Garlic and Sapphires
Page 33
1small leg of lamb, about 6 to 7 pounds, trimmed of all visible fat
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into 6 slivers each
1bunch rosemary
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
Remove the lamb from the refrigerator 1 hour before starting.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Make 8 small slits in the lamb on each side, and place a sliver of garlic and a leaf of rosemary in each slit. Massage the olive oil into the meat, and season with salt and pepper.
If you have a rack, place the lamb on the rack on top of the remaining rosemary and garlic. If you don’t, simply put the meat on top of the rosemary and garlic in a roasting pan. Cook uncovered for about 1½ hours, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted away from the bone registers 125°F. Remove the lamb from the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes before carving.
Serves 6 to 8
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
These sprouts are roasted until they’re almost incinerated, which gives the little nuggets an amazing, almost candy-like sweetness. Even people who think they don’t like Brussels sprouts invariably like these. (Another possibility for this underused vegetable: Cut each sprout into a finely shredded julienne, sauté in butter just until wilted, about 7 minutes, add salt and pepper and a bit of cream, and serve. It’s sort of like hot cole slaw, only richer and incredibly delicious.)
If you’re making the leg of lamb, crank the oven up to 425°F as soon as it comes out of the oven. While the lamb is resting, you can cook the sprouts: the timing is perfect.
2 pounds small Brussels sprouts, trimmed
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
4 slices thickly cut bacon, diced
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Put the Brussels sprouts on a baking sheet or cookie pan with sides, sprinkle with the olive oil, and toss so that each sprout is coated. Spread the sprouts out so they are in a single layer, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with the diced bacon.
Cook, turning the sprouts once, for about 20 minutes or until they are are very dark and crisp.
Serve at once.
Serves 8 to 10
Scalloped Potatoes
Nobody doesn’t like these.
If you’re cooking the lamb, you can cook the potatoes at 350°F right alongside and remove them at the same time. If they start to get too brown on top, simply cover the pan with foil toward the end of the baking time.
1 clove garlic, cut in half
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 cups milk
3 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper
4 pounds baking potatoes, peeled
Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Rub two roasting pans, each about 6 x 10 inches, or two 9-inch round cake pans with the garlic, and then coat them thickly with the butter.
Combine the milk and cream in a saucepan, and heat until just about to boil. Season with salt and pepper, and remove from the heat.
Cut the potatoes into ¼-inch-thick rounds and arrange them in layers in the pan. Pour the cream mixture over the potatoes (it should come just to the top but not cover them). Bake uncovered, pressing the potatoes into the milk every 30 minutes or so, for 1 to 1½ hours.
Remove the pans from the oven when the potatoes are golden and allow to sit for 10 to 20 minutes before serving.
Serves 8
Last-Minute Chocolate Cake
This cake just calls for a scoop of vanilla ice cream on each slice.
4 ounces fine-quality unsweetened chocolate
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
¾ cup brewed strong black coffee
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 300°F.
Butter and flour a 9-inch-by-5-inch loaf pan.
Combine the chocolate, butter, and coffee in the top of a double boiler or in a very heavy pot, and stir constantly over low heat until melted. Let the mixture cool for 15 minutes. Then add the Grand Marnier, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Stir well.
Stir the flour, baking soda, and salt together, and add this to the chocolate mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Serves 6
RECIPE INDEX
AUSHAK,
BRUSSELS SPROUTS, ROASTED
CAKE, LAST-MINUTE CHOCOLATE
CAKE, NICKY’S VANILLA
CHICKEN, ROAST, WITH POTATOES, ONIONS, AND GARLIC
GOUGÈRES
HASH BROWNS
LAMB, ROAST LEG OF, WITH GARLIC AND ROSEMARY
MATZO BREI
MOULES MARINIÈRES
NEW YORK CHEESECAKE
NOODLES, SORT-OF-THAI
POTATOES, SCALLOPED
RHUBARB, ROASTED
RISOTTO PRIMAVERA
SPAGHETTI CARBONARA
WATERCRESS, PUREED
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rereading these pages I find that somehow Caz has been left out. That is not right. Don Caswell, copy editor, perfectionist and longtime bane of my existence, is the embodiment of everything that makes the New York Times a great paper.
Here’s a typical Caz story. It’s a few months into my tenure at the Times, and I’m pulling my chair up to his desk for the first time. He looks me over balefully, points to the review I’ve just written of a middling French restaurant and asks, “The chef’s name is Jean Pierre?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“You’re missing the hyphen,” he says. There is acid in his voice.
But I am ready for him. Waving a stolen menu under his nose I show him the chef’s name printed there. It has no hyphen. Caz raises an eyebrow. Caz, I am to discover, always raises an eyebrow. “Meaningless,” he says. “Menu-writers are so careless. You should have called and talked directly to the chef.”
“For a hyphen?” I ask. Caz raises an eyebrow once again, silently giving me to understand that anyone who fails to grasp the importance of hyphens has no business at his paper.
Magazines employ fact checkers to follow behind the writers and tidy up their work; newspaper writers, however, are on their own. Those who are very lucky find a Caz to challenge every assumption. The man infuriated me on a weekly basis.
When our partnership began, sometime during my first year, I learned to dread his calls. He always had at least ten penetrating questions that had completely escaped my notice. Early on we spent hours arguing over the difference between convince and persuade, but over time the tenor of the questions changed. Caz would look down at some column that had just sailed safely past three top editors and raise an eyebrow. “Do you really like this lead?” he’d ask. No more than that, but by then I had come to trust him so completely that I’d be rewriting before he had finished speaking. I watched him read the review in which both my long-gone parents appeared with serious trepidation. Finally he looked up. “Fine,” he said. “But bear in mind that you’ve used up your ghost quota for the next three years.”
Caz moved on to work with more exalted writers about a year before I left the paper, and my new copy editors rarely questioned much of what I did. Life was easier . . . but the columns weren’t as good. I started going over and over my work, trying to ferret out the faults Caz would have found. To keep myself honest I taped the first Caz column above my desk; the hyphen in Jean-Pierre was circled in red.
But I have to admit that with this book I have taken many liberties that do not follow journalistic principles and would surely horrify Caz. Some of the characters have been disguised. It was not my intention to make anybody sorry that I’d written this book, and I’ve often changed names and distinguishing characteristics to avoid embarrassing people (there is no Myron Rosen w
orking at the New York Times). In some cases I’ve exaggerated, in others I’ve conflated a few meals into one, or combined events that took place over a space of time into a single afternoon or evening. And I’m sure there are details that I’ve gotten wrong: I have copious notes about every morsel I ate during my tenure at the Times, but I was so busy that I stopped keeping a diary and I’ve relied on memory for events and conversations that took place a fairly long time ago. I’ve tried to be accurate, but I’m sure I’ve occasionally erred.
One thing, however, I am certain of. There were many people who were important to me during my tenure at the New York Times who make only brief appearances here. I’d like to express my thanks to Suzanne Richie, Elaine Louie and Trish Hall, who were there with me and Carol for so many meals; they were the very best eating companions a person could possibly want.
Also to my part-time assistants, Erin St. John Kelly, Maria Eder and Allyson Strafella, who made reservations, joined me for meals and always remembered where I was meant to be, when, and most important, which wig I was supposed to be wearing. And if Roisin O’Hare, Anisa Kamadoli and Gus Moraes had not been real friends to our family while they were sitting for Nick, it would have been impossible to go out to eat night after night.
Thanks are also due to my many intrepid dining companions. Pat Oleszko was the best; I could always count on her to gather a group at the last minute, and in a pinch to eat not only what was on her plate, but on mine as well. Janet Maslin and Ben Cheever were ready to eat anything I asked them to, at any time, in any place. My brother Bob, the world’s greatest eater, was invaluable: endlessly inquisitive, wonderful company and prepared to try everything from sea slugs to fried grasshoppers in the line of duty. If Jonathan and Nathalie Half had not been willing to show up on a moment’s notice, life would have been much more difficult. Paula Landesman and Jerry Berger were also everything a hired mouth could possibly want.
Thanks, once again, to the MacDowell Colony, the most wonderful place a writer could possibly be. Just knowing that the Colony exists is enough to make me smile. And, of course, to my extraordinarily indulgent colleagues at Gourmet, particularly Doc Willoughby, Larry Karol and Robin Pellicci, who always pinch-hit when I need them to. Thanks to Ian Knauer for testing the recipes, and to Richard Ferretti, Paul Grimes, Nanci Smith and especially Romulo Yanes for services way beyond the call of duty.
I have been blessed with a wonderful agent, Kathy Robbins, and a fabulous editor, Ann Godoff, and I am deeply grateful for their help and their encouragement.
One last thing. Throughout the writing of this book Michael and Nick have been amazingly supportive. They did not complain—at least not too much—when I spent every weekend working. I’ll take a break now. Really, I will. I promise.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RUTH REICHL is the editor in chief of Gourmet and the author of the bestsellers Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples. She has been the restaurant critic at The New York Times and the food editor and restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times. Reichl lives in New York City with her husband and son.