Around here canning season winds down in October with apple butter and sauerkraut. There’s not a whole lot to put in jars between now and strawberry season, so in January I like to indulge in a few pounds of citrus from sunnier places to tide me over. Making a batch of marmalade will take you all afternoon, which is not necessarily a bad thing when it’s 20 degrees and snowy and you don’t really want to go anywhere anyway. Continue reading
Each chapter of Nigel Slater’s Tender is devoted to a single vegetable, and includes a discussion of how he grows said vegetable his own garden, followed by a handful delicious sounding recipes. Before he gets down to specifics he offers a paragraph or two of suggestions for how to prepare the vegetable and what to pair it with, little sketches of traditional recipes and cooking methods. When I first read “A Pumpkin in the Kitchen” last June, I was ready forgo tomatoes and corn and watermelon and skip right to November so that I could make this:
The French have an ancient soup-stew whose frugality ensures it falls under the modern label of “peasant cooking.” They toast thick slices of bread, layer them with fried onions, garlic, and marjoram; blanched and skinned tomatoes; and thin slices of pumpkin. The dish is then topped up with water and olive oil and baked in a low oven for an hour or two. The lid is lifted for the last half hour to allow the soup to from a crust. They call it garbure catalane, with a nod to its Spanish origins. Continue reading
I have tried many techniques for roasting a chicken over the years, most of which have been pretty good, but not really anything special. But then a couple weeks ago, very much by accident, I discovered this Thomas Keller recipe. I had been doing it all wrong. You can dispense with the butter and the basting and all the other things you think you need to do to make a delicious roast chicken. All you really need is some salt and a very hot oven. Continue reading
forgottenpickles.com 