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In the 1970s, when everyone and their sisters and brothers became enchanted with French cooking, with Julia Child leading the way, quiche became the savory custard pie. The classic, quiche Lorraine, made with bacon and Gruyère cheese to enrich the custard, enjoyed star status as an elegant staple for brunch or for a first course in a multitiered dinner à la français. Variations in great numbers soon followed, and quiche in one or another guise turned into a favorite on buffet tables and appetizer menus. Here, with Toulouse sausage and a green splotch of spinach, the lovable custard-in-a-crust reinvents itself into an uncomplicated light dinner. Even though it is easier to purchase a prepared pastry crust, to settle for that is to miss the flaky, unctuous mouth delight of a homemade one. A food processor provides a quick, simple, and almost hands-free way to make an exceptional crust. A removable-bottom tart pan, such as the type the French would use for quiche and sweet dessert tarts, makes it easy to present the pie standing alone rather than in a dish, which is more awkward to serve from.

Why Pittsburgh? Because James Potenziani, known to all as “Chooch,” is Italian American and grew up in Pittsburgh. He was the master behind the sausage machine at Pig-by-the-Tail. He is also a football person (he always roots for the Steelers), and he devised the Pittsburgh sausage sandwich to celebrate on Super Bowl day. It became a year-round favorite at Pig-by-the-Tail.

On my brief sojourn in the Toulouse area, I traveled to many local villages and towns acclaimed for their charcuterie. Among them was Castelnaudary, a small village built of stone, close by the fairy-tale-like medieval castle of Carcassonne. The castle was a thrill; even more so was the cassoulet I enjoyed in Castelnaudary, known as the cradle of cassoulet. I mustered the nerve to ask the chef what his secret was. He graciously shared his version of “the cassoulet secret”: The kind of beans you use is crucial. They should be lingot beans, also called white kidney beans or cannellini beans, or coco beans, which resemble slightly elongated navy beans. Both are sweetly buttery and cook up soft and tender enough to soak up juices, but still hold their shape. Then, the beans must be allowed to cool completely in their cooking liquid before assembling the cassoulet. Overnight is best. Stuffed whole duck legs (drumstick and thigh combination) make a delectable sausage star for a faux cassoulet. To sidestep the lengthy process of curing the duck overnight then braising it in duck fat to make confit, the whole legs are sprinkled with a salt and herb seasoning and refrigerated for a few hours to allow the seasonings to imbue. The sausage is then stuffed under the thigh skin, making a single package of sausage and duck meat.

Tomatillos are a member of the nightshade family, which includes New World tomatoes and potatoes and such Old World relatives as eggplants. Although those wide-ranging kin have become familiar around the globe, tomatillos remain something of a country cousin, not much appreciated or grown outside Mexico and its neighbors to the south in Central and South America and to the north in California and the American Southwest. Tomatillos are an everyday must in Mexican cooking and dining, however, especially for one of Mexico’s great table sauces, salsa verde. Here the sauce, usually used as a dip for tortilla chips, becomes the medium for simmering meatballs. Make this recipe in summer, when tomatillos are in season. Canned versions are available, but they should be reserved for thickening chile verde and the like, much as okra is used in southern cooking.

I opened Pig-by-the-Tail because I wanted to bring to the American marketplace the charcuterie I had fallen in love with on sojourns to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Austria. Two years after its debut, I decided it was time to put some “bones” onto that passion. I traveled to France to learn from M. Roger Gleize, the charcutier in the small town of Revel in the Haute-Garonne just outside of Toulouse. It was an eye-opening experience to watch him use a hand grinder to grind pounds and pounds of perfectly succulent pork, not too lean, not too fat, for the region’s specialty Toulouse sausage. He seasoned the meat with salt, peppers, and a dash each of nutmeg and sugar, and then added a soupçon of water to moisten the mixture for easier stuffing. He fitted the same manual machine with a sausage-stuffing funnel and proceeded to turn out a seemingly endless supply of fresh Toulouse sausages. Everything he made was quickly purchased by local households to use for their daily meals and by local restaurants to include in the renowned cassoulet of the region. From that sojourn, I carried home a deep admiration for simply, yet perfectly done ways with food, and Toulouse sausage became one of my go-to household sausages. For this book, I have modified the recipe to call for bulk sausage, rather than links. But, if you would like to follow tradition, use hog casing.

Mexican meatballs are typically made with a mix of pork and beef (or veal) and include bread crumbs or rice to plump them and egg to bind the ingredients. From there, seasoning variations abound: garlic and/or onion, or not; herbs and/or spices (usually cumin and oregano, sometimes mint); elements such as raisins and/or olives (a Peruvian variation); and so on. Zucchini, the “special ingredient” I use here, was suggested by Mexican cooking maven Diana Kennedy. It lightens and freshens the sausage in a way I find pleasing, so I use it for my basic recipe.

Omelet, frittata, egg tortilla—all are different words for essentially the same thing: eggs mixed with vegetable and/or meat bits and cooked into a cake or pancakelike round. The advantage of this version is that it follows the Spanish or Italian custom of baking the assembled dish. That means no intimidating calisthenics to flip the cake to cook the second side. I serve this informal dish in its cooking skillet, but it’s also easy to lift it out onto a platter.

In many Mexican marketplaces and town plazas, the aroma of garlic soup wafts from nearby restaurants, beckoning as you shop, promenade, or just wander and gawk. It’s an ancient soup, dating from the time the Moors introduced a brothy concoction to the Iberian Peninsula, which the locals thickened with pulverized almonds (Chicken and Almond Meatballs in White Gazpacho, page 115). In the New World, the soup was re-created to include tomatoes and dried chiles. That rendition came to be embraced by lovers of Latin fare from the coast of Spain to the zocalos of Mexican towns to the American cities of the Pacific coast. It is an ardently delicious, deep red, beautiful soup that brings with it a blessing of health to the diners, and is blessedly easy to make.

A glory of black beans, in addition to such qualities as their beauty and healthfulness, is that they don’t need to be presoaked: they easily yield to softening when boiled straightaway. Then, they are ready to accept all manner of embellishments, such as sausage, Mexican spices, and sweet-sour-hot chipotle cream.

Chorizo, at home in many cuisines, appears with multiple ethnic faces from Spain and Portugal to Mexico, South America, and the Latino-inspired cooking of the American Southwest. It can be stuffed into hog casing and used fresh, or briefly aged in the casing to dry out and intensify the flavors. Sometimes it is smoked, becoming more like a salami in texture. Often it is used fresh in bulk for dishes that benefit from a hit of red and spice. This version comes from Anzonini, a flamenco guitarist and world-class chorizo maker, who generously offered his recipe to Pig-by-the-Tail. We made tons of it, and it was always special! On chorizo-making day, the links were hung on the baking-tray rack for a few hours to dry and compact. The dangling sausages festooned the kitchen like chile-red curtains. It was a spectacle of hospitality and appreciated, judging by the number of customers who came to purchase some to take home when they were “done.”

In the early eighteenth century, Spanish colonists brought a paprika-and-cayenne-seasoned sausage to Louisiana, where they added fresh red chiles and a dash of vinegar to create what is now known as Creole sausage. It is an assertive sausage that rings out “Let the good times roll!” It dances sprightly in gumbo with shrimp and oysters (page 21) and lends vivacity to a New Orleans plate with crab cakes and Cajun rémoulade (page 128). It is also delicious formed into appetizer-size balls, sautéed, and served with rémoulade for dipping.

Sausage in a gumbo usually means smoked sausage. Sometimes Louisiana smoked ham, called tasso, is also added or is used in place of the sausage. A roux (a mixture of flour and fat) is the traditional thickener, usually augmented with filé powder (ground dried sassafras leaves) or okra. In keeping with today’s taste for lighter fare, I swap the smoked sausage and/or ham for my homemade sausage and eliminate the roux. The okra alone does the thickening, and the step of soaking the okra pods in a salt-and-vinegar bath before adding them to the pot ensures they won’t be overly viscous. It is important to use dried herbs and canned tomatoes to produce the distinguishing flavors of this dish from a cuisine built around preserved goods. Make sure the okra is fresh, however. I like to use shrimp in the shell because they enrich the broth. That does make for somewhat messy eating, however. If you want to save your guests the trouble of peeling their own shrimp, remove the shells and simmer them in 1 cup of the broth, then strain the liquid into the pot when adding the remainder of the broth. Shell-on shrimp are easy enough to devein, if it’s necessary to do so, by simply cutting through the shell along the back of each shrimp with a sharp paring knife.

Bourbon whiskey, a uniquely American spirit, can be used in cooking the same way wine often is in French recipes, as a splash that lends a subtle, aromatic presence and a bit of moisture. A whiskey sausage, with its breath of musty sage, makes a perfect grilling patty for sandwiching in a bun smeared with tomato chutney. Or, you can roll the sausage into small balls and serve them with the chutney as a dipping sauce. Two things distinguish this speedy chutney from bona fide tomato ketchup: its consistency is a little looser and less dense, and it is made in little more than half an hour. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 months before its savor diminishes. Use it also to accompany pork chops or grilled chicken or game.

Chestnuts are a cold-weather crop, available from early fall to the end of winter. At that time of year, when the plane trees in Italy’s town squares occasionally still have some leaves left from summer and no sign of spring is in sight, vendors set up sidewalk braziers in the piazzas and roast chestnuts over open fires. They are served up right off the grill, piping hot, in newspaper cones. You have to be out and about to get them that way, and bundled in suitably warm clothing to guard against the weather. Once you buy them, it’s a slow, peel-as-you-go proposition. But somehow the divine combination of freshly roasted chestnuts and a hot coffee from a nearby stand chases away the cold and lessens the effort necessary to pry off the invariably recalcitrant charred shells and inner skins. With the already peeled, freeze-dried or vacuum-wrapped chestnuts now available, the pleasure, albeit without the char but also without the chore, is brought to the home kitchen year-round. If you do not use all the chestnuts in the package, freeze the remainder. If you store them in the refrigerator, they will mold after just a few days.

Of all the winter squashes, butternut is my favorite. Not only is it easy to peel for soups or gratins, but its flesh is also exceptionally creamy and sweetly invites a sausage filling. Stuffed with pork and chestnut sausage, these squash boats can stand alone as a main course, with steamed rice and a sturdy-leaf green salad for side dishes. They also make a notable side dish for a holiday turkey or crown roast. For precooking the squash, I like to take the microwave advantage. It’s ever so much faster. But for finishing the dish, I use the oven because it produces a toastier, more visually appealing look.

Pigs in a blanket was a dish my mother made when it was time for a-something-special for dinner. Customarily, the pigs are sausages and the blankets are biscuit pastry of some sort, sometimes with a band of bacon between the two. My mother favored swathing the sausages in bacon only and cooking the bundles in the oven per the usual method. I was always intrigued to watch the care she took to turn them frequently, making sure they browned and cooked evenly all around. Later in life, I created a more sophisticated rendition: the blankets became chicken scaloppine, the pigs transmogrified to a homemade sausage, and red wine entered the ingredient list—still plenty easy, still plenty special. Pork and chestnut sausage makes the dish quite elegant, but a humbler sausage, such as Toulouse, sweet Italian, or American breakfast sausage is also suitable. The rolls can also be cooled, then sliced and used as part of a charcuterie appetizer plate.

The advantage of including the sausage in the pancake batter is that you don’t have to use a second pan to cook the sausage for a side. It saves thermal unit energy, making it ecofriendly, and it saves the energy of the cook because there are fewer dishes to wash. The addition of polenta, which is more coarsely ground than cornmeal, makes for a slightly nubby texture and pleasing “bite.” For an everyday breakfast, I usually make the pancakes plate size, but they make a fine stack of dollar-size pancakes, too, if you’d like to go for “more” rather than “bigger.” Use about 2 tablespoons for each dollar-size cake; you should end up with about 18 pancakes. The batter, without the added sausage, can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days; just before cooking, stir in the crumbled sausage. Using grade B maple syrup accents the rustic theme. It is also the grade recommended by savvy Vermonters, who prefer its deeper, browner lushness over grade A.

This is the ultimate “anything goes” dish. All you need is some sausage and any kind of raw or cooked meat you might have on hand. We use a tasty mix of sausage, chicken, pulled pork, and ham. The only thing you can’t skip are the chicken livers. That’s what makes Dirty Rice dirty and gives it its deep, rich flavor. We’ve been servin’ it every Wednesday as a featured side, and we’ve found that Central New Yorkers really appreciate this frugal New Orleans specialty. It’s also good as a stuffing for Cornish hens, pork chops, or turkey.

A few years back, we were closed on Sunday. People kept turnin’ up anyway, so we gave in and opened with a limited menu. We created this soup just for that day. It has a good Sunday vibe.

Here’s a stew that comes and goes on our menu, rotating with a couple of other meat stews. It’s lighter than the others and is simmered with ten different vegetables. It’s healthy food for your meat-lovin’ soul.