Poach

As they simmer, the pears send enticing wafts of fruit and vanilla through the air, a fitting invitation to a supremely elegant dessert. I’ve also served these at Thanksgiving with the main course in place of traditional cranberry sauce. The tea bag adds undertones that complement or highlight the fruit in the simmering liquid—fruity or floral, depending on what you use. Choose a fruit tea that you like—I use tropical green tea or passion fruit.

This might be just the ticket when you’re looking for something tasty and really fast.

We devised this sandwich partly to challenge ourselves. Usually prepared in advance of its use in a sandwich, chicken loses moisture by the time it arrives there. So we looked for a way to keep the chicken moist . . . and we found it. By slowly and gently poaching the chicken, and then storing it in the poaching liquid until it’s used, we lock in the moisture. (Use this trick whenever you’re preparing chicken for a picnic or for use in a salad—the chicken will be moist and delicious, and without oil, to boot. Further, you can use the poaching broth for soup simply by adding more water, some vegetables, and some of the chicken.) We serve this as a pressed sandwich, but it also works well served cold.

Do you know anyone who does not make chicken salad with leftover chicken? We don’t. And folks tend to want mayonnaise, some fruity sweetness and/or nuts, crunch, and texture. We’re happy to oblige. We start with our homemade Mayonnaise (page 176). And if you have not yet tried the Pickled Mustard Seeds (page 187), this chicken salad gives you the perfect excuse. We’re not sure “pickled” is the perfect term for them—they’re flavored with sugar, vinegar, and water and puff up, caviar-like. This gives the chicken salad little bubbles that pop as you eat it, as caviar does, releasing a lightly mustardy flavor. The Pickled Red Onions (page 190) lend sweet, sour, and oniony flavors, as well as texture and crunch. Frisée adds texture as well. And using Roasted Tomatoes (page 195)—a staple in our own home kitchens—makes this sandwich a year-round choice.

While I serve these pears with Semolina Pancakes (page 97), you could spoon them over any pancake and replace the traditional maple syrup accompaniment with this poaching liquid instead. Poached pears are also great in a simple trifle, with layers of ice cream and crisp cookies. Poaching is a long, gentle cooking process, so firm fruit is what you want. Choose pears of equal ripeness for poaching, and they will all be equally tender.

The trick to cooking quinces is to maintain their fragrance and delicate flavor while you coax them into tenderness. Gentle poaching is an ideal way to achieve this goal. Use poached quinces interchangeably with poached pears. They’re great with chocolate, with cheese, or with walnuts and arugula as a salad. If you’ve saved vanilla pods from other recipes, use them here in place of fresh beans.

I first had oil-poached fish in Napa Valley and loved the way this cooking method kept the fish so moist; you can’t really dry it out. You could prepare halibut or just about any other mild white fish this way. Be sure to use a mix of olive and vegetable oils to poach the fish; if you use 100 percent olive oil it will become too bitter. This is another really good-looking dish, with lots of pretty colors.

I love this salad—it’s so fresh and clean-tasting. Sometimes I make a meal of it. Because I really want you to make this salad, I’m calling for store-bought fillets. But if you have a whole striped bass that you’ve filleted, this salad is a great way to use odds and ends from the fish. Poach the fish head and the belly parts you’ve trimmed from the fillets in the court bouillon. Remove the meat from the cheeks and along the top of the head, and trim the bellies of bones and skin. I like the crushed red pepper to be conspicuous in this salad, so don’t be afraid to use it. Start with about 1/2 teaspoon and go from there. And don’t throw the cooking liquid out: save it to make the salad nice and juicy. You could use crabmeat or even chicken instead, I guess, but white fish, like the bass, is perfect prepared this way.

This is one of those dishes you can take in any direction you like. You can use whatever seafood is available—scungilli (sea conch), crabmeat, scallops, or any firm fish fillets. You can use lemon juice in place of part or all of the vinegar and dress the salad up with capers, black or green olives, roasted peppers, or diced tomatoes. However you make it, it’s best prepared about 1/2 hour before you serve it, to give the flavors a chance to develop. You can refrigerate the salad, but not for too long. And be sure to bring it to room temperature and check the seasonings before you serve it.

A healthy amount of celery gives this traditionally rich seafood salad a good bit of crunch. The lightened-up lemony mayonnaise dressing would be delicious with any cold, steamed, or poached seafood, including crab, scallops, and lobster.

This dish is so simple, yet it could be served at any elegant dinner party. It is equally good warm or cold and makes a great addition to a Sunday brunch.

I admit, toasting the bread cubes is the hardest part of this recipe for me. I burn a lot of bread, often. Use your favorite method for remembering: the rubber band around the wrist, a timer, or assign someone in the house to stand guard at the oven. (I use John.) It’s always such a drag to have to do a “do over” when it comes to making croutons. It’s humbling.

Octopus is an acquired taste. People who enjoy it really love the meaty texture and slightly sweet taste. Here we’ve cooked it in oil flavored with garlic and smoked ham hocks. We like the gentle nutty flavor of rice bran oil, but you can substitute the vegetable oil or fat of your choice. The slow, gentle cooking leaves you with incredibly tender and flavorful meat.

After a recent trip to France, I told chef Daniel Boulud that I wanted to learn more about charcuterie. He suggested that I spend a day with Sylvain Gasdon, the charcutier at his newly opened Bar Boulud in New York. It turned out that some of the trends I had been noticing in French restaurants were the foundation of the menu at Bar Boulud, featuring charcuterie and lighter terrines. I asked Sylvain, who came from Paris to help Daniel, if he would teach me how to make a terrine, one for those who eschew pork. This is it!

This dish comes from Susie Morgenstern, the Judy Blume of France. When she is not writing novels for teenagers or lecturing around France, she is cooking in her marvelous nineteenth-century house, high up in the hills above Nice, overlooking the Mediterranean. When I visited her, she told me I’d need to climb a hundred steps to reach her home. I did, only to find that they were the wrong hundred stairs! So down I went, and up again. But the two climbs were worth it, and I was rewarded with a spectacular view from the house. Although Susie, who greeted me warmly, does not consider herself a good cook, she is known for her Passover Seders, always welcoming people from Nice’s diverse cultures. She learned this Turkish Jewish dish, which marries sautéed parsley with mackerel, from her motherin-law, who came to France from Constantinople. Susie calls it “Red Sea” mackerel because of the red color of the dish. Served at Passover, it evokes the story of the Jews crossing the Red Sea during their exodus from Egypt. When I suggested adding garlic to the dish, Susie paused. “My mother-in-law was no garlic miser, but she didn’t put it in this; there must have been a reason.” This confirms my belief that traditional foods, handed down from generation to generation, are the last to change within a culture.

I used to make this dish with fillets of halibut until the cost, at least in New York, made me look at other fish. Now I use cod or hake. They both flake a bit more but still manage to hold their shape. Salting them ahead of time helps hold them together. I like to use fresh tomatoes even if they are out of season, as they are gentler in flavor. I grate the tomatoes on the coarsest part of a four-sided grater (see method on page 289), which removes the skin but keeps the seeds. Four medium tomatoes will yield roughly 1 3/4 cups of fresh puree, about what you need here. Light and lovely, this dish is best served with rice. I like to add a dal and perhaps a green, leafy vegetable.