Last summer, as a passionate yet clueless new gardener, I delighted over everything my small, South City garden produced. From the zucchini which grew to the size of woody baseball bats seemingly overnight to the mint which spread like weeds (I later realized mint is a weed), I hauled anything remotely edible to my kitchen as I lovingly tried to put it to use. Having the best luck with my basil and tomatoes, for months, I gorged myself on caprese salads: so fresh, fast and delicious. But then September came and my excitement for my go-to salad began to waiver. And then there was October, and although I was tempted to just cook the tomatoes down to a sauce, I urged myself to continue to eat them raw, knowing I would kick myself over the winter when all the grocery store offerings tasted so bland. But when November came, and my kitchen was still infiltrated with green tomatoes ripening on every windowsill, I knew that I couldn’t do it. I was going to be the first person in the history of the world to actually die of a caprese salad overdose.

That’s why when I was assigned Cindy Pawlcyn’s Cindy’s Supper Club: Meals from Around the World to Share with Family and Friends to cook from, I felt myself immediately drawn to her introduction for her Turkish tomato salad. She writes, “If you have tried too many panzanella and caprese salads like I have, you will find this colorful, refreshing salad a nice change.”

Her book, featuring recipes from countries all over the world, has so many enticing dishes to try, but since my tomato plants were already in the ground, I knew adding a new tomato salad recipe to my arsenal needed to be my first priority.

As any summer salad should be, this one is easy to put together and isn’t excessive on ingredients so the fresh produce can shine. Finding some of the ingredients proved to be a bit tricky, though. As if she knew sumac, an acidic and slightly sour Turkish spice, would be hard to find, Pawlycn includes a simple substitute: lemon zest. After making some calls; however, I was able to locate the spice at Jay International Food Co. A giant bag of the beautiful magenta-colored spice cost me next to nothing, and now I have enough of it leftover to get me through the summer.

The other tricky ingredient was the pomegranate molasses. Since pomegranates grow abundantly in the Mediterranean, finding the molasses in Turkey is probably a cinch. Yet, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find it anywhere in St. Louis. The closest I found was a pomegranate jelly from Schnucks. Afraid it would be too sweet and not the right texture, I mixed it with a bit of sorghum and the dressing ended up tasting great.

Next time, though, if I still can’t find it, I might try crushing some pomegranate seeds into regular molasses. The rest of the salad came together in seconds and tasted slightly sweet, slightly sour and pretty much perfect. It also looks beautiful on a plate, which will be great when I make it to bring to summer barbecues.

Tomato Salad with Sumac, Feta and Tarragon
Serves 6

Dressing

1 clove garlic, smashed
Juice of ½ lemon (about 1 Tbsp.)
2 Tbsp. pomegranate molasses
2 tsp. ground sumac*
Leaves from 2 or 3 thyme sprigs
½ cup plus 1 Tbsp. olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad

6 perfectly ripe heirloom or other delicious tomatoes, cut into slices or wedges
1 cup small, colorful cherry tomatoes, halved if large
2 shallots or 1 small red torpedo onion, thinly sliced
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup crumbled mild feta or shaved ricotta salata cheese, for garnish
Leaves from 2 or 3 tarragon sprigs, for garnish

• To make the dressing, in a small bowl, whisk together the garlic, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, sumac and thyme. Gradually whisk in the olive oil in a slow, steady stream and continue to whisk until well emulsified.
• Season with salt and pepper and reserve until needed.
• Arrange the tomato slices on a platter or on individual plates. Sprinkle with the cherry tomatoes and shallots, separated into rings.
• Drizzle with dressing, then season with pepper and garnish with cheese and tarragon.

* Available at Jay International Food Co., 3172 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314.772.9393

Reprinted with permission from Ten Speed Press.

When cooking for a crowd, what’s your favorite salad to make in the summer? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Cindy’s Supper Club. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Hao, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of Michael Chiarello’s Bottega. Hao, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

In the late 1980s, I considered Martha Stewart to be the queen of entertaining. I was only in high school, but I owned her Christmas book and had grand plans that when I grew up, I’d do special “Martha things” – not just to holiday food but also to pine cones and holly berries. I would put on fabulous parties and everything would appear as effortless as Martha made them.

Within that 25-year time span, more books have been published on entertaining than I care to count. And, while my shelves are crammed so tightly that a bookseller would report abuse, I’m willing to cram a little more in order to make room for Michael Chiarello’s Bottega.

Why? Because there is some sound cooking going on in this impress-your-guests-cookbook-coffee table tome. Chiarello shares tricks that I hadn’t thought of; and his recipes are not too contrived, meaning, an able home cook can not only manage these dishes, she can expect to get that wow factor from guests that she secretly craves.

I enjoyed Bottega so much that I actually prepared three dishes from it: Fritto Misto di Calamari with Aioli Nero, Chicken Wings Agrodolce, and Pesto Arancini Stuffed with Mozzarella. All of them were good, but the arancini won in the all-around competition. So let’s chat about that.

Pesto adds loads of flavor to the arborio rice balls. Chiarello offers his own pesto recipe, but you can easily substitute your house version or mess with a sun-dried tomato pesto or an arugula-based one and still expect a great outcome. So, lesson No. 1: Think outside the box with arancini add-ins.

In his introduction for the recipe, Chiarello recounts a conversation with a Sicilian pal who fills the arancini with enough mozzarella to make the cheese “stretch like a telephone wire.” Yes, yes! This recipe calls for four ounces of cheese, but I agree with that Italian fellow: The more cheese you can encase inside the balls, the better.

Chiarello instructs to put the arancini in the freezer to let the balls firm up. This is a great idea and one that I plan to experiment on with falafel the next time that I make that Middle Eastern ball of garbanzo goodness.

The final cooking lesson came when I removed the rice balls from the freezer and was instructed to dredge them in flour, then beaten eggs and panko. A double-dredge of wheat? Smart. Once fried, the outer skin of the arancini was perfectly crisped; the inner, moist, chewy and melty with cheese.

This is a keeper of a recipe and Bottega is a keeper of a book. While I’m still working on effortless entertaining, in the meantime, maybe I need to switch to special “Michael things.”

Pesto Arancini Stuffed with Mozzarella
Makes 16 arancini; Serves 4

3 cups cooked arborio rice, cooled
1½ cups Blanched-Basil Pesto (Recipe follows; You will need to double the recipe.)
4 oz. fresh mozzarella, preferably bocconcini
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
Peanut oil, corn oil or canola oil for frying

• Line a platter with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, stir the rice and pesto together until blended. Divide the rice into 16 more-or-less-equal portions.
• Cut off about ½ teaspoon of mozzarella, and then, with your hands, ball up 1 serving of rice around the cheese so it’s completely encased in rice. Gently place on the prepared platter. Repeat to form 16 arancini.
• Slide the platter into the freezer for 30 minutes to allow the balls to firm.
• Before you take the rice balls from the freezer, set up your dredging station. Pour the flour into a shallow bowl, the eggs into another shallow bowl and the panko into a third shallow bowl.
• In a large, heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat 3 inches of oil over medium-high heat until it registers 375 degrees on a deep-fat thermometer.
• While the oil heats, dredge each rice ball in flour and lightly shake off the excess.
• Dip each rice ball in the egg and then in the panko. Gently drop 4 to 6 balls into the oil and cook until lightly browned, 60 to 90 seconds. Don’t overcook or the cheese will leak out into the oil.
• Using a slotted spoon or wire skimmer, transfer the arancini to paper towels to drain. Repeat to cook the remaining arancini. Serve at once.

Chef’s note: If you like, you can fry the day before, refrigerate overnight and reheat with great success. To reheat, bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.

Blanched-Basil Pesto
Makes about 1 cup

3 cups lightly packed fresh basil leaves
1 cup lightly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
½ cup olive oil
1 Tbsp. pine nuts, toasted (see Chef’s note at bottom)
1 tsp. minced garlic
½ tsp. fine salt, preferably ground sea or gray salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp. powdered ascorbic acid
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

• Set up a large bowl of ice water.
• Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.
• Place the basil and parsley leaves in a sieve or colander that fits inside the pan. Lower the sieve full of herbs into the boiling water, and use a spoon to push the leaves under so the herbs cook evenly.
• Blanch for 15 seconds, then transfer the sieve to the ice bath to stop the cooking process. Let the herbs cool in the ice bath for 10 seconds.
• Remove the sieve, let drain, and then squeeze any water from the herbs. Transfer them to a cutting board and coarsely chop.
• In a blender, purée the herbs with the oil, pine nuts, garlic, salt, pepper and ascorbic acid until well-blended and somewhat smooth.
• Add the cheese and whir for 1 second or so to mix.
• Transfer the pesto to a bowl; taste and adjust the seasoning.
• Press plastic wrap directly on top of the pesto to keep it from turning brown and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or freeze for it for up to 1 month.

Chef’s note: Toast pine nuts in a small dry skillet over low heat, shaking the pan frequently. Heat for just 1 to 2 minutes; as soon as you smell the fragrance of the pine nuts, slide the nuts out of the pan and onto a plate so they don’t burn.

Reprinted with permission from Chronicle Books.

What’s your favorite savory dish to make when cooking for a large group? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Michael Chiarello’s Bottega. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Mark, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won him a copy of Patisserie. Mark, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

Christophe Felder’s Patisserie is an encyclopedic tome of French pastry. Wanna learn to make croissants or macarons? The book has complex recipes like these, broken down step-by-step and interspersed with process photos to guide you along the way (particularly useful for novice bakers). The vast collection of French desserts in this book is impressive alone. I chose to make crème brûlée because, surprisingly, I’ve never made it, and I’ve always loved it. It’s a quintessential French dessert but so much easier than the odyssey that is Marronnier (chocolate-chestnut layer cake) on page 346.

Many crème brûlée recipes have you bake the custards in a bain marie, which is a water bath, but this one didn’t, which I thoroughly appreciated. It’s always a pain to set those things up, and I inevitably spill water everywhere. Instead, the recipe instructs to place the custards in a 200-degree oven for an hour and fifteen minutes.

When they came out, I was excited that they were solid but trembling slightly in the middle – just like the recipe described.

The recipe does not tell you to chill the custards but to just let them cool completely. Well, my impatience got the best of me. I chilled one in the freezer for about 30 minutes and then brûléed the top under a broiler. It was not good. The custard was still loose, and because it wasn’t completely chilled, it still had a really strong egg taste, like a vanilla-citrus-scented soft scramble. Weird.

However, the next day, I tried another custard and the time-alone-to-itself period made a difference. The custard had a chance to condense; albeit, still runnier in texture than the thick, velvety versions I’m used to, it was much better. Perhaps an hour and fifteen minutes was not long enough to make it set in my oven. The flavor improved overnight too … less eggy and a lot more like the flavor of well … crème brûlée.

Crème Brûlée Vanille au Zeste de Citron Vert
(Lime-Vanilla Crème Brûlée)
Serves 4

Special equipment: individual gratin dishes

2½ vanilla beans
1 cup milk
5 eggs
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup heavy cream
½ lime
½ cup light brown sugar

• Split the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with a paring knife. Bring the milk and vanilla seeds and beans to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat and let infuse.
• Separate the eggs and place the yolks in a bowl. Whisk the sugar into the egg yolks, just until the sugar dissolves. The mixture should not pale in color.
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
• Add the cream to the egg yolk-sugar mixture, whisking until smooth. Then whisk the cooled milk into the mixture until smooth.
• Using a citrus zester, remove the colored zest from the lime in fine julienne strips, leaving the white pith. Or use a vegetable peeler and cut the zest into julienne strips with a knife.
• Divide the zest among the grain dishes. Ladle the custard into the dishes
• Depending on the size of the ramekins, bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes, just until the custard is slightly wobbly. Let cool completely.
• Sift ½ of the brown sugar in an even layer over the custards. Using a kitchen torch, caramelize the sugar. Or broil the custards on the top shelf of the oven. Sprinkle the crème brûlées with the remaining brown sugar and caramelize again.
• Serve immediately.

Reprinted with permission from Rizzoli International Publications.

What’s your favorite dessert to order out and why? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy Patisserie. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Katie, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of French Bistro. Katie, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

Out of Sauce’s stack of French cookbooks , I chose French Bistro by Bertrand Auboyneau because I don’t have a lot of experience cooking French cuisine, and this cover, compared to some of the others, looked inviting. There’s something about a red bistro table that says uncomplicated.

But like the age-old adage, don’t judge a book by its cover. When I started flipping through the pages, filled with gorgeously plated, rich French cuisine, I realized that while the recipes, themselves, didn’t sound all that difficult, obtaining the ingredients was going to be another story. I know I can find beef tongue, monkfish, mullet and pigeon if I look hard enough – but I didn’t want preparing dinner to turn into a week-long scavenger hunt, so I opted for the most familiar-sounding recipe: veal chop served with a creamed morel sauce.

The recipe’s first step was to rehydrate the morels the day before making the veal, but I reasoned, why do that when I can just buy the morels fresh? After all, I had, coincidentally, chosen this recipe smack dab in the middle of morel season. However, not only are wild morels tough to find (Unless you’re Madame Charcuterie, ahem, who likes to blow up Sauce’s Instagram feed with photos of morels but refuses to help a sister out and disclose the location.), fresh morels are also hard to find at the grocery store. I eventually found the right dried morels at Whole Foods, and boy, oh boy, now I know what my next get-rich-quick scheme is going to be: professional morel forager.

The recipe called for three and a half ounces of dried morels, but I believe it should be three and a half ounces of rehydrated morels, since an entire bag of them dried (running at a whopping $20 a bag) only weighed one ounce.

The veal was also, surprisingly, a bit difficult to find, but after making a few calls, I finally located some at Straub’s.

Once I had my ingredients together, the cooking part took no time at all. Literally in 10 minutes, I had prepared a fantastic French meal. I also cooked up some garlicky, rosemary mashed potatoes too, just in case the massive amount of butter and cream I already used with the cream sauce didn’t make me feel fat enough.

Veal Chop in a Creamed Morel Sauce
Serves 4

4 14-oz. (400g.) bone-in veal chops
3½ oz. (100g.) dried morels
2/3 cup (150 ml) milk
7 Tbsp. (100g.) butter, divided
2 shallots, chopped
¾ cup (200 ml) heavy or double cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Freshly ground nutmeg

• A day ahead, rehydrate the morels by soaking them in a scant ¼ cup of milk. Cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.
• To prepare the meat, brown the veal chops in a skillet with half the butter for 5 to 6 minutes on each side. Set aside in a warm place.
• In a separate sauce pan, fry the shallots until lightly browned in the remaining butter. Stir in the cream, and cook for 5 more minutes.
• Add the morels to the sauce, and simmer over low heat for another 5 minutes.
• Return the veal chops to the skillet, and cook for 2 to 5 minutes, depending on desired doneness. Remove the chops when cooked to satisfaction, and arrange on plates.
• Reduce the sauce if necessary, and adjust seasoning. Don’t forget to add a little ground nutmeg just before serving.

Reprinted with permission from Flammarion Press.

What’s your favorite spring vegetable and how do you like to use it the most? Tell us in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy French Bistro. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Brandy, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of French Brasserie Cookbook. Brandy, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

Daniel Galmiche’s French Brasserie Cookbook seemed like the ideal tool with which to finally conquer duck confit, one of the dishes I have neatly tucked into my “when I have time” folder. To me, duck confit is the epitome of French food: heavy on technique, time, fat and flavor. I imagined myself waking up early on a Sunday morning, weighing down a few duck legs until they released their juices, cooking them in their own rich fat, slathering them in sweet honey and then roasting them in a piping hot pan until their skin crisped and caramelized. Off to the store I went in search of a few fatty duck legs for my big French adventure. Except that my neighborhood store only had duck breasts and, much to my surprise, entire birds. Refusing to fold but determined not to waste any more gas, I called several other stores and received the same answer. More calls, same story. Looking at the calendar, I’d wasted days of valuable cooking time. If by some strange stroke of quack-filled luck I could track down a few duck legs in time for this post, finding 6 to 8 hours to follow Galmiche’s recipe for confit was out of the question. So I decided to make Sauteed Jumbo Shrimp With Chili and Garlic Butter.

A shrimp dish was the very antithesis of my big culinary quest: quick, easy and requiring ingredients that were readily available at the neighborhood market. Hey, if I couldn’t make a recipe that required a focus on the technique and time that characterized French cuisine, at least I could master fat and flavor. After all, the recipe called for an entire stick of butter.

The instructions were short and straightforward: Just saute the raw crustaceans in a generous amount of oil and butter, remove them from heat, add even more butter to the pan, toss in chiles, garlic and fresh parsley, then return the shrimp to the pan just long enough to coat with the pungent sauce and a squeeze of fresh lime.

The result was as simple and delicious as promised, yet the editor in me would have loved a tad more description. For instance, a small handful of parsley is different for me than it is for you. Exactly which kind of red chile are we talking about here? And, at the very least, how many people does this dish serve? But the recipe reminded the food-lover in me of the way cooking – yes, even French cooking – should be: prepared quickly and made with fresh ingredients that are lying around the house.

The finished dish could have used a bit more lime juice and a bit less butter, but those who are used to cooking with a great European butter like Plugra will love the wonderful richness it lends to the sauce. Feel free to add more shrimp to this recipe since there was enough garlicky butter sauce to bathe at least another six. Or you could just do what I did: Grab a loaf of crusty French bread, sop up all that sauce and bask in the rustic French meal you just created (remarkably, in less than 10 minutes).

Sauteed Jumbo Shrimp with Chili and Garlic Butter
Courtesy of Daniel Galmiche
Approximately 2 servings

8 jumbo or 24 small shrimp, shelled and deveined
2 Tbsp. olive oil
6 Tbsp. butter
1 red chile, seeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed with the flat edge of a knife or your hand and finely chopped
1 small handful flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
Juice and zest of 1 lime
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Wash the shrimp and dry them on paper towels.
• Warm the oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat. When the butter is foaming, throw in the shrimp and saute 4 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside.
• Add the remaining butter, chile, garlic and parsley to the skillet. When the butter is foaming, put the shrimp back in the pan and toss 1 to 2 minutes.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste, add a few drops of lime juice and sprinkle with the lime zest, then serve immediately. Simple and delicious.

What dish do you consider the epitome of French cuisine and why? Tell us in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy French Brasserie Cookbook. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Stephanie, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of Lunch in Provence by Rachel McKenna and Jean-André Charial. Stephanie, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

I’ve planned a fantasy trip in my head to go to Monte Carlo for a few days where I will dine at Alain Ducasse’s Le Louix XV and then take a train to the French city Aix en Provence. There, I will rent a cute little cottage, visit the local shops and cook food for my family and friends just like Julia Child did at her Provencal cottage, La Pitchoune.

That’s why I was excited to cook out of Lunch in Provence by Rachael McKenna and Jean-André Charial.

I decided to make Eggplant Gratin and it turned out fine, for the most part, despite the bitter taste of some of the eggplants. The recipe was quite short, but the way it was formatted was overly complicated which made a rather easy recipe become daunting. There were also a couple of details missing in the recipe. For example, the recipe calls for a bunch of fresh basil, but it doesn’t cite a measurable amount. Additionally, while there’s no cheese in the recipe, there appears to be cheese in the photo of the finished dish.

Yet, these are minor details, and I don’t think they affected the overall quality of the  dish. I loved that the dish was both vegan and low-carb, but it was really oily and the flavor was just average. This oily issue could be remedied by drying the eggplants on paper towels longer or topping the dish with great, crusty bread.

Aesthetically, Lunch in Provence is pleasing and would look cute on my coffee table. It includes photos of the countryside and lavender fields, and it’s dotted with loving quotes about Provence from famous writers and artists. The book makes Provence look like such a sunny and happy place. But did Lunch in Provence at least partly satiate my Provencal fantasy? Not really. I felt pretty ambivalent about both the contents of the book and the dish; I guess I’ll have to keep on dreaming.

Eggplant Gratin
Gratin d’aubergines
Serves 6

4½ lbs. (2 kg.) tomatoes* (I used whole, peeled tomatoes from the can.)
Tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 Tbsp. finely granulated sugar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 sprigs fresh parsley, chopped
1 small sprig fresh thyme, chopped
1 bay leaf
½ bunch fresh basil or tarragon leaves, chopped
4 eggplants, peeled and sliced lengthways*
Generous ¾ cup olive oil
1 bunch fresh basil, chopped
Scant ½ cup breadcrumbs

• First, prepare the tomatoes: To peel the tomatoes, cut a small cone from the base of each tomato with a sharp knife. Cut a small cross in the base, and the plunge the tomatoes in boiling water for about 12 seconds, then in cold water for 15 seconds. The skin will just fall off. Slice the tomatoes lengthways, then with the knife remove the seeds and pulp, leaving only the flesh.
• In a cast-iron pan, lightly saute the garlic in the olive oil. Add the chopped onion. Lightly cook (don’t brown) then add the peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and basil or tarragon. Cover and cook for 1 hour over a low heat.
• While the tomatoes cook, in a large pan, cook the eggplant slices on both sides in the olive oil until they are golden brown. Work in batches, draining the cooked eggplant on paper towels as you go.
• Brush the inside of a gratin dish with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.
• Put a thin layer of the tomatoes on the bottom of the gratin dish, then place a layer of the eggplant on top. Sprinkle with chopped basil. Form a second layer of tomatoes, followed by eggplant and basil, then a third of tomatoes. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs.
• Turn the oven to full heat. Put a dish containing 1 inch of water in the oven. To prevent boiling, place a sheet of newspaper folded in half in the bottom of the dish.
• Place the gratin dish in the bain-marie and bake for about 15 minutes.

* The crushed tomatoes and the eggplant can be prepared several hours in advance. The gratin, however, should be cooked immediately before serving.

Reprinted with permission from Flammarion.

What’s your foodie travel fantasy? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Lunch in Provence by Rachael McKenna and Jean-André Charial. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column. 

And now we’d like to congratulate Hugh, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won him a copy of Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes by Paul Bocuse. Hugh, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew.

Paul Bocuse and I got into a shouting match over the weekend. Since he wasn’t present, it was a heated one-sided argument that took place while I was cooking from his new cookbook. While the dish in question – oxtail consommé – came out fine (good, actually), he was of little help.

There are a handful of magnanimous chefs in the world, and I count Bocuse among them. That’s why I’m mad at him. I wanted the celebrated chef to teach me. Not all chefs, however, are great teachers – at least not when teaching is done via a cookbook. And his cookbook, Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes, is nowhere near complete.

A good cookbook imparts knowledge to its user. Insight can be shared in the foreward or introduction or even some personalized bit of prose before the recipe. Bocuse gives the reader none of that in this tome of 500 traditional French dishes, just a glossary of culinary terms and a single column of “general advice” focused on weights and measures in the appendix.

I wanted Bocuse at my side because I wanted to master consommé with a French master. A consommé is a clarified soup made from a rich stock of meat and an aromatic mixture of carrots, onions, celery (called a mirepoix when diced just so) and a bouquet garni. But the French are so exacting. I wanted to get it right to the extent that I even contacted the publisher of the book with a few questions about the recipe.

The recipe calls for three pounds of oxtail, which is first browned in the oven with carrots and onions, then put in the stockpot. But when plating this consommé that serves four people, the cook is to “select the choicest pieces of oxtail” – precisely one per person – for each bowl. A large amount of meat yields a small amount of consommé, but still, “wouldn’t there be more than four choice pieces?” I queried the publisher.

The response? “I guess Bocuse knows the quantity very well and avoids waste. Even though 3 pounds (1.5 kg) of oxtail is used, it must shrink a lot.” Maybe Straub’s has some really meaty oxtail because I had some fine pieces of oxtail that I worked into dinner the following day.

Oxtail aside, other details were left to guesswork. Bocuse calls for stock without specifying which one. I assumed he meant beef stock since oxtail is a cut of beef. Cooking times and heat levels were likewise not addressed. How long to brown the oxtail? It took me 30 minutes. At what heat level should the now browned oxtail cook in the stockpot with the vegetables, bouquet garni, Madeira and cognac? I chose medium heat. How long is “wait a little” after adding half of the Madeira and cognac to the stockpot before adding the rest? I opted for two minutes.

The French have names for every type of knife cut: from batonnet to brunoise to parmentier. I appreciate standardized pieces of food and intended to do right by the three turnips that were to be cut “into olive shapes.” Yet, there are big olives and little olives; round olives and oval-shaped olives. “Was Bocuse wanting a tourné cut?” I asked the publisher.

“[O]n the picture, you can see the vegetables cut into olive/ovoid shapes,” was the response. To my eyes, those turnips look tournéed. (Good luck deciphering all those recipes in the cookbook that aren’t accompanied by a photo.) My course of action: Fashion only a few fancy ones and then toss those with the unrefined-looking turnip trimmings into a separate pot to cook in the reserved beef stock. Why take this shortcut? When plating, each bowl gets just one tablespoon of turnips; I could fish out the ornate ones easily enough.

I know, I know, not very French of me. But Bocuse didn’t show up for dinner anyway. If he had, I would have told him that dinner would be served late since I had – although he didn’t prescribe this – put the strained consommé in the fridge to get the fat to congeal so that the liquid would be as clarified as possible. I hope he would have approved.

Oxtail Consommé
Serves 4

3 lbs. (1.5 kg.) oxtail
3 onions
3 medium-size carrots
7 Tbsp. (3½ oz./100 g.) butter
1 bouquet garni (1 sprig parsley, ½ bay leaf, 1 spring thyme)
1 celery stick
Scant ½ cup (100 ml) Madeira wine*
Scant ½ cup (100 ml) cognac*
14 cups (3.5 liters) stock, divided (I used beef stock.)
2 cups (500 ml) water
3 turnips
1 celery heart (tender part of innermost ribs)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

• Preheat the over to 350 degrees.
• Cut the oxtail into pieces and quarter the onions and carrots. Brown the oxtail pieces and vegetables in the butter in an ovenproof dish. (I melted the butter in the dish in the oven and then added the oxtail and vegetables.)
• When this is done (Browning the oxtail took 30 minutes.), transfer all the pieces to a large cooking pot over the burner (I set the burner on medium heat.). Add the bouquet garni and the stick of celery. Then pour in half the Madeira wine and cognac, wait a little (I waited 2 minutes.), and pour in the rest. Gently simmer to reduce the cooking liquid, and then pour in 12 cups (3 liters) of the stock and the 2 cups (500 ml) water.
• Cook over low heat for 4 hours. The liquid should simmer gently and not come to a fast boil.
• Cut the turnips into olive shapes and the celery heart into pieces. Cook them in the remaining stock. Filter the liquid in which the meat has cooked through a sieve. (I put the strained consommé in the refrigerator until the fat congealed, then removed the fat using a slotted spoon. When ready to serve, I reheated the consommé until very hot.)
• Select the choicest pieces of oxtail – one per person – and add to each plate a tablespoon of carrots, turnips and celery. Pour the strained consommé over the meat and vegetables.
• Serve very hot.

* Special thanks to Major Brands and Taste for the generous donation of Madeira and cognac for use in this recipe.

What classic French dish do you most wish you to conquer? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Paul Bocuse: The Complete Recipes by Paul Bocuse. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column. 

And now we’d like to congratulate Joseph, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won him a copy of Cupcakes and Cashmere by Emily Schuman. Joseph, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew.

Love her or hate her, you have to give Emily Schuman credit. The woman behind the popular lifestyle blog Cupcakes and Cashmere has made a full-time gig out of writing 150-word posts about nail polish colors and peplum shirts. She also writes the occasional food-related post, though most of her recipes are linked to other blogs, websites and magazines.

But as we wrap up our month of cookbooks penned by bloggers-turned-authors, we couldn’t ignore our curiosity when Schuman’s first book, Cupcakes and Cashmere, arrived at the office. Was it really a cookbook? Was it actually helpful? Could it be a useful tool for beginning cooks?

After flipping through the glossy pages, it’s clear that this is hardly a cookbook. On second look, there are, indeed, Food and Entertainment sections in all of the chapters, which are divided into seasons. And there, in between a smoky eye how-to and advice on designing a bookshelf, are recipes for chocolate chip cookies, a vodka martini and a berry pie to enjoy in the height of summer. Still needing a lot more convincing, I decided upon Schuman’s recipe for homemade pizza dough. Pizza dough is one of the trickiest tasks to master in the kitchen, and if I was to decide whether a handful of recipes could push this lifestyle log into cookbook territory, this recipe would surely be an adequate test.

The final pizza fell firmly into the “fine” category – a texture that teetered between thick and thin, slightly salty and a little less chewy than I preferred. The recipe, however, proved that Schuman isn’t quite ready to be named a cookbook author, as it lacked very basic details, which, without, would have surely tripped up a beginner baker.

For instance, she recommends using a pizza stone but doesn’t instruct you to place it in the oven when you’re preheating – a fatal mistake, since this is the only way to get the stone brutally hot enough to adequately crisp the crust. Schuman also lacks consistency in her instructions. She notes that the dough recipe makes enough for 2 10-inch pizzas but forgets to tell you to separate the dough into 2 balls and even opts for vague advice to roll the dough out “to your desired size” instead of providing the correct size guidelines. Most frustrating of all: The dough took more than twice as long to double in size as the recipe stated.

While all of these missteps weren’t enough to ruin my dinner – I knew when to place the stone in the oven and had plenty of rising time to spare on a snowy Sunday – they were enough to answer my questions about Schuman’s first foray into print. Her recipes won’t turn a good cook into a great one or even give a novice cook an extra boost of confidence. But if you want to know how to apply bright lipstick, you know where to go.

Homemade Pizza Dough
Makes enough for two 10-inch thin-crust pizzas

¾ cup warm water (It should be between 105 and 110 degrees.)
1 packet active dry yeast (not fast-acting)
½ tsp. sugar
2½ cups all-purpose flour (You can also substitute part or all whole wheat.)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. salt

• Preheat the oven to its highest temperature (Mine is 500 degrees.).
• Pour the warm water into a large bowl, sprinkle in the yeast and sugar, and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes until it’s slightly bubbly. Stir in the flour, olive oil and salt until it forms a ball (If it seems dry, you can add a teaspoon of water at a time until it comes together, but make sure it doesn’t get overly sticky.).
• Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it’s smooth and elastic. Use the same bowl and drizzle in just enough olive oil to coat the bowl (so the dough doesn’t stick). Place the ball of dough inside and cover it with a damp cloth. Let it rise for about 45 minutes, or until it’s doubled in size.
• If you’re using a pizza peel (the long wooden paddle used to transfer pizza to and from the oven), sprinkle on a little cornmeal (This will help the pizza slide off onto the heated pizza stone in the oven.), and roll the dough to the desired size. Don’t worry if you don’t have these tools; simply sprinkle cornmeal onto a baking sheet and place the pizza directly in the oven.
• Now you’re ready to add your favorite toppings (I love the combination of sauteed onions, sage and fennel sausage.). When you’ve done that, bake the pizza until the bottom of the crust is golden brown and the cheese – if you’ve used any – is melted, roughly 7 to 10 minutes.

Tools (helpful but not necessary):
Pizza Peel: Great way to transfer the pizza to the oven
Pizza Stone: This gets really, really hot, so it helps make a crispy crust.
Pizza Cutter: Easiest way to cut up a pizza.

Which food blogger do you love and wish would publish a cookbook? Name the blogger, provide a link to his or her blog, and explain why the blog is awesome in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Cupcakes and Cashmere by Emily Schuman. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column. 

And now we’d like to congratulate Jenny, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a signed copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. Jenny, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew.

Don’t let my last name fool you; I’m a shiksa through and through. And if Yiddish had a term for a gentile who can’t bake, I’d be that too.

Then why did I choose this recipe for challah? I like the challenge. And challah is delicious. And if you celebrate Passover, I figured this would be a good week to gorge on bread. But mostly, I chose to make it because if anyone can teach me how to bake a fancy-looking bread like challah (in a gentle, non-intimidating way), it’s going to be Deb Perelman.

In Perelman’s much-anticipated cookbook The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, she includes over 100 recipes organized by course: breakfast; salads; sandwiches, tarts and pizzas; the main dish: vegetarian; the main dish: seafood, poultry and meat; sweets; and party snacks and drinks. For those of you who follow her blog, she assured me in a phone interview that less than 15 percent of her book came from her blog. When creating the book, she wanted to make sure that the end product would still be of value for those who had been reading her blog for a long time.

On my first attempt at this challah, I used sorghum in the place of honey because I was too lazy to go to the store. I figured it would work the same, but then the dough didn’t rise. This could have been the result of a number of variables, and I probably should have just waited longer than Perelman recommended (one hour), but I was too impatient and threw it away, opting to start over again the next day and use honey like the recipe called for. On my second attempt, while the dough was rising, I made the fig filling. I got a little overzealous with my zest, accidentally tripling the amount, but in Perelman’s ingredient list, she said that I could use “more as needed,” so I took this to mean that this accident was OK.

On my second attempt, the dough did rise, but I was too tired to finish the rest of the process, so I wrapped it tightly in Saran wrap, put it in the fridge and returned to it two days later. When I then rolled out the dough, it was a bit tough and didn’t seem to roll into as large of a rectangle as I needed, which I’m fairly certain was because I had left it in the fridge for two days, but I decided to work with it anyway.

Once I spread the fig filling across the dough, I rolled it into a snake. The dough still didn’t seem “right,” but the fig filling woven into the dough looked so impressive, I assumed that no matter what happened, this bread would still turn out decent.

As the directions directed, I made four snakes total, arranged them like a tic-tac-toe board and then starting weaving them to resemble as Perelman said, “an eight-legged woven-headed octopus.” This is why I love Perelman. If she had used a technical baking term, I would have had no idea what she was talking about, but with the octopus reference (and the step-by-step photos), I felt confident that, yes, I can make a giant octopus out of dough.

I don’t think my snakes were quite long enough because the final woven look of the bread was certainly not as pretty as hers.

However, the challah turned out looking sort-of nice, and, more importantly, it tasted amazing. I feel like my second attempt (well, third) at this bread will be much more successful.

Fig, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Challah
Yield: 1 large loaf

Bread:
2¼ tsp. (1 packet—oz. or 7 g.) active dry yeast
¼ cup (85 g.) plus 1 tsp. honey
2/3 cup (160 ml) warm water
1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil, plus more for the bowl
2 large eggs
2 tsp. flaky or coarse seal salt, such as Maldon, or 1½ tsp. table salt
4 cups (500 g.) all-purpose flour

Fig filling:
1 cup (5½ oz. or 155 g.) stemmed and roughly chopped dried figs
1/8 tsp. freshly grated orange zest, or more as needed
½ cup (120 ml) water
¼ cup (60 ml) orange juice
1/8 tsp. sea salt
Few grinds of black pepper

Egg wash:
1 large egg
Coarse or flaky sea salt, for sprinkling

To make dough with a stand mixer:
• Whisk the yeast and honey into the warm water, and let it stand for a few minutes, until foamy. In a large mixer bowl, combine the yeast mixture with the remaining honey, the olive oil and eggs. Add the salt and flour, and mix until the dough begins to hold together. Switch to a dough hook, and run at low speed for 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer the dough to an olive-oil-coated bowl (Or rest the dough briefly on the counter and oil your mixer bowl to use for rising, so that you use fewer dishes.), cover with plastic wrap, and set aside for 1 hour, or until almost doubled in size.

To make dough by hand:
• Proof the yeast as directed above. Mix the wet ingredients with a whisk, then add the salt and flour. Mix everything together with a wooden spoon until the dough starts to come together. Turn the mixture out onto a floured counter, and knead for 5 to 10 minutes, until a smooth and elastic dough is formed. Let rise as directed above.

• Meanwhile, make the fig paste. In a small saucepan, combine the figs, zest, water, juice, salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the figs are soft and tender, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat, and let cool to lukewarm. Process the fig mixture in a food processor until it resembles a fine paste, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Set aside to cool.
• Insert figs. After your dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured counter and divide it in half. Roll the first half of the dough into a wide and totally imperfect rectangle (Really, the shape doesn’t matter.). Spread half the fig filling evenly over the dough, stopping short of the edge. Roll the dough into a long, tight log, trapping the filling within. Then, gently stretch the long as wide as feels comfortable (I take mine to my max counter width, about three feet.) and divide it in half. Repeat with remaining dough and fig filling, creating four ropes.
• Weave your challah. Arrange two ropes in each direction, perpendicular to each other, like a tic-tac-toe board. Weave them so that one side is over, and the other is under, where they meet. So now you’ve got an eight-legged woven-headed octopus. Take the four legs that come from underneath the center, and move them over the leg of their right (like jumping it). Take the legs that were on the right and, again, jump each over the leg before, this time to the left. If you have extra length in your ropes, you can repeat these left-right jumps until you run out of rope. Tuck the corners or odd bumps under the dough with the sides of your hands to form a round.
• Transfer the dough to a parchment-covered heavy baking sheet or, if you’ll be using a bread stone, a baker’s peel. Beat the egg until smooth, and brush over the challah. Let the challah rise for another hour, but 45 minutes into this rise, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
• Before baking, brush the loaf one more time with the egg wash and sprinkle it with flaky or coarse sea salt.
• Bake in the middle of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes. It should be beautifully bronzed; if yours starts getting too dark too quickly, cover it with foil for the remainder of the baking time. The very best way to check for doneness is with an instant-read thermometer—the center of the loaf should be 195 degrees.
• Cool the loaf on a rack before serving.

Reprinted with permission from Alfred A. Knopf

Have a story about botching a recipe and then redeeming yourself on your second attempt? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a SIGNED copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Patty, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of Small Plates and Sweet Treats: My Family’s Journey to Gluten-Free Cooking. Patty, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew. 

I think the cookbook Small Plates and Sweet Treats: My Family’s Journey to Gluten-Free Cooking is beautiful. It’s the first book from Aran Goyoaga, creator of the food and photography blog Cannelle et Vanille. The photos in this book are bright, happy and delicious; they put me in the mood to cook, which is always a good thing. The book is divided into seasons (pictured, below), which makes sense, but, to be honest, I’m kind of bored by this organization. It seems like every cookbook I look at these days (which is admittedly a lot of cookbooks) is organized the same … I guess I’m just starved for a more creative approach. What about organizing by technique or ingredient or course – like she does on her site?

I chose to make Goyoaga’s Meyer Lemon Custard Pots made with almond flour and Greek yogurt. The flavor was spot on – bright with delicate sweetness. The recipe was a cinch too. My only misstep was that I used light coconut milk in the custards. I’m guessing that might be the reason why the texture of the custards wasn’t as smooth as in the photo.

Goyoaga suggests using farm-fresh eggs because they make the custard a sunnier color. So, I picked up some eggs from Township Grocer that came from Looking Glass Prairie in Illinois.

I would have loved more tips like this throughout the recipe … like what brand of almond flour she prefers or what exactly she means by, “Bake 30 minutes or until the custard is set.” There wasn’t a description as to what set means. I ended up baking the ramekins for 45 minutes and have no idea if that was unnecessary. Maybe that’s why mine didn’t look as smooth?

She suggests serving the dish with almonds and sugar, but I chose to serve mine with whipped cream because I think whipped cream makes all desserts taste better.

Meyer Lemon, Almond & Yogurt Custard Pots
Serves 6

1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon zest
4 eggs
½ cup almond flour
1 cup whole-milk yogurt
1 cup coconut milk
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup chopped almond or pistachios
Powdered sugar for garnish

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Pinch together the sugar and zest to release the zest’s oils. Whisk in the eggs, almond flour, yogurt, coconut milk and lemon juice.
• Pour the mixture into 6 ramekins and place the ramekins in the baking dish. Place the baking dish in the oven. Fill the dish with hot water so that it reaches halfway up the ramekins. Bake for about 30 minutes or until set.
• Remove the ramekins from the water bath and cool on a wire rack. Allow the custards to come to room temperature and then chill in the fridge. Serve with almonds and a dusting of powdered sugar.

Reprinted with permission from Little Brown and Company.

We love ramekins! What’s your favorite dish that goes in a ramekin? Tell us about it in the comments section below for a chance to win a copy of Small Plates and Sweet Treats: My Family’s Journey to Gluten-Free Cooking. We’ll announce the winner in next week’s By the Book column.

And now, we’d like to congratulate Cherie, whose comment on last week’s By the Book has won her a copy of Rhulman’s Twenty. Cherie, keep an eye out for an email from the Sauce crew.