Thorne John - Mouth wide open : a cook and his appetite

Introductory Note

Anyone familiar with my writing will already know that, for the most part, creating recipes is not something that greatly interests me, and I am even less interested in curating any but the most historical. What I do is look for recipes with the potential for a lively conversationa friendly argument, if you like, between two cooks. As I explain further on in The Reviewer and the Recipe, I dont follow recipes; I interact with them. Because of that, when a source is provided (as it often is) for a recipe that particularly attracts you, consider seeking out the original version. That way you can clearly see what the argument was all aboutand have two cooks to converse with instead of one.

As to the recipes themselves, one day last year I found myself balking when typing freshly ground black pepper into a recipe ingredient list. True, when I keyed in black pepper instead, the naked plainness insinuated that I might be so boorish myself as to actually use an ordinary, vulgar pepper shaker.

Well, to tell the truth, I do use them all the time: very few of the greasy spoons I frequent have gotten around to putting pepper mills on the tableand the food doesnt seem any the worse for it. True, I usually grind my pepper at home, cook (even fry) with extra-virgin olive oil, and almost always prefer fresh minced garlic to the powdered stuff. Still, look on my spice shelf and youll find dried onion, leek, and bell pepper flakes, curry powder, and celery salt. Elsewhere, there are cans of soup and corned beef hash, bags of frozen vegetables.

Chances are, your kitchen is like that, too. Learning to talk isnt simply about mastering vocabulary and grammar, it also requires that we master one way of talking to our parents and another to our friends, and, later, to our teachers and our bosses. Even home cooking has its several dialects. So you dont need me nagging you to buy artisanal bread or to use unsalted butter when you cook. Cooking changes best by epiphany; advice is best when it merely prods these into happening.

In any case, so much of what we do in the kitchen is very different from appreciating the best ingredients. In her autobiography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name , the poet Audre Lorde rhapsodizes about the smell of onions frying in margarine. I knew just how sweet such a memory could be. Cooking is about doing the best with what you haveand succeeding. The rest is nothing but frosting. So Ive done my best to winnow out those little peremptory qualifiers in the ingredient list.

However, I do want to note that Matt and I cook with pure, coarse kosher salt (which means if you substitute fine-grained saltkosher or notreduce the amount called for in our recipes by half, and adjust from there). We use an inexpensive but fruity extra-virgin olive oil from Spain, Greece, or Italy, depending on the market, and prefer peanut oil by far when olive oil isnt appropriate.

We use a lot of chiles in our kitchen, sometimes fresh, sometimes dried and flaked or powdered, ranging from mildly hot to mouth-searing. But we dont own any chili powder, the commercial blend of powdered chile, toasted cumin, Mexican oregano, and other things. So, when we call for any kind of powdered chile, we mean just thatthe result of grinding up dried chile pods.

Other, specialized ingredients are detailed in the recipes that call for them, including (where possible) ordering information. This was all updated when this book was about to go to press, but, sadly, small merchantsespeciallydo come and go, online and in situ. If you find this to be the case, get in touch with us at johnthorne@outlawcook.com we may have been able to find another merchant.

A

Amatos Italian Sandwich: see Sandwich, Amatos Italian

B

Baeckeoffe : see Casserole, Alsatian, with pork, lamb, and beef

Bagel mit wiener Salswasser (bagel dipped in German wiener brine) 319

Bagna cada (chart of variations) 14

Bagna cada del omm borghese ( bagna cada for non-peasants) 20

Bagna cada con bistecca e peperoni (with strip steak and roasted peppers) 21

Bagna cada con funghi e scalogni (with mushrooms and scallions) 22

Peperoni alla bagna cada (on roasted peppers) 23

Beans, dried ( gigantes plaki ), with dill and green olives 285

Beans, dried ( gigantes plaki ), with garlic and thyme 289

Beans, green (Romano/Italian) (salad) 302

Beef kidney 169

Bok choy, fried, with sesame oil (snack) 326

Briami : see Casserole, Greek

C

Casserole, Alsatian, with pork, lamb, and beef ( baeckeoffe ) 136

Baeckeoffe with Munster cheese 141

Casserole, creamed chicken and macaroni (traditional recipe) 128

Casserole, creamy shrimp (Shrimps de Jonghe) 129

Casserole, Greek, with potatoes, zucchini, and tomatoes ( Briami ) 311

Casserole, Jeans Two Meat Two Rice 134

Casserole, Macedonian, with gigantes , pickled peppers, and tomato ( Tavche gravche ) 287

Cheese, Halloumi, fried for breakfast 176

Cheese, Kasseri, fried ( saganaki ) 312

Chicken liver spread on seasoned toast (The Sensation) 172

Chile paste, green, Yemenite ( zhug , for dressing falafel) 193

Cod and potato bake (Dutch) 67

Cod baked on a bed of thinly sliced potatoes, Mediterranean style ( el nazalli bel batata ) 68

Cod baked with olive oil, garlic, and potatoes 66

Cod, roast, on oven-fried potatoes 65

Corn, Peruvian toasting ( maiz tostado ) (descriptive recipe) 295

Corn, sweet, cut from the cob, in milk (snack) 320

Croissant, five months old 177

Cucumber salad, Thai 228

E

Egg, fried, in a tortilla pocket 240

Eggs baked in cream 172

Eggs, bread-cup 170

Eggs Florentine 175

Eggs, fried in coconut oil, with bananas, fresh chiles, and onions 246

Eggs, fried in olive oil, with capers 244

Eggs, fried, Mexican (huevos rancheros) 238

Eggs, fried, Spanish, with migas (croutons) 242

Eggs, fried, with garlic and mint 245

Eggs, fried, with oyster sauce, Chinese style 247

Eggs, omelet, with shredded zucchini and fresh marjoram (Richard Olney) 358

Eggs, scrambled, with chunks of avocado 171

El nazalli bel batata : see Cod

F

Falafel, Slightly Unorthodox 187

Fish and brewis (traditional Newfoundland recipe of salt cod, salt pork, and hardtack) 60

Fried rice: see Rice, fried

G

Gigantes : see Beans, dried

Greek salad: see Salad, Greek

Grits, True (my way) 252

cakes, made with leftover grits 254

H

Ham fat, baked (snack) 317

Hot dog with Norwegian potato flatbread (snack) 323

I

Israeli salad of chopped vegetables (for dressing falafel) 190

L

Lamb, slow-cooked shoulder of 307

M

Maiz tostado : see Corn, Peruvian toasting (descriptive recipe)

Marmalade, important notes about making 50

Florida navel orange (variation) 54

Key lime (variation) 55

Maximum orange 51

Meyer lemon (variation) 55

Pineapple lemon 55

Temple orange 53

Mayonnaise, handmade xxi

Menudo , Not-So-Pseudo (my version of menudo ) 95

Pozole rojo ( menudo made with posole and red chile peppers) 89

Minestrone 113

Minestrone alla Genovese 117

Minestrone estivo (summer Tuscan version) 122

Mushroom Pot Roast (Russ Parsonss recipe, with variation using leg of lamb) 37