Entrees

Lamb Meatballs Stuffed with Chevre

June 3, 2010 By Steve Dunn 26 Comments

I have yet to dine at either A Voce or Locanda Verde, Andrew Carmellini’s wildly popular Manhattan restaurants, but they will certainly be on my hit-list the next time I’m in the Big Apple. I have become a big fan of Andrew’s cooking since buying his terrific cookbook, Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food (which he wrote with his wife, Gwen Hyman), last summer.

The first dish I cooked from the book has become my favorite way to eat swordfish, and I’m sure I’ll be blogging that dish before long…think orange, olives, and harrisa…your mouth is already watering, yes?

Braised Lamb with Peas, Dill and Sour Cream

May 26, 2010 By Steve Dunn 16 Comments

I feel a bit silly writing about another braised dish given the onset of spring, but this dish is so good, I couldn’t let it wait till autumn. I have also been re-thinking braises, and how they fit into my annual cooking calendar as of late. I don’t know about you, but I have always viewed braises as cool weather dishes, and generally never cooked them between May and October. Of course, there has never been a written rule as to when it’s OK to serve a stew or braise, but like wearing white shoes or pants before Memorial Day, it just wasn’t done without having to endure the derision of the food elite.

I have found that these days, many chefs (myself included) are tossing out certain cooking rules and instituting some new ones. I recently read where Suzanne Goin, the fabulously talented chef / owner of “Lucques” in Los Angeles decided to “break the rules” and keep her braised short rib dish on her menu year round because it was in such high demand from her customers. So I’m thinkin’ if it’s OK for famous chefs in posh eateries to braise in warm weather, then it’s OK for us too.

Wine Braised Chicken with Tomatoes and Olives

May 18, 2010 By Steve Dunn 16 Comments

This is a dish that I could eat a few times a week for the rest of my life and be quite happy indeed, thank you very much. It is richly flavored and exciting, studded with garlic, olives, and capers, yet light and easy to toss together on the fly. It is also one of those dishes that gets better with time, so definitely plan on making a large batch so that you can enjoy it again as left-overs a few days later. In fact, the dish is so good the next day, that a few of the kids packed it cold for school lunch, and brought home nothing but a tupperware full of bones!

Spring Asparagus Soup

May 14, 2010 By Steve Dunn 26 Comments

Imagine my surprise when my lovely wife returned home from an appointment last week with a bag full of the most beautiful asparagus I’d ever seen. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the stalks were enormous, nice and thick and long enough to stretch from the crook of my elbow to the tip of my fingers. Interestingly, the cut ends were wrapped in wet paper towels….these were no ordinary spears bought from a store, but rather cut fresh from a friend’s private stash that very morning (insert hallelujah chorus here).

That night, I roasted then briefly and served them with an orange hollandaise sauce, they were sublime.

Jody Adams’ Halibut Braised in Ginger-Lemongrass Broth

May 10, 2010 By Steve Dunn 15 Comments

In celebration of Jody Adams’ decisive first and second round victories in Bravo Network’s latest “Top Chef Masters” competition, I thought we’d cook a dish today from her terrific cookbook (co-authored by her husband, Ken Rivard), In the Hands of A Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant. This dish is a bit of a departure from Jody’s typically mediterranean offerings, but as a nod to asian-fusion style cooking in the style of a “bourride” (a Provencal fish stew), it is a real winner. I’ve taken a few liberties with the dish only to use up a few ingredients I had in my fridge that I thought would work well here, but the soul of this light and delicious dish is all Jody.

Daniel Boulud’s Beef Short Ribs

May 2, 2010 By Steve Dunn 25 Comments

With a brief return of Winter weather here in the Northeast (it was 35℉ when I went for my morning run the other day), I couldn’t help but reach into the freezer to pull out our one remaining pack of Daniel Boulud’s short ribs for dinner. I am fairly well convinced that if you look up comfort food in the dictionary, you’ll find a description and picture of these ribs. With the exception of Duck Confit, or perhaps a really good cassoulet, there is no shorter route to my heart than to place a helping (or two) of these ribs in front of me. This recipe is from Daniel Boulud’s Cafe Boulud Cookbook: French-American Recipes for the Home Cook, and is one that you will make over and over and over again, I guarantee it.

Sea Scallops with Puy Lentils and Fennel Cream

April 28, 2010 By Steve Dunn 17 Comments

After a multi-month hiatus from contributing recipes to Food52, I am pleased to say that I am back in the saddle and getting reacquainted with some of the great people who are active members of the community….. I hadn’t realized how much I missed being part of the scene there. This recipe is one that I whipped up last week to hop back into the game, the recipe contest was for “Best Scallops”. It wasn’t chosen as a finalist, but was tagged as an “editor’s pick” which is always a nice acknowledgment.

It is my spin on a restaurant dish I had a few years back that paired scallops with lentils, an apple cider reduction, and a mascarpone cream…it was delicious. I’ve always loved earthy flavors with my scallops, and particularly like Puy lentils which have such a lovely bite to them. The smoky bacon and the sharp mustard are a nice play against the sweetness of the scallops, and as for the fennel cream….what doesn’t taste better with a little fennel cream?

Jamie Oliver’s Chicken Korma

April 22, 2010 By Steve Dunn 14 Comments

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again….I’m a big fan of Jaime Oliver. I like his food philosophy, I like his recipes, I like his no-nonsense approach to getting things done in the kitchen, I like the message he’s bringing to the world, and the campaign he’s built to not only get families eating healthier food, but to get better food into the schools for our kids.People ask me all the time, “if you could be any chef on the planet who would it be?”. As you might guess, the normal superstar suspects all come to mind….. let’s see there’s Robuchon, Keller, Ducasse, Vongerichten, Boulud, Ripert, Blumenthal, and Adria, just to name a few. But to be honest, if I could click my heals together today and change myself into any chef currently working, I’d want to be Oliver. I mean, it would be very cool to be any of the aforementioned chefs, working at the very peak of gastronomy, but I don’t think there is any chef working so hard to bring better food and cooking skills to average families and kids than Oliver, and how cool and important is that!

Baked Polenta with Spinach and Chicken-Apple Sausage

April 18, 2010 By Steve Dunn 14 Comments

This is a dish that Boris and I whipped up the other night, and I must say that for such a simple and quick preparation, it is REALLY good. I found this recipe in Whole Foods Market’s Spring Magazine, a copy of which my wife and I received upon attending last week’s “Share Our Strength’s” – “Taste of The Nation” fund raising event in Boston.

A quick word about Share Our Strength. They are a national organization that raises money through their pioneering culinary events (Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation, Great American Dine Out, A Tasteful Pursuit and Great American Bake Sale) and award grants to support successful organizations across the country that work to provide children and their families with the healthy food they need. Since their inception in 1984, they have raised over $265 million and provided support to more than 1,000 of the most effective hunger-relief organizations around the globe. They also provide on-the-ground cooking and nutritional training to at-risk families through their “Operation Front Line” program, and I will be starting work with them shortly as a volunteer chef instructor for some of their Boston based classes. I’m very excited to be getting involved with such a terrific organization, and I’ll certainly be sharing more about my work with them in later posts.

But for now, let’s get back to this polenta dish.

Ming Tsai’s Tea Rubbed Salmon

April 8, 2010 By Steve Dunn 24 Comments

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It’s confession time, my friends.

OK….are you ready?

I really don’t care for salmon.

These are words of a heretic, I know.

Of all the fish in the sea, most folks go on and on about the wonders of salmon, but to me, its just a little too….how shall I say this…..FISHY.

Whatever taste buds I have in my mouth that are responsible for tasting “fishy” things must have been inherited from my Dad, who won’t eat even a molecule of fish unless you put a gun to his head. My Mom on the other hand, resides at the other end of the spectrum and believes anything milder than mackerel, bluefish, or bagna cauda is just plain tasteless and boring. I have to say that I’ve got the “fishy” thing kinda bad, because just the thought of smelling mackerel on the grill makes my stomach go all queasy.

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