Archive for the ‘Savory Main Dishes’ Category
One of my favorite food memories from my trip to Paris a few months ago was going out late at night near the Eiffel Tower and queuing up with a bunch of other people to get freshly made crepes, then sitting in the park enjoying the lights of the tower while eating. The crepes were so good that the first night I had one, I ate it just after crossing the street away from the crepe stand, then turned back around and ordered another. They were that good. At home, I usually make crepes for breakfast and fill them with jam. The street crepes, while sweet options were available, were most popular in their savory incarnations. I liked the ham, cheese and egg crepes best.
I was glad that I had the opportunity to watch the crepes being made because the process was a little different than you might expect. I fully anticipated that the fillings would be added after the crepe was cooked. Instead, they were cooked right on the crepe itself – even the egg! A few practice runs and home with my own crepes, and I now I have a method that seems to come out almost as well as the crepes I had in France. The French crepes will always have the late-night Eiffel Tower advantage over mine, however.
To make these crepes, you need a large frying pan, preferably one that’s about 12-inches across. A crepe pan is not necessary unless you’re going into the crepe business. You could make smaller crepes, but you might have to compromise on how you fold it to get all the filling it. It’ll still taste good, however. I used deli sliced ham and havarti cheese for these. Turkey meat is good, too, if you’re not a fan of ham, even though the saltiness of the ham really goes well with the egg and cheese. Havarti and Swiss are my two favorite cheeses for these, but feel free to use your favorite sliced or shredded cheese. The amounts given below are just suggestions, as I tend to eyeball the amount of cheese I’m using. No matter how you tweak the filling, you’ll end up with a great-tasting crepe. The batter can me made in advance and will keep well in the fridge for about 2 days, as long as you give it a stir before using.
I don’t usually provide step-by-step photos for recipes, but in an effort to recapture even a hint of the experience of watching a pro make crepes, I’ve photographed all the steps to go along with this recipe.
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Chicken pot pie is comfort food, no doubt about it. As with all types of comfort food, everyone has their own way of making it – and there are tons of freezer-read options available that try and entice people not to make it themselves. Chicken pot pie is definitely worth making at home because it is so much better than the frozen pies you can buy and you can always customize it to suit your own tastes.
For me, chicken pot pie should be kind of like a very hearty, creamy chicken soup that happens to be in pie form. I don’t want it to be so thick that it slices like custard; my pie needs to be scooped out of the pie dish. I also don’t want the crust to overwhelm the pie; I use only a single top crust to cover my filling. Elise has an excellent chicken pot pie recipe, and I base my pie off of hers. The biggest change I make from her recipe is that I usually start with a rotisserie chicken and shred up the already cooked meat, rather than starting with raw chicken and making the stock for the pie myself. It’s very convenient this way, and it is a great use for leftover chicken if you have a lot to use up. I often go out and buy a chicken from the market right before I make a pot pie because I like a lot of chicken in mine and don’t usually have that much laying around as leftovers when I cook chicken at home!
My “secret” to pot pie is to use homemade pie crust for the top. It always comes out flaky and crispy, and it really doesn’t take very long to make it. I usually mix up the dough, chill it for only a few minutes while I cook the filling, and then roll it out before the pie goes into the oven. That said, it’s not necessary to use homemade pie dough. A sheet of puff pastry works well as a topper for this dish, too.
The filling for this pie is rich and creamy, with a consistency like a medium-thick gravy (thicker than I make gravy, thinner than the gravy you’ll find at your average diner). Its subtly spiced with thyme, which leaves lots of room for the flavor of the chicken to come out and shine. This recipe makes enough to fill up a deep dish pie plate and will definitely overfill a smaller one. You can use a casserole dish if you don’t have a smaller pie dish. If you must use a smaller pie plate, put the leftover filling into a ramekin, top with its own piece of puff pastry, and bake it off, too.
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Crustless Quiche is one of my favorite easy dinner dishes to make. Quiche doesn’t sound like it would be a quick-fix dish at any time, but this quiche doesn’t use a traditional pastry crust, which really cuts down on the prep time. Instead, the quiche filling includes some all purpose flour and baking powder, in addition to eggs, milk and other standard quiche ingredients. In the oven, the filling separates into a very thin crust layer and a tender egg/custard layer. The crust provides just enough stability to make the quiche easy to slice and give the dish some texture, but it doesn’t add any of the extra fat or calories that the traditional pastry crust has.
From start to finish, it takes very little time to throw this recipe together and, like most quiches, you can use just about any kind of vegetables or cheese that you like. It’s very easy to make these vegetarian, but I used a combination of sausage and mushrooms in this quiche. The sausage, mushrooms and any other vegetables need to be cooked beforehand on the stove, since the oven cooking time is relatively short.
I used Chicken Chipotle sausage (I get them at Trader Joe’s) in my batch, but you can use any type of sausage that you like. Since the chipotle adds a lot of spice – and I tend to like spicy sausages in general – I kept the additional peppery spices to a minimum in the recipe. If your sausages are mild, add in some more pepper, or even some red pepper flakes to jazz things up a bit.
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I like to make soup frequently in the winter. Not only is it warm and comforting, but it also gives me an extra outlet for freshly-baked breads, since just about every soup is better with a bit of bread dipped into it. French onion soup is one soup that bread is essential to because the traditional way to finish off the soup is with a layer of melty gruyere cheese and you really need a toasted piece of bread underneath to hold it up! French onion soup also happens to be one of my favorite soups to make because it is surprisingly easy to put together.
The soup starts out with thinly sliced onions, cooked in a large pot over medium-low heat until they are a deep, golden brown. Caramelizing onions takes quite a bit of time to do, especially with a huge batch of onions, but it is necessary to release all the natural sweetness of the onions and is crucial in producing a good soup. You can use pretty much any kind of white or yellow onion. I often use a combination of sweet Vidalia onions and regular yellow onions. Once the onions are done, beef broth/stock is added in, along with a bit of thyme and some salt and pepper, and all you have to do is wait until it comes together.
I’ve seen recipes that are more involved, or add more flavorings to the soup, but I’ve found that this one is rich and satisfying. Start with a good beef broth, lots of onions, and have bread and cheese at the ready – and you’ll definitely have a satisfying soup on your hands.
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I always make too much spaghetti when I cook it for dinner. In fact, I always make too much pasta of any shape. In an effort to control the problem, I used to try and measure out how much pasta I was using with a scale or a measuring cup, but since I inevitably ended up throwing an extra handful or two into the pot (it never really looked like enough just sitting there!), I have long since given that up and am resigned to the fact that I’ll just always have more pasta than I can eat in one sitting.
Making a frittata is one of the best ways to use leftover pasta. You can use any size or shape of pasta, regardless of whether it was cooked with sauce, sausage or any other extra ingredients. The leftover pasta is stirred into a mixture of eggs and cheese, then cooked the same way that any other frittata is: cooked until set on the stovetop, then cooked under the broiler to finish it off. Spaghetti is my favorite type of pasta to use in a dish like this. My leftover pasta almost always has some marinara sauce still on it, and I mix that leftover sauce into the frittata as well. For this particular frittata, I also stirred in some fresh diced tomato and some feta cheese – delicious! The eggs hold everything together well and the dish is so unique and tasty (not to mention easy) that you’ll probably make it again and again. Vary the cheese and other add-ins to suit your tastes.
You can cut down on the number of egg yolks by substituting 2 egg whites for one of the whole eggs. I wouldn’t recommend cutting back on the number of eggs, however. The eggs are what give the dish structure, hold it together and make it really exceptional – not to mention that they keep it from being a sticky pile of leftover noodles.
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