Cookbooks

Adding horseradish to sour cream and dill gives you a dip with zip!

This vibrant green dip is perfect for serving with fresh vegetables. You can make it up to three days in advance and refrigerate it in an airtight container—the lime juice keeps the avocado from turning dark.

Garlic can be enhanced in a number of ways, each having their own flavor profile. Blanching in water prevents oxidation (and therefore harshness). Poaching in olive oil does the same thing, and yields garlic-flavored olive oil that can be used for basting, coating, and vinaigrettes. Roasted garlic can be sliced as cloves or mashed into a luscious puree that will melt into sauces. Toasting garlic gives it a nutty flavor that is all its own.

This simple sauce has many applications: as a sauce for meat (page 54), as a pasta sauce, or as a soup base. Wood-roasting the peppers and onions adds great flavor. Returning them to the fire along with the wine and other ingredients adds a richness and depth to the sauce. use a red wine that has a lot of presence such as Zinfandel or Sangiovese. You can add other spices, such as a curry blend or chipotles in adobo, as you choose.

Roasting lemons and shallots brings out their natural sugars and imparts a smoky flavor as well. Try variations, too, such as oranges and large cloves of garlic.

These smoky flavored olives are always the first thing to disappear off an antipasti platter or hors d’oeuvres spread. The brightness of the orange zest enhances the earthy flavors of the olives; you can use freshly squeezed orange juice if you don’t have zest. I love to serve these straight from the oven, still warm.

In India, chutneys are used as condiments to accompany curries. In our culture, they can be used to brighten up any number of roasted or grilled meats or fish. This version is grilled over a wood fire. Chutney can be made from a variety of fruits combined with raisins, an acid such as vinegar or juice, ginger, and some traditional Indian spices to create a fabulous condiment. Its flavors will continue to develop during storage.

Caponata is a classic appetizer spread that has the sweet and sour balanced components of many Mediterranean dishes. Here, the eggplant, red pepper, and onions are cooked in the wood-fired oven before being combined with salty capers and toasted pine nuts. It can be added to a pasta salad or used as the filling in an omelet or frittata.

Smoked sea salts add a burst of flavor to raw and cooked foods when used as finishing or condiment salts. The options and flavors you can create are limitless. Anything from the aromatics list (opposite) will impart magical flavor to pure sea salt. Take it a step further and add other flavorings by tossing them into the salt before smoking.

Tarte Tatin is a French upside-down apple tart named for the two sisters who invented the dish. This version is topped with puff pastry and baked in a wood-fired oven or by indirect heat on a grill. It can be topped with slightly sweetened whipped cream, or better still with a frothy sabayon infused with an aromatic late-harvest Riesling. The sabayon is also terrific on its own or with berries. Choose a good baking or pie apple such as Gala, Pink Lady, Gravenstein, Braeburn, or Jonathan.

This dessert captures all the smells and tastes of fall. Similar to its cousin, pineapple upside-down cake, it is easily prepared in a cast-iron skillet, then turned out on a plate along with its syrup. Sweet potatoes serve as a binder and sweetener in this cake. Serve it with a dollop of tangy crème fraîche or a little warm caramel sauce.

This dessert is always a hit in my cooking classes. The combination of chocolate, cinnamon, and smoky chipotle often appears in Southwest American and Mexican cuisine, and the flavors marry beautifully in a wood-fired cooking environment. If you want a bit more heat, add more chile paste. You can also add a touch of chile powder to the Cinnamon-Caramel Sauce.

This is John Ash’s recipe for a fun and easy one-dish dessert. Although there is some debate on what makes a “grunt,” the definition seems to be that grunts, which are also called slumps, are simmered rather than baked in the oven. They are usually made with berries and the name supposedly comes from the sound the berries make as they simmer!

This dessert is so simple, yet so tasty. It’s fun to do at a campfire or in a backyard fire pit. Once the pineapple is secured to the spit with prongs, all you need to do is baste it with the rum syrup every few minutes until it’s beautifully golden. The aromas from the syrup and the caramelizing pineapple are mouthwatering! Serve it with a slice of pound cake or, better still, with ice cream.