Ina Garten - Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Copyright 2020 by Ina Garten

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN9780804187060

Ebook ISBN9780804187077

Premium edition ISBN978593232793

Photographs by Quentin Bacon

Photographs , by Jean-Pierre Uys

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contents

what is it about
comfort food?

I often say that you can be miserable before eating a cookie and you can be miserable after eating a cookie, but you can never be miserable while youre eating a cookie. And while I say that half-jokingly, the sentiment is true. Food has an almost magical ability to comfort us, soothe us, and bring us together in so many ways. We celebrate special occasions with fooda birthday cake or a big roast turkeyand we also turn to food for comfort on not-so-happy occasions, a delivery of baked goods to a family member whos under the weather, or a homemade dinner for a friend having a rough time. Food can be so much more than simple sustenance.

So, what exactly is comfort food? Its food thats not just nourishing but its also emotionally satisfying. After September 11, 2001, I cant tell you how many people told me they went out to get all the ingredients to make my Outrageous Brownies from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. After the financial crisis in 2008, restaurants everywhere suffered as customers cut back on their spending. But fast-food places prospered because they served inexpensive classics like hamburgers and French fries. As I write this, were in the middle of a global pandemic and I have no idea when it will end or what devastation it will cause. People are isolated and stressed. Everyone I know has stocked up their fridges and pantries with ingredients they can cook for weeks or even monthschickens, vegetables, fruits, beans, rice, and dried legumes. But my friend Deborah Davis commented that she opens her fridge and looks at all the healthy food in there, and all she wants is a grilled cheese sandwich! I can totally relate to that! During times of financial and political stress, theres something about a hamburger and Coke or a big bowl of beef stew that just makes us feel better. Theyre not fancyin fact, quite the opposite. Theyre familiar, delicious, and soul-satisfying. In other words, theyre comfort food.

There are many foods that are universally comforting. I think we can probably all agree that a mixed green salad isnt anyones idea of comfort food. But chicken soup? Every international cuisine has its own version: Greek avgolemono soup, Vietnamese chicken pho, Belgian waterzooi, and my personal favorite, chicken soup with matzo balls. For this book, I developed Chicken Pot Pie Soup (), a mash-up of classic chicken soup and chicken pot pie that hits all the right notes when youre tired or cranky.

Comfort foods are often the dishes that transcend cultures and borders. Many popular foods that have become ingrained in American cultureramen, tacos, pizzawere originally brought to this country by immigrants who sought to re-create the comforting taste of home. Many of the recipes in this book are inspired by comfort foods from around the worldfrom Emilys English Roasted Potatoes ().

Comfort food may be different for each person. An egg salad sandwich on toasted rye can cheer me up on a bad day, but it might not be what does it for you! Often the foods we turn to for comfort are rooted in what we ate as children. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the classic American lunch for kids but when I offered to make them for my British film crew, they recoiled in horror. Instead, they offered to make me their classic childhood lunchwhite bread with cold baked beans from a can and Kraft singles on top. Yikes! (Please dont tell them but Ill take a PB&J any day!)

Lots of the recipes in this book evoke old-fashioned American foods that many of us remember from our childhoods. My mother used to make canned split pea soup with cut-up hot dogs in it (I know it sounds bizarre, but I thought it was delicious). Ive updated it by making homemade Split Pea Soup with Crispy Kielbasa (). The soup is filled with lots of vegetables and flavored with a smoked ham hock and sauted kielbasa. Its basically the grown-up version of the soup my mother made, but so much more satisfying.

I polled my friends and youd be surprised how many said their go-to comfort food was a tuna fish sandwich and potato chips (in one case, the potato chips went in the sandwich!). So I knew I had to include a recipe for a tuna melt in this book that was nostalgic but better than the diner classic. My Ultimate Tuna Melts (). You dont need to have a bad day to love these two together.

So, thats what makes dishes comfort food, but I had to ask myself, what makes the recipes in this book modern?? When Im working on a recipe, I like to start with a remembered flavor and spend time researching how the dish was traditionally made. Then, I figure out how I can update that dishwhether its lightening up the recipe, making it easier to cook, or simply adding more modern flavors, such as Sriracha and pomegranate. I wanted each dish in this book to feel familiar but be so much more delicious than you expected. And I realized that while comfort food is the focus of this particular book, thats what Im always looking for in a recipe: true home cooking but with a twist or update that makes it special enough to serve to company.

For example, I wanted to make a classic beef stew, but in my experience beef stew can be pretty boringwith tough or stringy chunks of beef and a thin, bland tomato sauce. I knew it could be so much better! In order to update that American classic, I borrowed ingredients from two other dishes I lovebeef Bourguignon and braised short ribs. Instead of starting by searing bacon, I used pancetta, which has a great flavor without the smokiness of bacon. Then, I swapped the usual beef chuck for boneless short ribs, which added a richness that made everything, particularly the sauce, so much more delicious. And finally, I added a bottle of good red wine and a splash of Cognac to give the sauce more depth of flavor. Now whenever I serve my Ultimate Beef Stew (), my guests say theyll never make beef stew any other way again.