12 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook Make Bold, Fresh Food the Milk Street Way

12 Recipes that Will Change the Way You Cook Make bold, fresh food the Milk Street way CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL’S ◆ THE NEW HOME COOKING SPECIAL EDITION ◆ ◆ Special Edition Christopher Kimball’s MILK STREET Magazine The New Home Cooking ◆ RECIPE INDEX No-Sear Lamb or Beef and Chickpea Stew Page 2 Fluffy Olive Oil Scrambled Eggs Page 4 Chinese Chili and Scallion Noodles Page 5 Chinese White-Cooked Chicken Page 6 Cacio e Pepe, Gricia and Carbonara Page 8 Pinchos Morunos Page 12 Roasted Cauliflower With Tahini Page 13 Charred Brussels Sprouts Page 14 Red Lentil Soup with Spinach Page 15 Tahini Swirl Brownies Page 16 Israeli Hummus Page 17 Stovetop Chocolate Cake Page 21 Front Cover Photo: Joyelle West; Styling: Christine Tobin Back Cover Photo: Noam Moskowitz Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street in downtown Boston—at 177 Milk Street—is home how we cook by searching the world for bold, simple recipes and techniques that to our editorial offices and cooking school. It is also where we recordChristopher are adapted and tested for home cooks everywhere. For more information, go to Kimball’s Milk Street television and radio shows. Milk Street is devoted to changing 177MilkStreet.com. 12 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook [ EDITOR’S NOTE] C hristopher K imball One for Life, One for Love, President and Founder One for Death Christopher Kimball Media Director and Co-Founder Melissa Baldino Editorial Director - J.M. Hirsch recently dined at Sichuan peppercorns and the Food Editor - Matthew Card Art Director - Jennifer Baldino Cox la Grenouille in spicy white pepper so popular Managing Editor - Jenn Ladd Books & Special Editions Editor - Michelle Locke New York—the last of in Asian cooking. Staff Writer - Albert Stumm the old-world French These methods and ingre- Contributing Editor - Dawn Yanagihara I Science Editor - Guy Crosby restaurants. It provided a dients offer us opportunities Testing Editor - Taizeth Sierra timely reminder that classic to simplify and improve our Magazine Design - Joe Dizney American cooking is based own cooking. And they have Production Manager - A.K. Summers Associate Art Director - Brianna Coleman largely on the cuisines of changed the way I cook. This Graphic Designer - Devin Sullivan northern Europe. Tradi- cooking tends to be faster, or Director of Recipe Development - Diane Unger tional French cooking, in at the very least easier. To Kitchen Director - Erin Register Senior Recipe Developers - Erika Bruce, particular, is poorly suited to build flavor, it relies more on Elizabeth Germain Recipe Developers - Courtney Hill, Julia Rackow, the American home kitchen. foods and their affinities and Phoebe Maglathlin less on skill and precision. Contributing Recipe Developers - Bianca Borges, The weeknight kitchen even Lynn Clark, Sandra Rose Gluck, Alison Ladman, more so. This is the sort of cooking Jeanne Maguire, Kemp Minifie, Laura Russell, Joanne Smart, Cristin Walsh Classic European cooking anyone can do, and do with Director of Education - Rosemary Gill depends on a marriage of top- great success. It is neither Culinary Instructors - Josh Mamaclay, notch ingredients and fussy nor formal, and it occurs Jacqueline Grady Smith, Sarah Hartzell, Catherine Smart, Liz Vena advanced culinary technique every day, everywhere. We Media Relations Director - Deborah Broide to coax flavors, often slowly, would be well served—deli- Brand Development - Christopher Johnson ciously—to borrow from this. Vice President of Marketing - David Mack into perfect harmony. Poached Radio Producer - Amy Pedulla sea bass with a mélange of tiny Milk Street offers the Television Producer - Carly Helmetag Digital Marketing Manager - Stephanie Menezes vegetables surrounded by a proposition that America (and Digital Content Manager - Evan Petto Executive Assistant - Christine Gordon delicate nage is a case in point: the rest of the world) is experi- Customer Service - Jacqueline Grady Smith One false step and triumph encing a watershed moment. Receptionist/Office Manager - Maria DeRobertis Circulation Director - Stuart Jordan turns into an overcooked Like music and fashion, cook- Circulation Manager - Beth Freeman Reynolds disaster. I’ve learned it is best to leave that approach to ing is becoming a mashup of ingredients and tech- Business Consultant - Matt Sutton Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Cooking School the professionals. niques. There is no “ethnic” cooking. It’s a myth. offers cooking instruction at 177 Milk Street in Boston. For our curriculum and schedule, go to I’ve cooked the food of my New England child- It’s just dinner or lunch served somewhere else in 177milkstreet.com/cookingschool. hood for over half a century, followed by all things the world. Milk Street Sessions: French, maybe a taste of Italian. The table I grew up We think of recipes as belonging to a people and Milk Street offers live cooking sessions and interviews with guest chefs, cookbook authors and with is based on meat, heat, bread and root vegetables. place; outsiders are interlopers. At Milk Street, we food experts. Check www.177milkstreet.com It is a cuisine almost entirely devoid of spices, one that suggest the opposite, that the cooks of the world— for updates. uses a limited palette of herbs, fermented sauces or all of them—have a seat at the same table. Milk Street Tours: Tours of our Milk Street kitchen are available on a strong ingredients such as ginger and chilies. And so we give you 12 recipes that will change the first-come,first-served basis, usually the first The rest of the world thinks differently about way you cook. A beef stew that will leave you Monday of every month. Reservations required. Contact us at [email protected]. cooking. Water—not stock—produces soups and wondering why you ever bothered to sear meat. stews with cleaner flavors. Rich, velvety cakes are A whole chicken, cooked flawlessly and effortlessly, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio: Our radio show is broadcast weekly on cooked on the stovetop. Brussels sprouts are charred every time. Decadently rich brownies that will have public radio stations nationwide. Our weekly podcast is available on iTunes. For more, go to in cast iron, not the oven. Eggs are lighter and fresher you rethinking the peanut butter swirl. A trio of milkstreetradio.com. when scrambled in olive oil, rather than butter. Hum- Roman pastas that finally deliver creamy, cheesy Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television airs mus is warm, whipped and often breakfast. sauces with never a worry of clumping. weekly on public television stations nationwide. Job postings at Milk Street are available at The ingredients are different, too. Fish sauce, soy Let’s stop cooking in ways that made sense in the 177milkstreet.com/jobs. sauce, miso, rice vinegar and other pantry staples give 19th century, but not the 21st. Milk Street travels the To receive free recipes from Milk Street or Christopher Kimball’s Swearing Hill News, sign up the home cook a head start toward culinary success. world to bring the very best ideas and techniques, at 177milkstreet.com/newsletter. Instead of apple pie spice and a few dried herbs, what with no hard-to-find ingredients, strange cookware You can write to us at Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, 177 Milk Street, Boston, MA 02109, or about za’atar, dukkah, ras el hanout, togarashi, garam or all-day methods to slow you down. Milk Street email us your cooking questions at masala and baharat? And when it comes to pepper, cooking is a simpler, bolder way to cook. [email protected]. Illustration: John Dykes John Illustration: there are myriad choices, from Aleppo and Urfa to Welcome to Milk Street. 1 Christopher Kimball’s MILK STREET Magazine The rest of the world skips it. What do they know that we don’t? Stop Searing Meat for Stew Most cultures don’t bother searing meat for stew. Story by Christopher Kimball What do they know that we don’t? stopped making stews years ago. I blame our slavish adher- Au Revoir Maillard, and Good Riddance! ence to the idea that flavor is I built only by the tedious browning of meat at the start of a recipe. It’s the cult of the Maillard reaction, the high heat-triggered response between proteins and simple sugars that produces the flavors and aromas we associate with seared and roasted meats. There certainly is a time and place to play up Maillard—a grilled steak is a fine example. But the wet nature of stews means any browning must be done first and, even then, in small batches (else the meat steams instead of sears). It’s a messy, fussy and time-consuming process that I avoid. The good news is that when I went in search of like-minded cooks, I found a world full of them. Almost every culture has a stew that eschews browning. They usually involve simmering tough cuts of meat (the shins and shoulders of the meat world) with potatoes or beans, then finishing with a massive handful of herbs and strong condi- ments like horseradish. Take Dutch hutspot or the Austrian Tafelspitz, for example. So how did we end up addicted to Maillard? Northern European cuisine has two things in abundance: Milk Street Basics: Searing meat for stew is messy and fussy. The same savory meat and fuel. The English method of flavors can be built—better and more easily—with abundant herbs and spices. roasting meat over a wood or coal fire is a finely developed art. And thou- sands of recipes begin with “saute diments like fish sauce or soy sauce, a sear-free stew flavorful enough to the earthy sweetness they added. meat in a hot skillet or Dutch oven.” fresh herbs, hot peppers, fresh ginger satisfy Maillard-loving Americans? We wanted to use dry chickpeas be- One might say that the definition of and animal fats all stood in for the We took our inspiration from cause we usually prefer their texture “cooking” in Northern Europe was, flavors of browning.

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