Friday, April 29, 2011

An American cookbook by Amanda Hesser

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century by Amanda HesserThere is a new cookbook and it is focused on American dishes.

Below is an excerpt from the book, which is also lifted from an article, as indicated below:


My book began in 2004 over a lunch of Sri Lankan food at a restaurant in Manhattan. Susan Chira, a foreign correspondent and editor at the New York Times, was cultivating book projects by the paper's staff–ers. She asked me if I had any ideas. I had exactly none, but we began talking about cookbooks. It occurred to me that of the many cookbooks containing recipes from the Times, the best known – the one on nearly all of my friends' mothers' kitchen shelves – was The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne. Still in print, it was originally published in 1961, nearly 50 years ago.

American cooking has seen monumental changes in the intervening decades. We discovered classic French food and then Italian, New American, Japanese and south–east Asian before looping back to France for a brief rendezvous with the bistro, and then on to the trattoria, tapas bar and British butcher. We learnt about seasonal cooking as well as local cooking, sustainable foods and artisanal ingredients. We became vegetarians, pescatarians, vegans and locavores. In 1961 there were lots of curious home cooks. Now there are lots of obsessed and well–informed foodies. Before lunch was over, this book was in the works. It would include the most noteworthy recipes all the way from the 1850s, when the paper began covering food, to today. Had I known then that it would take six years and entail cooking more than 1,400 recipes, I might never have started.


To read more, follow the source article below:
'The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century' by Amanda Hesser
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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Mimicked Recipes

By Mary Smith | Email the author | April 17, 2011


Make your favorite restaurant meals at home.


Have you ever wanted to make something from your favorite restaurant at home but didn’t know how to replicate it?  Maybe you are not sure what all the ingredients are or how long to cook it.  Maybe you think it’s impossible to get the same taste at home.
I recently came across a website dedicated to “copycat” recipes from your favorite chain restaurants.  You can search by restaurant name such as Olive Garden or Panera Bread Company or by the actual menu item.  For example, I love the broccoli and cheddar soup at Panera.  I found the copycat recipe and made it at home.  It was amazing!  I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. 
While these recipes are not the actual recipe from the restaurant (they would never give them up!), they are close copies that have been prepared in a test kitchen and tweaked to match the original.
This is my new go-to site to find Olive Garden’s awesome salad dressing recipe or the Bloomin’ Onion from Outback Steakhouse.  Over 1500 chain restaurant copycats are posted.  The sitewww.copykat.com is the brainchild of Stephanie Manley who began the website as a way to preserve her family’s recipes for future generations. 
Now you can enjoy your restaurant favorites without leaving the comfort of your own home!   You may even save some “dough” as well!
IHOP Buttermilk Pancakes
  • 1 ¼ cups flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 ½ teaspoons sugar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 egg, slightly beaten
  • 1 ½ cups buttermilk
Directions: Place first five ingredients into a bowl.  Add buttermilk, oil and egg.  With a spoon, mix all the ingredients and beat until smooth.  Heat a frying pan or griddle on medium low heat.  Pour a little oil or cooking spray onto pan.  Pour batter to desired size.  Let batter set until small bubbles appear on top.  Flip and finish cooking.  Serve warm with your favorite syrup.  Makes nine 5-inch pancakes. 
Olive Garden’s Chicken and Gnocchi Soup
  • 1 cup chicken breast, cooked and diced (you can use a rotisserie chicken)
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 1 quart half and half
  • 1 14-ounce can chicken broth
  • ½ cup celery, finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 cup carrots, finely shredded
  • 1 cup onion, finely diced
  • 1 cup fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • ½ teaspoon thyme
  • ½ teaspoon parsley
  • Freshly grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 pound potato gnocchi
Directions: Sauté the onion, celery, and garlic in the butter and olive oil, over medium heat.  When the onion becomes translucent, add the flour and make a roux.  Let the butter and flour mixture cook for about one minute before adding the half and half.  Cook gnocchi according to package directions.  Set aside.  Into the roux, add the carrots and chicken.  Once the mixture becomes thick, add the chicken broth.  Once the mixture thickens again, add the cooked gnocchi, spinach and seasonings.  Simmer until soup in heated through.  Makes eight servings.



Taken from lawrenceville.patch.com; source article is below:
Copycat Recipes


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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Royal Wedding Recipes

Slice of a chocolate cake.Image via WikipediaI'm copying this, and it may be a couple of recipes only, but what the heck? it is a royal recipe!
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With the upcoming wedding of England's Prince William of Wales to Catherine Middleton, chefs in D.C. have been baking their own royal confections.
Maris Justusson, pastry chef at the restaurantAgainn, has been serving two decadent British desserts.  She shares her two of her recipes inspired by the royal nuptials.
The traditional chocolate biscuit cake is said to be one of Prince William's favorites.  The fruitcake is a traditional bride's cake.
Ingredients:
  • 7 oz. broken up rich tea biscuits
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 2 Tbsp. honey
  • 2 oz. butter
  • 16 oz. chocolate
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Directions:
  1. Heat up heavy cream, honey and butter in saucepan
  2. Pour over chocolate and stir until smooth
  3. Fold in broken up tea biscuits
  4. Pour into greased and parchment paper lined cake pan (preferably a springform pan)
  5. Allow to set in fridge for 3 hours

Fruit Cake

Ingredients:
  • 12 oz. dried fruit (we're using apricots, golden raisins and chopped dates)
  • pecan pieces
  • brandy to soak fruit
  • 6 oz. butter, room temperature
  • 6 oz. powdered sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 yolks
  • 7 1/2 oz. all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
Directions:
  1. Soak dried fruit with brandy, set aside
  2. Cream butter and powdered sugar together
  3. Whisk together eggs and yolks and add them to the creamed butter slowly, scraping bowl well after adding
  4. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, then add to batter
  5. Drain fruit together and fold in, along with pecan pieces
  6. Fill greased and parchment paper lined cake pan 2/3 full
  7. Bake at 350 until golden brown
  8. Brush cake with brandy simple syrup while warm
Posted on Saturday, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:32 AM EDT



Taken from nbcwashington.com; source article is below:
Recipe For Royal Cakes

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Let’s cook! - A new book

If you are looking for a book, and a new one at that, which targets youngsters, or the young ones, or the toddlers, you have one. And it is coming from Malaysia.

It is a book that comes with a video, so if you are interested, check it out:
Let’s cook!
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