Dried Fruit

The combination of lemon zest, raisins, and pine nuts was inspired by condiments popular in Southern Italian cooking. Try the lemon relish on chicken or pork, or even as a topping for steamed broccoli.

The rhubarb sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Try it with chicken or drizzled over toasted bread or crackers topped with goat cheese. The cherries can be replaced with other dried fruit, such as golden raisins.

This salad works best with baby spinach; if you want to substitute regular spinach, tear it into small pieces before tossing with other ingredients. You can use tart or sweet cherries.

I used to be very apprehensive about different ethnic foods until I studied abroad. The first time I had a tagine was in France and I wondered where it had been all my life! That first tagine was the furthest thing from being vegetarian-friendly, as it came with every kind of meat you can imagine, but an all-vegetable version is just as good. This is a great meal for when you have friends coming over or to take to a potluck.

These butter cookies are one of my favorite French sweets in the Vietnamese repertoire. With just a few good ingredients, you can quickly bake a batch to serve alone or with ice cream, sorbet, or fresh fruit. When Vietnamese bakers make these cookies, they don’t normally include currants in the batter because the dried fruit is not readily available in Vietnam. They top each cookie with a raisin instead. Although currants are widely sold in the United States, Vietnamese American bakers still use raisins. I prefer to stir currants into the batter to distribute their chewy sweetness, and the results are closer to the original French version.

This is a fantastic fall dish. The great thing about venison is that it has very little fat and is quite good for you. Red cabbage is a classic accompaniment to venison, especially in the Germany-influenced cuisine of France’s Alsace region. Baking the cabbage into a savory bread pudding Americanizes the traditional combination. The purple ribbons look beautiful running through the golden currant-studded, clove- and ginger-scented pudding. Baking the cabbage also mellows its somewhat astringent quality, making it accessible to those who may be less fond of its assertive flavor. Concord grapes are in season for a very short period of time, and their delicious, juicy, sweet-tart flavor is a highlight of the season. This sauce calls for Concord grape juice, which is always available, even when the grapes themselves are not.

I’m always trying to get Rosa to make chiles rellenos for the bakery’s lunch special. Customers love them and they always sell out. But they are messy and a lot of work. Even after you’ve roasted and peeled the chiles and finished making the meat filling, you’re only halfway there: they still need dipping in egg-white batter, individual deep-frying, and an immediate mouth to feed, because nobody likes cold chiles rellenos. I complained about this to Yvonne Bowden, a favorite party-throwing partner. She told me about a relleno casserole that bypassed the deep fryer. It’s still a lot of work, but the casserole configuration is more party friendly. We worked on the dish together and Fiesta Chiles Rellenos were born. Serve with small bowls of Beans a la Charra (page 150).

I first tasted Ralph Watterson’s Six Rivers Tuna last year when he and his group of bicycling buddies passed through Frederickburgs on a four-day cycling trip. His tuna provides hearty lunches for the group as they cover 300 miles and cross six rivers on their annual spring cycling trip. I asked for the recipe, which he described as his mother’s version, plus a few embellishments of his own. I made it, tried it out at the bakery, and our tuna sandwich sales skyrocketed. Ralph’s Six Rivers Tuna is now a part of our regular menu. Given its proven track record as a recipe that travels, I figured it would be great for an outdoor picnic or a potluck. On bike trips, Ralph says he often serves it with crackers. I wanted something more substantial and created a soft, honey-kissed roll that when split and filled with tuna makes a memorable and satisfying sandwich that travels with ease.

When I’ve got a crowd to feed and a tight budget, I turn to rice salad. I love its versatility: Simply add meat or shellfish for a heartier dish, but omit them for vegetarians. Sometimes I divide the rice mixture into two serving bowls before adding meat or shellfish, reserving one for my non-meat eating friends. It’s hard to beat homemade mayonnaise, which tastes fresher and richer than the commercial stuff. I’ve included a recipe for the mayonnaise we use at Rather Sweet Bakery & Café.

My backyard fig tree is not always the most reliable producer, but when I have figs I make this dessert. It pairs an old-fashioned pound cake (recipe courtesy of my great-aunt Emma) with a chunky sauce made with my homegrown Brown Turkey figs. I love this dessert’s down-home elegance—a figgy topping poured over individual pound cakes baked in cupcake pans. You can use any fresh fig that’s available—light green, brown, or purple. In Texas you’ll most likely find Brown Turkeys, which I’ve been told were planted throughout the state by early homesteaders. If fresh figs are not available, use Bosc pears or tart apples. If you want a large, belt-busting dessert, use Texas-size cupcake pans. Standard-size cupcake pans will give you double the servings.

My introduction to the joys of room-temperature farro salad came years ago in Boston, when I wrote an article about two chef-couples’ different approaches to an outdoor dinner party. Gabriel Frasca and Amanda Lydon, who have since taken over the storied Straight Wharf restaurant on Nantucket to much acclaim, cooked the farro in the oven, then combined it with, among other things, fresh cherries, blanched and sautéed broccoli rabe, and pecans. Besides scaling it down to single-serving size, I stripped down their method considerably, standing in fresh arugula for the broccoli rabe so I don’t have to cook it, adding protein in the form of chickpeas, and using dried cherries instead of fresh because I can get them year-round.

I confess I’m not a big fan of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which I find tasteless enough to be considered the tofu of meats (no offense, tofu lovers). Instead, for most purposes I almost always go for the thighs, with the bone in for more flavor and quicker, more even cooking. I like to leave the skin on, too; however, in a quick braise like this one, it can get too rubbery. This is a very stripped-down take on traditional Moorish flavor combinations; eat it with white or brown rice or farro (see page 143), which will soak up the complex sauce wonderfully.

After the milk crumb phenomenon in the kitchen, we had to find a mainstream use for it, rather than just hiding it under some ice cream. It needed its moment in the sun. So I brainstormed. A peaches-and-cream cookie was my original thought. Momofuku does mean “lucky peach” in Japanese, after all. But I decided we needed something that would hit home even more for guests. Did you know dried blueberries existed? I didn’t, until I surveyed Whole Foods’ dried fruit selection for a dried peach alternative. The clouds parted, and it was clear. We needed a blueberry-and-cream cookie, reminiscent of a blueberry muffin top (the best part of the muffin).

Freeze-dried fruit! The range of delicious freeze-dried fruits and veggies can make your world of crumb possibilities seem endless. We grind down freeze-dried fruits and veggies into a powder in a blender or food processor and then toss them with milk crumbs to give pops of new flavor to an old crumb. We adjust the moisture with butter or white chocolate if necessary, based on the ingredients in the mix and our end goal.

My friend Damon Fowler, chef and author, taught me the importance of using freshly grated nutmeg. The difference is remarkable, so please don’t substitute ground nutmeg from ajar. Grate the nutmeg on the fine side of your grater, being careful that you don’t include a little knuckle! Fresh nutmeg can be found right next to the ground nutmeg in your local supermarket.

My grandmother Irene Paul taught me to make fried pies years ago. She made the pastry dough from scratch in the early days, but later in life she began to take advantage of modern conveniences. So here’s the recipe for Grandmother’s updated but old-fashioned fried pies.