215. White Butter Sauce with Cream (Beurre Nantais) (p. 882)

While rummaging through our freezer a while ago, I came across a stash of lobster and shrimp ravioli. How could we possibly have left these little frozen gems in cold storage for months and months without eating them? Well, we just couldn't figure out what kind of sauce to serve with them. A tomato-based sauce didn't seem like a good match. That's where this recipe came in.

The Book says that this sauce is traditionally served with fish, so it seemed like it would be a good match for the seafood ravioli.

To make this sauce, I brought some white wine, white wine vinegar and finely chopped shallot to a simmer and reduced it quite a bit. Then I added some cream and simmered it some more to thicken it. Then I added a stick of cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, a bit at time. Once the butter was all melted, I poured the sauce through a fine mesh sieve to remove the shallot solids. Finally, I finished the sauce with a little bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper.

The Book describes this sauce as "velvetized," and the term is apt (even if it isn't really a word). It doesn't get much smoother, richer or more sumptuous than this sauce, all without being heavy like an alfredo sauce. And this was the perfect match for the seafood ravioli. A little bit went a long way, but it did leave us wanting more. When the ravioli was all gone, we couldn't keep ourselves from sopping up whatever sauce was left with some bread.

I'll definitely make this sauce again. The Book says that, in addition to fish, it also works well with vegetables or a steak.

Date Cooked: April 2, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

213. Crispy Oven-Fried Cod (p. 301) and 214. Tartar Sauce (p. 885)

For a lot of folks, Fridays in Lent means fish for dinner. In fact, the seafood place in my neighborhood does so much business on Fridays in Lent that they need to hire a police detail to direct traffic. I'm not kidding. And it's with good reason ... they make the best fish and chips this side of the beach. Or, at least I used to think that they did. Thanks to this recipe, though, I think that honor goes to me now.

The secret to this dish is that the fish is double-coated, and you start it on the stove top and finish it in the oven. It gets just the right amount of crispiness, but it's not as greasy as deep fried.

First, I combined some plain store-bought bread crumbs and some yellow cornmeal in a zip-top bag with a little bit of salt and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. I lightly beat a couple of eggs in a shallow dish. Then working one piece at a time, I put good-sized pieces of fresh cod into the bag, shaking gently to coat. Then I dipped the fish in the egg, and shook it to coat a second time.

To cook, I heated a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in my big cast iron skillet. Once it was good and hot, I arranged the fish in the pan. After just a couple of minutes on each side, the fillets were nicely browned. (I got to use my fancy new fish spatula! Having the right tools makes all the difference.) To finish the cooking, I added a bit more oil, and put the skillet in a very hot oven (500 degrees) for a few minutes more.

This fish was excellent. Crispy and flaky, without being greasy. The breading was just right, too. Sometimes, batter-dipped fried fish can be just too much.

I served this with some Roasted French Fries and Creamy Slaw (both repeat recipes) and this recipe* for Tartar Sauce to create the complete fish and chips experience.

The Book says that "if you've never had homemade tartar sauce, this will be a revelation." I'm not so sure about that. I used to think that tartar sauce was nothing more than a little bit of pickle relish mixed into mayonnaise, and for all I know, the tartar sauce at the seafood place down the street is just that. This tartar sauce was a bit more involved, and not as good. It starts out all right....mayonnaise mixed with finely chopped sweet and dill pickles. The finely chopped onion and capers are unnecessary, but unobjectionable. The chopped hard-boiled egg yolk gives the sauce a bit more richness and substance, which I did like. Where The Book lost me was with the addition of the herbs. Parsley, dill, and tarragon. The last of these, the tarragon, was so strong that it overpowered all of the other flavors in the sauce, and turned me off a bit. I'm not saying that this tartar sauce was bad ... it wasn't. It just wasn't the "revelation" that it was sold as.

Overall, though, this was one of my favorite meals of the project so far. And, who would have guessed ... my little foodie baby gobbled it right up!

Date Cooked: March 27, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty Easy
Rating: Fish: A; Tartar Sauce: B-

* The recipe for Tartar Sauce is not on epicurious.com ... no big loss, as far as I'm concerned.

177. Papaya Pineapple Salsa (p. 897)

I used to think that I didn't like fruit salsas. But, this recipe* is the second fruit salsa I've made from The Book, and they were both better than I thought they'd be. (The other one I've made is the Strawberry Salsa that I made last summer.)

The recipe's instructions are deceptively easy. "Stir together all ingredients in a large bowl." That's it. But, that's not really all there is to it. You have to peel, seed and dice two pounds of papayas (be careful, they're slippery!), and you have to peel, core, and cut a pineapple.

The Book calls for a scallion and a half of a garlic clove. I'm generally suspicious about recipes that call for raw garlic, it can tend to overwhelm the dish. That's why I decided to try to substitute chopped garlic scapes for both the garlic and the scallion. The flavor is similar to, but milder than, garlic and onions. But it was not a success. The flavor was very bland. So, I tried to salvage it by adding a little bit of minced garlic and some chopped white onion. That seemed to do the trick, but something was still missing. What this salsa really needs is some heat to offset the sweetness of the fruit. If I were to make this again, I'd add a minced serrano chile, or at least a jalepeno to, as Emeril would say, "kick it up a notch."

I served it with tortilla chips, but as The Book suggests, I'm sure it would also be good as an accompaniment to grilled pork or swordfish.

Date Cooked: July 5, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

* The recipe on epicurious.com is the same as the one in The Book, except that The Book's recipe has twice the papaya.

134. Tahini Sauce (p. 891)

I made this recipe as an accompaniment for the Falafel Pitas I made a little while ago. It was the best thing about the dish, and it was pretty easy to make.

The hardest part was stirring the tahini paste (which had been sitting in my refrigerator for I don't know how long). This sesame paste is pretty oily, and over time, that oil separates out and needs to be stirred back into the paste before you can use it. Like Melissa, I used a knife to carefully stir the paste so as to avoid making a huge, oily mess.

The rest of the recipe is a cinch. First, I mashed some minced garlic and sea salt into a paste with the side of a chef's knife. Then I whisked together the garlic paste with the tahini, some lemon juice, some water, olice oil, chopped parsley and cilantro and a little bit of cumin.

This sauce was delicious. It was fresh tasting with the bright lemon and pungent garlic. The tahani has a rich, silky texture, and the addition of fresh, chopped herbs was a nice touch.

I'll make this sauce again to go with some grilled chicken or drizzled over a salad, or as a lighter alternative to hummus.

Date Cooked: April 4, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

118. Tapenade (p. 890) & 119. Green Olive and Almond Tapenade (p. 891)

I really enjoyed making these two recipes. They are delicious and easy to make. But what really made them special was that I made them with my new friend, Melissa.

As I wrote about a few days ago, Melissa was my guest at a lunch presentation about cook-through blogs for my co-workers. It was great to meet Melissa and especially fun to cook with her.

I picked these two recipes for the lunch presentation because they are both quick and require no cooking, just a whiz in the food processor.

The first recipe* was for a pretty traditional black olive tapenade. It only has four ingredients: Klamata olives, garlic, capers and olive oil. The second recipe, which The Book says was a reader recipe from the magazine, changes up the traditional tapenade recipe by substituting green olives for the black ones and adding parsley, lemon juice and almonds. Almonds? Yes, this is yet another recipe in The Book with almonds. What's the deal with all of the almonds? Don't get me wrong, the almonds work in this recipe, it's just that I'm surprised to see all of the unexpected places that almonds keep popping up in The Book.

Because I was doing a cooking demonstration (releasing my inner Julia Child), I got all of my ingredients measured and packed up the night before. The first thing I did was to pit the olives. I started by using my cherry/olive pitter, but after a while, I switched to using the side of a heavy chef's knife. Just smoosh the olive and pick out the pit. Couldn't be easier. I peeled the garlic cloves and measured the capers, parsley, almonds and lemon juice. I packed everything up in individual containers and I was ready to roll.

The preparation for both of these tapenades is the same. Throw all of the ingredients in the food processor and whiz it to a paste. Then add olive oil with the motor running until the consistency is just right. Or at least that's what I'll do the next time I make this. We made the black olive tapenade first, and I just dumped all of the olive oil in at once. The result was the it was too liquidy. Melissa was smarter than me, and added the oil to the green olive tapenade gradually, and the consistency was just right.

Both of these tapenades were very good. Salty and tangy with a nice velvety texture. Both were rich and flavorful. We served the tapenades on crackers and they were a nice canape, but either of these would go well with some grilled chicken or fish. One of my co-workers suggsted tossing a little of the tapenade with some pasta. Sounds good to me.

Date Cooked: February 27, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Very easy
Rating: A-

*The recipe for the traditional tapenade is not on epicurious.com.

104. Fresh Tomato Salsa (p. 896)

The Superbowl was last Sunday. And you know what that means ... chips and dips! We watched "The Big Game" at my sister-in-law's house on their huge-mongous hi-def TV. I made this recipe for salsa, and some guacamole that I'll write about in my next post.

The salsa recipes in The Book are intended to be used as condiments for grilled meats, so in order to use them as party dips, you need to double the recipe.

To make this salsa, I chopped some plum tomatoes. The Book says that you can seed the tomatoes if you want, or you can leave them in. I chose to leave them in. Then I minced a serrano chile. The Book calls for two, but since serranos rate 10,000 to 23,000 on the Scoville Scale, I decided to keep it pretty mild. I chopped some white onion, which The Book says is better than yellow onions for recipes calling for raw onions because of its "sharper, cleaner, brighter flavor." Finally, I chopped some fresh cilantro. I mixed up all of these ingredients, and that's it. The Book calls for adding three tablespoons of water, but I omitted this because I though that it would make the salsa too watery.

This was a pretty good salsa. I served it with some multi-grain tortilla chips. It was fresh, simple and clean tasting, and it had just the right amount of heat. This could easily be a party stand-by.

Date Cooked: February 1, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

54. Pesto (p. 889)

I made this recipe to use in the Tomato Tatins that I'll write about in my next post. I was surprised that The Book specifically calls for "store-bought basil pesto" rather than homemade in the Tatin recipe. I suppose that it's just The Book's concession to convenience, but, since I'm always looking for ways to tick off just one more recipe for The Project, I decided to make my own pesto.

But now that I've made this pesto, I'm really confused about why The Book specifies store-bought for the Tatins. Homemade pesto is super-easy to make, and in terms of taste, quality and appearance, the store-bought stuff doesn't hold a candle.

This pesto is very easy to make, and The Book's estimate of 15 minutes start-to-finish time is just about right. All you do is whiz together garlic, pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano, salt, pepper, basil leaves and olive oil. That's all. The result is a vibrantly green, silky, and flavorful pesto. The stuff you buy at the store is usually army-green, flatly flavored, and pasty. By making it yourself, you can be sure that you're using the freshest basil and pine nuts, and the best Parmaigiano and olive oil. It costs a bit more to buy all of the raw ingredients than it does to buy a tub of the mass-produced kind, but that's probably an indication that the commercial pesto makers aren't using the freshest and highest-quality ingredients. The Tatin recipe only called for a small amount of the pesto, so I was able to freeze the rest to use another time.

On another note ... One of my goals for The Project is to become a better cook. Now, by that I don't mean getting better at following instructions in cookbooks. That's part of it. I mean, it's a great thing to be able to recreate an amazing dish that someone's taken the time to write out a recipe for. But, by cooking more and more recipies from The Book, I hope that I can gain the confidence and knowledge to modify recipies or to cook good meals out of the random collection of ingredients I happen to have on hand.

Well, I've taken a small step in that direction. I had to go into work for a few hours yesterday afternoon. When I got back, my wife and I had to run an errand, and by the time we were done, it was past dinnertime and we had nothing planned. "What are we going to do about dinner?" "I don't know." Just as I was about to pull into the BK drive-thru for some flame-broiled shame with bacon and cheese, my wife said, "We've got a ton of stuff at home, I'm sure we can throw something together." And so, that's just what I did. And while I don't think that "Pasta with Stewed Tomatoes, Broccoli Rabbe and Romano Cheese" is going to make it into the next edition of The Book (although I'm happy to share the recipe, just let me know if you're interested, Ms. Reichl), it was pretty darn good - better than a drive-thru hamburger, that's for sure. I was really happy that I was able to make a tasty, wholesome meal in short order, with ingredients that I had on hand, and without a recipe. I just may be becoming a cook after all.


Date Cooked: September 21, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

3. Strawberry Salsa (p. 896)

What with the salmonella scare affecting the nation's tomato supply, I figured that it would be good to try a tomato-less sals-alternative.

The list of ingredients in this recipe (strawberries, onion, jalapeño pepper, cilantro and lime) make this dip a little bit scary. But, like everyone at my family's Father's Day celebration who was brave enough to try it, I really liked this salsa. The flavors (sweet, hot, tangy) melded well, and it didn't come off as a fruity salsa.

The blurb in The Book suggests it as a substitute for pepper jelly, and recommends serving it with roast chicken or pork. I doubled the recipe and served it with tortilla chips as a salsa substitute, and it was great.

Date Cooked: June 14, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A