The Art of Egg Cookery

We love our chickens. And we love their eggs even more. As you may have noticed if you read this blog on a regular basis, we just adore egg cookbooks. Really, there is no more perfect food.



Ann Seranne wrote The Art of Egg Cookery, filled with hundreds of egg recipes. James Beard said the author has, “given us rules for practically the entire gamut of eggs – from a simple 3 1/2 minute boiled egg to a caviar entrée. It is a pleasant mélange of useful and workable data.”

It is hard to imagine after a dozen egg cookbooks that there is anything left to say or do about the egg, but with each new book, there seems to be a new story.

Here is a fine little dessert.

Flan au Vin

2 cups white wine
1/2 cup sugar
6 egg yolks, well beaten
Brandied cherries


Dissolve the sugar in the white wine and heat over boiling water. When hot but not boiling, pour over the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Strain into custard cups or into one large mold. Place in pan of hot water and cook in a moderate oven (350 F.) for 45 minutes. Serve ice-cold with the brandied cherries on top. Serves 6.

The incredible, edible egg!

River Cottage Handbook No. 2 – Preserves

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall seems an unlikely cookery chap. He is a good cook, but quite unkept and rumor has it, fired from some of the most posh restaurants in London. Then he made a fateful decision. He left the restaurant business and moved to and old farm named the River Cottage. There he cooked, hunted game, planted vegetables, gathered from his hedgerows and wrote about it. The River Cottage Cookbook became a huge success. Huge in the sense that it spawned an industry. Though they are no longer tenants at the River Cottager the name lives on.

They are now producing a series of “handbooks” including River Cottage Handbook No. 2 – Preserves. While Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall writes the introduction, the actual compiler of the recipes is Pam Corbin. Nicknamed “Pam the Jam” she was running a small batch preserving company when she came on board for Preserving Days at River Cottage and never left.


This is a great little book with innovative preserves, like Nasturtium ‘Capers’ made from nasturtium seed pods, Blues and Bay, a blueberry and bay leaf preserve and this Florence fennel.

Pickled Florence Fennel

Salt
1 kg fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced, a few feathery fronds reserved
1 liter cider vinegar
15 g peppercorns (black, white or pink)
75 g granulated sugar
Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
3 or 4 bay leaves
1 tsp celery or fennel seeds
3-4 tbsp olive, hemp or rapeseed oil

Pour 2 –3 liters water into a large pan, salt it well and bring to a boil. Add the sliced fennel and blanch for no more than a minute. Drain in a colander, cool under cold water, then drain and pat dry.

Put the vinegar, peppercorns, sugar, lemon zest, bay leaves and celery or fennel seeds into a saucepan. Bring to the boil and continue to boil about 10 minutes until the liquor reaches a syrupy consistency. The vinegar vapors will create quite a pungent atmosphere in the kitchen.

Pack the fennel into wide-necked, sterilized jars, lacing a few fennel fronds between the slices. Remove the vinegar syrup from the heat and carefully pour over the fennel. You may well find all the spices remain at the bottom of the pan. If this happens, distribute them between the jars, poking the peppercorns and bay leaves down through the fennel slices. Pour sufficient oil into each jar to seal the surface. Seal the jars with vinegar[proof lids. Use within 12 months.

It’s not called Florence fennel for nothing. Make up a couple of jars of this fennel, and pop one open in mid-winter. It will be the beginning of beautiful staycation.

Cooking with Chimineas

There are two things that you need to cook. Heat and food. It’s not brain surgery. In the last few years, many people bought chimineas to use outside and have a fire. If you bought one, you now have heat. If you need a cookbook, try Wendy Sweetser’s Cooking with Chimineas. Grab some food and…cooking.

OK, you need some sort of grill, easy enough to pick up at a hardware store, and a fireproof dish or some foil and still, with the heat and food, … cooking.

There are however, some better types of chimineas if cooking is one of your goals. Sweetser uses The Bushman’s Burner which is designed for cooking as it has a larger opening. I am not sure this brand is even made anymore. It is pictured on the cover. What you really need is a nice sized opening if you want to cook inside.

If you don’t have or want a chimineas, cook these on a grill.

Sizzling Mango Chicken Wings

12 large chicken wings
4 Tbsp mango chutney, with the large pieces of fruit removed
or finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
4 Tbsp coconut milk

1. spread out the chicken wings in a shallow dish. Mix together the chutney, cumin and coconut milk and spoon over the chicken until coated. Leave in the marinade for 3-4 hours or until ready to cook.
2. Grill the chicken wings on the rack for about 15 minutes until golden brown and cooked through, tuning them over once or twice and basting with any leftover marinade.

Remember, food and fire….wings!

The Lake House Cookbook

Down the road about two miles from Stonehenge is the Lake House, not so much a “house” as a castle. In 1991, Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler bought the Lake House and spent 5 years restoring the house and grounds.

Now they have a lovely house (castle) with lovely gardens. Of course they have gardeners and greenhouses and a kitchen staff and well, she is married to Sting, he makes $2000 dollars a day from the royalties to Every Breath You Take, alone. Think of what he makes with Roxanne thrown in.



So now Trudie has a castle, a garden, and a cook so the natural progression is to write a cookbook. Aside from the fact that I don’t have a gardener or two or seven and that I stand in the kitchen alone, I really like this cookbook. And I really aspire to Trudie's kitchen garden! The cook, Joseph Sponzo, is credited as the co-author, though Styler gets top billing. The food is good and reasonably easy for those of us sans staff.

Fire Roasted Onions

2 small red onions, peeled and trimmed and each cut into 6 wedges
3 slices smoked bacon, each cut into 4 pieces crosswise
12 small sprigs marjoram
6 teaspoons olive oil
6 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat the oven to 400 F or prepare a charcoal grill that is medium hot. Cut 12 pieces of kitchen foil measuring 8 inches square.

Place one wedge of onion, cut side down, on a piece of foil. Top with a piece of bacon, a few grinds of pepper and a sprig of marjoram. Drizzle with 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil and 1.2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar. Pull the edges of the foil together to make a generous parcel and seal the edges. Repeating with the remaining ingredients

Transfer the onion parcels to a baking sheet and cook in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until tender. Alternately, place the parcels on the grill of a medium-hot fire and cook until the onions are tender.

Even without a cook, you can make these....

For more on the Lake House check out his Architectural Digest spread from 2007.

I knew I should have married Sting when I had the chance! Instead, this month, Sting and Trudie will celebrate their 17th wedding anniversary. The "traditional" gift for the 17th anniversary is furniture. Frankly, I am at a loss as to what to get them.

Ciro & Sal’s Cookbook

Ciro and Sal’s was a Provincetown tradition. (Well, it still is but more about that later.) A tradition of the old Provincetown of artists and writers and fishermen. A place where the guy sitting next you might just have a Pulitzer Prize on his desk as a paperweight. The restaurant is down the Kiley Court alley, with dark wood and low ceilings. The first time I ate there I was in the oldest part of the restaurant, the cellar. In the beginning the floor was dirt, but was paved in the 1950’s for Sal’s wedding. The restaurant expanded into the house next door and the one across the street and in the 70’s there was a gourmet specialty shop. In 1971 a young man who worked there, but failed to return the next season. He had become a “star” for John Water’s and was now known as Divine. With all the going on around Ciro and Sal’s one thing remained constant, the food was extraordinary.

For a time in the 80’s my friend, Alan, worked as a cook at Ciro & Sal’s. When the cookbook came out, it was a must have. I do admit, I am not the best fish cook. I can’t always “visualize” fish in the way I can game or fowl. The Ciro & Sal’s Cookbook has several fish recipes that I would not make under any circumstances. One of those recipes was Sogliola di Nozze, a poached fish in tarragon and sour cream. The recipe on the page sounded appalling and I just didn’t get it. Then one night, years later, Alan’s sister, Barbara cooked it for me. It was one of those dished that was flat on the page but came to life beautifully. It is one of the easiest and most wonderful fish dishes I have ever made and it is now an absolute favorite. Serve it with a plain rice.

Sogliola di Nozze
Poached Sole with Tarragon and Sour Cream Sauce

1/3 cup clarified butter
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of I lemon
4 10-ounce sole or flounder filets
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature, and whipped to a more liquid consistency
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Heat the butter in a skillet. Add the wine, lemon juice, fish and tarragon. Season with a little salt and pepper. Cover the pan and poach the fish over low heat just until the fish becomes opaque.
Transfer the fish to a warm serving dish, Return the liquid in the skillet to a boil and whisk in the sour cream and chives. If necessary ass more salt and pepper. Pout the sauce over the fillets and serve immediately.

You can just hear the waves crashing on the dunes. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Barbara for making this fish for me. Thanks Barb.

In 2000, it looked like the end for Ciro & Sal's, but long time employee, Larry Luster, was able to purchase the restaurant and keep the venerable institution open. Even Alan came back to help out the kitchen staff.

50 Chowders

chowder (chou’der), n. [

Webster’s New World Dictionary

I love chowder. The recipe is basically the definition from Webster’s. In a big chaudière add some fish, onions and potatoes, a little milk and an hour later -- chowder.

Of course, as with most recipes, you can mix it up. Try using another protein, like chicken, or all vegetables. The milk in the definition was an addition popularized in the mid 1800’s. Jasper White is a leading authority on seafood. He researched the origins of chowder and compiled 50 Recipes, many of which he serves in his restaurant.

Original recipes for chowder were cooked in one pot, often over fire. They were layered affairs including salt pork, fish and crackers, the “hardtack” that is hard to find toady. The closest equivalent was the Nabisco Pilot Cracker but, alas, Nabisco has stopped making them. You can still find people in the Northeast who speak of “building a chowder” the phrase comes form the old-fashioned way of layering the chowder into a cast iron pot and baking it.

White wanted to re-create this kind of chowder. Here is his recipe.

Layered Fish Chowder

4 ounces meaty salt pork, rind removed and thinly sliced, or 4 ounces sliced bacon, each strip cut crosswise in half
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large onions (about 18 ounces), sliced 1/4 inch thick
6 to 8 sprigs fresh summer savory or thyme, leaves removed and chopped (1 tablespoon)
2 dried bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 pound Yukon Gold, Maine, PEI, or other all-purpose potatoes, peeled and sliced thin as possible
Kosher sea salt and freshly ground pepper
3 pounds skinless baby cod or haddock filets, no more than 3/4 inch thick, pinbones removed
4 Pilot crackers (2 ounces) or 2 ounces oyster crackers, crumbles (1 heaping cup)
5 cups Strong Fish Stock, Traditional Fish Stock or Chicken Stock or water (as a last resort)
1 1/2 cup heavy cream

For Garnish
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. Fry the salt pork in a 10 inch skillet or sauté pan over medium heat until browned and crisp. Remove the meat, leaving the fat in the pan, and set aside until later.

3. Add the butter, onions and savory or thyme, bay leaves, cloves, and nutmeg to the pan and sauté stirring often with a wooden spoon, for 8 to 10 minutes, until the onions are tender but not browned. Remove from heat and let cool.

4. To build the chowder, place one third of the onion mixture(including the fat) into the bottom of the Dutch oven or braising pan, lay half or the sliced potatoes over the onions, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Lay half the fish over the potatoes and season lightly with salt and pepper. Crumble half the crackers over the fish. This is the first layer. Repeat the layering, and finish with the remaining onions.

5. Place the Dutch oven over medium heat and pour the fish stock over the layered chowder. Stick the handle of the wooden spoon through to the bottom in three or four places to be sure the stock circulates around the ingredients. Heat the pot until the stock is hot and steam is beginning to appear on the surface.

6. Cover the chowder, place in the oven, and cook for 30 minutes. Check for doneness by taking a potato slice from the top layer: it should be firm and nearly cooked through, if not, cover the pot and return to the oven for 5 to 10 minutes more.

7. Pour the cream into the chowder, then lay the slices of friend salt pork or bacon over the top. Bake uncovered, for 15 minutes longer, or until the creamy broth is lightly browned around the edges.

8. Present the chowder at the table, before you stir it, then stir it and season with salt and pepper if needed. Use a slotted spoon to place the chunks of fish, the onions and potatoes in the center of a large soup plates or shallow bowls. Put 1 piece of salt pork or bacon on top of each serving, ladle the creamy broth around the fish, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

I don’t even bother with the skillet. I fry the bacon in the bottom of the pot, remove it, add the onions and cook them, then just remove 2/3 of the onions and you are ready to go. I vote for using the fewest pots as possible. I use Carr's crackers in place of Pilot Crackers. For more on the demise of Pilot Crackers check out this New York Times article.

Russel Wright’s Menu Cookbook

One cannot talk about “mid-century” without Russel Wright. Russel and Mary Wright were the first people to advocate “living” as a larger concept than merely waking up every day. Russel Wright’s design aesthetic forged the sleek, modern design of the 1950’s into a vehicle for informal and elegant living. He is best known today as the designer of a dinnerware collection known as American Modern.

When his wife, Mary, died, Russel Wright found himself living alone with a 2-year-old daughter. He employed a series of housekeepers but found that meals were often the same old spaghetti and meatballs.



He devised a series of menus complete with table settings, making dinner interesting and foolproof.


Years later, his daughter, Ann, was still using his typewritten menu book. She and fellow caterer, Mindy Heiferling compiled the recipes into Russel Wright’s Menu Cookbook. Much like Wright's tableware, his recipes stand the test of time.

Multicolored Tomatoes and Corn with Creamy Cider Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons cider vinegar
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon or basil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 pounds ripe tomatoes in various colors , shapes and sizes, cut into wedges
3 cups (bout 6 ears) fresh corn kernels, cooked
6 slices bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled (optional)
tarragon sprigs or basil leaves for garnish

1. Whisk together the vinegar, mustard, sugar, and mayonnaise. Stir in the tarragon or basil; season to taste with slat and pepper. Combine the tomatoes and corn; taste again for seasoning.
2. When ready to serve (don’t wait too long or the tomatoes will make the salad too watery), transfer to a bowl or platter, and top with bacon or herbs as desired.

Pull out your Russel Wright if you own a platter. If not, toss this up in plain white bowl and remember your not just "living" you are creating a "lifestyle" with an emphasis on the style.

The Wonderful Food of Provence

In 1953 La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise by Jean-Noël Escudier was published. The French press was ecstatic encouraging husbands to rush out and buy a copy for their wives. La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise was the first time that an authentic collection of Provençale recipes had been gathered for the home cook. It would not be the last time.

The book shown as bright Mediterranean sun on the cuisine of southern France. It was (and is) a cuisine influenced thousands of years earlier by the Greeks and Romans. Like the cuisine of the Italians, Provençale food was filled with olive oil and wine. In Provence, however, the cuisine was refined by the wealth of ingredients. In addition to the olive oil and wine, there are aromatics including the ever present garlic. La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise has the first recipe for chicken cooked with 40 cloves of garlic though, in the English translation, it is suggested that American cooks to use only 10 cloves. There is a wealth of seafood, with much of the fish used in Provençale cooking, indigenous to the area. There can be no true bouillabaisse without rasccase or saint-pierre.

And the French, well they will eat anything, a trait they share with Southerners! Here is a Southern and a Provençale specialty.

Frogs’ Legs Provençale (Grenouilles Provençale)

Unless the frogs’ legs are unusually large, allow 3 pairs per person. They can (and should be) bought already skinned. Soak them in cold water for 3 hours, changing the water twice. Drain, and thoroughly dry. Roll them in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, and finely minced garlic. Fry them in olive oil over medium heat, turning to brown thoroughly. Drain on adsorbent paper and serve with a small amount (about 2 tablespoons per serving) of Tomato Sauce.

It is such a simple preparation, yet it is a show-stopper on the plate and well worth searching out some nice frogs’ legs.

120 Ways of Cooking Eggs

Marcel Boulestin was a noted French restaurateur and cookbook writer. A. H. Adair was more of a “drink” man. They came upon a book about eggs at a time when the papers were full of the passing of Madame Poulard, a cook famous for her omelettes. Everyone who had eaten them had some magical story of how she came to cook such memorable and fanciful eggs.

Boulestin dismisses the hyperbole about Madame Poulard. She was for him, simply an excellent cook who knew how to make eggs. The secret was cooking eggs. Enough said. I dare say if people were talking about Boulestin's fabulous omelettes, he would probably allowed for the hyperbole, though he would respond that he was simply a fabulous cook. He was also the very first television chef appearing on an experimental BBC program in 1937.

Boulestin and Adiar concede that listing every dish with eggs would be exhaustive. 120 Ways of Cooking Eggs is filled with recipes that feature eggs as the primary component. 120 Ways of Cooking Eggs was one of the cookbooks often used by the Duchess of Windsor. Her copy was sold during the Sotheby's auction of Duke & Duchess' estate.


There is really no point in venturing past the first recipe to come up with a wonderful "eggy" treat. They begin with poached eggs. One must first, however, learn to poach the eggs.

Fill a saucepan with a quart of water, put in a coffeespoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of wine vinegar, bring to the boil. Break the eggs, one by one in a bowl and drop them carefully, also one by one, in the water at the place where it boils most. Move the saucepan a little aside and cook for three and a half minutes; by then the yolk will be enclosed by the white, set enough to keep its shape.

Boulestin recommends absolutely fresh eggs to insure that the whites retain their natural shape and coat the yolk.

Poached Eggs Argenteuil

Make a puree of asparagus, and spread over buttered toast; put on each piece one poached egg, a few asparagus tips (previously cooked) neatly arranges and pour a little hot cream over the egg. Should be well seasoned.

Think about it, a lovely moonlit night, a glass of fruity wine and Poached Eggs Argenteuil – you too will be a legend.

Charlie Palmer’s Casual Cooking

Charlie Palmer is the chef at Manhattan’s fashionable Aureole restaurant and Charlie Palmer Steak and several others. He has won numerous James Beard awards. Oh yes, and he has kids to feed. So all the fine dinning that impressed the James Beard awards committee’s, all the culinary expertise that draws diners to his restaurants mean little to kids in the kitchen. Instead of writing a pompous, coffee table sized tome on cooking at Aureole, he wrote a book about feeding his sons. (The next year he did the Aureole book!)

The book offers a chef’s take on chicken soup, macaroni & cheese, brownie ice cream sandwiches and baked chicken. As a kid, I watched my mother opening up cans of mushroom soup to add to dishes copied from the newspaper. There is no worse site in a kitchen than contents of a can of mushroom soup. It is an unsightly grayish color with flecks of rubbery dark bits posing as mushrooms. It looks like cream gravy that has been left to sit out on the stovetop for several days. When I looked at it, I always wondered what had befallen the cook who left this soup to coagulate in such a foul form.

Since then, the thought of Mushroom Soup has been forever tainted, until Charlie Palmer came along. Central New York proves a fertile breeding ground for morel mushrooms, as does West Virginia. The soup has leeks, thought Palmer suggests wild leeks or ramps as a substitution, another West Virginia delicacy. Morels are often available but last time I saw them in a store they were $58 a pound! Palmer suggests using button mushrooms and mixing them with rehydrated dried mushrooms. Save the water from the soaking liquid and strain it for the stock. Check out the post at Lucindaville for rehydrating mushrooms. Finally, canned white beans work fine but rinse them good before using.

Mushroom Soup (without Cream)

2 pounds wild mushrooms – if possible a mix of morels and one or two others
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup chopped leeks (white part only)
1 stalk celery, peeled and minced
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
2 tablespoons dry sherry
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cups pureed white beans (about 2 16 ounce cans)
Ground nutmeg

1. Using a small brush or a clean towel, carefully clean the mushrooms of all debris. Remove any tough stems and roughly slice the mushrooms: you want a rustic look, so don’t try to create perfect slices. Set Aside.
2. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and celery and sauté for about 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are quite soft but not brown. Stir in the thyme and sherry and cook v for 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté for an additional 5 minutes.
3. Add the broths and season to taste with salt and pepper. Raise the heat and bring to a boil, then lover the heat and cook for 20 minutes, or until the mushrooms are very tender and the broth is infused with flavor.
4. Stir the bean puree into the soup. Season to taste with nutmeg and, if necessary, additional salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the soup is well blended and very hot. Serve immediately or cool (preferably in an ice-water bath), cover, and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Now that is mushroom soup! The only place for that soup in a can would be in an Andy Warhol painting.