Tag Archives: entree recipes
The Copycat Chef: Slow Cooker Green Turkey Chili
It’s not always a restaurant I’m copying as the Copycat Chef – sometimes it’s a friend. One Sunday afternoon over a Ravens game, fellow Baltimoron Twann described a delicious green chicken chili he was going to make later that day. I immediately thought of it on the day after Thanksgiving when faced with pounds and pounds of leftover turkey. The recipe, adapted here for a slow cooker from Spark Recipes, works well with many types of leftover roasts, so keep it in mind when faced with your own holiday leftovers. They can be transformed into a spicy tomatillo chili and frozen for dinner throughout the winter. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, Mexican recipes, recipes, slow cooker, soup recipes
Comments Off on The Copycat Chef: Slow Cooker Green Turkey Chili
Recipe: DIY Maryland Crab Feast
For some non-Marylanders, the task of opening and eating a hardshell crab can be daunting. But for the truly obsessed, eating them is just the beginning. What if you didn’t just steam and eat the crabs yourself, but caught them from the Chesapeake Bay for a DIY crab feast? This weekend we took the boat out with my brother and his wife, an experienced crabbing team, and learned how to catch them. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged crabs, entree recipes, Maryland, seafood, seafood recipes
Comments Off on Recipe: DIY Maryland Crab Feast
Recipe: How to Roast a Pig
Last Saturday we had the pleasure of heading out to Brooklyn for my friend Matt Gross‘s annual pig roast. As you might imagine, roasting a pig is no small endeavor. But if you have the right equipment, it can be done – and chances are you will have many friends willing to help you cook it and eat it. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged BBQ, entree recipes, grilling recipes, pig roast, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Recipe: How to Roast a Pig
Recipe: New Old-School Meatballs
Recently I’ve been fascinated by the Meatball Shop. I’ve never actually eaten there, because there’s always a line out the door, and every time the owners open a new branch, an additional line forms out of an additional door, with no impact on still crowded original Meatball Shop. And they don’t take reservations, which to me is not a comforting quality for a comfort food place. Still. The place is insanely popular. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged American recipes, beef, entree recipes, Italian recipes, meatballs, the copycat chef, tomato sauce
Comments Off on Recipe: New Old-School Meatballs
Recipe: Slow-Cooker Beef Barbacoa Tacos
I’ve been craving homemade tacos ever since Tanya Steel, former model and EIC of Epicurious and Gourmet Live, told Fashion Week Daily that her favorite Epicurious recipe is this one for pork tacos made in a slow cooker. When five friends were coming over for dinner, the opportunity presented itself to cook up a whole slew of tacos. But true confession: I really love Chipotle’s beef barbacoa tacos. Surely there had to be a way to make this style of tacos in a slow cooker to make the whole dinner less of a hassle.
I took a recipe from California’s Café Pasqual and merged it with the Epicurious version. You can put the beef in the slow cooker before leaving for work in the morning and finish it when you get home, or even make the whole thing a day ahead of time. Either way, it’s set it and forget it. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged beef, entree recipes, Mexican recipes, slow cooker, tacos, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Recipe: Slow-Cooker Beef Barbacoa Tacos
The Copycat Chef: Garlic and Rosemary Lamb Chops
In springtime I always start craving lamb with garlic and rosemary. But if you don’t have eight or more people to feed and several hours to spare, there’s not much reason to roast a whole leg of lamb. The solution: lamb chops for two, marinated and grilled for a short amount of time with the same intense flavor. This recipe is just as good for a casual weeknight meal as it is for a special occasion like Easter.
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, grilling recipes, Italian recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on The Copycat Chef: Garlic and Rosemary Lamb Chops
The Copycat Chef: Penne with Ricotta and Pancetta
Down the street from me in Milan was a little neighborhood trattoria, La Ragazza, that served the most delicious pasta. The rich pancetta and tomato sauce in their signature penne dish included lots of creamy, fresh ricotta – a combination you don’t see often stateside. The only problem was, when I returned from Milan, La Ragazza was no longer down the street from me, and I was still craving their house specialty. So I set to Googling, and found the traditional recipe from an Italian pasta blog, Pasta Recipes Made Easy. Success! Here it is re-envisioned with American measurements and a few pasta-making tricks of my own.
La Ragazza’s penne is housemade and dried. If you can’t find this at a specialty pastaria near you (there are many more in Italy than here), use artisanal-quality packaged pasta. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, Italian recipes, pasta recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on The Copycat Chef: Penne with Ricotta and Pancetta
Recipe: Special Sauce
One of the best things about going to Burger King as a kid – other than those gold paper crowns – was the “special sauce” on the burgers. It probably wasn’t anything more special than a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard, but it was still more exotic than what Mom made.
At a recent barbecue, we decided to make Pat La Frieda burgers more special with our own grown-up version of special sauce, a chipotle mayonnaise recipe cobbled together from several similar ones. But this version includes all the key secret ingredients – chipotle, adobo, lime and garlic – in particularly spicy, smoky proportions. It’s ridiculously easy to make and adds an extra layer of deliciousness to burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs or grilled fish. Added bonus: the resulting sauce has the same peculiar orange color as your childhood favorite “special sauce.” (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged American recipes, burgers, entree recipes, grilling recipes
Comments Off on Recipe: Special Sauce
Catalan Fisherman’s Stew
In Barcelona, cod is on the menu for every meal of the day. And while baccala often refers to salt cod, it can also refer to the fresh cod fishermen brought home from the catch and cooked up in any number of ways. One of the simplest and most satisfying is a tomato-based cod stew, the sort you’d find at a waterfront restaurant in Barceloneta. It’s usually made with briny olives, capers, and just a hint of red pepper. The following recipe was adapted from Sicilian Fisherman’s Stew found on Epicurious, livened up with a few more ingredients – and of course, the all-important cod.
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, seafood recipes, soup recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Catalan Fisherman’s Stew
Something Natural’s Hummus and Sprouts Sandwich
Once you make hummus at home, you may be disappointed you haven’t been making it yourself all along. This Middle Eastern standard is incredibly easy to whip up in a food processor, and it lasts for about two weeks in the fridge. The best recipe I’ve found is Mark Bittman’s from his excellent cookbook The Best Recipes in the World. Using the Bittman recipe as a basis, you can customize hummus to your taste with more garlic, lemon, etc., as I have here. Keep the ingredients on hand and you’ll never want mass-market hummus again.
One of the best uses for homemade hummus is this sandwich, based on the delicious version from Something Natural in Nantucket. Though you’ll be hard-pressed to find the same wonderful Portuguese bread off the island, you can use fresh multi-grain bread for a healthy lunch that fits into a low-cal, low-salt diet. This sandwich almost like a salad between two pieces of bread, and as such, it’s a lot easier to take to the beach or the park. You may want to wrap the sandwich in waxed paper and cut it in half – or just enjoy the messiness. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, Nantucket, snack recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Something Natural’s Hummus and Sprouts Sandwich
Chicken Tarragon Salad
Mayonnaise is the one ingredient that has the biggest effect on calories and fat content in salads like this one. Unless you have high cholesterol, however, there’s no reason to cut it out completely. Organic mayonnaise like Trader Joe’s contributes a lot of flavor and creamy texture even in small amounts. Just mix the salad well and you won’t be able to tell the difference.
I have a bunch of potted herbs from the Union Square greenmarket; whenever I’m making a dish like this one, I just snip a mixture of herbs and throw them in. If you don’t have tarragon, you can use a mixture of thyme, sage, etc. to taste. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged entree recipes, salad recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Chicken Tarragon Salad
Shrimp Remoulade
This traditional New Orleans dish is great during a heat wave – or an average 95-degree summer day in Louisiana. Almost all the work is done by the food processor. It’s a favorite at Galatoire’s, where locals come in from the noonday heat to feast on cold seafood salad.
This recipe has been slightly northern-ized and modernized to incorporate more widely available ingredients (country Dijon instead of Creole mustard) – as well as my own preference for nice seasonal lettuce, not the shredded iceberg of yore.
Remember: support the American shrimping industry! Use wild-caught, domestic shrimp, which is strictly regulated compared to imported shrimp. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged appetizer recipes, entree recipes, seafood, seafood recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Shrimp Remoulade
Accidental Plum Pizza
A fig tart with Stilton and caramelized onions looked so good on the cover of last Wednesday’s NYT Dining section that I offered to make it for a friend on Saturday night. A snack of pastry sprinkled with figs, blue cheese and pine nuts seemed like the perfect fuel for a night on the town. The only problem?
Everyone else in New York had the same freakin’ idea.
You know the feeling: you get to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods only to find a gaping hole on the shelf where a main ingredient should be. There had been a run on frozen puff pastry at Whole Foods, and the cheese department was sold out of Stilton.
Since I had already bought all the other ingredients and had no more ideas at 7pm on a Saturday, I swapped out frozen pizza dough ($1.69) for puff pastry and, at the cheese counter guy’s suggestion, Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen Blue for Stilton. Problem solved! Or so I thought. (more…)
Pasta with Wild Mushroom Sauce
There are so many different varieties of mushrooms arriving at the market right now, like these at Dean & Deluca, below, that it’s hard to choose just one. How can you settle for just cremini when chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and hen o woods are right nearby? Usually the answer comes down to price: the fanciest mushrooms can cost $45 a pound, so many cooks stick to the basics. But keep in mind that just an ounce of mushrooms can go a long way flavor-wise, so cooking with exotic mushrooms can be done with little pain to your wallet. Just use a higher proportion of less-expensive mushrooms (cremini) and a smaller proportion of the pricier ones (chanterelles).
One of the best recipes that uses wild mushrooms is one by Melissa Clark for the Times in the spring of 2007, for creamed morels on toast. But what about fall, when morels aren’t in season? All the mushrooms I found at Dean & Deluca would be excellent with cream and white wine on toast, but I wanted to feature them in a main dish. The creamed mushrooms became an unorthodox French pasta sauce served on linguine – though for a really stellar effect, serve the mushroom sauce over fresh, homemade fettuccine. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged appetizer recipes, entree recipes, French recipes, Italian recipes, pasta recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on Pasta with Wild Mushroom Sauce
The Copycat Chef: Rosemary Beef Kebabs With Greenmarket Vegetables
The death of The Silver Palate‘s Shelly Lukins marks the end of an era: she and her partner Julee Rosso taught so many of us how to cook. They developed simple but sophisticated recipes for entertaining and introduced American cooks to bright Mediterranean flavors. Before the Silver Palate, garlic was considered exotic, and you couldn’t find fresh herbs at fancy supermarkets; now both are readily available nearly everywhere.
It was with their recipe for rosemary beef skewers in mind that I started working on this recipe several weeks ago. The marinade has been toned down – no more Asian influences of soy sauce and sesame oil – and the focus is on the herbs and greenmarket vegetables. If it hadn’t been for The Silver Palate, who knows if food would have evolved the way it has. (more…)
Posted in food, recipes
Tagged American recipes, beef, entree recipes, grilling recipes, the copycat chef
Comments Off on The Copycat Chef: Rosemary Beef Kebabs With Greenmarket Vegetables