Steve Dunn

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Corn and Cilantro

September 10, 2010 By Steve Dunn 14 Comments

This dish came together one afternoon just before the kids went back to school, and was designed with a few different thoughts in mind. First, it is a vegetarian option (well, not quite, it does have chicken stock) that will pass Peyton’s “pescatarian” hurdle, it used some beautiful heirloom tomatoes, cilantro and thyme from our garden, and it qualified as an entry in Food52’s weekly competition for “Red Pepper” recipes.

For those of you new to “Oui, Chef”, Food52 is a fabulous website that I have contributed to over the past year or so. It was founded by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, and acts as a food lover’s portal that brings together terrific and passionate home-cooks to share recipes, and compete in weekly contests where the winners get their recipes published in the Food52 cookbook. I was lucky enough to win one of their first round of competitions, and will get to see one of my recipes published in their 1st cookbook that will come out later this year (click HERE for a look at the winning recipe).

I am THRILLED to tell you all that this recipe for roasted red pepper soup has been chosen as a FINALIST in this week’s competition. The gang is now working on their second book, and with your help, I just may be able to pull-out another win and earn the honor of inclusion in the second annual Food52 cookbook. Please visit the site by clicking this link: Food52, and if you’re not already a member (you really should be), join the fun community and VOTE for my “Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Corn and Cilantro”. Voting closes at 12 AM ET on 9/15/10, so don’t delay and please go NOW to vote. Thanks all….you’re the BEST! 10/4/10 UPDATE: Thanks to all of your support, this recipe won the “Red Pepper” competition and will be featured in the 2011 Food52 Cookbook! Below you can see a video of Amanda and Merrill making the soup.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Corn and Cilantro from Food52 on Vimeo.

Double Chocolate Layer Cake

September 9, 2010 By Steve Dunn 25 Comments

This has been my “go-to” chocolate cake for a few years now, though I usually make it with a white butter and sugar, or cream cheese frosting. Here in the “Oui, Chef” kitchen, every family member gets to choose which cake we’ll make for their birthday each year, and this one has been a staff favorite for some time now.

Peyton generally goes for a cheesecake of some sort (key-lime was a big hit), Muppet is death by chocolate all the way (no surprise there). Arthas requests a chocolate-pistachio log that I learned how to make at Le Cordon Bleu, and everyone else requests some version of this cake.

Garden Green Risotto with Shrimp and Guanciale

September 5, 2010 By Steve Dunn 10 Comments

Artisanal "5 Minute" Bread

September 1, 2010 By Steve Dunn 9 Comments

For years now we have talked about baking our own bread, but the vigilance and care required to nurse a sourdough starter, or the time required to mix, knead, proof and bake a traditional loaf, always proved too much of a hurdle for us to overcome.

That all changed recently when we were given the game-changing cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking , by our sister-in-law Margo, who is a very accomplished bread baker in her own right. Margo has been baking fabulous breads and bagels the old fashioned way for years, keeping everyone she knows abundantly supplied with delicious baked goods. She has trained at the King Arthur Flour Education Center in Norwich, VT. (which she has come to affectionately refer to as “Mecca”), and has diligently baked her way through a few of the bibles of bread baking such as The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread , & Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers.

In short, this gal knows what she’s doing, so when she endorsed the new “short-cut” methodologies in “5 Minutes a Day”, we decided we had run out of excuses for not making our own….it was time to get baking.

Rainbow Chard and Chèvre Casserole

August 28, 2010 By Steve Dunn 6 Comments

What’s a guy to do when his garden runneth over with beautiful rainbow chard, and his kids are quite determined to never eat another leaf of the stuff as long as they live?

I wish I could tell you that I didn’t just toss some melted cheese on my beautiful bounty, but the fact is, that’s pretty much the story. I know…I know, it sounds like a cowards way out, please don’t hate me.

EVOO’s Local Blueberry Crisp

August 23, 2010 By Steve Dunn 19 Comments

This is a great, seasonal and simple dish from a favorite chef of mine, and one of our “Chef’s Table” contributors, Peter McCarthy, the very talented chef / owner at EVOO restaurant in Cambridge.

Here in the Northeast it’s blueberry season, and while there are plenty of great things to do with all of our local flavor bombs, like make blueberry jam, blueberry cake, blueberry pie, or blueberry ice cream, I challenge you to find a recipe as good and simple as this blueberry crisp.

There is hardly anything more to this recipe than some simple measuring and mixing, a brief stint in a hot oven to burst the sweet berries and crisp the streusel topping, and then if you wish (and why wouldn’t you?), a reach into the freezer for a nice big scoop of vanilla ice cream. This dish is all about a lot of goodness for not a lot of work…..Amen.

Muppet helped me measure and mix the topping while I pulled together the simpler filling ingredient list (I’m no fool). We quickly combined our efforts in an 8″ round x 3 1/2″ deep ceramic baking dish and tossed it into a 350℉ oven for about a half hour, piece of cake…or crisp, as it were.

Support Local Farmers!

Buy Local Blueberries!

Make This Crisp!

Cheers – S

EVOO's Blueberry Crisp

by: EVOO Restaurant, Cambridge, MA.

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

Topping:

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 pound softened butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats)
2 cups toasted slivered almonds

Filling:

8 cups local blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 tablespoon brandy
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Instructions

Topping

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the first 8 ingredients until they come together. Add the toasted almonds and mix until combined. Chill in the fridge for a few minutes to let the butter set.

Filling

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl (wow...that was tough).

Assembly

Place filling in an adequately sized baking pan or individual baking cups. Crumble topping on top. Depending on the size of the baking dish you use, you may have some of the topping left-over, if you do, toss it into a zip-lok and freeze it for later use. I like my crisp with a higher blueberry to topping ratio, so I use a deeper baking dish with a smaller surface area on top for the streusel. If you like more crunch in your crisp, use a larger, shallower dish that will take more of the topping to cover. Bake in a 350℉ pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, until filling is bubbling around the sides. Serve with a scoop of ice cream, or some freshly whipped cream.

Grilled Swordfish with Green Caper Sauce

August 16, 2010 By Steve Dunn 10 Comments

Fish can be a tricky thing to serve a family. There are some people, like my Mom, who likes fish as fishy as she can get it. Then there are people like me, who can tolerate only the mildest fish. Salmon is about the edge of my tolerance, and to be honest, I usually have to choke it down, the flavor is just too strong for me….I’m such a wimp.

Swordfish on the other hand is a fish that I love, it is meaty, flavorful (without being fishy), and as long as you don’t overcook it, is flaky and moist. I love swordfish all on its own, but we eat so much of it that I try to introduce different condiments to serve with it in order to keep things interesting, and to show the kids just how different it can taste when paired with different flavors.

Fruit salsas are delicious with swordfish, as are the more traditional tomato variety. A great sweet – salty combo can be found in one of my very favorite swordfish recipes (I’ll blog it before grilling season is over, I promise), Andrew Carmellini’s “Grilled Swordfish with Orange and Olives”…..it is fabulous.

Muppet’s Madeleine – Mousse Cake

August 7, 2010 By Steve Dunn 39 Comments

Pierre Hermé…..Ladurée…..Gerard Mulot……Hugo & Victor……Hediard…….Fauchon……Eric Kayser.

This is but a sampling of the famous pastry chefs / shops that kept us giddily happy and full during our recent trip to Paris. This same group is also responsible for opening Muppet’s eyes to the heights that the very best pastry can achieve. These folks are the best of the best, the “Top Gun” pilots of the pastry world, and eating their confections has inspired Muppet to dream-up her very own original creation.

Aren’t we all lucky?

Guinness Burgers

August 3, 2010 By Steve Dunn 25 Comments

Prior to leaving for Paris, my boys and I had a few days away “just us guys”. It is a trip we do every year right at the end of school, and as luck would have it, we get to celebrate Father’s Day while we are off having a blast together….it is absolutely perfect. This year, the boys bought me a few books in celebration of the big day, one, written by Justin Halpern is called Sh*t My Dad Says and is riotously funny, I can highly recommend it. The other is entitled Guinness: Celebrating 250 Remarkable Years and is a wonderful history (complete with some scrumptious recipes) of one of my favorite libations. My boys always know just what to get me, thanks guys.

As we flipped through the pages of the Guinness book we found a number of recipes that were immediately deemed blog worthy, from Guinness Bread, to Shepard’s Pie, to Bangers and Mash with Guinness Sauce, but the one that stood-out above all others, the one we wanted to cook first, was this one, Guinness Burgers.

Falafel with Tahini Sauce

July 28, 2010 By Steve Dunn 21 Comments

I don’t think I ate my first falafel until I was in my forties….late thirties at the earliest, and after hearing a great deal of hoo-ha over the years as to the joys of falafel, I must admit that my first experience left me flat. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what got people so excited about the little things, as mine were dry and as bland as sawdust on the inside, slick and oily on their surface, and presented with day-old chopped veggies and a REALLY bitter tahini sauce….ugh.

Growing up in Vermont as a kid, I never even heard the word falafel, let alone have any knowledge of what they were. I was probably in college when I saw my first one, and I remember thinking that it was some sort of meatball when I first laid eyes on it. Imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I finally learned that it was basically just a little veggie patty. Remember, I’m of Italian descent, meatballs make so much more sense to me. To my way of thinking, falafel was to a meatball, what a veggie burger was to a juicy, 80% lean ground sirloin grilled hunk of deliciousness….you can keep the former, I’ll take the latter thank you very much.

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