Oui, Chef - Part 2

Parmesan Frico

October 29, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Processed with VSCO with wwf preset

It’s been a busy few weeks at work while we prepare to film the 2017 season of Cook’s Country TV. Although I’m not a member of the Cook’s Country team, I (along with a few of my Cook’s Illustrated teammates) have been recruited to do some of the behind the scenes cooking for the Cook’s Country on-screen talent. I’m looking forward to the change of pace. TV is always a bit stressful, but it’s also a lot of fun! One of the recipes I’ll be cooking is their addictive “Crispy Parmesan Potatoes with Chive Sour Cream”, a game-day worthy indulgence if there ever was one. I made a few batches the other day at work just to practice for filming and got to experience first-hand exactly how the reputation of the dish had spread to every corner of the building in the months since it was first developed. After having the food director of the show sign-off on the quality of my practice batch, I placed my platter containing two pounds of parmesan crusted potato slices on the main test kitchen counter for all to nosh.

They were gone less than 1 minute later.

No, I’m not kidding.

Caramel-Pumpkin Tart with Hazelnut Crust

October 22, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

caramel-pumpkin-tart

As much as I love a good pumpkin pie, when my wife requested a “pumpkin dessert” to serve at a dinner party we had last weekend, I found myself fishing about for something that was a twist on the traditional. I found this deeply flavorful and quite beautiful tart in Bon Appetit’s November 2015 issue, and just from the picture in the magazine knew we were in for a treat. The secret to this little number is the caramel you make as part of the filling. It adds such a great depth and complexity to the confection, that I’m quite certain my next slice of standard issue pumpkin pie will taste meh by comparison. As always when making caramel, taking care to let it cook until its the color of an Irish Setter dog and is just whisping smoke, will be the difference between a good and GREAT result. Pulling the caramel from the heat while still too pale will produce a filling with much less depth of flavor. Trust me on this. Take it a little further than feels totally comfortable, and you’ll be amply rewarded with a richly flavored result.

Chile-Cumin Lamb Kebabs

October 10, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Processed with VSCO with wwf preset

In my experience lamb is a polarizing meat, people either love it or hate it. Some don’t like it because they find it too gamey and strongly flavored, others find the prospect of cooking lamb stressful knowing that its taste and texture deteriorate quickly when overdone. Even those who love the flavor of the meat, shy away from cooking it at home and enjoy it only as a restaurant meal due to its relatively higher cost, and a fear that they might screw up an expensive piece of meat when cooking it at home.

I’ve ALWAYS loved the taste of lamb, but totally relate to the anxiety many feel about cooking the meat at home. Long cooked dishes like stews and tagines are a piece of cake, but quicker cooking methods where the goal is meat served up a perfect medium-rare always made me sweat a little. Happily, my years of experience with these cuts have helped me to overcome my anxieties, and I now cook lamb legs, racks, chops, and kebabs without a second thought.

Mushroom Farrotto

October 1, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

sfs_mushroom_farratto-143_1

On a cold and rainy weekend like we’re having here in the Northeast, there can hardly be a dish more satisfying than this Mushroom Farrotto. Never heard of farrotto before? It’s a deliciously close cousin of risotto, but instead of being made with Arborio or Carnaroli rice, it’s made with whole farro, an ancient Italian grain that gives the dish a rustic charm and chew. This is one of the first recipes I developed at Cook’s Illustrated, and if I’m being honest, it’s still one of my favorites. For such a simple meal it’s incredibly flavorful, really easy to make, and super adaptable. In fact, I created three different takes on this dish for the magazine. This Mushroom Farrotto, a Parmesan Farrotto, and a Farrotto with Pancetta, Asparagus and Peas.

Garlic-Curry Chicken Thighs with Yogurt Sauce

September 25, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Processed with VSCO with e8 preset

Rich in flavor, tender and moist, and practically impossible to overcook; when we’re not roasting a whole bird, we are almost always cooking up chicken thighs in the Oui, Chef kitchen. There are probably dozens of chicken thigh recipes in our archives here, so the bar is set pretty high for another to be added to the collection. When I saw this recipe recently on Epicurious, I suspected that it might make the grade, but one whiff of the seductive marinade as I poured it over the chicken sealed the deal. The potent flavors of garlic and curry, tempered by creamy, Greek yogurt and left to infuse the chicken overnight (the recipes says you can let it sit for as little as 3 hours, but overnight is the way to go) is only half the magic. The rest comes when you mix pan drippings with some fresh yogurt, lemon juice and herbs for a sauce to serve up with the roasted chicken.

To die for!

Shrimp and Vegetable Kebabs

September 3, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2016-09-02 at 9.47.37 AM

Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone!

If you happen to live in a part of the world that isn’t being harassed by a hurricane or tropical storm this long weekend (unlike me….thank you Hermine!), and are looking for something tasty to throw on the grill, then this one’s for you! It’s a recipe I developed at work for Cook’s Illustrated and was just published in our September-October issue. It took me a while to come up with a combination of ingredients and simple techniques that would allow me to achieve, what at the start, I thought was near impossible; produce a tasty kebab where both the vegetables and shrimp were properly cooked, and picked up great char flavor from the grill.

Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream with Toasted Hazelnuts

August 25, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

vsco-photo-1

It turns out that my beautiful wife is quickly becoming my ice cream muse. For quite a while now I’ve based my ice cream making on recipes by the amazing Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of the now rightly Jeni’s Ice Cream. Everything I’ve made from her fist book on the subject has been amazing. Recently however, my wife has been struck with flavor inspirations and has challenged me to build on Jeni’s well researched (though unusual) base recipes with some new bolt-on flavors.

A few weeks back she had a hankering for a “blueberry cobbler” ice cream, a vanilla base with both blueberry and streusel swirls for fruity sweetness and crunch. It sounded great, though I was a bit concerned that the streusel might somehow get soggy and gummy in the process of making the treat. Rather than make a blueberry sauce from scratch, I used the exercise as an excuse to use a jar of “Stonewall Kitchen – Maine Wild Blueberry Jam” that had established a long-term residence in our pantry. For the streusel, a few handfuls of Trader Joe’s “Pecan Praline Granola” did the trick, staying perfectly crunchy for the duration of its short tenure in our freezer.

Fried Fish Tacos

August 13, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

My wife and I travelled to Nashville about a month ago and had a terrific time. Neither of us are huge country music fans, but we’d heard so much about the city’s burgeoning food scene and it’s deep recording industry heritage, that we decided to give it a whirl. We spent most of our first day at the quite excellent Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame and were having such a great visit that we totally lost track if time. Before we knew it, it was mid-afternoon, we were weak with hunger, and needed to nosh. Looking for something quick and cheap we popped down to the lobby level and grabbed a few fish tacos at Bajo Sexto. To be honest, we weren’t exactly expecting stellar fish in land-locked Nashville, but the tacos we had there were among the best we’d ever eaten! Light, fresh, crisp, boldly flavored, and washed down with a well chilled, locally brewed IPA, we were both in heaven. While that lunch wasn’t the best meal we had in Nashville (more on our amazing meal at The Catbird Seat in a later post), it absolutely inspired me to put fish tacos on my to-make list when we got home. This recipe is the result of that inspiration.

Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken

July 29, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Processed with VSCO with hb1 preset

I arrived home the other night a little on the late side, and was so happy to have the awesome time-saving technique of spatchcocking in my repertoire. My wife had bought a chicken and pre-heated the oven so the wheels were in motion. A few quick snips with my kitchen shears to remove the bird’s backbone and a tender little butter massage, and this beauty was ready to roll. Spatchcocking (or butterflying) the bird does two things. It allows it to cook more quickly by splaying it out and opening up its body cavity, and also encourages even cooking by better exposing the dark meat portions of the bird, the legs and thighs, to a more direct heat. In the time it takes you to truss a bird you can spatchcock it, and once split open, is considerably quicker to the table. Whether you’re grilling or roasting a whole chicken, and aren’t bothered with the unconventional appearance of poultry that looks like it was run over by a truck, then you owe it to yourself to try spatchcocking.

A Life Changing Banana Nut Muffin

June 27, 2016 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

ATK Muffin 3899

People toss around the term “life changing” for the silliest things these days, like….. “OMG that smoothie changed my life!”, but in this case, with this muffin, the phrase really does seem to apply. Now, I’m not saying that this muffin will change your life, I mean it’s really good, but in the end it is just a muffin. What I am saying is that this muffin helped to change my life. That’s because this little lovely is partly responsible for my landing my job at Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen. It’s the muffin I developed and presented to my boss and the editors of CI as part of my application for a job at the kitchen. Crafting the recipe for this banana nut muffin was the last step in a multi-month long process required to join the ATK team.

Curious about what else it took to land a job there? If so, read on.

Skip links

Footer