THE LADY OF SHALLOTS

Yeah, I know, that doesn't sound very exciting does it? Well, when you combine two great recipes, it turns out even the mundane can be awesome! First, let me say that any recipe that asks me to sauté chopped  shallots  and fresh herbs in pan drippings is a good recipe. Oh, and there's of course butter in them there pan juices. The pork chops were "Pan-Roasted Berkshire Pork Chops with Vermont Ice Cider" (173) from The Vermont Farm Table Cookbook by Tracy Medeiros. For copyright reasons, I can't produce the recipe here, but suffice it to say, the secrets here are the bone-in  chops (with fat), shallots  (of course), fresh herbs , and then ice cider for the sauce. The first time I made these I used Neige  ice cider that I picked up in Québec, but this time I stayed closer to home with the very lovely "dessert cider" ("Pommeau") from Carr's Ciderhouse in Massachusetts. They are apparently sold out of it for the year, so now I'm r...

I own many cookbooks. I enjoy looking through them and I'm a sucker for good food photography. However, after buying flounder at last week's Somerville Winter Farmer's Market, I discovered that I have a dearth of flounder recipes. It is only since moving to New England that I've been cooking fish regularly, so I'm still sort of shy when it comes to substituting one fish for another in a recipe (ok, except for whitefishes). So, I turned to The Joy of Cooking which remains one of the most inspiring cookbooks of all time and does so without the use of photographs (for me, this is saying a lot). First challenge was that the flounder is to be marinated in tarragon vinegar. No such vinegar was to be found at the store, so, I try to be resourceful: With that out of the way (I let the tarragon sit in white wine vinegar for a couple of hours until the vinegar smelled like tarragon (+ vinegar)), I could get going on the sauce. Ravigote Sauce is an adaptation of Velouté sau...

Potato-Leek Soup (The City Tavern Cookbook) and onion & garlic burrata on sunflower bread I had a lovely morning at the Farmer's Market, enjoying a chance to chat briefly with two fabulous people (hi, Alex and Claire!), and I headed straight for Jordan Bros. Fish upstairs, having enjoyed the scallops I bought last week. This week I bought some flounder (in addition to more scallops), which I will be making tomorrow night. Next to Jordan Bros. were two of my favorite Somerville companies: Taza Chocolate and Fiore di Nonno , so some 80% chocolate and Onion/Garlic burrata jumped into my bag. When I got home I realized I still had potatoes and leeks from last week's market ( Enterprise Farm ) that I never cooked, and the leeks still looked fine, so that was the priority for tonight. I wanted to make what is probably an amazing and fantastic potato leek soup from Barbara Lynch (as found in her book, Stir ), but a recipe calling for four cups of cream isn't really compat...