Bastille Day cooking made easy: How to conjure a rustic, fabulous French summer feast

This year's Bastille Day feast starts with make-ahead smoked trout pâté, served with crackers and endive leaves.

Because I'm almost French (I've been married to a Frenchman for almost 22 years; one of these days I'll get around to applying for French citizenship), I love to celebrate Bastille Day. Going to a restaurant isn't usually what I feel like doing, partly because there aren't many good French restaurants in Dallas, where we live.

Referred to in France as le Quatorze Juillet, or la Fête Nationale, or la Fêt' Nat – never Bastille Day – the holiday rarely falls on a weekend, which creates a quandary: How to pull together something deliciously French after working all day?

This year, I think I found the answer: Make it rustic and easy, prepare a couple things the night before, invite friends over after work and light up the grill. 

Mikie's marinated olives can be made the night before.

Laid-back apps – like marinated olives, asparagus vinaigrette, a freeform savory tart, maybe a saucisson or some store-bought pâté with baguette toasts – are totally festive with glasses of rosé, chilled Lillet garnished with orange slices, or (my favorite!) Ricard. 

Or hey – why not pour a pet nat, since it rhymes with Fêt' Nat! What's a pet nat? It's short for pétillant naturel – the natural sparkling wines, often from France, that are hugely popular in wine circles these days. (If you're new to the natural wine phenom, here's an excellent article, co-authored by my friend Michalene, explaining it.) 

Flipping through award-winning cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan's beautiful new book, La Vie Rustic: Cooking & Living in the French Style, I found plenty of delicious-looking inspiration, starting with her super-easy recipe for smoked trout pâté. 

Honestly, it couldn't be easier: You just mash together smoked trout with crème fraîche, lemon zest, chopped tarragon and one or two other things, pack it in a crock and that's it. While you can make it just before serving (in no time flat), it's the perfect thing to mix up the previous evening and let chill in the fridge. Serve it with Belgian endive leaves and crackers or toasts. Brennan writes in her book that it also works well with smoked salmon – something I'll be trying soon (with dill or fennel leaves, probably!). 

Also inspired by Brennan's book, I've lately become addicted to grilled artichokes. But while Brennan serves them with a yogurt-and-mayo-based herb dip (which also looks really good), I've been pairing mine with garlicky aïoli, one of my favorite substances in the world. This summer I can't get enough of it.

The artichokes can be mostly prepared the night before, as well – boil them, trim out their chokes, stash them in the fridge and make the aïoli (which probably even gets better as it sits overnight; the garlic mellows). When you're ready to serve them, just brush the artichoke halves with a little olive oil and plop them on the grill – along with halved lemons as a squeezable garnish, if you like.

For a main course, you can keep it super simple: Throw some duck breasts or a butterflied leg of lamb on the grill. You can even pick up a roast chicken (very French!) or two at the supermarket; serve it with Dijon mustard and cornichons, and French side dishes. You can blanch some haricots verts, for instance, and toss them with a little red wine vinegar, your best olive oil and some minced shallots; finish with fleur de sel and lots of freshly ground black pepper. 

Or make a warm French lentil salad – which you can either toss together in less than a half hour and serve warm, or prepare the night before and serve room temp.

Here's the easy, forgiving recipe:

Or, you know what? You can even do without a main course altogether, and just serve a bunch of delicious nibbles – French wine-bar-style. 

For dessert, there are lots of possibilities. One of the easiest is also one of the most delicious: a berry and peach crisp. Put the almond topping together the night before, and it's very quick to put together and throw in the oven. Top it with whipped cream, or crème fraîche (you should have some left over from the smoked trout pâté), or a combo. Or serve it with vanilla ice cream. 

Otherwise, if you make pastry cream the night before, you can put together a quick and easy berry tart – with the colors of the French flag!

Here are those two recipes:

Alternatively, you could make a chocolate mousse or pôt de crème the night before (yikes - I need to create some chocolate French recipes for the site – will do that soon!) Or play hooky from work and make a gorgeous stone-fruit tart. Or make profiterôles – cream puffs filled with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. That's another easy recipe I'll put together soon.

You could also do what so many French people do – pick up something lovely at the bakery.

Or take a tip from my French relatives, and slice up a ripe peach into the glass of red wine you've been sipping. It can't get any easier – or more delicious – than that.

So, want more ideas? Take a spin through Cooks Without Borders' French page – updated recently with a bunch of new recipes. Sound good?

Happy Bastille Day! Vive la France!

Having friends over for dinner? Be sure to invite Mikie's fabulous marinated olives

One of the best parts of visiting my hometown, L.A., is dinner or lunch at my friend Michalene's. I've mentioned Michalene – or Mikie, as her family and a few close friends call her – in many posts. It was Mikie, for instance, who wondered, after a recipe for Chinese lacquered roast chicken changed my life, what would happen if I adapted it to duck. (Answer: more life-changingly delectable fowl play.) 

I met Mikie in 2003, when she was Food Editor at the Los Angeles Times, but I'd long been a fan. Before arriving at the Times a couple years earlier, she'd been Dining Editor at the New York Times, producing the Dining section that quickly, under her tenure, became a must-read. I hadn't realized I wanted to work at a newspaper – in fact I thought I didn't. But the minute I met Michalene, who invited me for a drink to discuss the possibility of my coming on board as her deputy editor, and she talked so excitedly about her love for cooking, and eating out, and editing and writing and putting together a food section, I knew I had to give it a go. 

Before long, we became not just co-workers, but fast friends. That meant we cooked and dined together often. It's one of the things I miss most about living in L.A.

So, dining at Mikie's. There are lots of great things about it. Hanging out with Mikie, and her partner Dan (who happens to be an amazing cook, too, and an awesome bread baker). They have an spectacular view of the ocean, over their rows of vineyards, from their house in the Malibu hills, so dinner's often on the patio. They are warm, generous, thoughtful and altogether brilliant hosts. 

I always secretly hope, as I drive up Pacific Coast Highway toward their place in Corral Canyon, that Mikie will have made her fabulous marinated olives: They're just so much better than any other olives anywhere, perfumed with orange and herbs, and spiced just so – a dreamy pre-main-event nibble.

A couple weeks ago, with friends coming to a dinner with a Spanish theme, I thought, as I tried to figure out the tapas y pinxtos, hey – why don't I make Mikie's olives? I texted her, asking for the recipe, and she told me it's from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. – just tweaked a little. She adds orange zest, she tole me, and fennel seed. And she uses more vinegar than Bittman does, and less olive oil. Oh, and her technique is slightly different.

In other words, Mikie has made the olives her own. Honestly, I think it's the orange zest and fennel that knock them out of the park. 

How good are they? Well, I spent all day cooking to prepare for that dinner. I made bandilleros – all kinds of pickly and cured treats, prettily skwered. And some really nice tapas – piquillo peppers filled with brandade. And grilled asparagus with Serrano ham. And seafood paella. (OK, I blew the paella, if truth be told. Overcooked it terribly. Don't tell anyone.) Want to know what got the most applause? Mikie's olives. 

They take all of about five minutes to put together: It's just assorted olives (I like to use Castelvetranos, Picholines, Niçoises, Cerignolas and anything else that looks great – with pits), plus a few smashed garlic cloves, bay leaves, thyme branches, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, orange zest, olive oil and red wine vinegar. Combine it all, and let it sit on the counter all afternoon – or even just an hour. Give it a toss with a spoon every now and then. That's it. 

Here's the recipe:

I will be eager to hear whether you love them as much as I do.

Easy pan-roasted seafood antipasto turns a simple pasta dinner into a special event

A funny thing happened on the way to my okonomiyaki.

You know, okonomiyaki – the Osaka-style seafood pancake that homesick Japanese transplants in America go wild for. It's sort of become a cult thing, maybe because it's crowned with katsuobushi – bonito flakes – which wave mysteriously around, making the thing look as though it's alive.

I'm working on a recipe for okonomiyaki; I promise.  You can see a video of my last attempt (it's close! nearly there!) on my Cooks Without Borders Instagram feed. In fact, I'd bought all the ingredients to make it a few days ago – squid, shrimp, scallops and more, thinking I'd nail it that evening.

"Oh, man," said Thierry. "Okonomiyaki again?!" Yeah, yeah, I'd already made it twice in just a couple weeks, but the third time's the charm, right? Recipe development can be a process of trial and error, and this one – which diverges from traditional ones – has proven to be tricky. 

But I'm nothing if not flexible, so I did a quick pivot – Japan to Italy. I knew there was a bottle of crisp white wine in the fridge, along with some parsley, and baby arugula. We have a giant rosemary bush out back. A warm seafood antipasto, I was thinking – that would be lovely with an arugula salad. It would be nice to eat light.

I turned to an old favorite cookbook for inspiration: Evan Kleiman's Cucina del Mare: Fish and Seafood Italian Style. Kleinman is a wonderful chef who for many years had a beloved restaurant in Los Angeles called Angeli that delighted Italian food lovers for decades. When I moved to Dallas in 2009 as a then-incognito restaurant critic, a commenter on one of the local food blogs tried to out me by posting my photo online. Ha! The photo wasn't me, it was Evan Kleinman. That cracked me up. Nice try, amici miei. 

The recipe I found was for pan-roasted squid, calamari arrosto. Kleiman gave the squid a toss with olive oil, fresh rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper, popped it in the oven, roasted it for 25 minutes, then gave it a squeeze of lemon and a parsley garnish. Nice! 

The seafood, tossed with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, cherry tomatoes, salt and pepper, is ready to go into the oven.

I used the same method with the shrimp, squid and scallops, tossing in some halved cherry tomatoes. It worked beautifully. And so easy. 

We poured glasses of crisp white wine, and I tossed an arugula salad. We sat down to a perfect, light, simple dinner, which incidentally would also make a lovely lunch.

In spite of its simplicity, the dish's taste is pretty snazzy. I'm always looking for an easy and delicious antipasto to jazz up a pasta dinner, and this certainly fits the bill.

Want the recipe? It's yours.

Serve it with good, crusty bread to sop up the delicious juices. 

Warm, tender (thoroughly cooked!) asparagus is a simple, wonderful pleasure

If you've never had properly cooked asparagus, you're missing out on something wonderful indeed.

I was reminded of its simple and irrefutable pleasure on a recent trip to Mexico City, over lunch at Máximo Bistrot Local, Eduardo García's glammy restaurant in the Colonia Roma neighborhood. I chose as a starter "espárragos, holandesa, ajo tostado," and loved what was set before me: fat, jumbo asparagus, beautifully trimmed and peeled nearly to the tips, poached to almost custardy tenderness and served with luscious, lightly lemony and perfect hollandaise sauce on one side and silky, buttery pea purée on the other. 

Classic hollandaise for me is a luxury (maybe it's time to rediscover its joys in a post!), but the real revelation on that plate was this: So many professional kitchens send asparagus spears to the table undercooked that if you're accustomed to eating it in restaurants, it's entirely possible you've never experienced how luscious it can be.

(Meanwhile, Máximo chef-owner Eduardo García has a pretty amazing cook-busting-borders story.)

Undercooked asparagus, crunchy and forbidding, can taste like a punishment. But if you simmer asparagus long enough to cook it through, its texture becomes soft and almost creamy, and its lovely flavor comes into full bloom.

It's worth taking the time to peel it first. First trim off the woody end of the stalk, then use a vegetable peeler to (gently, so you don't break the stalk) peel it about two thirds of the way up to the tip. I find that letting the spear rest flat on the cutting board and using only very gentle pressure to peel gets the job done most easily. 

Set a pan of salted water to a boil, add the asparagus and cook, covered, until the spears are tender. How long this will take depends on their thickness. Medium-thin to medium spears will take about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes, jumbos a bit longer.

But rather than time them, I lift them gently with tongs, and when they're just a bit floppy, like this:

. . . I pull them out.

Then I might serve them warm, letting a small pat of butter melt over them first if that's my mood, or leaving them plain if I'm going lo-cal.

If you know your way around a kitchen, you won't need an actual recipe for this, but in case you do, here you go:

Once you discover or rediscover this simple pleasure, you'll probably want to branch out. You can prepare the spears this way, skip the butter, pour a vinaigrette over them and serve them either warmish or room temp. You can also shock them in cold water, chill them, then dress in vinaigrette later. For the vinaigrette, I might go one of four ways: simple vinaigrette with a little Dijon mustard; the same boosted with a dab of anchovy paste; dressed in a simple vinaigrette then garnished with crushed pink peppers; or dressed in a shallot vinaigrette.

Last spring, I became obsessed with gribiche, which continues to show up on fashionable restaurant menus. Whether you make a classic version or a more modern one (like the new-wave one shown below), it's spectacular on poached asparagus. 

Of course there's an exception to the thorough cooking idea: Shaved raw asparagus can be wonderful in salads or as a garnish on fish or chicken dishes. But when you do choose to cook them, the lesson of thorough cooking holds for other methods besides poaching: stir-frying, roasting or grilling. (Lots of people steam asparagus, but it's not a method I love for this veg.) In any case, if you cook them past that hard, green-tasting crunchiness, they're so much nicer. 

Want more asparagus ideas? Here are a million, more or less. 

Isn't this the greatest season?!

How to fool your friends into thinking you shelled 9,000 English peas

When spring rolls around – and even before – I start craving asparagus. And strawberries. And English peas. 

Unless you live near a farm, grow them in your garden or have access to a great farmers market – and depending on where in the world you live – finding sweet, tender English peas can be a real challenge. If you're lucky enough to find English peas at a supermarket, they're likely to be hard and woody, or if they're still small and tender, they'll likely have lost their sweetness. 

The solution? Frozen peas. That's right – they're actually really good, especially if you pick up the tiny ones sometimes called petits pois. I usually have a bag or two in my freezer – even in springtime, when we're all focused on what's fresh. 

And nowhere do they show better than in this wonderful soup, based on traditional French potage Saint Germain. 

It's the easiest thing in the world to whip up. Wilt a head of soft Boston or Bibb lettuce in butter. (Hey, this is like a salad within a soup!) Add a couple bags of frozen peas, stir and cook 10 minutes. Add water, and a few fresh mint leaves and simmer for 20 minutes. Whirr it up with a stick blender, et voilà. Garnish it with a dab of crème frâiche. Or not. That's it!!!

It's vegetarian. And it's a knockout. Serve it to your friends, swearing you shelled 9,000 English peas for their pleasure. 

Or tell the truth. And get ready to hand over the recipe.

Guest cook: Susie Bui shares her fabulous Hanoi-style catfish dish, Cha Ca La Vong – a cult favorite

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The first time I heard of Cha Ca La Vong, it was on Susie Bui's Instagram feed. Back in November, she had posted a photo of her dad's version of the dish. I couldn't tell what it was exactly, but it was gorgeous – with tons of dill, and turmeric-stained morsels of something, and onions, all being pushed around in a wok. You could just tell looking at it that the flavors were vivid and wonderful.

And there were so many other delicious things on her feed, seemingly that she had cooked: shrimp and egg whites, Chinese style; hu tieu hoanh thanh (Vietnamese wonton soup); beef with mushrooms, chives and bean sprouts; tom kho tau (braised shrimp in roe). 

I'd never met Susie – or at least never in the normal way. I'd seen her and talked to her back in 2009, when she and her brother had a restaurant in Dallas, Lumi Empanada and Dumpling Kitchen. (Dallasites, do you remember it? It was in the wood-frame house on McKinney that later became Belly + Trumpet.) Her brother, married to a Brazilian woman, was the reason for the empanadas. I was an incognito restaurant critic, just starting out in Dallas when I reviewed the restaurant, and it charmed me. But because I was incognito, I didn't introduce myself. 

Susie had never run a restaurant before, let along owned one; prior to opening Lumi she was a marketing coordinator for Brinks Home Security. But she had a real flair. "Somehow," I wrote in a three-star review, "despite her lack of experience and the craziness of the concept, Bui has managed to pull it off with panache and a serious sense of style and fun." Plus a number of the dishes were terrific: Chinese five-spice duck and leek dumplings; traditional Vietnamese crab and asparagus soup; a crazy-good Thai-style blue-crab fried rice.

The restaurant didn't last long (despite the positive review,) and Susie left the restaurant business, and in 2014 she left Dallas for San Francisco.

The day before she left, though, something interesting happened: At a Dallas wedding, she met Tony Perez. "We kept in touch," she says.

And then some: In July, the couple plans to get married, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. 

Susie has since returned to Texas, but not Dallas – she and Tony live in Houston, where he has a sandwich shop. Susie works for Samsung – out of the company's Mountain View, California office. (She only has to pop in every couple of months.) 

So, to get back to Susie's Instagram feed, everything she was cooking looked so delicious. By the looks of her posts, it seemed she visited Dallas with some frequency, so I invited her over as a guest cook for the blog. To my delight, she accepted.

On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, she showed up at our house, with Tony and their friend Phong Tran in tow. So much fun to meet them, cook, hang out, talk food – and then feast on the results.

Cha Ca La Vong wasn't a dish I'd ever heard of before, and it turns out it has an fascinating story. "It's very popular in just one part of Vietnam," says Susie. "Hanoi. They even have a street named after it." 

Susie has never had the dish in Vietnam, but Phong has, two years ago, at the legendary restaurant named for the dish, Cha Ca La Vong. "It was the first time I tried it," he says; he only learned about it when he was researching what to eat in Hanoi. And it blew him away. "It was probably one of the best dishes I had in Vietnam when I was there."

Later I did some reading, and learned it's a dish with cult status. At more than 100 years old, Cha Ca La Vong is not the only place in Hanoi that serves it. In fact, there's a whole street called Cha Ca after the dish. 

Susie's parents are from the north; her dad, a wonderful cook, she says, taught her to make the dish.

Susie took stock of my kitchen (yes, I have cheesecloth! Yes, I have a mortar and pestle! Yes, I have rice paper!), then she put Tony and Phong to work grinding the galangal. It's a gnarly root that looks a bit like ginger root, but it's about 9,000 times as tough. They peeled it with a sharp paring knife, then pounded it with the pestle in the mortar, taking turns because so much elbow grease is required. "You can do it in a food processor, too," Susie said, but she enjoyed watching the boys do it the old-fashioned way. That would go into the rub for the fish. When I saw how hard it was to grind it, I knew I'd use a food processor.

Meanwhile, Susie showed me how to make our two dipping sauces: An all-purpose nuoc cham (fish sauce, lime, garlic, sugar and Thai chiles), and a funky-intense spin on it, mam ruoc cham, made by stirring pungent, fermenty fine shrimp paste into nuoc cham. Tony can't stand anything with shrimp paste – he ate too much of it once, the first time he met Susie's family, he reminisced, and he hasn't been able to manage it since. It's super-intense if you taste it on its own – and even the dipping sauce is pretty funky. But Thierry and I both loved it, especially with all those fragrant herbs in rolled up with the fish. The combination yells "wow!"

The nuoc cham, easy and approachable – and made from easily-found ingredients – will definitely go into my regular repertoire. To make it, we, just stirred together fish sauce, lime juice, garlic and sugar and Thai chiles, then adjusted the taste. For the Cha Ca La Vong, we just added a tablespoon of the shrimp paste. (If you're skipping the pungent version, you might want to serve double the amount of nuoc cham.)

Once we had the sauces ready and Tony and Phong had accomplished their galangal-grinding duties, Susie made the marinade for the catfish.

Oh, a word about the fish. I'm prone to bouts of angst and 4 a.m. brooding, and I worried about it. Do people want to eat catfish? My friends who are native Southerners love it, and I've always enjoyed it – whether fried Southern-style or steamed or fried Southeast Asian-style. Is it ecologically responsible and healthful? A quick check on Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch app assured me that American-raised catfish (which is what you will probably find) is a "best choice." This month's GQ magazine has Mark Bittman raving about catfish, which he calls "the one American fish we should all be eating." They're ugly customers, he points out. But "they're among the best-tasting, most sustainable fish you can find – white, flaky and tender, farmed with clean and smart techniques." Good to go!

OK, that marinade. Susie added a few tablespoons of water to all that ground galangal (what an interesting perfume it has!), then gathered it up in a cheesecloth and squeezed all the juice into a bowl. She then stirred in spices: ground turmeric, garlic powder, onion powder, sugar, mushroom seasoning and olive oil. She cut the catfish into pieces, coated them with the yellow marinade and let them sit for half an hour.

While they're marinating, I want to tell you about the mushroom seasoning. It's an ingredient Susie loves to use lots of dishes: soups, sauces, stir-fries – basically any dish in which other Asian cooks might use MSG, which Susie doesn't like to use. I didn't have an easy time finding it in a sprawling Chinese supermarket; I had to show three different employees a photo Susie sent me of her package. Finally one staffer led me to it: They had gigantic (17.5 ounce) envelopes of one brand, and it was expensive – more than $12. I bought it.

Between that and the Vietnamese herbs I sought, it was quite a goose-chase! 

Later I brooded about the mushroom seasoning, as it turned out the one I bought does have some MSG in it, listed last in the ingredients – after dehydrated mushrooms, vegetable powder, corn starch, salt, sugar and nucleotide. (The brand Susie uses does not, so check the ingredients if you're looking for it.)

The brand of mushroom seasoning Susie Bui uses does not include MSG in its ingredients.    Photo by SUSIE BUI

 Not that MSG is necessarily so bad, but I don't love using it, or other products with lots of additives. Here's the good news: I wound up developing a substitute that works really well: powdered shiitake mushrooms, in combination with soy sauce. (Incidentally, that was a breakthrough that led to a whole slew of other kitchen breakthroughs – I will write about that very soon!) Anyway, our recipe for Cha Ca La Vong lets you use one or the other.

Half an hour after the marinade went on, Susie laid the fish pieces on a baking sheet and slipped it into a 375-degree oven, to help seal the marinade into the fish before we'd fry it. (In Hanoi, they grill it rather than baking before frying, says Susie. Maybe I'll try that once we're in grilling season.)

While the fish is roasting, that's a good time to boil the rice vermicelli, rinse it with water to cool and put it in a bowl, then set the table: dipping sauces, rao thom, vermicelli, roasted peanuts and rice paper. Make sure you have your sliced onion, scallions and dill ready at hand near the stove, along with a couple of platters.

After its 15-minute roast, we pulled the fish out of the oven, and Susie heated peanut oil in a large skillet, then fried the fish pieces (in a couple of batches) in the hot oil, transferring them to a platter when they were cooked. Then she poured out all but a couple tablespoons of oil, and stir-fried the onion and scallion, then added the dill. All that went onto a serving platter, then the fish on top, and then, as a garnish, roasted, unsalted peanuts.

To the table, yippeee!

Thierry rustled up a bottle of chilled rosé, I filled a shallow bowl with warm water for the rice paper wrappers, and the party began.

For our first tastes, we each dipped a rice paper in the warm water, piled herbs, lettuce, cucumber, a little vermicelli, a piece of fish with some onion, scallion, dill and peanuts on top.  Here's what mine looked like:

Then you fold the left and right sides of the wrapper over the ingredients and roll it up, burrito-style. Working with those super-thin, stretchy rice paper skins takes a little practice – don't overfill!

Success! Dip it in one of the sauces, and wow. So wonderful. Dip it in the other sauce, different – and also wonderful, so herbal and fragrant; all that dill and turmeric add up to something very unusually delicious, especially when you get that crazy funk from the mam ruoc cham.

After that, Susie made a rice-paper-free salad-bowl version, piling lettuce, herbs, fish, etc. in a small bowl, drizzling sauce on top and eating it with chopsticks.

Stylin'!

Up for trying?

The whole Cha Ca La Vong set-up definitely involves some serious shopping, whether in Asian groceries or online. And some adventuresome kitchen prep. But it's such a fun dish to serve at a casual dinner with friends; it's so interactively delicious.  And it's not something you're likely to find in any restaurant – unless you hop on a plane and head to Hanoi.

Yeah, I knew you were ready for the adventure. Here's the recipe:

If you make it, we'd all love to hear about it – please tell us how it goes in a comment!

Craving pasta? This soul-stirring lamb bolognese takes it to another level

I know what you're thinking: A massive platter of pasta smothered in some kind of luscious sauce would make everyone feel really good this weekend.

Sure, you can always simmer up a dependable beef bolognese, but maybe you want to branch out, take your ragu game up a notch. This sumptuous lamb bolognese is the answer.  

Start thinking now of your favorite people: That's who you'll want to make this for. Nibbles to start, then salad, then the massive plate of pasta. Red wine. The sauce's simmer may be long and slow, but this the easiest kind dinner to execute. Zero stress involved. And the flavor payoff is huge.

This is what your friends will see when they walk in and find you cooking.

It's the kind of thing you want to make on a lazy weekend, when you want the kitchen to fill with dreamy aromas. Once you've put it together, you leave it to bubble quietly why you catch up on your reading. Or eat bonbons. Or paint your toenails. Or bake bread. OK, maybe baking bread doesn't count as lazy, but fresh-baked bread (or any good crusty loaf) would be just thing thing to sop up all that wonderful sauce. Or maybe this is the moment to make your first homemade pasta. 

But you don't have to: This bolognese is splendid on the fettuccine or pappardelle from a box, too. You can make the sauce a day or two ahead of serving, or put it on the table as soon as it's done. 

It all starts with lamb shanks, a relatively inexpensive cut. If you've ever made them, you know what happens to them in a long, slow braise: They become incredibly tender to the point of falling off the bone. That's the idea here, but you keep braising past that point, until the meat completely falls apart, melding gorgeously with the rest of the ingredients – wine, tomatoes, broth, aromatic vegetables, dried mushrooms. 

In order to easily brown the meat a bit before the braise starts, I cut it mostly off the bones, into large chunks. But what follows is not a major browning operation: just give the chunks a spin in a pan of shimmery hot olive oil rather than searing them hard. The idea is to get some of that nice caramelized flavor but keep the softness of the meat. It's quick and painless and you don't wind up spattering your kitchen with oil. Toss the bones in the pan, too, for added flavor, and since there's still plenty of meat clinging to them. No need to be careful when you cut the chunks.

After the meat is browned and set aside, next comes the soffritto: You know, that aromatic trio of carrots, onion and celery. Cook them with a little pancetta in a splash of olive oil till they're soft, toss in a few lightly smashed garlic cloves and you're nearly there (work-wise, anyway). 

Next you deglaze the pan with red wine – just about any old kind will do. (Not familiar with deglazing? It's a fancy word for adding wine and scraping up the browned bits sticking to the pan and sending them into the sauce.) Add broth, a can of tomatoes, bay leaves and rosemary, a handful of dried porcini mushrooms and a lemon peel. 

That's it. Leave it to simmer – and simmer and simmer – until your kitchen smells wonderful and all that meat relaxes into deliciousness with all those supporting flavors. 

So, what do you think? Is this the day you're going to make fresh pasta? It's probably easier than you think.  Here's the technique and recipe:

Or not. Either way. But if you're buying the pasta, considering splurging on the one that looks the best and most artisanal. Not sure? See if you can see the texture through the package: You don't want it to look too slick; go for one with some texture. Rustichella d'Abruzzo is a great Italian import you can sometimes find in really good supermarkets. 

Now let's go check on the sauce.

Wow, look – it's nearly done! Hey – did you think about wine? This would be the moment to open that great-looking Barolo your uncle gave you for your birthday. In fact, pretty much anything Italian would be fabulous with it, especially if it starts with a B: Barbaresco, Brunello (yeah, yeah, I know – they're expensive). Barbera! Bingo. Or Chianti, or Rosso di Montalcino, or just about anything, really. This is not a moment to be fussy.

Are you wondering what would make a great starter? How about an escarole salad with crispy prosciutto, egg and parm?

I just happen to have the recipe for you . . . 

OK. Time to eat. Aren't you excited? I know I am. Drop that pasta in the boiling water. Cook it till it's al dente. If your pasta's fresh, that'll just be three minutes or so. Pull it out of the water and drop it into that wonderful sauce. Give it a stir, let it simmer in there for a minute or three. 

Now onto the giant platter it goes. Don't forget the big chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano to pass with a grater at the table. 

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Oh, I almost forgot: Here's the recipe:

Now start rounding up those friends. And try to save me a bite.

Steal this salad! Escarole, crispy prosciutto, 6-minute egg, shaved parm and lemon add up to a spectacular starter

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

You're bored with Caesar. Fed up with the wedge. Finished with chopped. But where, or where, is the simple yet stunning salad of your dreams?

If you don't have it, steal it.

That's what I did. 

The escarole salad I stole, back in December, at Sprezza.

One night back in December, Thierry and I were having dinner at Sprezza, chef Julian Barsotti's Roman restaurant in Dallas. Thierry first saw it on the menu: an escarole salad with egg and prosciutto. "We're having that," he said. He doesn't usually make such definitive pronouncements when I'm dining for work, but there it was. He had to have it. 

I would have ordered it any case (wouldn't you?).  It was pretty simple, just the bitter winter greens dressed in a lemony dressing, with crisped prosciutto, shaved Parmesan and a halved five-minute egg. (At least it looked like five minutes; it had one of those perfect, just-set, almost gelatinous bright golden yolks.)

Crisped prosciutto, just out of the oven

The salad was as wonderful as it sounded and probably looks. The touch of lemon was exactly right with that salty ham. I knew it had to be mine. I would go home and recreate it. Steal it. For you. And for me.

With just one tweak: When I ate it, I wanted some of the egg in every bite, so I had to cut up that halved egg and toss it in a bit. I'd address that in my steal.

The first time I made the stolen salad, I was sort of stymied: couldn't find escarole at the two supermarkets I tried. With friends coming for dinner, I punted, and used Belgian endives. 

As I slid a baking sheet of prosciutto slices into to the oven, I thought about the dressing. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out. I'd keep it simple. Basically just lemon juice and good olive oil. Probably no added salt because of the salty prosciutto and the cheese. The bitter edge of the greens would be balanced by the richness of the egg.

I was getting hungry thinking about it, so nibbled on one of the prosciutto crisps. You can do that too: No one will know.

For the egg, I was a minute off. To achieve a perfect yolk, bring the eggs to a boil in cold water, remove the pan from heat, cover it and let the eggs sit in the hot water for six minutes. Drain and run cold water on the to stop the cooking. Perfect.

The salad came together beautifully, even with the endives. Frisée would work too. Or a combination of the two.

Next time I found escarole, and the salad was everything I hoped it would be; it was exactly the right starter for a pasta dinner with close friends. My pal Georges, a former chef who is even more critical than I, flipped for it. 

My new favorite winter salad is ideal for entertaining, as you can cook the eggs, crisp the prosciutto and wash and dry the escarole ahead of time. Just before you sit down, make the simple dressing, throw the greens in a bowl, add the eggs, toss it all together, then garnish with the prosciutto and shaved parm. 

Here's the recipe:

Who says crime doesn't pay?

Happy Chinese New Year! These 8 recipes will help you celebrate deliciously

For me, Chinese New Year started early this year – figuratively, at least. All I can think about is Chinese food: dim sum and fried rice and garlicky, gingery greens and succulent, crackly-skinned roast pork. 

Maybe you're headed out for dim sum to celebrate the Year of the Rooster this weekend (or the next one or two – the New Years celebration runs through February 15). If you're an aficionado, you need no help ordering. But if you're a newcomer to dim sum, check out this handy new guide to enjoying dim sum I just put together – including a video. 

But what about dinner? I'll bet you'd love to cook!

Ever wanted to learn to make fried rice? Cook it once or twice, and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to make one that's blow-them-away delicious – better, even, than what you can get in many Chinese restaurants. Seriously.

Last spring I put two popular fried rice recipes to the test:

Lucky Peach's Chinese Sausage Fried Rice

Mission Chinese Food Salt-Cod Fried Rice

The first, as you'll see from Round 1 and Round 2 of the Fried Rice Smackdown is super easy, and the second – while no more technically difficult – requires a lot of advance prep. They're both gobsmackingly wonderful. 

As it turned out, I feel in love with the Lucky Peach cookbook. Linked in my three-wonton review are adaptations of several of the recipes: 

Lucky Peach's Chineasy Cucumber Salad

Author Peter Meehan wasn't kidding when he named this one, which is so simple that Wylie (who was 19 at the time) started making it every few nights. As Wylie is allergic to peanuts, he leaves them out, and also makes it a little spicier, upping the chile flakes. The recipe is infinitely adjustable and tweakable.

For another great starter, consider wontons.

I know, right? These shrimp-and-chive wontons from the Lucky Peach book (the book calls them dumplings) are actually pretty easy to make – and they're pretty spectacular. You could drop them into soup, or serve them with a simple dipping sauce. These, I promise, will wow your friends:

Shrimp and Chive Wontons

LUCKY PEACH'S STIR-FRIED ASPARAGUS

Coming into asparagus season (I'm guessing it has probably already arrived in Southern California), this quick and delicious version is a good one to keep handy.

One of the recipes has become my go-to dish when I want an easy, super-quick and stress-free way to stir-fry greens, even on a rushed weeknight:

Baby Bok Choy with Whole Garlic

If you don't try any of the others, do make this one – I think you'll love it.

Of course it's not only vegetables. There's the unforgettable Chinese lacquered roast chicken, which I came to think of as the Chicken that Changed My Life.

Lucky Peach Chinese Lacquered Roast Chicken

Well, after that, one thing led to another. My friend Michalene planted the idea – which I couldn't get out of my head – that this treatment could possibly make a killer duck. Boy, was she ever right. After some months of developing the recipe, I nailed it:

Glorious Chinese Lacquered Roast Duck

So there you have 'em – 8 super Chinese recipes. Do let us know, in a comment, how you like them. Happy Year of the Rooster! 

What to make for Super Bowl Sunday: a big ol' pot of crazy-good Texas chili

A lot of people I know are really, really upset. Why? Because the Dallas Cowboys did not go all the way to the you-know-what.

Here's what I think they should do on Sunday, February 5: Make a big pot of Texas chili, turn on the TV, and pretend it's the Cowboys playing in the Super Bowl.

Why not? As long as they have something deliciously Texan to eat, that's the important thing. Right? After all, they're probably going to watch the Super Bowl. And the Super Bowl is, after all, in Texas this year. So chili is the thing. Maybe you want to make some guacamole, too (it wouldn't be the first time).

But back to the chili: Beans need not apply. Because we are in Texas, y'all. It's all about the meat. You can make a pot of pinto beans and serve it on the side, if that's your fancy. Just soak the beans overnight, drain them, place them in a big pot, cover with water by an inch, add an onion (cut in half), a bay leaf or two, a few whole garlic cloves (you don't even need to peel them), and (this is optional), a piece of slab bacon. Bring to a boil, then simmer a couple hours, till the beans are nice and tender.

But I digress.

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Here's the way I feel about chili: You could use an "easy" recipe. You know, one that uses chili powder and ground beef. But as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing like chili made the old fashioned way: by soaking whole dried chiles and grinding them to a paste. I also prefer to chop the beef roughly by hand rather than using ground beef. 

Start with the right cut, not something lean: I like a well-marbled piece of chuck. Enlist your butcher's help with this. Then use a sharp knife to cut it into 1/2-inch dice.

Then you'll toast a bunch of dried ancho chiles in a dry pan, cover them with boiling water and let 'em soak. Half an hour later, purée them with a little of the soaking water to a lovely smooth, thick paste. Brown the meat, cover it with the purée and stir together.

Isn't that lovely? This is why cooks love to cook. 

Add some of the liquid from soaking the chiles, some garlic cloves and onion you've charred in the dry pan then chopped, freshly ground toasted cumin seeds, dried oregano, a couple of bay leaves and cayenne for heat.

Simmer it all together for a couple of hours: The beef will become incredibly tender and all those wonderful flavors will meld and deepen. In other words, it cooks down into crazy-good Texas chili. 

Here's the recipe:

Just the thing for watching (or not watching!) a hugely important football game in Texas. Let everyone serve themselves out of the pot. Put out bowls of chopped onion and grated cheese as garnish. Feel like making cornbread, or corn tortillas? That will go great – as will guacamole and chips. And beer. 

Houston, we have *no* problem. 

Blood orange panna cotta makes a dramatically divine (and surprisingly easy!) dessert

Blood oranges are the beach vacations of winter ingredients.

Huh? What? 

You know: It's cold out, and maybe gloomy. Maybe it's snowing. Maybe you have cabin fever. Maybe you're dreaming of stretching out on the sand on the Mayan Riviera under the sun, with crystal clear turquoise-colored water lapping at your toes. 

I'd love that, too. 

But instead, I'm going to reach for the next best thing: blood oranges. How lovely that something so juicy, so deliciously vibrant and summer-like comes into season in the dead of winter – and sticks around till May. 

A good part of their allure is visual. When they're whole, they look almost like regular oranges, but notice their slight rosacea blush. Slice one open, and it's gorgeous, its segments streaked in shades of crimson and and ruby red and blackberry. Now taste: They have a lovely flavor, sort of like oranges tinged with berry, or yes – cassis. 

In the United States, they're grown in California and Texas (two of the three states I have called home!). But I associate them with Rome, I think because once upon a time when I visited, I breakfasted on a hotel rooftop where they served crusty rolls with good butter – and glasses of fresh-squeezed blood orange juice. 

For cooks, blood oranges are a boon, as they're both delicious and dramatic. Count on them to elicit oohs and aaahs at the dinner table – especially if you spoon them over a delicately sweet, trembly-soft blood-orange-flavored panna cotta, Italy's famous custard-like dessert. 

Made from warmed, sweetened cream set with gelatin, panna cotta isn't a Roman dessert; it comes from Piedmont, according to The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, which also points out that it is "usually flavored with vanilla" (which I knew) "and peach brandy" (which I did not know). Often, the entry continues, it is served with fruit after it is unmolded, or with genuine balsamic vinegar. (Something to try! Though not with the supermarket stuff that passes for balsamic vinegar.) "It is increasingly popular with enthusiasts of the lighter side of Italian food," the 2007 book's entry concludes.

Indeed. Over the last decade, panna cotta has become a hugely popular restaurant dessert.

Happily, it is incredibly easy to make at home: In most versions, you bloom powdered gelatin over cold milk, then stir in cream that's been warmed just enough to dissolve sugar in it, cool the mixture, pour into custard cups, chill till they're set, then unmold just before serving. David Lebovitz, one of my favorite food bloggers, wrote recently, "if it takes you more than five minutes to put it together, you're taking too long!" He's not exaggerating.

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Blood orange compote

Flavoring a classic panna cotta with blood orange juice gives it a delightful new dimension.  It's wonderful on its own, but top it with a compote of blood oranges and it becomes positively spectacular.  

A few thoughts about the panna cotta itself, before we get to the blood orange compote. Traditionally, it's made with cream, which makes a really rich and thick panna cotta. I like my panna cotta lighter – and more silky than velvety – so I swap out most of the cream for half-and-half. And I don't want it too stiff: soft and trembly is the idea, so I use the minimum amount of gelatin possible in order for it to hold its shape (more or less) after unmolding. (If you want yours to be a little stiffer, add an extra half a teaspoon of gelatin to the three teaspoons my recipe calls for.) 

Because it involves blood orange juice, my recipe is a little different from the traditional one: You sprinkle the gelatin over blood orange juice, let it sit, then heat it up and dissolve the sugar in the juice. Let it cool a little, then stir in the half-and-half, cream and either vanilla or orange liqueur. Pour it into custard cups (which you've lightly oiled) and let them set up in the fridge. 

While they're setting, you can make the compote; for this the only real work involved is cutting the oranges. If you're comfortable slicing suprèmes, go for it – they make a beautiful presentation. (That's what's shown above.) To do this, use a sharp paring knife to cut all the peel and pith off each orange, then slice between each membrane to release the segments, freeing them of all the membranes. With a little practice, it becomes very easy. (Here's a good walk-through on the technique from Serious Eats – scroll down to "Citrus Suprèmes" to find it.)

If you don't want to sweat it, just cut the peel and pith off the outside of each blood orange, slice it, then quarter the slices. It'll still be really pretty.

When you're slicing, be sure to capture all the juice that escapes –  you'll need half a cup for the compote. You might want to have an extra blood orange or two on hand just in case you don't capture enough juice. Heat that juice with some sugar, and cook it down till it's syrupy, then stir in a spoonful of Cognac or other brandy and pour it all over the orange segments. 

When you're ready to serve it, run a small, sharp knife around the edge of each custard cup, then invert it onto a plate or shallow bowl and let the panna cotta unmold. Sometimes you have to give it a little nudge with butter knife to release it. Divide the blood orange compote over the panna cottas and serve.

Alternately, if you don't want to unmold the panna cotta – either because it makes you nervous or you prefer a different look – you can serve the panna cotta in a wine glass or dessert glass and simply spoon some of the compote over it. 

I happen to think it's the perfect light dessert to follow a rich holiday dinner. Yes, like roast duck! Or a crown roast of pork, or a prime rib.  It's also a great finish to a lighter New Year's Eve dinner – maybe steamed lobsters, or other seafood. 

I know what you're thinking: Recipe, please! Here you go . . . 

Meanwhile, here's some good news: Blood oranges have a nice, long season – they're usually available into May in California and Texas. So if you happen to fall in love it this dessert – or with the blood oranges themselves (they're wonderful eat out of hand, as long as you're not wearing a white tee-shirt) – this could be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. 

Ta-dah! This glorious roast lacquered duck is a game-changer for duck-lovers

Ten months ago, a recipe for Chinese lacquered roast chicken from Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes changed my life. It's brilliant and simple, and because it changed my life, I thought that was the end of that, recipe-development-wise. But the first time I wrote about it, my friend Michalene said, provocatively, "Have you tried it on a duck?"

I couldn't wait to give it a go. Unfortunately, it flopped: The duck's skin burned before the meat was cooked enough.

A mission was launched. I felt this duck could work, and I would find a way to make it work – even if I had to roast a hundred ducks. 

The very next try I got incredibly lucky – hitting the timing and temperature exactly right. What I got is what you see here: a gorgeous, shining, crisp-skinned duck whose meat was perfectly seasoned, wonderfully tender and incredibly succulent and flavorful. I couldn't believe something that insanely delicious was that easy to achieve. I made some Chinese steamed buns to go with it, and served it with cilantro, sliced scallions and hoisin sauce from a jar. But the duck needed no accouterments – it was incredible on its own.

Carving this gorgeous duck was almost as fun as eating it.

You don't have to give it an Asian spin, though. The duck works beautifully as the centerpiece of a festive European- or American-style feast, surrounded by things like roast potatoes or sweet potato gratin and Brussels sprouts or braised Tuscan kale. 

Here's how easy the killer duck is to achieve.  It takes some time – two days – but very little effort.

Two days before you're going to serve it, you paint the bird with a glaze made from half-honey and half-soy sauce, and scatter salt on it. Slide it (uncovered) on a pan in the fridge. Next day, paint the bird all over again with the leftover glaze, and let it sit uncovered in the fridge overnight again. Next day, roast the bird at 450 for ten minutes, turn the temp down to 325 and let the bird roast for two hours. 

That's it. No flipping the bird or basted or fussing about it in any way. No need to make a sauce to go with it – it's that delicious. It's the perfect dreamy dinner for two or three people.

But here come the holidays, I thought. Wouldn't it be great to make two ducks and make them star of a dinner for four two six? So I invited a couple of friends over, and made glazed two ducks. Into the oven they went, and when my friends arrived, the house was filled with their enchanting aroma.

An hour later, after nibbles and drinks and general optimistic glee, we took our seats at the table. But these two ducks were not as wonderful: Set just next to each other on their rack set in a sheet pan, they crowded each other, preventing even browning. One side of each bird was a wee bit flabby, and I had to turn them and leave them in the oven longer, monkeying with the temperature to brown them properly.

Back to the store I went, seeking more ducks. 

Fresh ducks have a funny way of showing up in stores at exactly the moment I'm not planning on making one. It's just like the hair-dryer in the hotel rule. If you pack a hair dryer, you'll find one in your hotel room when you check in. If you don't pack one, you won't find one.

Serve the lacquered ducks with roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes or sweet potatoes, and you've got an American-style holiday feast.

So, with two more friends invited for Saturday night duck dinner, on Wednesday I headed to the Whole Foods Market where I'd recently seen those gorgeous fresh ducks – at a much lower price than the last place I picked up a couple. (They set me back a whopping $45 each at Central Market; at Whole Foods they wanted $30-something each for 4 1/2 to 5 pound ducks.) When I arrived at Whole Foods this time, alas, there were no ducks to be had. I almost called another Whole Foods, when I thought better of it, deciding instead to head to the giant Asian supermarket, Super H-Mart, that's only a 10-minute longer drive from home. 

I thought I'd find fresh ducks at Super H-Mart, but I only found frozen ones. That was the bad news. The great news: The nice-looking Long Island ducks were only $16.50 apiece. Fortunately, they defrosted quickly enough for me to glaze them on Thursday. 

This time I solved the even-browning problem: I set them as far apart on the sheet pan as I could before roasting them. I thought I'd have to rotate the birds halfway through roasting for even browning, but those ducks continued to brown evenly as I looked in in them now and then. The space between them did the trick. Oh, man, they looked good – and they were!

This time I served them more Euro- or American-style: We started dinner with a baby kale and sweet-potato salad, then had the duck with roast potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta. It was a super-easy dinner to put together, as I literally never turned on the stove. (I'm lucky enough to have two ovens, though you could always make the potatoes ahead of time and reheat them and roast the Brussels sprouts while the duck is resting.) 

I'll let you go now. I know you'll want to run off and procure a duck or two. 

Here's the recipe:

Be sure to let us know how you love it! And happy holidays from Cooks Without Borders.