Vegetables | Gourmandistan

Antique Worcestershire sauce makes our current brisket favorite.

December 5, 2013 by Steve

We found a century plus-old recipe for Worcestershire sauce while we were in England that seemed surprisingly easy to make. So of course, once we returned home Steve had to make some. Like just about every other adequately-equipped American cooking household, we have a bottle of Lea & Perrins located in our cupboard, ready to be added to soups, sprinkled on steaks or, in a Turner family tradition, dropped onto baked potato skins. (It’s delicious.) The Worcestershire sauce recipe, copied […]

Categories: Beef, Cooking, Cucumber, England, Food, Old cookbooks, Pickles, Recipes, Sandwiches

Nigel Slater’s spiced sesame lamb (with a few Americanizations)

November 3, 2013 by Steve

Nigel Slater’s Eat is a nice volume of mostly-quick meals. We picked up a copy in Britain. (It has not yet been released in the United States.) Another “in Britain” bonus was getting to view several episodes of Downton Abbey months before the American audience does. (Spoiler alert: Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, at times becomes discomfited by modern manners.) Among the fun things for us about British cookbooks is the constant reminder that cooking terms are not nearly as […]

Categories: Cooking, Cucumber, England, Food, Lamb, Recipes, Yogurt

Breaking fried corn out of its Southern Belle stereotype

August 4, 2013 by Steve

While the American South certainly has a number of strong, smart and standout women (an excellent example can often be found in Gourmandistan), the region still unfortunately nurtures some particularly painful flowerings of Southern womanhood, a few of whom have started to get their comeuppance. But we’re not here to hand out faded roses—we just want people to stop buying (and sugaring) Silver Queen corn and its even sweeter siblings. While many of our non-United States friends may believe the grain […]

Categories: Cooking, Corn, Food, Peppers, Recipes, Vegetarian

Deliciously dingy-watered finger-dirtying dill pickles

July 14, 2013 by Steve

Michelle almost didn’t take a picture of these pickles, even though they may be her favorite dill. It’s the Dill Pickles recipe from City Cuisine, the cookbook Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken wrote back in the Eighties before they became the “Too Hot Tamales” (befitting their rather spicy personal story). In addition to vinegar, salt, sugar (and of course, dill), the pickling spices include cumin, ginger and turmeric, which give the pickles a spicy, earthy, almost Indian flavor. The […]

Categories: Cooking, Cucumber, Food, Old cookbooks, Pickles, Recipes

Unhealthily balancing Swiss chard with gemelli pasta and pine nuts

June 23, 2013 by Steve

It is well known that this time of year finds Gourmandistan searching for new ways to deal with CSA chard. We’ve long been fans of this healthy idea from Martha Rose Schulman, but were recently in the mood for something a little more robust. Enter Martha Stewart and her circa 2003 recipe for Gemelli with Sausage, Swiss Chard and Pine Nuts. Pre-prison Martha saw the wisdom of loading carbs into the mix of chard, raisins and nuts, with some sausage added to […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pasta, Pork, Recipes, Swiss chard

Do do this ragout that we do so well.

May 20, 2013 by Steve

We’re not asking you join a great crusade to stamp out decency in the West. (After all, some would say there’s nothing left to do.) We’re simply asking you to start celebrating your fresh green vegetables with this simple, light “stew.” A while back, Michelle was hypnotized by some Whole Foods fava beans (a rarity in these parts), and found a recipe in Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Vegetables for Fava Bean Ragout. Alice indicated it was “great with Potato Gnocchi,” […]

Categories: Artichokes, Asparagus, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Peas, Recipes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Garbure ≠ garbage + ordure; or you are what you etymologize

May 16, 2013 by Steve

The next time you’re eating “brunch” with a “spork,” you should stop for a moment and thank Lewis Carroll. (Perhaps you should then explore the idea of no longer brunching, especially if you frequent places providing sporks as utensils.) Carroll, one of Steve’s personal literary lions, introduced the idea of such “portmanteau words” in Through the Looking Glass, his sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Portmanteaus are everywhere these days, from “Brangelina” to “breathalyzer” to “bromance.” (While we’re not particularly […]

Categories: Beans, Cabbage, Cooking, Duck, Food, France, Recipes, Soups & Stews

(Re)iterating Bertolli’s baby artichokes, olives, meatballs and sage

May 11, 2013 by Steve

We found this recipe in Chez Panisse Cooking while looking for a creative way to use some semi-impulse-bought baby artichokes. (They were from Castroville and on special at Whole Foods. Even die-hard locavores couldn’t resist.) We were initially attracted by the interesting mix of ingredients, a step up from our previous effort. Then we were intrigued by Paul Bertolli’s perplexing introduction. Telling us his mother “used marinated artichokes and a type of green Spanish olive ” he “can’t find anymore,” Bertolli […]

Categories: Artichokes, Cooking, Food, Meatballs, Old cookbooks, Pasta, Recipes

Benedictine Arnold

April 28, 2013 by Steve

Once again, it’s Kentucky Derby time. Around here, locals like to tell Derby guests that Louisvillians love Benedictine. They are lying. Benedictine is boring, and often unpleasantly and artificially green. Yet somehow, it sits as a fixture of virtually every Derby buffet. In her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer, who trained eponymous Benedictine inventor Jennie C. Benedict, offered several “cream cheese salads” that seem more interesting. Her student, Benedict, who brought the cucumber-flavored cream cheese spread to the world, on […]

Categories: Appetizers, Cooking, Cucumber, Food, Kentucky Derby, Recipes, Sandwiches, Vegetarian