial favorite at holiday time. It is more time-consuming to produce, but that’s the price of world-class quality. You can also make a perfectly good panettone by following the Stollen formula on page 252, shaping it in the round panettone style.

In Brother Juniper’s Bread Book, I included a recipe for a variation of this bread, but I believe this version is even better, encompassing all the qualities one wants from a raisin bread. It is light, flavorful, loaded with raisins, and it has a wonderful finish, filling your mouth with the satisfying aftertaste of roasted walnuts. If you prefer not to use nuts, eliminate them from the formula without any further changes (you may also substitute other nuts, such as pecans or hazelnuts).

Thanks to a wonderful blend of spices and dried fruit, ordinary chicken gets a Moroccan makeover in this meal-in-one dish. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients—this dish is simple to put together.

In less than 30 minutes from starting to prep the ingredients to serving, you can make this exotic fish dish and the accompanying fruit relish. Another time, make only the fruit relish and serve it with roasted pork or chicken.

A just-right blend of sweet and tart, this salad is a great accompaniment to Curried Chicken Kebabs with Yogurt Dipping Sauce (page 138) or Pork Chops with Herb Rub (page 196). Spoon the salad onto leaves of butter lettuce or radicchio for an especially attractive presentation.

Refreshing and crunchy, this fruit salad makes a good brunch dish with Turkey Sausage Patties (page 166).

Banana, cranberries, and orange zest give this bread a lively flavor that will get your day off to just the right start.

Assemble the ingredients for this oatmeal in the slow cooker before you go to sleep, and a heart-healthy breakfast reminiscent of apple pie will await you in the morning. Unless you have a large family, you’ll even have enough left over for another breakfast later in the week.

A wonderfully moist cake (partly because of baby-food prunes), it’s perfect all on its own—no icing required!