Saveur: The New Comfort Food

SAVEUR
The New Comfort Food
Home Cooking from Around the World

Edited by

James Oseland

Table of Contents

Introduction

Snacks, Starters, and Salads

The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Frisée Salad with Poached Eggs and Bacon

Spring Rolls with Chile–Garlic Sauce

Italian-Style Stuffed Artichokes

Tapas-Style Meatballs

Golden Potato Latkes

Guacamole

Spicy Beef Empanadas

Wild-Greens Pie

Mushroom and Herb Crostini

Herbed Tomato Tart

Hummus with Tahini

Soups and Stews

Burgundy-Style Beef Stew

Creamy Corn Chowder

German Split Pea Soup

French Onion Soup

Matzo Ball Soup

Woody DeSilva’s Championship Chili

Thai Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup

Tuscan-Style Kale Soup

Smoked Pork and Sauerkraut Stew

Eggs

Ricotta and Roasted Pepper Frittata

Classic Eggs Benedict

Eggs Poached in Spicy Tomato Sauce

Huevos Rancheros

Matzo Brei with Mushrooms and Asparagus

Pasta and Noodles

Baked Ziti with Sausage

Fettuccine Alfredo

Orecchiette with Rapini and Goat Cheese

Brown Butter Pasta

Vegetarian Lasagne

Pasta with Ragù

Bucatini with Spicy Tomato Sauce

Macaroni and Cheese with Ham

Figaretti’s “Godfather II” Linguine

Everyday Fried Noodles

Fish and Shellfish

New Orleans–Style BBQ Shrimp

Stuffies

Veracruz-Style Red Snapper

Broiled Salmon Steaks with Tomatoes, Onions, and Tarragon

Deep-Fried Southern Catfish

Cod Cakes with Chowchow

Grilled Lobster with Cilantro–Chile Butter

Poultry

Lemony Roast Chicken

Red-Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken Paprikash with Dumplings

Indonesian Chicken Curry

Sweet-and-Spicy Korean Fried Chicken

Northern Fried Chicken

Roasted Herbed Chicken and Vegetables

Thai Red Curry with Roasted Duck

Meats

Lamb Chops with Salsa Verde

Seven-Hour Leg of Lamb

Marinated Flank Steak

Italian-Style Meatballs with Tomato Ragù

Filets Mignons with Mushroom Sauce

Pineapple-Chipotle-Glazed Ham

Sweet and Sour Pork Chops

Sid’s Fried Onion Burgers

Patty Melt

Chicken Fried Steak

Slow-Smoked Brisket

Roast Pork Loin

Vegetables and Sides

Potatoes Gratin

Chiles Rellenos

Kimchi Pancakes

Thai-Style Green Beans with Chile and Basil

Zucchini Fritters

Peppers Stuffed with Feta

Creamy Spiced Indian Lentils

Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Bok Choy

Green Bean Casserole

Butter Risotto

Fennel Baked in Cream

Boone Tavern’s

Randy Evans’s Southern Peas

Baked Goods and Sweets

Chive and Cheddar Biscuits

Buttermilk Flapjacks

Huckleberry Crisps

Sopaipillas

Key Lime Pie

Snickerdoodles

Dulce de Leche Cake

Chocolate–Caramel Tart

Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies

Red Velvet Cake

Ice Cream with Butterscotch Sauce

Lindy’s Cheesecake

Caramel Coconut Flan

German Chocolate Cake

Drinks

Spiced Tea

Black-and-White Banana Malted Milk Shake

Puka Punch

Hot Buttered Rum

Spiced Wine

Regent’s Punch

Six Texan Cocktails

Six Regional Bloody Marys

Index

Table of Equivalents

Acknowledgments

Photography Credits

Copyright

Introduction

Last night I cooked the perfect meal. There was nothing new or unusual about it, just split pea soup and frisée salad, recipes I’ve known for years. But the crisp, bitter greens were studded with smoky bacon, and the yolk of a just-poached egg ran luxuriously over the top. The soup, made with leftovers from a ham I’d baked the day before, was warming and rich. Together with a hunk of crusty bread, these dishes made me incomparably happy.

Foods like these—comfort foods—we don’t just eat, we hunger for. They are the chicken soup that’s been simmering on the stove all afternoon, filling the house with tantalizing aromas. Or the macaroni and cheese, the version with béchamel and Gruyère, that your family and friends beg you to make. You eat them on the fly, standing up at market stalls: shakshuka, eggs poached in a spicy tomato stew, scooped from a curbside pot in Jerusalem; or crisp-fried spring rolls stuffed with pork and rice noodles, gobbled in a busy Bangkok market. They are restaurant classics: the crunchy fried chicken that a neighborhood joint is famous for, or the linguine tossed in white-wine sauce with mussels and shrimp at that Italian-American place we keep going back to. No matter where they’re eaten, comfort foods are the ones we’ve known and loved forever; the ones we ate as kids and the ones we yearn for as adults. They’re the foods that taste like home, wherever you happen to be when you eat them.

These are the dishes that we’ve always celebrated in the pages of saveur magazine: soulful, honest, traditional fare that transcends trend and defines the way people eat all over the globe. Every cuisine has its canon of comfort, the foods that folks crave above all others and the ones they eat day in and day out. Those are the recipes you’ll find in this book: for good, old American stick-to-your-ribs fare, like Texas chili, Rhode Island stuffed clams, chicken pot pie, and patty melts; and for international dishes like guacamole and French onion soup, whose comfort the world has claimed as its own. There are the great pastas of Italy, like fettuccine Alfredo—that irresistible tangle of pasta, butter, and cheese—and homemade tagliatelle egg noodles with slow-simmered, meaty ragù bolognese. There are the lusty one-pot meals, like boeuf à la bourguignonne, and oven-baked triumphs like potatoes gratin—dishes that French cooks affectionately call cuisine grand-mère, or grandma’s cuisine. All told, this compendium represents some of the best traditional home cooking on the planet.

There’s also something new about this collection of comfort foods. It reflects just how much the category has grown. If you’re like me—I came of age in postwar California, raised by parents
who loved to cook—you might have grown up on a far-reaching diet of foods like tamales, bagels and lox, Chinese spareribs, and, yes, meat loaf. But today, our comfort-food vocabulary is even broader. We have access to it all: fresh lemongrass, Israeli couscous, handmade corn tortillas, dried baccalà. We travel more. America’s population continues to become more diverse. And we’ve learned volumes about the way the world eats.

Hair and makeup artists, working at a fashion show at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, break for a lunch of burgers.

Shoppers at the Mercato Orientale, a busy market in the heart of Genoa, Italy.

Diners enjoy peel-andeat boiled shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico.

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