Pot-au-feu is the absolute funnest way to serve boiled food (not necessarily always the funnest food). It is traditionally made by boiling tough cuts of beef, maybe some marrow bones, and a bunch of vegetables all together in water, and then serving the resulting broth as an appetizer followed by a second course of the meat and vegetables with exciting sauces for dipping. For this chicken pot-au-feu, I use the Chinese “white-cut” method, a traditional poaching technique that involves simmering the chicken in water for a relatively short period of time and then turning off the heat, covering the pot, and letting the chicken sit and poach and get all silky and juicy. After pulling the chicken meat off its bones, put the bones back in the broth to mingle with the vegetables, which can be whatever you like, really. We’ll serve it with some crusty bread, a creamy mustard sauce with the surprise additions of Thai sweet chili and dill, and a Chinese scallion-horseradish sauce that I stole from my friend Francis Lam and then tweaked a little. This fairly hands-off project does take a couple of days, but it makes for a totally manageable, still super-impressive party.
Mexico has more than seven thousand miles of oceanfront and a wonderful coastal cuisine, especially along the Pacific. In comparison with other cultures, we add a lot of flavor to our fish dishes, so they’re rich and spicy. With so many peppers, herbs, and charred onions and garlic, you could say we season our fish too much, but it works.
For the past twenty-five years, I’ve been buying herbs from Fresh Herbs of Houston, which was founded by a Vietnamese woman named Pat, who came here back in the 1970s, and has been farming in Texas for many years. A decade ago, she asked me what special ingredients I might want for my menu and I answered flor de calabaza (squash blossoms). Pat has been growing squash blossoms for my restaurants ever since, and during the long summer season I buy more than a thousand of her blossoms each week. So, we two immigrants help each other.
I grew up eating Korean barbecue with my family only on special occasions, so this dish sparks many warm and fond memories for me. I wanted to re-create a version of Korean short ribs that also incorporated my love of South American and Middle Eastern flavors. The brightness of the chimichurri and the yogurt is a nice counterpart to the richness of the grilled short ribs.
If you can’t find vegan puff pastry to use as a lid for this pot pie, use a piecrust mix to make pie dough instead. Feel free to play around with the filling and omit the seitan if you want—but whatever you use should add up to a similar amount. Try using a mixture of mushrooms and cooked root vegetables in winter, or in summer, add uncooked peas, asparagus, or broccoli to the sauce before the lid is added.
Sweet roasted pumpkin, filled with nutty, fragrant rice and sharp barberries. Serve it as a main course with a green salad.
Add a world of flavor to your cauliflower dish using the three variations below: miso ginger, tandoori, or Middle Eastern.
I’m cheating here, because this isn’t entirely cooked in the oven, but the brief roasting is what helps Brussels sprouts achieve their optimum potential, instead of waterlogging them in a saucepan. I ate a similar dish at Rotisserie Georgette in New York—a restaurant that specializes in roast chicken—then came straight home and made this. It’s been a regular in my house ever since, and not just at Christmas.
The sauce here is rather like a vegetarian version of the Piedmontese anchovy sauce, bagna cauda (though it’s even more umami-packed). It’s not one of those vegetable recipes that feels like a side dish, where you keep searching for the focus, but has enough different flavors and textures from each vegetable to be layered and surprising.
I’ve heard that when we’re taking good care of ourselves, our bodies crave what they need. Well mine must need whatever is in this salad, because I find myself dreaming about it weekly! I’m also in a phase where I like to combine sweeter, richer foods like sweet potatoes and squash with a tart punch of citrus to balance things. This salad hits all of the right notes, and because it’s served at room temperature, you can make it the morning of and enjoy it all day long!