Happy hour has become a bit of a ritual here in the Schultz household as a way to punctuate the transition from working at home to hanging out at home. It is usually marked by a snack, a cocktail, and the switch from your daytime pajamas to your evening pajamas.
Finely chop 3 anchovy filets and mix in a bowl with tomato paste, olive oil, oregano, and chili flakes. Mix well until a smooth paste forms, spoon onto sliced French bread. Broil on high until beginning to crisp.
As you'll soon learn, I look to recipes for a framework or a general approach for how I should go about cooking something rather than a rigid step-by-step list of mandates. This dish is an exception to that philosophy because it is absolutely perfect. First, check out chef Gabrielle Hamilton’s explanation of the dish and its power to break the quarantine monotony in the NY Times. Afterwards, enjoy this amazing snack while plotting all of the things you are going to add brown butter mayo to in the near future.
Sauté half an onion in olive oil. Add salt and garlic, cooking until beginning to brown, about three minutes. Stir in chopped mint leaves and allow to cook in the oil. Add in a handful of spinach and cook until leaves are wilted. Transfer to food processor and add lemon juice. Toast peanuts in the skillet until beginning to brown. Meanwhile, run the food processor until mixture is chopped but not smooth. Add peanuts and pulse several times. Fold processed mixture into a bowl of plain Greek yogurt. Serve with vegetables or crackers.
Slice squid into ¼ rings and dry thoroughly on paper towels before sprinkling with salt. Heat butter in a non-stick skillet until just starting to brown and smell nutty. Add the squid and diced garlic and sauté until squid develops a brown crust in places, about 4-5 minutes. Serve in a bowl with lemon and crackers or bread.
The good news/ bad news with our biweekly farm share boxes this year was that we got a lot of radishes. We ate them raw, had them on vegetable plates, and as the crunch on top of fish tacos before finally landing on a new favorite: Radish sandwiches.
Thinly slice the radishes and place them on a well buttered baguette. Sprinkle with salt. That’s it.
One of great eating successes of the year has been our mastery of oysters at home. Seemingly an intimidating food at first, we have found beautiful fresh oysters to be an easy to obtain and enjoy food in 2020.
First of all, you have to get the oysters. We’ve found two potential sources: local oyster bars that have pivoted to selling to-go un-shucked oysters (Kimball House in Atlanta is our favorite) and mail order services that use (shameless plug) UPS overnight shipping to deliver fresh products to your home (Rappahannock Oysters in Virginia is great but check out local spots near you for a variety of options).
Next, you have to open them. This is a process that seems tricky but is easily mastered after about five minutes of practice. Tutorials on shucking (and really all other things worth learning) can be found on YouTube. You’ll need an oyster knife and some sort of protective towel or glove to protect against the ever so embarrassing stab wound in the left thumb incidents. Discard any oysters that have broken shells, don’t have any liquid inside, or smell gross.
To enjoy raw, add a squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of hot sauce and slurp away.
If cooked food is more your thing, try putting an opened oyster on a hot grill with a dollop of parsley garlic butter, cooking for several minutes until the oyster is warmed through.
For the Christmas classic fried oyster, dip the oysters in an egg wash before dredging through a mixture of very finely ground saltine crackers mixed with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning. Quickly fry in a heavy bottomed pot until golden brown.
You should be making fresh pasta at home. It is easy and tastes better than a box of store-bought pasta. When making the base dough for the following recipes, I always follow a 3, 2, 1 ratio: 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt. You can combine these in a mixer or kneed by hand before forming the dough into a ball and letting it rest wrapped in plastic for at least 30 minutes. From there, you can roll it and shape it into anything your heart desires.
Simple to make and super satisfying, cacio e pepe was always our go to dinner after getting back home from a long flight. We are looking forward to getting that tradition back on track in 2021!
Cook spaghetti for 3 minutes in a pot of heavily salted water. If using packaged pasta, pull the pasta about 2 minutes short of the suggested cooking time.
Meanwhile, melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and quickly sauté a finely chopped garlic clove. Add about a cup of finely ground parmesan (use a microplane to get a very fine texture) and a ladle of the pasta cooking water and whisk until a thin sauce forms. Add the pasta into the skillet and allow the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce. Add 10 turns of freshly ground black pepper and serve.
Roughly chop 2 lbs of shiitake mushrooms. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a heavy skillet and add mushrooms, a teaspoon of salt, black pepper, and a tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes. Add half a cup of dry white wine and continue to cook until mushrooms are browned. Check seasonings and adjust as needed.
Make a Morney Sauce (this is from Mastering the Art of French Cooking and is basically the fancy French version of Tex-Mex queso). Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan and make a roux by stirring in 3 tablespoons of flour for about 2 minutes. Remove from head and whisk in 2 cups of milk and a pinch of salt. Return to heat and bring to a boil for 1 minute while whisking briskly. Add a few grinds of pepper and remove from heat. This is a Bechamel sauce. Next, add ¼ cup of grated gruyere cheese and a ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese, whisking until the cheese has melted.
Divide the pasta dough into 6 similarly sized balls and run through a pasta roller until thinnest setting is reached. Cut to length depending on the pan you will use.
Rub the bottom and edges of the lasagna pan with butter and begin building layers of sauce, mushrooms, noodles until pan is full. Top with additional cheese and bake in a 350 degree oven until golden brown, about 45 minutes.
The joke in our house is that this really a potato dish – it just happens to come with a side of chicken. Inspired by a shop we saw in Paris during our honeymoon that placed potatoes under the rotisserie chickens, allowing the juices to drip down and do the cooking, it makes an amazingly flavorful potato that pairs well with the richly roasted chicken.
Using a mandolin slicer, thinly slice 3 medium sized potatoes. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a cast iron skillet, then remove from heat. Arrange potatoes in a layer, covering as much of the bottom of the pan as possible. Season with salt before building additional layers, seasoning each layer as it is added. Drizzle with olive oil.
Season a chicken inside and out with salt, pepper, and Herbs de Provence and place it in the skillet on top of the potatoes. Roast in a 375 degree oven until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Move chicken to a cutting board and let rest. Flip potatoes and return to oven for about 15 additional minutes. Carve chicken and serve, setting aside chicken bones for stock.
Spatchcocking is the process of removing the backbone of a bird in order to flatten it. It is a great technique that reduces the cooking time for a chicken or turkey by nearly half and helps to ensure more even cooking between the various sections of the chicken.
Using kitchen shears, remove the backbone of the chicken, making sure to set it aside for stock. Place the chicken on a cutting board and flatten it by moving the thighs to the sides before firmly pressing the center of the breast to dislocate the breast bone.
Season with salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence and grill, flipping regularly until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees.
Chicken stock has become a bit of a philosophy in the Schultz household this year – we save bones (doesn’t have to just be chicken bones) and scraps such as onion trimmings, carrot peels, celery leaves, and green bean stems in a freezer bag until a critical mass is reached. Next, simply add the contents of the bag to a large pot, cover with water and simmer for about 3 hours. Strain and save as a base for soups, sauces, and anything else that needs a splash of savory goodness.
In a medium bowl, mix 2 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoons salt, 4 tablespoons butter that have been cut into small cubes, and 1 cup of water. Mix until fully incorporated into a wet dough. Set aside.
Heat a large pot of chicken stock and add sliced onions, chopped celery, and roughly chopped carrots, being sure to save all scraps for the next round of stock (you’re doing that, right?! It’s important)
When carrots are cooked but still retain their texture, bring the pot to a full boil and begin to add the dough in golf ball sized balls. Wait about a minute and then begin to flip the dumplings and ladle broth over any undercooked areas to ensure even cooking. Serve in large bowls with your favorite hot sauce (my go to on this is a Chinese hot chili oil).
This meal, and many others like it, came from a desire to replicate as many of our restaurant favorites without venturing out. The skeptics among you may not like the idea of covering meat in yogurt and then throwing it on the grill, but trust me it’s an amazing way to tenderize the meat and to get a flavorful crust.
Marinate the chicken in a mixture of plain Greek yogurt, lemon juice, garam masala, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, salt and pepper. Prior to adding chicken set aside 3 tablespoons of the marinade to use later in the sauce.
Meanwhile, start the sauce by cooking diced onion and half a jalapeno in butter, adding ginger, garlic, garam masala, paprika, turmeric, and curry powder, cooking on medium-low for 3 to 4 minutes. Add a can of tomato, and half cup water, stirring to incorporate. Cook on low ~30 minutes. Blend the sauce with and emersion blender and then stir in add excess marinade and tab butter to finish.
Grill the chicken until cooked through. Toss the chicken with the sauce in a bowl to coat and serve over rice.
This is another takeout replacement meal that we have made several times throughout the year. A big portion of the flavor for the beef comes from berbere seasoning, an East African chili and spice blend that we were able to find at a local grocery store but can also be purchased online, just like everything else.
Beef:
Cut 1 lb of flank steak into cubes. Season flank steak with salt and berbere seasoning and let rest at room temperature. Sear beef in three tablespoons of butter on one side until crust forms. Dice and add ½ onion and ½ tomato. Cook until a fatty sauce forms and the beef is medium rare. Serve in sauce for dipping.
Cabbage: Dice onion and four carrots and sauté in medium sized Dutch oven. Add turmeric and cumin. Stir in two cubed potatoes and shredded cabbage and half a cup of chicken stock. Cook until potatoes are just tender.
Serve with injera, tomatoes and cucumber.
Some times call for fancy and others call for being correct. There’s nothing fancy about sliced American cheese, Duke’s mayo and a grocery store potato roll, but when combined, the sure make for a tasty burger. Our butcher sells a “burger blend” of ground beef and ground bacon from Riverview Farms here in Georgia, but finely chopping bacon and mixing it into your ground beef will also work.
Season beef with salt and pepper and form into ¼ pound balls. Place meat balls into a very hot cast iron skillet with oil. Use two spatulas, one to place on the top of the burger and one to apply pressure onto the first with the handle until patties are very thin. Cook until a crust forms and flip, adding two slices of American cheese. Cook until cheese melts and transfer to a toasted (use broiler to only toast inside) bun with mayo. Top with very thinly sliced yellow onion and lettuce.
Dough:
Add 2 ½ teaspoons (one package) of yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar to 1 ¼ cup of warm water. Stir until the yeast begins to activate.
In the bowl of a mixer, combine 530g of all-purpose flour, 45g of semolina flour, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix to incorporate and then begin to add the yeast and water mixture. Mix until dough is uniform and smooth. Shape into a ball and transfer into a large bowl that is coated with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 ½ hours.
Cut dough into 4 equal sized pieces, shaping each into a ball. Return to bowl and let rise for at least 30 minutes.
Pesto: Place ½ cup of pine nuts into a small skillet over medium heat. Toss frequently until nuts begin to brown and develop a strong nutty smell, about 4 minutes. Transfer to food processor. Add 3 oz of grated Parmesan cheese, 2 smashed garlic cloves and 1 tsp. of salt. Pulse several times to roughly chop. Add about 3 bunches of basil leaves and run food processor. Slowly pour in ¾ cup of olive oil until sauce forms.
Onions: Chop one yellow onion into slivers and cook over low heat with a large pinch of salt in a large skillet until caramelized, about 45 minutes.
Cooking and assembly: Stretch dough until very thin and place directly on the grate of a hot charcoal grill for ~3 minutes or until dough becomes stiff enough to flip. Flip and allow to cook for another 3 minutes. While still warm, spread pesto on flatbread and add onion mixture. Serve with a splash of lemon juice.
For a variation, top instead with crème fraiche, smoked salmon, green onions. Or really anything else.
Confession: I don’t know the difference between grits and polenta. I think there is one, but the cooking process and the results are almost exactly the same – it really comes down to whether you want to sound Southern or European. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t – it’s a personal choice.
Polenta: In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, combine 1 cup of polenta, 2 cups of milk, and 2 cups of stock over medium heat. Stirring frequently but not obsessively, cook the polenta until it thickens considerably, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and butter. This is a great base for just about anything saucy and is also good on its own. Feel free to stop at this point if you want.
Chicken: Season a bone-in, skin-on chicken thigh with salt and pepper and place in a cold cast iron skillet (this will help the skin become crispy) with a neutral oil. Bring to medium-high heat and cook, flipping occasionally, until browned and at an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Remove chicken and make a pan sauce by adding a finely chopped shallot and 2 tablespoons of butter, allowing shallot to brown before deglazing pan with half a cup of white wine. Allow sauce to reduce. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve chicken and sauce on the polenta.
Quick Pickled Red Onions:
Very thinly slice ¼ of a red onion and place into a small bowl and add a few cranks of black pepper. Cover with red wine vinegar and let sit while cooking. Stir occasionally.
Squash:
Slice yellow squash and/ or zucchini in half lengthwise and sprinkle cut side with a very heavy pinch of salt to pull moisture from the squash (use an alarming amount of salt – this will help prevent the squash from becoming squishy. Don’t worry, you’ll wipe almost all of it off). Let sit for about 20 minutes and then wipe off the salt and all accumulated moisture with a paper towel. Chop remaining onion into strips and add to a medium sized bowl. Chop the squash into ¼ inch cubes and add to the bowl. Season with salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, and chili powder.
Heat a skillet over medium high heat with a neutral oil and add squash and onion mixture. Cook, tossing occasionally for about 15 minutes. Add a quick pour of chicken stock and continue to cook until most of the stock has cooked off.
Sauce:
Mix two tablespoons of crème fraiche, ~10 leaves of finely chopped cilantro, and a tablespoon of Cholula hot sauce in bowl, stirring to incorporate.
Assembly:
Heat flour tortillas in a skillet until warm, transfer to plate. Coat center third of tortilla with crème fraiche sauce, then add squash and top with pickled red onions.
Make or procure a pie crust. My go to is page 665 of Joy of Cooking, but ask your mom.
Thinly slice one tomato cross sectionally and lightly salt. Set aside for at least 20 minutes to draw out some of the moisture.
Thinly slice red onion, mince garlic, and chop fresh thyme and oregano.
Assembly: Roll pie dough into a thin layer on a sheet pan. Spread two tablespoons of Dijon mustard on dough. Finely grate Manchego or Parmesan cheese on dough. Add tomato, onion, garlic, and herbs in thin layers, careful not to cover edges. Fold excess dough over the edges to form a crust. Grate additional cheese over the galette. Bake in a 375 degree oven until crust is golden brown, about 35 minutes.
Mushroom Variation:
Add 3 tablespoons of butter to a large skillet over low heat. Roughly cut ~1 pound of mushrooms, saving stems for stock. Increase heat on skillet to medium high and add mushrooms. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of salt and several grinds of black pepper, stirring to coat mushrooms. Sauté for about 5 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed and mushrooms begin to brown. Add chopped rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Deglaze pan with chicken stock, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking for another 10 minutes. Add to pie dough with Dijon mustard and grated cheese, substituting a yellow onion for the red onion above.
This French seafood stew has become a staple of late fall quarantine cooking in our house because it 1) is satisfyingly delicious and 2) can be made with anything ranging from lobster to that random package of white fish of unknown origins that you found at the bottom of your freezer. In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child lists 35 potential seafood ingredients for her version, including two different kinds of eels. You should aim for a mixture of sturdy fish and shellfish.
In a large pot, cook diced onion and garlic over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste and fresh thyme, oregano, salt, and pepper. Stirring, cook until the tomato paste begins to darken before adding diced tomato (fresh or canned). Add diced potatoes and your choice of seafood stock, chicken stock, or water. Note: If using shell on shrimp, you can add some extra flavor to the cooking liquid by boiling the water or chicken stock before straining them out. Add a pinch or two of saffron if you are feeling fancy. Bring the soup to a boil before reducing to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are nearly cooked. Increase the heat to high, adding any and all sea food that you would like. Continue to cook until the seafood is cooked. Serve with crusty bread.
This was a very 2020 invention that was driven from the long held belief in the Schultz household that every leftover can be improved by either topping it with an egg or serving it as a taco. As I write this, I have become resolved to add a runny egg to this next time we have it.
Season a duck quarter with salt and pepper and allow to come up to room temperature on the counter. Place skin side down in a cold, well-oiled skillet before bringing the heat to medium high. Cook undisturbed for 6 to 7 minutes before flipping. Continue cooking until the internal temperature reaches 135 degrees, medium rare.
Meanwhile, combine 3 tablespoons of sugar, ¼ cup of red wine vinegar, and a ¼ cup of orange juice in a sauce pan. Stir to incorporate and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly.
At this point, you could choose to glaze the duck with the sauce and be well on your way to a classic Caneton a l’Orange.
But tacos.
Instead, shred the meat and cover with the glaze in the fridge at least a few hours. Transfer to a skillet over high heat and cook until the meat is reheated and beginning to crisp in places. Transfer to a tortilla and top with raw diced white onion.