New Years

I learned how to make this recipe in Tuscany, and who knew all these funky ingredients put together could taste SOOOOO delightful? Chicken livers? Anchovies? Capers? Believe it or not, all these super-strong personalities come together to make one really delicious pâté—and it’s so easy. Top this combo with some onions braised in balsamic vinegar and you’ve got yourself a super Tuscan!

People think fresh figs are elegant—and this preparation definitely is. To be honest, figs are not my favorite fruit, but when I make them this way I really love ’em. They are a quick and easy (Q&E) piccolino. Cut ’em, stuff ’em, and roast ’em until everything melts and gets all toasty—it’s SOOOOO easy!

Mortadella is a super-high-quality baloney. In fact, it’s probably the most delicious baloney you’ve ever had. At one of my dinner parties I was serving mortadella and one of my guests said, “Hey, this baloney has nuts in it!” And it does: Mortadella is full of pistachios and chunky bits of fat, both of which make it super-flavorful. My mortadella pâté is puréed, mixed with whipped cream, and topped with pistachios—think of it as baloney mousse.

Eleven casinos dot the Mississippi beachfront from Biloxi to Bay St. Louis. I’m not too much on gambling—I’m poor and my luck isn’t so great—but I have a friend, Dale, who works for a large casino concern and he invited me there recently for a big music event. With some time to kill I decided to try my luck in the casino. Cards are not my thing and I like gawking at people, so roulette seemed the best game for me. When the croupier, Twayla, set the ball to spinning it hopped off the wheel, missing the thirty-eight pockets, and went right down the front of my blouse. The guy next to me asked me my bra size and it came up on the next spin. People think I make this kind of thing up but Dale saw the casino security tape to prove it! Seventeen natural oyster reefs are managed by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources along the Mississippi Sound, which runs ninety miles east to west from Waveland to the Dauphin Island Bridge. On the south side, the Gulf Islands National Seashore separates the sound from the true Gulf of Mexico. As I write this the fate of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, its oysters, and its tourism industry is under siege from that catastrophic oil spill. I am betting on the resilience of these folks; they have come back from the brink of disaster before.

Collard greens with bacon or ham are a classic—spicy, smoky, and tender in an addictive savory broth. Most recipes splash in some vinegar to add a little tang and balance the bitterness of the greens. Soy sauce adds a different spin to this Southern staple. Try this alongside Thyme-Smoked Four-Inch Porterhouse Steak (page 168) or Whole Roasted Chicken with Plumped Raisins, Toasted Pine Nuts, and Arugula (page 142).

In restaurants, raw oysters tend to be disappointing and expensive. At home they are a slightly messy but relatively cheap treat. Skip the sweet cocktail sauce and serve them with a bottle of good hot sauce—classic and delicious.

Superstition across the southeastern United States holds that eating hog jowls, collard greens, and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day will make a person healthy, wealthy, and wise. Hog jowl, which is the cheek of a pig, is a flavorful and fatty meat that is usually cured or smoked. Hard to believe a food as rich and fat-laden as hog jowl is linked to health and prosperity. These meager foods have always been a symbol of plenty for people who are often very poor. The “good-luck” traditions of black-eyed peas in the Southern United States date back to the Civil War, when Union troops ravaged Southern lands, destroying crops and taking all livestock. All that was left were black-eyed peas, which were considered to be fodder for horses and other animals; as a result, many Southerners subsisted on this protein-rich and hearty legume.

Warm and aromatic—like bouillabaisse without all the fuss. Mussels are best eaten right away, so call everyone to the table when you put the mussels into the pot.

This delicate little indulgence makes a marvelous treat; cut up into little squares, it’s perfect party fare. We were already considering creating a grilled cheese sandwich with fontina when one of our purveyors came to us with the white truffle fondue. Unlike many truffle oil products, this fondue is made with real truffles. We tried it . . . and loved it. It is the ideal complement to the mellow flavor of fontina and the fresh Pullman bread. We wanted to add some sautéed mushrooms, and chose the black trumpets for their low moisture content and springy texture. If you find them fresh—which can be difficult, even in season—rinse them well to get rid of all the grit.

The fried onions in this recipe are sliced very thin and coated with flour to make them crisp. We wanted them to be a bit tart, but the more customary buttermilk just didn’t take the onions where we wanted them to go. So we first soak the onions in vinegar, then flour and fry them; this way they have the acidity we were after. (Think salt-and-vinegar potato chips.) The radish salad adds some heat to the equation, balancing the ensemble.

Caviar is often garnished with hard-boiled eggs, so why not the reverse? To enhance the taste of the eggs, cook them until the yolks are still a bit soft so they can serve as the basis for the sauce. (This obviates the need for mayo, which would mask the eggs’ flavor.) As this dish is all about the egg, use fresh farm eggs if possible. And if you wish to keep the price down, inexpensive salmon roe will substitute well for the caviar—and it looks beautiful, too.

I love champagne and it’s a natural in desserts. This sorbet captures the airiness and effervescence of the wine, and adding a hint of lemon makes it super-refreshing. Champagnes differ in their sugar contents, which will affect whether or not the sorbet will freeze, so be sure to use Veuve Clicquot yellow label for this recipe.

Don’t let the small size of these cheese balls fool you. They’re loaded with flavor and crunch!

Pat: Black-eyed peas, simmered with fatty pork (such as ham hocks or bacon), have been a staple in the South for hundreds of years. Inexpensive, easy to grow, and easy to store, they provide protein and nourishment and, many believe, good fortune (which is why eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is a Southern tradition). Some even eat greens, meant to symbolize money, alongside of them. Don’t worry if at the end of the cooking process these beans seem a little watery. To cream them up, mash the beans against the side of the pot with the back of a spoon, or purée a cup of them in the blender and add them back in. These black-eyed peas are great poured over warm cornbread, and are a perfect side with grilled or fried pork chops.

Gina: I’m always surprised to discover that folks in these parts tend to cook turnip and mustard greens more often than collard greens. I think the perception is that collards tend to be a little bitter. But I gotta tell you, you’re sleeping on this one! Rich in vitamins and nutrients, collard greens are actually the sweetest, best-tasting leaves you can buy (turnip and mustard greens, on the other hand, have a slightly spicy, peppery taste). In this recipe, the deep, full flavor of the collard greens along with a bit of sugar and some heat from the red-pepper flakes create an irresistible sweet-and-hot pot of goodness, while the ham hocks add a note of smoke that balances out the other flavors. Pat can’t get enough of these sweet greens. Trust me on this one, ladies—this is the recipe that’ll bring your man home every night! Five bunches of collards might seem like a lot of greens, but these jokers will cook down to a fraction of their original size.

Oysters Rockefeller was created in New Orleans at the turn of the last century. It was named for John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in America at the time, because he and the dish had something in common. If you don’t overcook them, oysters are juicy and creamy and taste luxuriously rich. Without changing too much from the classic recipe (aside from reducing the loads of butter), the fat content went from 22 grams to just under 6 grams—with most of that coming from the oysters themselves. This dish is a fabulous throwback that won’t set you back. Oysters Rockefeller are baked in piles of coarse salt not just to anchor the liquid in the oyster shell but also because salt is an excellent conductor of heat.

Sandrine Weil and Mathias Laurent represent to me how France has changed in a generation. Their apartment at the time, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne, was very modern, very relaxed. With three young girls, they didn’t care if everything was in order, and the place had a wonderful warm feeling of welcoming chaos. On one special Shabbat, Mathias was the cook, and gave me a present of a meal with truffles. After the blessings were recited over the wine and the challah, made by Sandrine and her daughters, we tasted scrambled eggs with truffles as a first course, followed by an extraordinary dish of chicken with truffles stuffed under the skin, called in French poularde demi-deuil (chicken in half-mourning), and truffled gelato for dessert. Here is Mathias’s recipe for roast chicken. Since truffles are rare and expensive, I often instead scatter around the chicken some carrots, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green beans, or whatever is seasonally available. It is delicious, and a snap to prepare. If you are lucky enough to have a truffle, however, omit the rosemary, thyme, and preserved lemon the night before, and carefully slide a small, sharp knife under the skin of the chicken, separating the skin from the meat. Then cut the truffle into six to eight thin slices and slide them under the skin. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. Continue with the roasting as I describe below.

Here is Paul Bocuse’s kosher rendition of his famous soup with black truffles and foie gras. He first created it for a dinner in 1975 at the Élysée Palace (the White House of France) when he received the Légion d’Honneur from President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing for valor on the battlefield during World War II. I have omitted the fresh foie gras, because obtaining it both fresh and kosher is difficult. This soup is refreshingly delicious, one you can prepare ahead that will still make a grand splash at any dinner. Either make one big soup or use eight 8-ounce ramekins, as the recipe indicates.