Fettuccine with Venetian Chicken Sauce a recipe by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion , Stephen Darori

Venetian Sauce (French: Sauce vénitienne) is a classical French herb sauce used to accompany fish. It consists of:

• a velouté and fish fumet base
• equal quantities of tarragon vinegar and white wine reduced with:
• chopped shallots and chervil
• White wine sauce
• Herb juice

After cooking, it is strained and finished with chopped chervil and tarragon.


Fettuccine with Venetian Chicken Recipe

Redady in : 1hr 5mins
Serves: 6-8

Ingredients
2cups chicken stock or 2 cups chicken broth
8ounces boneless skinless chicken breasts
6tablespoons unsalted butter
1garlic clove, finely chopped
1cup finely chopped carrot
1⁄4teaspoon sea salt
1cup tomato juice, preferably organic
1lb dry fettuccine
freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Directions

• In a saucepan, bring chicken stock to a boil.
• Meanwhile, cut the chicken breasts into lengthwise strips about the width of a finger; drop the strips into the boiling stock.
• Cover and bring to a boil; decrease heat and simmer for 4 minutes.
• Remove the cover and set aside, allowing the chicken to cool in the liquid.
• When cool, transfer chicken to a cutting board and reheat the stock.
• Meanwhile, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in another large saucepan.
• Stir in the garlic and cook over low heat until the garlic becomes golden.
• Add 1 cup water to prevent the garlic from browning; stir to combine.
• Add in carrots and salt; cook over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture is nearly dry with just a bit of water left.
• Be vigilant and stir constantly toward the end of this step to be sure the carrots do not brown at all.
• Add the hot stock and tomato juice; cover and bring to a boil; decrease heat, set the cover ajar, and simmer gently for 35 minutes or until the carrots are very soft.
• Puree with an immersion blender until you have a smooth puree; set aside.
• Cut the chicken strips lengthwise into 1/8-inch thick slices, then cut across to make 1/8 inch dice; add the chicken to the sauce and reheat gently.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil; generously salt the water and add in the fettuccine.
• Cook, stirring often, until al dente; drain the pasta and transfer to a heated platter or shallow gratin dish.
• Toss with the remaining butter and fold enough sauce to coat the noodles generously.
• Sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano; serve immediately; pass more cheese at the table.

Veloute Sauce Recipe 

Total:20 min
Prep: 20 min
Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper

Directions


In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in the stock, 1/2 cup at a time. Whisk until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve.

Velouté sauce ... its history and a recipe from the Bard of Bat Yam Poet Laureate of Zion, Stepehen Darori

A velouté sauce (French pronunciation: ​[vəluˈte]) is a savoury sauce, made from a roux and a light stock. It is one of the five 'mother sauces' of French cuisine listed by Auguste Escoffier in the 19th century, along with espagnole, tomato, béchamel and hollandaise. The term velouté is the French word for velvety.

In preparing a velouté sauce, a light stock (one in which the bones used have not been previously roasted), such as chicken or fish stock, is thickened with a blond roux. Thus the ingredients of a velouté are equal parts (by mass) of butter and flour to form the roux and a light chicken or fish stock, with some salt and pepper to season as needed. The sauce produced is commonly referred to by the type of stock used (e.g. chicken velouté).

Derived sauces

Sauce velouté is often served on poultry or seafood dishes, and is used as the base for other sauces. Sauces derived from a velouté sauce include:

• Albufera sauce: Addition of meat glaze, or glace de viande.
• Allemande sauce: By adding a few drops of lemon juice, egg yolks, and cream
• Aurore: Tomato purée
• Bercy: Shallots, white wine, lemon juice and parsley added to a fish velouté
• Gravy: usually made with meat and/or vegetable drippings instead of a separate stock, but follows the same principle.
• Hungarian: Onion, paprika, white wine
• Normande sauce: prepared with velouté or fish velouté, cream, butter and egg yolk as primary ingredients. Some versions may use mushroom cooking liquid and oyster liquid or fish fumet added to fish velouté, finished with a liaison of egg yolks and cream
• Poulette: Mushrooms finished with chopped parsley and lemon juice
• Sauce a la Polonaise ("Polish style"): Sauce velouté mixed with horseradish, lemon juice and sour cream[4]. (Not to be confused with the topping garnish of breadcrumbs browned in butter and chopped hard-cooked egg, often with parsley.)
• Sauce ravigote: The addition of a little lemon or white wine vinegar creates a lightly acidic velouté that is traditionally flavored with onions and shallots, and more recently with mustard.
• Sauce Vin Blanc: Sauce Vin Blanc has the addition of fish trim, egg yolks and butter and is typically served with fish.
• Suprême sauce: By adding a reduction of mushroom liquor (produced in cooking) and cream to a chicken velouté.
• Venetian sauce: Tarragon, shallots, chervil
• Wine sauce: such as white wine sauce and champagne sauce

Veloute Sauce Recipe


Total:20 min
Prep: 20 min
Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper

Directions


In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in the stock, 1/2 cup at a time. Whisk until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve.

Mornay Sauce , its history and a recipe by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion, Stephen Darori

A Mornay Sauce is a béchamel sauce with shredded or grated Gruyère cheese added. Some variations use different combinations of Gruyère, Emmental cheese, or white Cheddar. A Mornay sauce made with cheddar is commonly used to make macaroni and cheese.

Etymology

The name origin of Mornay sauce is debated. It may be named after Philippe, duc de Mornay (1549–1623), Governor of Saumur and seigneur du Plessis-Marly, writer and diplomat, but a cheese sauce during this time would have to have been based on a velouté sauce, for Béchamel had not yet been developed.

Sauce Mornay does not appear in Le cuisinier Royal, 10th edition, 1820. Perhaps sauce Mornay is not older than the great Parisian restaurant of the 19th century, Le Grand Véfour in the arcades of the Palais-Royal, where sauce Mornaywas introduced.

In the Tout-Paris of Charles X, the Mornay name was represented by two stylish men, the marquis de Mornay and his brother, styled comte Charles. They figure in Lady Blessington's memoir of a stay in Paris in 1828–29, The Idler in France. They might also be considered, when an eponym is sought for sauce Mornay.

Sauces in French cuisine date back to the Middle Ages. There were many hundreds of sauces in the culinary repertoire. In cuisine classique (roughly from the end of the 19th century until the advent of nouvelle cuisine in the 1980s), sauces were a major defining characteristic of French cuisine.

In the early 19th century, the chef Marie-Antoine Carême created an extensive list of sauces, many of which were original recipes. It is unknown how many sauces Carême is responsible for, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds. The cream sauce, in its most popular form around the world, was concurrently created by another chef, Dennis Leblanc, working in the same kitchen as Carême.Carême considered the four grandes sauces to be espagnole, velouté, allemande, and béchamel, from which a large variety of petites sauces could be composed.

In the early 20th century, the chef Auguste Escoffier refined Carême's list of basic sauces in the four editions of his classic Le Guide Culinaire and its abridged English translation A Guide to Modern Cookery. He dropped allemande as he considered it a variation of velouté, and added hollandaise and sauce tomate, defining the five fundamental "mother sauces" still used today:

1. Sauce béchamel, milk-based sauce, thickened with a white roux 
2. Sauce espagnole, a fortified brown veal stock sauce, thickened with a brown roux 
3. Sauce velouté, light stock-based sauce, thickened with a roux or a liaison, a mixture of egg yolks and cream 
4. Sauce hollandaise, an emulsion of egg yolk, butter and lemon (or vinegar) 
5. Sauce tomate, tomato-based

A sauce which is derived from one of the mother sauces by augmenting with additional ingredients is sometimes called a "daughter sauce" or "secondary sauce".Most sauces commonly used in classical cuisine are daughter sauces. For example, béchamel can be made into Mornay by the addition of grated cheese, and espagnole becomes bordelaise with the addition of reduction of red wine, shallots, and poached beef marrow.






A specialized implement, the French sauce spoon, was introduced in the mid-20th century to aid in eating sauce in French cuisine, enjoying increasing popularity at high-end restaurants.

White Sauce or Bechamel Sauce Recipe

This used to be one of the first lessons in home economics classes; invariably white and pasty, it coated many a bland dish. When well made, however, it has a proper place in homey, creamed dishes, often making leftovers stretch or giving cooked foods new life. And it is important as a base for soufflés. The French term for this medium-thick white sauce is béchamel. The foolproof way to attain a perfectly smooth sauce is to have the milk hot when added to the butter and flour. It uses an extra pot, but as you become more proficient, this cautionary measure may not be necessary.

YIELD Makes about 1 cup

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 1/4 cups milk, heated
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the paste cooks and bubbles a bit, but don't let it brown — about 2 minutes. Add the hot milk, continuing to stir as the sauce thickens. Bring it to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste, lower the heat, and cook, stirring for 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove from the heat. To cool this sauce for later use, cover it with wax paper or pour a film of milk over it to prevent a skin from forming.
2. Cheese Sauce.
3. Stir in 1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese during the last 2 minutes of cooking, along with a pinch of cayenne pepper.

How hot should the milk be?
Warm the milk on low heat just until little bubbles begin to form at the edges. Then remove from heat.

Béchamel Sauce (White Sauce) ... its history and a recipe by the Bard Of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion and Stephen Darori

"White sauce" redirects here. For the sauce used on Fettuccine Alfredo, see Alfredo sauce. For the condiment associated with American halal street carts, s

Béchamel sauce

Milk infusing with bay leaf, peppercorns, shallot and flat-leaf parsley prior to being added to the roux

Béchamel sauce ( French: [beʃamɛl]), also known as white sauce, is made from a white roux (butter and flour) and milk. It has been considered, since the seventeenth century,one of the mother sauces of French cuisine.It is used as the base for other sauces (such as Mornay sauce, which is Béchamel with cheese).

Origin

Balsamell or Besciamella is the Italian equivalent of the French Béchamel: a very simple white sauce of flour, butter and milk. The sauce was originally from renaissance Tuscany and was known as “Salsa Colla or Colletta” ("glue sauce") because of the gluey consistency of the sauce, and was brought to France by the chefs of Catherina de’ Medici in 1533. Louis de Béchamel, Marquis de Nointel, was a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to King Louis XIV. The sauce was prominent in Italian cooking texts of the Renaissance as "salsa colla", but was renamed much later in Le Cuisinier François, published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne (1615–1678), chef de cuisine to Nicolas Chalon du Blé, marquis d'Uxelles. The foundation of French cuisine, the Cuisinier François ran through some thirty editions in seventy-five years.

The sauce originally was a veal velouté with a large amount of cream added.

Recipe

Prep Time 40 min

This is a quick and easy béchamel sauce.

Ingredients 

Serves: 8
5 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons plain flour
1 litre milk
1 dessertspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Method

1. Prep:5min › Cook:35min › Ready in:40min 
2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once melted, stir in the flour until smooth. Continue stirring as the flour cooks to a light, golden, sandy colour, about 7 minutes.
3. Increase heat to medium-high and slowly whisk in milk until thickened by the roux. Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and continue simmering until the flour has softened and not longer tastes of flour, 10 to 20 minutes, then season with salt and nutmeg.

Yorkshire Pudding, the history and a recipe from the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate Of Zion and Stephen Darori

Yorkshire pudding is a common British side dish consisting of a baked pudding made from batter consisting of eggs, flour, and milk or water.[1] It is a versatile food that can be served in numerous ways depending on the choice of ingredients, the size of the pudding and the accompanying components of the dish. As a first course it can be served with onion gravy. For a main course it is often served with beef and gravy and is part of the traditional Sunday roast, but can also be filled with foods such as bangers and mash to make a meal.

Mini Yorkshire puddings, served as part of a traditional Sunday roast

When wheat flour began to come into common use for making cakes and puddings, cooks in the north of Englanddevised a means of making use of the fat that dropped into the dripping pan to cook a batter pudding while the meat roasted. In 1737, a recipe for "a dripping pudding" (later named "The Yorkshire Pudding") was published in the book The Whole Duty of a Woman:

Make a good batter as for pancakes; put in a hot toss-pan over the fire with a bit of butter to fry the bottom a little then put the pan and butter under a shoulder of mutton, instead of a dripping pan, keeping frequently shaking it by the handle and it will be light and savoury, and fit to take up when your mutton is enough; then turn it in a dish and serve it hot.

Similar instructions were published during 1747 in the book The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse, with the name 'Yorkshire pudding'. It was she who renamed the original version, known as Dripping Pudding, which had been cooked in England for centuries, although these puddings were much flatter than the puffy versions made today. William Sitwell suggests that the pudding got the name 'Yorkshire' due to the regions association with coal and the higher temperatures this produced which helped to make the batter crispier.

Originally the Yorkshire pudding was served as a first course with thick gravy to dull the appetite with the low-cost ingredients so that the diners would not eat so much of the more expensive meat in the next course.An early recipe appeared in Sir Alexander William George Cassey's The Whole Duty of a Woman during 1737. Because the rich gravy from the roast meat drippings was used up with the first course, the main meat and vegetable course was often served with a parsley or white sauce.

In poorer households, the pudding was often served as the only course. Using dripping, a simple meal was made with flour, eggs and milk. This was traditionally eaten with a gravy or sauce, to moisten the pudding.

The Yorkshire pudding is meant to rise. The Royal Society of Chemistry suggested during 2008 that "A Yorkshire pudding isn't a Yorkshire pudding if it is less than four inches tall".

A Yorkshire pudding filled with mashed potato, beef, gravy and vegetables

Yorkshire pudding cooked in 22 cm diameter frying pan

Cooking method

Yorkshire pudding is cooked by pouring a batter made from milk (or water), flour and eggs into preheated, oiled, baking pans, ramekins or muffin tins (in the case of miniature puddings). A basic formula uses ​1⁄3 cup flour and ​1⁄3 cup liquid per egg. Water produces a lighter crisper but less sweet pudding than using milk. They can also be baked in the oven in muffin tins A 1926 recipe involves covering the pudding with greaseproof paper to steam it and then serving it with jam, butter and sugar.





Recipe

PREP: 5 MINSCOOK: 20 MINS
MAKES 8 LARGE PUDS OR 24 SMALL

The secret to getting gloriously puffed-up Yorkshires is to have the fat sizzling hot and don't open the oven door!

Ingredients

140g plain flour (this is about 200ml/7fl oz)
4 eggs
200ml milk
sunflower oil , for cooking

Method

Heat oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas 8. Drizzle a little sunflower oil evenly into 2 x 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tins or a 12-hole non-stick muffin tin and place in the oven to heat through.
To make the batter, tip 140g plain flour into a bowl and beat in four eggs until smooth. Gradually add 200ml milk and carry on beating until the mix is completely lump-free. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the batter into a jug, then remove the hot tins from the oven. Carefully and evenly pour the batter into the holes. Place the tins back in the oven and leave undisturbed for 20-25 mins until the puddings have puffed up and browned. Serve immediately. You can now cool them and freeze for up to 1 month.

Roast Pigeon, a recipe from the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion and Stephen Darori

ROAST PIGEON




Here in Zion, everyone seems to think there’s something dodgy about hunting and eating pigeons, which are, after all, a non-native, borderline invasive species totally unprotected in most states (although in the Bat Yam and Tel Aviv  they are, inexplicably, considered a pests).

Mind you, I’m not talking about hunting city pigeons, whose crops are stuffed with Doritos and cigarette butts. We chase “barnies” that live in semi-abandoned barns who spend their days gorging themselves on grain and seeds. Still, talk to any Israeli about Roast Pigeonand you’ll get the squinched nose. “Ew! Dirty!”


Sorry, but I have a thing for pigeons. I love hunting them, I love how fast they fly, how tough they are — pigeons don’t die easily — and I love how they taste. I know, I know, some of you are already tuning out. Fine. More for us. But can I hear from the Britons out there? Back me up: Wood pigeons are damn good, right?

This recipe is an homage to my Polish ancestors. It is just a simple roast pigeon, served atop a bed of roasted root vegetables, with a little malt (or beer) vinegar splashed on and served, ideally, with a British pale ale or a glass of claret.

The great chef Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating serves as my inspiration, with a few modifications. I probably cook as many little birds as anyone, and I have a few pointers you might want to learn before you pop your rock doves (or wood pigeons) in the oven.

First, pigeons are a red meat bird and should be eaten somewhere around medium.

What’s more, they are rarely fat, although once in a blue moon you’ll find a pigeon so morbidly obese you have no idea how it flew. (Those are a treat for the table, by the way.) Normally, however, you need to deal with athletic birds, able to cruise around at 55 miles an hour with a top end at close to 90 miles an hour; this makes them the fastest game bird in North America. Impressed yet?

Incidentally, if you like doves you will like pigeons. Pigeons are to doves what hares are to cottontails, or geese are to ducks: Bigger, smarter, tougher, older. Where most doves barely live a year, the average lifespan in the wild of a typical pigeon is five years. Yep, that’s older than most deer you shoot. So you’ll need to deal with that.

You can sometimes tell if you have old birds. Their feet look like they’ve been walked on for years and their keelbones are super hard. Young birds have a flexible keelbone and are just generally fresher looking. They also tend to have lighter colored meat. But it’s not an exact science.

So as an insurance policy against toughness, you need to start the cooking of the legs and wings before the breast. The easiest way to do this is to sear the legs and wings in hot butter or oil before you roast the bird. You don’t want to sear the breast, though, because you want it to be pink when you serve it. To do this, you need to hold the pigeon with tongs in the hot oil and be vigilant.

There is another way. I recently bought a nifty kitchen device called the Searzall Blowtorch Attachment. You screw this baby onto a Bernzomatic TS4000 Trigger Start Torch, which uses for fuel those little green propane tanks you get in the supermarket. Why not just use the torch? Because it gives meat a nasty propane stink. The Searzall converts the propane flame into radiant heat energy. I used the Searzall to pre-cook the legs and wings of the pigeons here, and it worked like a charm.

SavePhoto by Holly A. Heyser

I could have easily seared the breasts, too, and, had I wanted to, I might have been able to cook the whole bird with the torch. But I am still working out the ins and outs of this thing — and I wanted to give you a recipe that you can repeat without special equipment.

For any of you who have eaten doves, pigeons taste pretty much the same, although they can be a little more aggressively flavored. Squab, readily available in fancier restaurants, is just a baby pigeon. The closest parallel beyond that is wild duck, like a teal, only without the fat layer.


Pigeon is meaty, but not so much as venison or beef. Very tightly grained, especially the breast meat. It takes salt and vinegar very well, and is “gamey” only in the sense that it tastes like something, not like flaccid, corn-fed, penned beasts.

It’s a bird to get down on, too: Pick it up and gnaw. Sure, you can carve it and get all white linen, but I find it so much better eaten caveman style. Juices flowing, crispy skin on the legs, which are the best part to my mind.

So. Damn. Good. Go get some, people!

Roast Pigeon Recipe  with Root Vegetables
Prep Time
30 mins
Cook Time
1 hr
Total Time
1 hr 30 mins


Pigeons are a smallish, dark meat bird with very little fat. Closest substitution would be store-bought squab, which is to pigeon what veal is to beef. You could also use ptarmigan or sharp-tailed grouse. You'll only need one per person, and up the roasting time to 12 to 14 minutes. As for the vegetables, go for it. Use whatever you want. The more the better, and the crazier the better. I served this with salsify, parsley root, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes and golden beets. Have it it.
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: British
Serves: 4 people

Ingredients

2 to 4 pigeons, plucked and dressed
1/4 cup melted butter or olive oil
Salt and black pepper
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
4 to 6 Jerusalem artichokes, cut into chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
2 to 4 salsify roots, scrubbed and cut into 2-inch lengths (optional)
1 or 2 roots of Hamburg or root parsley, cut into chunks (optional)
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
Beer vinegar or malt vinegar, for garnish

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 425°F. Put all the chunked-up vegetables in a small roasting pan and coat with about half of the melted butter. Salt them well and pop them in the oven to roast. Take the pigeons out of the fridge when the veggies go into the oven. Let the pigeons come to room temperature for 30 minutes.
• Stir the root vegetables, which should be starting to get brown. Paint the pigeons with more melted butter and salt them well. Pour the remaining melted butter into a small pan and get it hot. Sear the sides of the pigeons in the hot butter. You want to get the legs and wings halfway cooked before the birds go into the oven. This should take about 6 to 10 minutes. Don't sear the breast meat.
• Check the vegetables. They should be pretty close to being done. If they are, remove them from the oven, put in a bowl and cover with foil. Turn the oven up to 475°F, or even 500°F if it will go that high. Wipe out the roasting pan. Let the pigeons rest for the 10 minutes or so this will take. When the oven is ready, put the pigeons into the roasting pan, breast side up. Roast for 10 minutes.
• Remove the pigeons from the oven and set on a cutting board. Turn off the oven, pour the vegetables back into the roasting pan, toss with the chopped parsley and set into the oven to re-warm and cook a bit further. Let the pigeons rest for 5 minutes before serving. Serve them surrounded by the vegetables, which you can season with a little vinegar if you want.

Fay Baker Drus's Brisket with Crispy Potatoe Leek Kugal and Roasted Garlic Asparagus , an edited and adaped recipe by the Bard of Bat Yam (#BardOfBatYam) , Poet Laureate Of Zion ( #PoetlaureateOfZion) , Stephen Darori,(@stephendarori)

YIELD
8–10 servings

INGREDIENTS


a 5- to 6-pound first-cut beef brisket

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 large yellow onions, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 5 cups or 3 pounds)

2 or 3 large garlic cloves, or to taste, minced

1 teaspoon paprika, preferably Hungarian

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a Dutch oven or other heavy baking pan large enough to hold brisket heat 1 tablespoon oil in oven 10 minutes. Pat brisket dry and season with salt and pepper. Roast brisket in pan, uncovered, 30 minutes.

While brisket is roasting, in a large heavy skillet cook onions in remaining 2 tablespoons oil over moderately high heat, stirring, until softened and beginning to turn golden. Reduce heat and cook onions, stirring occasionally and reducing heat if necessary, until deep golden, about 20 minutes more. Stir in garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute. Stir in 3 cups water and bring to a boil.

Spoon onion mixture over brisket and bake, covered, with lid 1/2 inch ajar, 3 1/2 hours, or until brisket is tender. (Check pan every hour and if necessary add more water.) Remove brisket from oven and let cool in onion mixture 1 hour.

Remove brisket from pan, scraping onion mixture back into pan, and chill, wrapped in foil, overnight. Spoon onion mixture into a 1-quart measure and chill, covered, overnight.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Discard fat from onion mixture, add enough water to mixture to measure 3 cups total, and in a blender blend gravy until smooth. Slice brisket against the grain (thick or thin, as you prefer). In a large ovenproof skillet heat gravy until hot, add brisket, and heat in oven 30 minutes.

Crispy Potato-Leek Kugel Recipe 



YIELD
Serves 8

ACTIVE TIME
45 minutes

TOTAL TIME
2 hours

INGREDIENTS

9 medium russet potatoes (about 4 1/2 pounds), peeled
7 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
3 medium leeks, white and pale-green parts only, thinly sliced crosswise
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided, plus more
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small onion
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, divided
Special Equipment:
An 8x8" baking pan

PREPARATION

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Cut 4 potatoes into 1" chunks and place in a medium pot. Cover with cold water by 1". Season water generously with salt, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook until potatoes are tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain well, transfer to a large bowl, and mash with a potato masher; set aside.
2. Meanwhile, heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet over medium until shimmering. Add leeks, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until softened and golden, 5-8 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1-2 minutes more. Remove pan from heat and let cool slightly.
3. Grease bottom and sides of an 8x8" baking pan with 2 Tbsp. oil. Place pan in oven for 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, grate 3 potatoes and onion using the large holes of a box grater or a food processor fit with a shredding blade. Wrap potatoes and onion in a clean dishtowel or several layers of paper towels and squeeze out as much liquid as you can; add to the bowl with the mashed potatoes. Stir in sautéed leeks and garlic, eggs, 2 Tbsp. oil, 1 Tbsp. thyme, 2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper; mix until well combined.
5. Thinly slice remaining 2 potatoes and toss with remaining 1 Tbsp. oil, 1 tsp. thyme, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper in a medium bowl; set aside.
6. Carefully remove preheated pan from oven and transfer potato-onion mixture to the pan (it should sizzle when it hits the hot oil). Smooth top with a spatula. Layer potato slices over the top in a shingled fashion. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, 60-75 minutes. Heat broiler; broil kugel until crispy crust forms, 1-2 minutes, watching carefully so it does not burn. Let cool briefly, then cut into squares to serve.

Roasted-Garlic Asparagus Recipe 



YIELD 
Makes 6 servings

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons fresh finely chopped parsley
2 pounds thin asparagus, ends trimmed
Fleur de sel or coarse sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

PREPARATION

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Line a large jelly-roll pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
3. In a small pot, heat the oil, garlic, onion powder, and parsley on medium-low heat. Cook for 3 minutes, until the garlic mixture is fragrant but not browned.
4. Spread the asparagus in a single layer on the prepared pan. Lightly sprinkle with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Drizzle on the garlic-oil mixture.
5. Roast for 8-10 minutes, until the asparagus are bright green; do not overcook.
6. Transfer to a platter and serve hot.