There’s a well-known adage that you can judge French restaurants by their omelets. I tend to agree. Egg dishes, be it omelets, frittatas, quiches, etc are simple on the surface but there are a lot of important tips that go into preparing them that make it really easy to mess them up. The key to making a good omelet and frittata is to not over beat the eggs. A couple quick whisks of the hand, and then that’s it. The other key is to cook them slow and low. High heat will dry our your eggs—and there’s nothing worse than dry eggs.

On the upside, there is nothing better than breakfast for dinner!

Ingredients:

8 large eggs
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
3 large fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces
1 tsp. minced fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced onion
1/3 cup whole-milk ricotta

Preheat oven to 400°.

Whisk first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl; set aside.

Heat oil in a medium ovenproof nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté until soft, about 6 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Stir in egg mixture. Spoon dollops of ricotta evenly over top.

Cook until frittata begins to set, about 2 minutes.

Place in oven; bake until just set, 7-9 minutes. Slide the frittata onto a platter. Cut into wedges; serve hot or at room temperature. I served with sautéed fingerling potatoes with paprika, salt & pepper, and an arugula salad with tomatoes and a lemon vinaigrette.

This past weekend was very chilly one in NYC. It was the kind of weather that makes you stay in your apartment, watch an entire television series on Netflix and eat nothing but soup. Let’s just say, mission accomplished. My laziness aside, I have been dying to make a Tom Yum Goong soup that would rival my favorite Thai restaurants. Many times my attempts to recreate my favorite Thai style dishes have fallen a bit short of the mark, but not this time. I think I just might have found the perfect mix of sweet, sour and spicy. Here is what you will need:

To start you will want to make the stock:

The shrimp heads and shells (from about 1 pound large shrimp)
2 onions- roughly chopped
2 stalks celery- roughly chopped
2 limes- halved
2 teaspoons salt
¾ teaspoon whole peppercorns
3 quarts water

Removing the heads, peeling and deveining the shrimp isn’t the most glamorous part of this recipe but probably the most important part of the process. Place the shells and heads aside. Keep the shrimp tails on and keep them cool (I made an ice bath). Place a large stock pot on the stove with the 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and add the shrimp heads, shells and the rest of the stock ingredients. Once everything is in the stock pot, turn the heat back up to medium and allow the flavors to infuse for at least 30 minutes. You will notice that the stock is turning a slight red color. That is the fat from the shrimp that tints the stock; it is also what gives the stock flavor. After 30 minutes remove from heat and strain the stock into another soup pot and place back on the stove over a low heat.

Soup ingredients:
2 stalks lemongrass sliced at an angle (2” pieces)
4 kaffir lime leaves
4 pieces of galangal (a type of ginger) I was unable to find fresh but Thai Kitchen has a dried version
2 red or green chilies diced or sliced
2 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla)
1-2 teaspoons sugar
1 handful fresh cilantro
1 lb shrimp with tails
1 cup mushrooms (I used portabella mushrooms diced but most recipes call for canned straw mushrooms)

Bring the stock back up to medium heat and add the lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal and chilies.

Let this simmer for about 10-15 minutes allowing the spices to infuse. Next add in the mushrooms, fish sauce and sugar. Add in the shrimp and cook until they turn pink (approx 6 mins). Do not overcook the shrimp otherwise they get tough. Remove the soup from heat and add in the cilantro. At this point you should taste and add more salt, sugar or lime if needed for the proper balance of spices. When serving try to avoid the lime leaves and the lemongrass, they are for flavor only, not to eat.

Now that the soup is done and ready to eat, I think another episode is in order. Ahhh I love a lazy weekend.

2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp finely grated grapefruit zest
2 Tbsp fresh grapefruit juice
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 C granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

For Glaze:

1/3 C Grapefruit Juice
3 C powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and zest. Meanwhile, in a mixer, beat butter and sugar til light and fluffy. add egg, 2 T juice, and vanilla and beat until combined, then add flour mixture and combine until everything is moist. Drop heaping teaspoons on cookie sheets and bake until edges are toasty about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.


Once cookies are cool, whisk together powdered sugar and remaining juice until smooth. Dip cookies in glaze and let dry, or spoon or drizzle glaze over them.

This recipe is forgiving and flexible. It can be prepared after work for a healthy, satisfying dinner, or it could easily be served under more formal circumstances. Paging the butler…

To serve 2, you’ll need:
1 beet
a bunch of small potatoes
1 apple
2 salmon filets
Olive oil
S&P

Start with three ingredients:

Cut the potatoes and beets into small squares, all of approximately equal size. Don’t cut the apple yet because you don’t want it to brown while it’s waiting for its turn in the frying pan.

Heat about 2 tbsps of olive oil in a medium saucepan and add the beets and potatoes. Lower heat and let cook, about 20 minutes, until both are close to fork tender. For the last 10 minutes, add your apple — cut (you guessed it) to the same size as the other ingredients.

While the apples are cooking, remove any skin from your salmon filets and season them. Cook them over medium-high heat, 2-3 minutes per side for medium rare fish.
Season the hash with salt and pepper and plate it with the fish, and a dollop of creme fraiche.

I’ve been wanting to do more ambitious/exciting/out-of-my-wheelhouse Saucy Little Dishes for a while (e.g. I’ve been talking about Baked Alaska for years and I should just DO IT ALREADY), so I’ll call that a resolution and here’s my first one. I made cheese; no big whoop.

Ingredients
For Paneer:
1 quart milk
Juice of 1 lemon
A splash of vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin (I only had whole cumin seeds, so I put them in a sandwich bag and then whacked them with a hammer)

You will also need cheese cloth or a clean dishtowel that has been laundered with unscented detergent and without fabric softener.

For Saag:
1 onion, minced
6 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 10-oz bags of spinach, stems removed, washed, and chopped
1 cup plain yogurt
4 oz. buttermilk
1 cup half and half
2 teaspoons red chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt (or however much or little to taste)

Directions
To make Paneer:

Pour the milk, salt and cumin into a large pan and bring to a gentle simmer for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, set cheese cloth or a dish towel into a colander, and place that over a large bowl. Remove the simmered milk from the heat and start to slowly stir in the lemon juice and vinegar. The milk will begin to curdle, and slowly, you’ll see curds and whey developing. Once the curds are thick, and the whey is slightly cloudy (you might need to add a little more lemon juice to get this to happen), pour everything into the cheese cloth and squeeze out the excess whey. Pick up the cloth, and form it into a rectangle. Place the cloth on a cutting board (or back of a cookie sheet), and then put something large and filled with water on top of it (I used a really big Tupperware container) and let it sit there for a few hours, to make sure all the excess liquid has been squeezed out. Viola! You’ve made cheese.

Cut it into cubes to use for the dish.

For Saag:

In a large sauce pan, combine the onion, garlic, ginger, yogurt, buttermilk, chili powder, garam masala and turmeric, and bring to a simmer. Slowly add the spinach, wilting it before you add more. Add salt here as needed. Simmer the spinach for about 30 minutes and then mash with a potato masher. Add the half and half and simmer for another 10 minutes, until it’s creamy. Add the cubes of paneer and simmer another 5 minutes.

Serve with rice and/or flat bread.

From Dish Amelia:

The past few weeks have been filled with special food. All food you make at home can be special in its own way of course, but holidays can include some additional dishes that are more prestigious due to their complexity, valuable ingredients, or timely significance. For Christmas I made a ham. That week I also made Gypsy Stew, and then for new years day I made Black-Eyed Peas. (There was also salad, cake, cookies, mashed potatoes, pierogies, borscht, and more cake, and more cookies.) So there’s been a lot of food in the fridge, and eating has been more of a game of how to reassemble the current pieces into an equally nutritious and interesting meal as the ones before, until everything is accounted for and put to use. And man, the ham has really gone far! So instead of one recipe, or the several mentioned, here is how they met for breakfast.

These Huevos Rancheros use the ingredients listed, placed on a plate in this order:

Tortilla (some decent storebought wheat ones) (heated for a few seconds on a pan or zapped)
Potato (1 large one, grated, squeezed and forgotten periodically in a cast iron pan until crispy)
BEP’s (with ham and green chile)
Red chile sauce
Fried egg (C’mon now)
S&P

The Black Eyed Peas this year featured frozen and canned ones, and chopped green chile left over from the Gyspy Stew, and cooked with the Christmas ham (which included whole grain mustard, maple syrup, and Riesling). This makes so much sense I can’t believe I never thought of it before. The ham was the smallest one they had, a real nice fancy 3.25 lb Hudson Valley smoked one. I based my ham on this recipe from Bon Appetit. Also, I loved discovering that I could slice superthin curls from my now frozen ham and then dice it into tiny geometric pieces that would not have been possible at room temp. The ham was wonderful with pan juice gravy on Christmas, as ham sandwiches all week, giving smoky backbone to the BEPs and to a soup — which I’ve yet to make.

And speaking of that, here’s to the future! I wish you health, happiness, love and luck in 2012!

Directions:
Saute the garlic and olive oil in a large pot (2-3 quarts) on medium/high heat. Once the garlic begins to brown, add the ribs and brown them on all sides. Add the salt, and toss the ribs and garlic for a couple of minutes to build up the amount of brown crispy caramelized goodness in the pot.

Pour in the wine so that the meat is completely covered with liquid (if there isn’t enough wine to cover the meat that’s fine – just add water until the meat is swimming). Bring the liquid to a boil then cover the pot and turn the heat down to low so that it continues to simmer but doesn’t boil over. Allow the brew to simmer like this for an hour and a half to two hours.

Using tongs, pull the ribs out of the pot and place them in a shallow dish in the oven at 250 degrees. This will dry them out and continue to cook and tenderize them. Leave the pot uncovered and continue simmering the wine mixture on the stove, and leave in any bones that come loose from the ribs. Bake the ribs for an hour, and while they bake, cook down the liquid on the stove top to make a thick barbecue sauce. Add the brown sugar, cardamom and red pepper, and stir the mixture with a whisk. Taste the sauce to make sure it’s salty enough (and if it’s not, add salt!).

Take out the ribs every 20 minutes or so to turn them with tongs and brush on the sauce. If you don’t have a food brush you can just spoon on the sauce. After an hour has passed, remove the ribs from the oven and brush them with sauce one last time.

Serve the ribs with greens and a grain, mashed potatoes, or just with some beers, chips and football. I served mine over a bed of couscous and arugula and it was magnificent.

Ingredients:
4 large leeks, tops removed, sliced and rinsed clean
3-4 tbsp butter
salt
4 pears, peeled, cored, and diced
13oz peeled and cooked chestnuts (Trader Joe’s carries them ready to go!)
6c veggie stock (thereabouts)
1 ½-2c heavy cream
more salt
pepper

Place butter and trimmed leeks in large stockpot over med-low heat. Once leeks are soft and translucent, toss pears in and stir. Add just enough stock to cover the pears and allow to simmer for 20mins. Stir every so.


Chop up chestnuts and add to the pot. Add more stock — enough to submerge chestnuts. Let simmer for an hour or so, gently stirring here & there.

Add stock incrementally as it reduces. Add salt & pepper as well. Pour in remaining stock and heavy cream. Puree with hand blender or food processor.

Taste and season as you like. I added 1 ½c of water at the very end — after buzzing, to thin it out a bit, but this is up to you!


As you can see this soup is pretty dang easy, and I’m telling you our guests were raving. Several people have asked for the recipe since the dinners, so here it is! I am eager to try some alternate pear/chestnut formats so if you have some ideas, leave a comment and let this Dish know!

Happy 2012 y’all.

(Photographs provided by Frank J Florio, this Dish’s Dad!)

Butternut squash makes a perfect soup that both my son and I can enjoy. Plus it’s amazingly quick and easy to make, and it’s a vegan and vegetarian soup with a whole lot of flavor. Sounds too good to be true but it’s really kind of a miracle meal.

Butternut Squash Puree
Ingredients:
1 whole butternut squash, peeled and chopped into large cubes
4 cloves garlic, chopped loosely
½ cup chopped white onion
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small dried hot pepper (or 1 tsp red pepper flake – my baby can handle a little spice but feel free to leave it out if you’re worried about it)
2-3 quarts of water

Directions:
In a large pot, sizzle the garlic and onion with olive oil on medium/high heat until they begin to brown. Add in the squash, salt, and red pepper, toss everything together, and cook the squash for 2-3 minutes until it browns a bit. Add enough water to the pot to cover the squash completely, then cover and bring the mixture to a boil. Allow it to boil for a couple of minutes until the squash is soft enough to stab with a spoon.


Turn off the heat and carefully ladle the mixture into your blender. You may have to do this in two parts if your blender is too small to hold everything at once. Puree the mixture until it is a smooth creamy soup, then empty it back into the pot and stir the batches together (if you had to divide it up). Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream or plain, and make sure it’s nice and cool before you feed it to your baby.

That’s the inimitable Ellen Griswold. It’s one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies of all time, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. It’s also part of the reason Dish Rachelle and I were cooking up a storm last night at our annual pre-holiday get together. Every year around this time, we grab our boys, our kitchen toys, and drink lots of wine while we cook up a feast in an attempt to de-stress from all the holiday craziness.

When I entertain guests, I like to cook something that’s simple to prep and cooks up fast, like pasta or shrimp. This dish has a lot of ingredients, but it’s relatively stress free, so it’s the perfect meal for guests or a weeknight meal–or both!

To brine shrimp:
1.5 lbs peeled and cleaned shrimp
4 cloves of garlic, minced and divided in half
A big ‘ol handful of parlsey, chopped roughly and divided in half
Salt
White wine

For grits:
1/2 cup quick cooking grits or polenta (not instant)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

To prepare shrimp:
2-3 slices of pancetta or bacon, diced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
A few shakes of cayenne pepper (optional)
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Salt & freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons butter
2 scallions, diced (white + green parts)

Open a bottle of white wine. Have a glass.

OK, now: Place shrimp in bag with half the garlic, half the parsley, and a generous 2-3 tablespoons of kosher salt. Throw in a few splashes of your wine for good measure. Fill bag with very cold water to cover shrimp. Set aside and let shrimp brine for about 20 minutes.

Make grits according to package directions. It will take about 10-12 minutes to cook, so it can simmer while the shrimp cooks.

In a sautee pan over medium heat, cook pancetta until it’s rendered and starting to crisp up. Remove from pan but leave heat on.

Add remaining garlic and stir until fragrant. Empty most of the brine from the bag and add shrimp to pan (you want a little bit of juice in there). Cook for about 2 minutes until shrimp begin to turn pink. Add the dried spices and stir to coat.

Make a “well” in the middle of the pan and add the tomato paste, a few more splashes of wine, and the Worcestershire sauce and stir to incorporate. Then stir everything together to coat the shrimp and add the pancetta back to the pan.

Add the butter to the pan, stir again to coat, sprinkle with parsley and scallions and turn off heat.

Add the cheese to the grits and stir.

Plate grits, then top with shrimp and a bit of sauce. Serve with a crusty piece of bread and a salad. Shown here: arugula, pears and pomegranate seeds with a balsamic and fig vinaigrette.

Keep drinking your wine and reminding yourself that it’s the holidays, and we’re all in misery, but if you have good friends nearby, it’s all good.

Enjoy!