Make Ahead

Beef stock is made everywhere there’s beef—it’s a fine use for scraps and not-too-meaty bones—but it’s associated most closely with France, where, along with other stocks, it is considered the fond, the foundation or basis for many important sauces and dishes. While canned chicken stock is an often-acceptable substitute for fresh, canned beef stock is nearly useless, and bouillon cubes completely so. Though I don’t make beef stock even a tenth as often as I do chicken stock, I’m never sorry when I do; it’s incomparably flavorful.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is one of my favorite foods ever. Fifteen years ago, Julie Sahni, the great Indian cook and cookbook writer (her Classic Indian Cooking remains the best book on the subject published in the States), showed me how to make aloo paratha. I continued to follow her recipes for years and never ate a better one until I traveled to India (and even then I may have been influenced by the atmosphere, a truck stop near a mountaintop fort). This is essentially Julie’s recipe, with a few changes I’ve incorporated over the years. Cooked paratha will keep at room temperature for up to twenty-four hours and can be served without reheating or can be reheated quickly in a dry skillet or even a microwave. But there is nothing like one fresh from the skillet. Ajwain comes from carom seeds, which look like celery seeds but taste like very strong, slightly coarse thyme.

A festive dish that takes a bit of preparation—a simple enough process, but quite a few steps. Nevertheless, it’s a delicious and unusual noodle dish, and because it’s best served at room temperature, you can make it a couple of hours in advance. Substitute shrimp or fish for the meat (or omit it entirely) if you like. Precooked fish cake is available at Korean or Japanese markets. Potato starch noodles are available at Korean markets.

Where the sesame sauce in the recipe on page 532 makes for a rich, hearty dish, this one is elegant and light. In Japan—where it gets plenty hot in the summer—cold soba noodles, served with a dipping sauce, are a common snack or light meal. Soba are brown noodles, made from wheat and buckwheat, and the sauce is based on dashi, the omnipresent Japanese stock. (You can also serve somen, thin wheat noodles, cold; cook them for a little less time, but also until tender.) Dashi is close to essential here, though you can use chicken stock in a pinch. But dashi is so easy to make (and so good) that if you try it once you’ll become devoted to it.

A perfect start to a Chinese meal, this can be prepared almost entirely in advance, varied in a number of ways, and even served as a main course if you like. Though it can be made with peanut butter (the natural kind, please, with no added sugar or fat), it’s easy enough to buy sesame paste (tahini) at health food stores, stores specializing in Middle Eastern or Asian ingredients, and even supermarkets. Sesame oil, which contributes mightily to the flavor of the finished dish, is a staple sold at Asian food stores (and, increasingly, supermarkets) and belongs in every refrigerator. Chinese egg noodles are sold fresh at almost every Chinese market, most Asian supermarkets, and even many ordinary supermarkets. Regular dried pasta makes a good substitute here.

An unusual and unexpected variation on the traditional beef-and-vegetable stew, differing largely in its inclusion of beets, which deliver their distinctive sweetness and color. In fact it’s close to the vegetarian version of borscht (page 116), especially if you add the optional sour cream. If you use chuck or brisket here, the cooking time will be longer but the stew will taste better; if you’re in a hurry, use tenderloin—you’ll save time but lose flavor.

Galicia’s hearty bean and meat stew makes a terrific one-pot meal but is often served in cups as a starter. The rich flavors of the meat and beans are complemented by the sharp turnip and greens. In Galicia, the meat base is made from unto, a cured pork belly that I would tell you how to find if I knew. It’s not unlike pancetta but most like the fatty part of prosciutto, which would make a great substitute; salt pork or bacon is also fine—here I use a combination. There are as many ways to vary Caldo Gallego as there are to vary beef stew. For example, substitute chickpeas for the white beans; add chunks of pork shoulder, ribs, beef brisket, shin, chuck, or oxtail with the beans (increase the cooking time somewhat); replace the chorizo with other sausage; add peeled chunks of winter squash, pumpkin, apple, or pear; or substitute green beans or kale, collards, or chard for the cabbage.

Throughout the northern Mediterranean littoral, chestnuts not only grow on trees; they fall to the ground each autumn and are, for many people, a free crop. (They once did the same on this continent, but a blight wiped them out.) The first fall I visited northern Italy, I saw them drop and realized there were more than anyone could possibly eat. As a result, they are used in a much wider array of dishes there than they are here. This is a rich soup, one that can be made in a matter of minutes with cooked, frozen, or even canned chestnuts, and the results are inevitably good. Add a little splash of port just before serving to give this a bit of a kick.

A substantial soup (if you use chicken stock instead of water, it will be even more so) and a perfect winter lunch or a solid dinner when teamed with a light grilled dish, like Grilled Swordfish Rémoulade (page 256) or “Grilled” Mackerel with Garlic and Rosemary (page 266). Remember, though, that chickpeas can take a long time to cook, so if you have any inkling you’re going to make this soup, cook the chickpeas in advance. (Canned chickpeas are also good, or you can use lentils for speed; see the variation.) This soup can be refrigerated for a few days and reheated before serving, but it’s best to add the pasta at the last minute.

The only thing this has in common with the familiar European-style cucumber soups is the cucumber. Otherwise the ingredients—from the dashi to the soy sauce—are strictly Asian. This sublimely refreshing soup can be served hot or cold. When chilled, it’s especially good with a few pieces of shrimp added to each bowl.

Having eaten countless dishes called gazpacho—both in and out of Spain—I feel less an authority than anyone to define it. Some people would have you believe that all gazpachos contain soaked bread, and indeed many do. Some say it must have vinegar; but I’ve been served plenty of good cold soups called gazpacho that were barely acidic. Others call any cold, drinkable soup that meets the need for both food and drink gazpacho. (A chilled can of crushed tomatoes would meet this definition and, with parsley and garlic, wouldn’t be too bad on a hot day.) I do have a few rules of my own for gazpacho: First, try to avoid green bell pepper. Even if it looks nice, this under ripe fruit adds crunch at the price of bitterness; use red or yellow peppers instead. Second, the raw flavors of uncooked gazpacho really do seem to mellow when you allow them to meld for a few hours or even overnight; while not essential, this is a nice touch. And finally, sherry vinegar (or high-quality wine vinegar) is preferable to balsamic vinegar in gazpacho; not only is it more authentic, but its cleaner flavor provides better balance. See the next recipe for a more complex version of this classic. Or add some cumin or paprika to this one, use tomato or V-8 juice in place of the water, and add fresh herbs—especially basil—as you find them.

Borscht, like gazpacho, is difficult to define; there are more versions than you can count. But at least we know they all (or almost all, anyway) contain beets (it’s likely that the word borscht comes from the same root as the word for beet). And usually borscht is served cold. But it can be a vegetarian affair or a big meaty stew. The vegetarian version is usually served cold, while the beefy version is usually a hot winter dish. Here’s a fairly simple cold borscht with hot potatoes, a style I have made for thirty years (and first ate, at my grandmother’s table, before that). For a meaty borscht, see page 148.

When my grandmother was a girl, this was a staple winter dish, and it still is in Poland and much of the rest of Eastern Europe. You might think of porcini as Italian or French, but good dried mushrooms, including porcini, come out of Poland to this day.

Few things are more uplifting in the dead of winter than a bowl of this bright orange soup, which is equally good served cold in the summer. Don’t overcook the carrots or you’ll lose the beautiful color. This soup can be made ahead of time and refrigerated, then reheated if necessary.

In the States, cream soup usually conjures up images of thick, starchy soup with canned vegetables. But real cream soup, as made in France, is relatively thin, super-smooth, and fragrant with fresh vegetables and herbs. For convenience, you might prepare the vegetable puree ahead of time and refrigerate it; you can then finish the soup right before serving. Note that Vichyssoise, cold leek and potato soup, the variation that follows, is a direct descendant.

Here sorrel brings both acidity and lightness to an often heavy mixture. You can substitute watercress or spinach for the sorrel to similar effect, especially if you add a squeeze of lemon at the end. Though it has only two primary ingredients, this soup is quite complex, particularly when you begin with good stock. The best lentils to use here are lentilles du Puy or other small dark green ones. Use the greenish brown variety only if you cannot find these.

I first ate this soupy stew (or stewy soup) at a lunch counter in Istanbul and was taken by its depth of flavor. It seemed that either the whole was greater than the sum of its parts or there were some hidden ingredients. It turned out to be the former, or nearly so; through an interpreter, I learned that the dish did not begin with stock but with water and that the only ingredient I was not seeing was a bit of garlic. The cook offered that one might add a bit of butter for richness but that he hadn’t done so with this batch. If you want to turn this into a more filling main course, use stock instead of water, add some cubed boneless chicken or lamb, season it with a little cumin or dill, and finish it with lemon. You’ll wind up with a bigger, more substantial Turkish-style stew, though not necessarily a better one.

The key to good tapenade, not surprisingly, is good olives. I like the oil-cured kind for this, but they must not be too dried out or they become unpleasantly acrid, and no amount of olive oil can save them. So taste one before buying. (Regular canned black olives are fine too if you can’t find olives in bulk.) In Provence, considered its home, tapenade is used mostly as a spread for plain toasted bread or Crostini (page 41). But it’s also great as a dip for raw vegetables, on sandwiches of any type, or as a quick spread to put on meat or fish before roasting or after grilling or broiling. It will keep, refrigerated, for about a month; always bring back to room temperature before serving.

Like the Uncooked Tomato-Mustard Sauce on page 606, this is often used to lend flavor to the ultrabland bollito misto, boiled mixed meats. But it’s a perfect sauce for roasted or poached fish and can even be thinned with more olive oil to make a salad dressing.

Parsley puree is almost universal, but this is the Spanish version, sharp, garlicky, and great with fish or any grilled meat. There are a couple of different ways to make parsley puree, and other herbs can be used in the same way (pesto is very closely related).