Make Ahead

Here is the dessert we served on opening day at Joe Beef. You can use small foil molds or teacups for serving.

We champion this generalization: gentlemen eat their beef with steak sauce—the brown type, thick and sharp. Although we support Heinz ketchup and we think it calls for respect and pride, we don’t use bottled steak sauce. Here is an easy and tasty alternative. It is delicious with Filet de Boeuf (page 248).

A great way to maintain matrimonial bliss is not to make classic stock in your house. Do this one instead. It’s another one-Creuset wonder where everything goes in the oven. It’s enough for a few recipes, plus you can eat the meat with pickles and mustard for a classic French snack. You can use a bit more meat if you have it. This is more of a guideline than a recipe. Remember that when you make a stock, it has to look like you would want to eat the meat at any stage—that is, don’t use old meat or lean cuts. You want that marrow taste and that thick jelly feel.

Montreal institutions like Gibbys and Moishes have been selling their own classic steak spice for decades. Here’s our take on the Montreal steak spice. This is an all-purpose seasoning used in many Montreal-style beef, pork, and steaky fish dishes.

Hot, it’s beef stew. Cold, it’s jellied beef stew.

Sauce Vin Rouge is our mother-ship sauce, good on all matters of protein. When seasoning this sauce, or any sauce, keep in mind that it won’t be consumed like a soup, so go ahead and be relatively liberal with the salt.

Here is another of our kitchen staples, which tastes like an extraction of the essence of onion soup. Awesome on liver, veal, beef, or even schnitzel, it’s the taste of winter in Paris.

When we opened Joe Beef, we didn’t have a patio. We had a patch of wasteland where only burdock grew. Not many people know what burdock is, though they may have seen or eaten the roots in vegan or Japanese restaurants. Its Latin name is Arctium lappa and it is a biennial plant, which means that the first year it makes a long taproot and hairy rhubarblike leaves. It survives the winter because of its reserve of food, and then the second year, it bears flowers, then fruits. These itchy little clingers stick to your pants. It’s a treasure chest of medicinal virtue for lungs, hair, and bowels. We didn’t know what to do with it. But the four leathery-skinned Italian men who came to lay our concrete slab knew what to do with it. In fact, it took them four hours to lay the slab, half of which was spent carefully pulling and collecting the burdock roots. They said they would wash it when they got home, then steep it in red wine and consume it as a tonic. So now every year, we send the newbies to dig for burdock in the fertile grounds of the Liverpool House backyard and make a few bottles of that tonic.

Orzo is the Italian word for barley, and the slender, grain-shape of orzo pasta makes for a no-fuss, neatly consumed salad, particularly if you are balancing a plate while perched on the edge of a sofa or standing around the TV watching the Super Bowl. Although the salad makes for a great accompaniment to the Stuffed Sliders Your Way, your vegetarian friends will thank you for providing them with an option they will really enjoy as their main dish.

Colcannon, a classic Irish combination of mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale, is standard winter fare. If that sounds, well, boring, trust us, this version is anything but that. We freshen it up by cooking the potatoes and cabbage separately, then we make it easy to serve for a party by adding an egg and baking it in a pie pan, so that you can cut it into wedges.

Chef Justin Devillier purées bread into this soup to achieve a silky texture. For the best results, caramelize the onions over low heat.

Chef Kevin Roberts transforms humble cauliflower into a dead ringer for shrimp cocktail with a brief poach in cleverly seasoned water and a dunk in cocktail sauce. "It's something my mom used to make for us," he explains. "As kids, we went to the lake a lot, and she would throw this down as a snack. It's also a great party option for vegetarians and people with shellfish allergies."

Pickled red onion adds crunch and punch. Serve with crudités.

Serve this simple compote with yogurt for breakfast, or spoon it over ice cream for dessert.

You'll need to start these pickles a day ahead, so plan accordingly.

Based on the classic pâté à choux or cream puff pastry from my culinary school days, this elegant and easy appetizer can be made ahead. It can be prepared dairy-free, too, but egg substitutes won't work as the eggs are necessary to help create the structure of these bite-size treats.

This recipe is all about the eggs, so use the best you can find; farm-direct pastured eggs are ideal (though even commercial eggs are delicious deviled this way). Deviled eggs tend to disappear the second you serve them, so it’s always good to make more than you think you might need. This recipe can easily be doubled. If you’re bringing these to an event, it’s best to prepare the components ahead of time and assemble the eggs on site. It’s much easier to transport that way.

I’m particularly proud of our house-made sausages, which we have been making and selling at the Market since day one. They’re delicious, and they’re also free of the fillers, additives, and preservatives common in commercially made sausages. You don’t need a meat grinder or a sausage stuffer to make sausage at home. You can use preground pork shoulder, mix in the spices of your choice, and form them into patties or kebabs. Here I share three of my favorite spice combinations: a classic breakfast sausage, a hot Italian variety, and a sweet Spanish-style chorizo. If pork is not your thing, ground chicken or turkey that has a 15 to 20 percent fat content will work as well.

This classic Mexican soup develops its flavors from a series of techniques: braising, roasting, toasting, and frying. The soup itself is fabulous, but this dish is really elevated by the garnishes. Put them out in bowls and let guests help themselves to whatever they want. The soup is best when made one day in advance to allow the flavors to come together. If you can’t wait, be sure to save some for the next day so you can see how much better it gets.