August 2012

Swiss chard, a member of the beet family, is cultivated for its extremely nutritious leaves rather than its bulbous root. The many varieties of chard are often distinguished by the color of the stem. All are delicious and especially nice when a mix of colors are represented in a pan of sauteed chard. You’ll find names such as “bright lights” or “rainbow” on bunches of chard in the market. Once home, soak them in a bowl of water; the leaves can be quite sandy and need more than a simple dunk.

Of all the ways to prepare shrimp, the grill delivers the best flavor. Although unadorned "shrimp on the barbie" are great, an easily assembled gingery barbecue sauce makes them that much better. You can save time by buying already shelled and deveined shrimp, but our recipe developer, Alexis Touchet, who grew up in shrimp country in southwest Louisiana, thinks shell-on shrimp are better quality. Depending on where you live and what's in your market, you may not have much choice. Freshness trumps all, so don't hesitate to use your nose in deciding which shrimp to buy.

Producing, crisp-crusted restaurant-style scallops means overcoming two obstacles: chemically treated scallops and weak stovetops. We wanted to achieve superior pan-seared scallops that had a perfectly brown crust and no hint of off-flavors.

 You can prepare a red or yellow gazpacho (use yellow tomatoes and a yellow bell pepper). Keeping the skins on the tomatoes intact gives a deeper color, but if you prefer to peel them, blanch them for 1 minute in boiling water, cool them in an ice water bath, and peel off the skins.

Julia Child describes this mousse as one of the best. It uses eggs, sugar, and butter instead of cream. Note that the eggs are not fully cooked so take care whom you serve this to (no one very young, old, or pregnant) or use a pasteurized egg product. The recipe can be divided among 10 small ramekins or custard cups or 6 larger ones. The mousse will use every bowl in your kitchen. It’s worth it. 

Just about every fast‐food joint now sells breakfast burritos, but few will be as good as yours. Fill them as you would tacos, with ingredients like chopped fresh tomatoes, cilantro, black olives, or scallions; minced fresh chiles; avocado slices or chunks; or small cubes of Crisp Panfried Potatoes (Home Fries). If you're really addicted to a hot and hearty meal on the run, double or triple the recipe, wrap the burritos well in plastic or foil, and tuck them away in your freezer.

For this version of corn chowder, we were looking for a recipe that would pack lots of corn flavor in every spoonful while still maintaining a satisfying, yet not too thick, chowder texture. Inspired by a recipe we found that juiced corn kernels, a trick that delivered pronounced corn flavor, we strained the scrapings and pulp from several cobs through a kitchen towel to get unadulterated corn juice (when we added the unstrained pulp to the pot, the soup curdled). This delivered the intense corn flavor we were after.

The key to a Horse's Neck is the lemon peel which hangs off the rim of the glass and resembles the neck of a horse hanging into the drink. Sometimes brandy is used instead of bourbon or it can served as a mocktail, which is what I believe was its original intention. For that simply skip the liquor and you'll have a fancy ginger ale.