Category Archives: Recipes by Season

Red Lentil Dal with Caramelized Onions

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Dal is an Indian cuisine comfort-food standby made with lentils, dried beans or peas. Tarka is a technique in which spices are sauteed in fat to magnify their flavor. And as we learned from spice guru Monica Bhide, you’ll enjoy  even more vivid flavor if you grind whole spices. Depending on your choice of cooking fat and stock, you can make this a vegan, dairy-free or gluten-free. Prepare the tarka and raita while the lentils simmer. Serve this dal with brown basmati rice, roasted cauliflower and our Fennel and Mint Raita.

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Swiss Chard with Grated Garlic

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This chard recipe is my new go-to green dish. I can literally go from picking chard from the garden to getting this on the table in under 10 minutes. And don’t let the humble ingredients list fool you … these greens are loaded with flavor. I recommend zipping and chopping the greens, then giving them a good rinse in a big bowl of cold water and spinning or straining them dry. A Microplane zester works best for this dish because it grates the garlic so finely as to make almost a paste. If you don’t have a Microplane zester, use the finest grater you have and cook a tad longer.

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Wild Mushrooms Roasted in Parchment

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This recipe for wild mushrooms from Seattle Chef Tamara Murphy’s book Tender illustrates her straightforward approach to cooking peak-season ingredients. “I even do this when I’m camping,” she says. Foragers typically do a good job of cleaning up delicate wild mushrooms, so just use a brush or paper towel to gently wipe away any traces of dirt. Above all, keep mushrooms dry, Murphy cautions. “Mushrooms roast best when they’re clean and dry.” Here, I used a combination of baby shiitakes and chanterelles that I found at a local farmers’ market stand run by a chef who comes from Bavaria, Germany, where he used to trade beer for mushrooms. Your kitchen will smell fantastic as this bakes! These wild mushrooms make a terrific side dish, or you can sprinkle them over pizza or pasta, or layer them on crostini smeared with goat cheese.

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We love ‘shrooms! Try these mushroom recipes:

 

 

Caramelized Sunchokes with Meyer Lemon Zest & Parsley

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Sunchokes (a k a Jerusalem artichokes, from the Italian name, girasole articiocco) are one of those items you’re more likely to find at the farmers’ market than at the grocery store. These homely little tubers of the sunflower resemble ginger root and can be eaten raw or cooked. Raw, they have a mild, faintly nutty flavor and crunchy texture; try them julienned or sliced paper thin. Cooking deepens their nutty character. Sunchokes have a thin skin, so don’t bother peeling them–just give them a gentle scrub with a vegetable brush. With a sprinkling of lemon zest and parsley, this side dish pairs well with roast chicken or pan-seared fish.

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Improvised Lentil Soup with Bacon & Juniper Berries

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Several things conspired to make this lentil soup–an overabundance of bacon in the fridge, some leftover juniper berries and a yen for soup on the chilly evening. Lentils and pork are a classic combination, and after consulting Niki Segnit’s The Flavor Thesaurus, I found that juniper berries (which I don’t use often) also have an affinity with pork. Deglazing the pan with a splash of sherry deepens the flavor while the juniper berries lend a bright counterpoint.

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Shaved Celeriac, Radish and Pecorino Salad with Pomegranates

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This simple dish is based on a winter salad served at London’s Bocca di Lupo and featuring celeriac (celery root) as the star ingredient. Get out your mandolin or Japanese slicer to shave the veggies and cheese, or use a very sharp knife to cut them paper-thin. If you don’t have white truffle oil on hand, substitute your best, most flavorful olive oil. The salad will taste just as fresh, if not quite as earthy.

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Warm Brussels Sprouts Slaw with Bacon

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This recipe is inspired by British chef Nigel Slater’s book, Tender, Volume I, A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. Slater calls for blanching the whole Brussels sprouts before sauteing them in the bacon fat. Shredding the Brussels sprouts allows you to skip that step and yields a slaw-like side dish that’s great with roast beef, pork or fish. Juniper berries have an astringent quality that’s a nice counterpoint to the earthy sprouts and smoky bacon. If you don’t have them on hand, substitute a splash of gin (which is made from juniper berries) or, in a pinch, a squeeze of lemon. I like to season this dish with flaky Maldon salt, which comes from the town of Maldon, not far from where my husband’s family live in Essex.

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Meyer Lemon Ricotta Scones

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The combination of whole wheat pastry flour, seasonal Meyer lemon and ricotta yields moist scones with a tender crumb. Grating the cold butter makes it easy to cut into the dry ingredients. This not-too-sweet treat works for breakfast or a snack.

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Spaghetti Squash with Spicy Sage Pesto & White Beans

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Spaghetti squash is easy to prepare, and it forms pasta-like strands when you rake the cooked squash with a fork. Sage provides the anchor for a hearty winter pesto that pairs beautifully with the squash and white beans; prep the pesto while the squash roasts. (I also love spaghetti squash with our Easy All-Purpose Tomato Sauce.) Serve as a side dish or with crusty bread for a meatless winter dinner.

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Spicy Sage and Parsley Pesto

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As Jonathan Bloom notes in his book, American Wasteland: How America Wastes Nearly Half of Its Food (DaCapo Press), bunches of fresh herbs are among the most common items languishing in our refrigerator crispers. Chances are, you bought some fresh herbs, only needing to chop a tablespoon or so for a recipe, and tucked the rest away with every intention of using it up. Pesto is easy to improvise with whatever herbs you have on hand. In this version, sage and parsley provide the anchor for a hearty winter pesto. Serve it over pasta, as a condiment with roast poultry or fish, or spread over crusty bread.

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