One-Pot Meals

It is fitting that on a most divine jot of the Tyrrhenian coast, on a promontory between the limpid gulfs of Sant’ Eufemia and Goia Tauro, there would glint the small, golden precinct of Tropea. Fitting, too, that there in its rich, black fields would be raised up Italy’s sweetest onions, and that they be long and oval like great lavender pearls. One peels them and sets to, with knife and fork, a dish of sea salt, a pepper grinder, and a tiny jug of beautiful oil, a perfect lunch with bread and wine. Too, we saw the folk of Tropea simply fold back their papery skins and eat them raw, out of hand, layer by layer, like a magical violet fruit. Sometimes, one finds them all softened, smoothed into a delectable potion made of garlic and bay leaves and white wine. Evident in its resemblances to French cousins, the soup of Tropea, though, is a minestra strepitosa—a magnificent soup—say the Calabrian cooks, belittling the goodness of the French soup. Here follows a version that softens the garlic, caramelizing it into sweetness with the slow cooking of the onions, before the illumination of the soup with red wine and grappa and the finishing of it with pecorino and a heavy dusting of fresh pepper.

Soppressato is a dried sausage of large, oval shape, refined texture, and vivid spice, the masterwork of the salumieri lucani. This sausage is a fundamental offering on the Lucanian table and its goodness is often celebrated, imitated—in longer, more slender shapes—in all the regions of Italy, under the all-encompassing name of luganica/luganega, after Lucania. Here follows a recipe for a fresh sausage that embraces the flavors and perfumes of the traditional salsicce of Lucania.

A sort of Lucanian stone soup, this is from Basilicata’s long repertoire of dishes built from almost nothing at all. Once the sustenance of shepherds who could concoct the dish with a handful of wild grasses and the simple stores they carried, too, it was often the family supper of the contadini—the farmers—whose ascetic lives asked that each bit of bread nourish them. I offer it here as balm, a pastoral sort of medicine, one of the thousand historical, wizened prescripts known to soothe and sustain.

This was and is still the dish every Napoletano wishes to come home to for Sunday lunch. There have been sonnets written to its lush sauce, to the perfumes of it curling down to the alleyways below, signaling that, at least for a day, all would be well for that family. The tomato, after its long, slow courting with the red wine, takes on a sort of rusted ebony tint, a beautiful rich color the Napoletani, with their keenness for flourish, are wont to call “black.”

An island off Napoli’s great bay is Ischia. Wild rabbits thrived there once and some still do for a while, before the clever Ischitani sack them, whipping them into old terra-cotta pots, flattering their dry, scant flesh into rosemaried silk.

Enjoy this alsatian specialty with some good beer. I like making this with crunchy, bright, and tart fresh sauerkraut, which my mom brings me from France. It’s also delicious with regular sauerkraut. I love how the meat juices infuse the cabbage and potatoes for a satisfying one-pot meal.

This is an easy dish to make, and the results are splendid. Using quick-cooking rice, you can have a magnificent one-dish meal in about thirty minutes, whether for a busy weeknight or a leisurely weekend meal.

Oh, how I adore this soup, which I discovered at The Bakery in New Paltz, New York. A simple Italian classic, this soup has a number of variations, but I find there’s no need to dress up the basic formula. Escarole is a sturdy green that’s too tough for many salads, but it cooks quickly and, combined with cannellini beans, gives an almost buttery scent and flavor to the soup.

Here’s a soup that comes together in no time, yet tastes as if it has been simmered for hours.

This dish was created for a local fiery food show. It happened to be Lent at the time, so we figured fish would be a good seasonal choice. Then someone reminded us that the bacon was an unholy partner. With apologies to the Pope, we served it anyway because it was that sinfully good.

Shellfish lovers drool over the drunken-sweet richness of the sea infusing every inch of this dish. You can use clams, shrimp, and scallops as we do or substitute your own favorites—mussels, oysters, or even some firm-fleshed fish. Just be sure to serve the pan roast with a spoon and plenty of good bread to sop up all the tasty sauce.

This one-skillet dinner is loaded with flavor and easy to prepare. Serve over some steamin’ Perfect Rice or your favorite macaroni. You can also substitute boneless, skinless chicken thighs for some real concentrated chicken flavor—love that dark meat!

This casserole is hearty and contains everything you could want on the table in one dish. It’s a favorite of our whole family. It makes ten servings, but my husband likes it cold for breakfast the next day, so in my house you’d better take your serving at dinner the night before, ’cause that’s all you’re gonna get!

Even those who say “No!” to sauerkraut will love this specialty dish from family friend Betty Maxwell.

Sometimes it’s nice to make a meal that takes only a couple of steps to get into the oven, and then you can forget about it for an hour while it cooks. The beef broth gives the rice a great flavor. I serve this with Cooked-to-Death Green Beans (page 130).

I love living in Oklahoma. I do miss my family in Georgia, but luckily I get to travel back and forth a lot for visits. My Georgia family has also made the trek to Oklahoma several times, so now both places feel like home. Only once have I gotten so homesick I thought I wouldn’t make it, and that was because I was really sick with the flu and Mama wasn’t there to take care of me. Sometimes nobody will do except Mama! She made this soup for me, froze it in quart containers, packed it in dry ice (who knew you could get dry ice in Monticello?), and shipped it overnight to me in a Styrofoam cooler. When I got it the next morning, I cried, ate some soup, cried, ate some more soup, and thanked God for the most awesome mom on the planet!

Sled Dog, a malty, full-bodied craft lager with notes of caramel and chocolate, is the key ingredient in Wagner Valley’s version of Carbonnades Flamande, Belgium’s rich national dish. The hearty stew is an excellent bracer against our cold, snowy winter days in the Finger Lakes.

The concentrated, complex flavors of Cabernet Sauvignon provide a good match with chocolate. Chef Arthur Kelly Jr. has incorporated cocoa as a savory flavoring in a Finger Lakes take on the traditional French dish.

When I was in Trinidad, Winnie Lee Lum showed me how to make this superb dish, which beautifully demonstrates the convergence of Chinese and Trinidadian cooking traditions. Of course, the taste was extraordinary because Lee Lum only cooks with fresh local shrimp that her husband, Tony, purchases for her. Before cooking, she rinses the shrimp in lime juice, a Trinidadian cooking practice said to remove the "fishy" taste. She prefers the Chinese custom of cooking the shrimp in the shell to protect the shrimp's succulence and flavor. Rather than rice wine, Lee Lum insists on using dark Jamaican-style rum; according to her, white rum is too harsh for cooking. This is one of the easiest dishes to stir-fry, and it is guaranteed to satisfy.