Vegetables | Gourmandistan

Lamb with Sweet Corn Kernels, our one Pushpesh Pant/Phaidon success

August 19, 2014 by Steve

Much like Wikipedia, we are willing to grant Pushpesh Pant his status as a “noted Indian academic, food critic and historian,” and we will not doubt (as per Wikipedia) that his India Cookbook was named by The New York Times as one of the best cookbooks of 2011. Unfortunately, “best” may be attributed to the book’s lovely design and comprehensive nature, because once again Gourmandistan has been foiled by the publisher’s inept and/or nonexistent editors, proofreaders and recipe testers. We were seduced […]

Categories: Cooking, Corn, Food, India, Lamb

Zucchini pancakes for (and from) victory

August 11, 2014 by Michelle

We are not going to waste time weeping about zucchini, as the clichéd stance of despairing what to do with it is quite possibly as old as the vegetable itself. Instead, we will offer a simple, no-nonsense solution: zucchini pancakes. We’ve made this recipe pretty much every summer since the 1980s, when this cookbook based on recipes from the PBS show The Victory Garden came out. The TV series, created by Russell Morash, was a pioneer in both food and garden television, […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Summer Squash, Vegetarian

Crispy curried lamb ribs with suspect authenticity (and slaw)

August 1, 2014 by Michelle

We’ve made these spicy, sweet and only slightly sticky ribs several times, adjusting the recipe (and accompaniments) as we’ve gone along. We started with something called “Chinese Style Honey Mustard Lamb Riblets” from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s 1993 Rose’s Melting Pot: A Cooking Tour of America’s Ethnic Celebrations. Beranbaum says she based her version on “the memory … [her] husband had of his favorite chicken wing dish in a Chinese restaurant in Toronto,” so we knew we were already starting fairly far afield from […]

Categories: Cabbage, Cooking, Food, Lamb, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Salad

Not exactly shrimp and grits because we’re not exactly in Charleston

July 20, 2014 by Michelle

On our recent trip to Dewees Island, we enjoyed the proximity to fresh seafood. On a recent trip to Whole Foods, not so much. Looking for a way to dispose of some of our bounty of farm share tomatoes, we had been talking about taking a shot at recreating a dish we liked at Slightly North of Broad (SNOB) in Charleston called “Maverick Shrimp & Grits.” It added tomatoes, sausage, onions, garlic and country ham to the classic Low Country dish. Steve finally […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Okra, Pork, Recipes, Restaurants, Shrimp

Soppy Jamie’s leek and rabbit pot pie improved with a bit of biscuit

July 10, 2014 by Michelle

Jamie Oliver may have said he doesn’t like to get all soppy, but the first time we made his leek and rabbit pie, the filling wept all over the pastry crust and our oven. His instructions called for cooking both leeks and rosemary along with the rabbit pieces for quite a while in quite a bit of sauce which, as Michelle expected it would, resulted in mushy leeks and unappetizingly gray herbs. Still, the cider-flavored dish had promise and seemed a wonderful way […]

Categories: Biscuits, Cooking, England, Food, Leeks, Rabbit, Recipes

The tallow of triple-cooked chips

June 15, 2014 by Steve

It is said that desire is the cause of all suffering. If that is indeed true, we must say Heston Blumenthal has not helped us as we work toward Buddhahood. But he did help us attain the best fries Gourmandistan has ever made. Steve obtained a bag of beef suet during the waning days of our nearby Foxhollow Farm store, with the specific intent of rendering it down for tallow, then forcing Michelle to make French fries with the stuff. Ever since McDonald’s abandoned its beef tallow, Gourmandistan has […]

Categories: Cooking, England, Food, Potatoes, Recipes

Leftover steak leads to lovely salad

April 11, 2014 by Steve

As spring teases us with delightful hints of warmer weather and local produce, like many we’ve begun to crave fresher tastes. One of our current favorites is this simple steak salad, which began with a bit of leftover steak that happened to occupy our house at the same time as a slightly overripe avocado and some of the first local radishes of the year. As we contemplated our time-sensitive ingredients, we thought about the usual steak + sides, but Michelle has […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Food, Radishes, Salad, Watercress

Cutting the fat (if you can believe it) in collards with bacon and cream

March 19, 2014 by Michelle

We know that spring must be near, because tender collard greens are starting to appear at our local markets. Southerner that she is, Michelle immediately began to think of collards and pork. The kind of slow-cooked, somewhat greasy goodness one finds at many “soul food” or “Southern style” restaurants, along with a cruet of vinegar to dilute the fat and give the greens a chance to surface. But while we are a household which indeed reveres fat, even we blanched […]

Categories: Collards, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Vegetables

Braise Boulud for pot roast with watermelon radish and miso.

December 30, 2013 by Steve

We have a refrigerator full of root vegetables from our farmer friend, Pavel. Since we vaguely recall agreeing to continue our farm share through the winter, we’ll most likely have even more daikon, black and/or watermelon radishes. With a pot roast recipe like this, we’re actually happy about it. We’ve detailed several times our sometimes desperate search to whittle down our winter veg. Nonetheless, we’re still looking for new ways to do it—especially for watermelon radishes. Like our beloved Hakurei turnips, these […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Food, Meats, Radishes, Recipes