Cookbooks

Sometimes, in the middle of fall, usually just before Thanksgiving, it hits me: A desperate craving for pumpkin pie. One year, after a few days of my whining and hinting, pastry chef Roxana Jullapat came up with this delicious cake to shut me up. As comforting as that classic American pie but even better, Roxana’s pumpkin cake was super moist and infused with the spicy flavors of fall. And, knowing my love of all things crunchy, nutty, and salty, Roxana topped the cake with a generous layer of crispy pecan streusel. Though pumpkins have an esteemed place in our childhood memories, they actually aren’t very good to cook with—they’re often watery and usually lacking in flavor and sweetness—so we make our “pumpkin” cake with Kabocha or butternut squash instead. “Winter squash cake” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Rainbow trout is a delicious option for fish-loving home cooks. It’s available year-round and won’t break the bank even when you want to feed a crowd. Have your fishmonger bone and butterfly the trout for you, leaving the tail intact and keeping the two fillets attached on the fin side. This preparation is a study in contrasts, a three-way complement to the flaky flesh of the trout. The blushing sweet-tart sauce is made with both crushed grapes and verjus, the juice of unripe wine grapes. (The French used verjus in medieval and Renaissance times in much the same way we use vinegar or lemon juice today.) Less acidic and more complex than most vinegar, the verjus’s refreshing fruitiness plays counterpoint to the salty cured Italian bacon wrapped around the trout. And finally, hidden within this lively package: rich, herbaceous sorrel cream, bringing us back to earth.

I have a well-deserved reputation as an olive oil junkie. I use olive oil in most dishes, and not with a light hand. When my regular customers saw this dessert on the menu, they thought I’d gone too far—until they tasted it. The oil takes the place of butter and makes for an incredibly moist crumb. It’s delicious with candied oranges and whipped cream, or by itself in the afternoon with a cup of tea. Or if you’re a chocolate lover, try a slice drizzled with the chocolate sauce from the ,meringues recipe on pages 159–160.

It’s funny when some of your biggest enemies turn out years later to be your best friends. As a child, I dreaded nothing more than those mushy, boiled-todeath, off-color Brussels sprouts. But once I discovered fresh Brussels sprouts and learned how to cook them, I became a full-fledged devotée! Here, in my favorite preparation, they’re sautéed with pancetta, shallots, and garlic and then braised in the pan with balsamic vinegar and veal stock until they’re shiny and glazed.

I hope this quail recipe tempts you to venture away from the usual poultry mainstays. These smaller birds don’t have as much meat as others, but they make up for their size in flavor. On this platter, you’ll find all of my favorite Sicilian ingredients. Ricotta is the favored soft cheese of the south, and here I’ve blended it into a hearty, savory pudding. Pancetta, the essential flavoring of so many things Italian, gives the wilted spinach its salty punch. Olive oil–toasted breadcrumbs are the crunchy finish, a tasty result of the Sicilians’ thrifty mentality. And last but not least, currants and pine nuts are a classic Sicilian combination, bringing sweetness and earthiness to the dish. Grilling the quail gives them a smokiness you can’t achieve in the oven. Build a large fire, and spread the coals to heat the entire surface of the grill. If your barbecue is too small to accommodate all twelve birds at once, grill them in batches and reheat in a very hot oven just before serving. Watch the birds carefully as they grill, so they don’t overcook and dry out.

Kite-shaped rays, or skate, coast along the ocean floor foraging for mollusks. Eating clams, shrimp, and periwinkles gives skate a sweet, rich flavor. Its oddly ridged and finely textured flesh is unique in the fish world. In France, the classic preparation pairs skate with a nutty brown butter called beurre noir, usually garnished with lemon and capers. Here I dredge the skate in ultra-fine Wondra flour, then quickly sauté it until golden brown. For a play on the classic, I finish the brown butter with sweet balsamic vinegar. The creamy parsnip purée and Brussels sprouts sautéed with pancetta harmonize nicely with the crisp, glistening skate and sweet, nutty butter.

Chanterelles, porcini, mousserons, and white and black trumpets are some of my favorite mushrooms for this pasta. If you can’t find any of those, use shiitake or oyster instead. When you sauté the mushrooms, don’t crowd too many in one pan. If your pan isn’t large enough, cook them in batches. I love the brightness of fresh shell beans, but in winter, you can make this dish with dried beans, such as cannellini or flageolets, which will be a little more hearty but equally delicious.

While I’m not a fusion person, I do often find myself melding different cultures into a single dish. This chicken dish is a great example, drawing paprika and sherry from Spain, and dates, saffron, and couscous from Morocco. In place of Morrocan couscous in this dish I use fregola sarda, Sardinia’s answer to traditional couscous. Fregola sarda is made from hand-rolled balls of coarsely ground semolina. Although often called “Italian couscous,” its larger size and slightly toasted flavor distinguish it from its North African counterpart. It lends the dish a nutty flavor and chewy texture, and is the perfect accompaniment to soak up all the spiced broth and fragrant saffron onions. The final addition of sliced dates and fresh herbs gives this Mediterranean tagine a sweet finish.

In this indulgent salad, wild mushrooms are sautéed until tender and crisp, then tossed in a warm sherry vinaigrette with bitter greens and herbs. There are so many different herbs in this salad that each forkful tastes different, depending on which herb you bite into. Chervil contributes a mild anise nuance, while chives add a peppery, oniony note. Tarragon has a pungent licorice bite, and parsley a bright grassiness. Ribbons of pecorino and a sprinkling of toasted hazelnuts are the final layer of luxury in this delicious warm salad. All Italian sheep’s milk cheeses are called pecorino. They are usually named after their place of origin, as in Pecorino Romano or Pecorino Toscano. However, my favorite pecorino, Pecorino di Grotta, for this salad is from the Emilia-Romagna region. The story goes that the local housewives would hide a wheel or two of this aged cheese in the basement (grotta), storing it for later, when they would sneak out of the house and sell it for pocket money. Let’s hope that times have changed for the ladies in Emilia-Romagna!

When I was growing up, apples seemed so bland and boring—I could never get excited about a mushy Red Delicious the way I could a summer peach. But today, thanks to small farmers around the country like Barbara and Bill Spencer of Windrose Farms, we have a lot more choices where apples are concerned, and a lot more to get excited about. Determined to revive the disappearing heirlooms, the Spencers painstakingly planted more than forty varieties of apple trees on their farm in Paso Robles, California. It took 6 years for the trees to produce, and that glorious fall, when Barbara turned up at the back door of Lucques with boxes and boxes of their impressive crop, I was blown away. The apples looked dazzlingly beautiful and tasted even better. From russeted emerald greens to mottled pinks to deep burgundy-blacks, we sampled our way through them all, picking our favorites and taking note of which were better raw and which were better cooked. Some of our favorites for eating out of hand were Braeburn, Arkansas Black, and Gernes Red Acre. Crisp, sweet, and tart, these revelatory fruits were the inspiration for this fall salad. And if it’s not enough that they’re growing all these beautiful heirloom apples, Barbara and Bill also grow some of the best Asian pears I’ve ever tasted. Juicy and delicately perfumed, they’re a fun surprise, sliced and tossed with the apples, buttermilk, mint, and radicchio in this thirst-quenching salad.

A variety of cheeses work in this salad, but I particularly love St. Agur, a triple-crème French cow’s milk blue cheese. Its pungent and intense blue flavor is balanced by an unusually creamy and sensuous texture. When shaved into long thin ribbons, the cheese is elegant on the plate and delicate on the palate. To make thin ribbons, I use an old-fashioned cheese pull, a wide metal spatula-shaped utensil with a slotted blade in the center. Pears and cheese are always happy companions, so if you can’t find St. Agur choose another blue, or seek out a good sheep’s milk cheese, such as a Roncal, Manchego, or pecorino. We’ve had more than one customer order this salad as dessert, so you decide where it falls in the meal.

The clafoutis was invented in Limousin, France, to showcase that region’s famous cherries. Some compare the eggy consistency of clafoutis to flan, as it’s neither cake nor custard. To me, it’s more like an extra-thick crêpe dotted with fruit. Clafoutis puffs beautifully as it bakes, and hot out of the oven, it’s crisp on the outside and airy in the middle. When chilled, however, it collapses, becoming dense and custardlike. I love it both ways. One of the great aspects of clafoutis is its versatility. Once you know how to make the batter, you can make great desserts with it year-round. At Lucques, we’ve made clafoutis with sautéed apples in the winter and with berries in the summer. For the fall, I like a clafoutis featuring that indigenous American jewel, the cranberry. This dessert is delicious as is, but if you want to gild the lily, serve it with a dollop of bourbon-spiked whipped cream.