Vegetarian

Buckwheat adds a delicious sour note to crepes and breads. As a crop, buckwheat gives a boost to the environment because it suppresses weed growth and provides nectar for honeybees. It requires little to no chemical fertilization and actually adds nutrients to the depleted soil on which it’s grown. I like to fold these savory whole-grain breakfast crepes in half, but they can also be filled and rolled like sushi. For a spicier version of this dish, add red pepper flakes.

This is a very comforting, home-style dish, perfect for a blustery autumn day. Be sure to use only firm tofu for this recipe; softer varieties will fall apart during cooking. The trio of cultivated shiitake, enoki, and shimeji mushrooms is a classic combination in Japanese cooking, and it adds a nice woodsy and earthy flavor to this dish. You can use other kinds of mushrooms, too, if you’d like, everything from the humble button mushroom to fancier porcinis or chanterelles—whatever your budget allows.

This is the master recipe for egg pasta to accompany three dishes in the book: Squid-Ink Pasta with Crabmeat-Stuffed Squid (page 124), Fresh Egg Pasta with Seared Lamb (page 109), and Fresh Egg Pasta with Pork Loin (page 128). Adding squid ink to this recipe turns the pasta almost black and makes a dramatic presentation. It adds a subtle ocean flavor to a dish that’s absolutely sublime. I first started preparing squid-ink pasta at Ambria Restaurant, the legendary Chicago fine dining restaurant where I cooked for nine years.

Save this dish for late summer, when tomatoes and vegetables are at their peak of flavor. Use a variety of heirloom tomatoes, especially ones with different colors, which will make for an eye-catching presentation. Inaniwa udon is a noodle that originated in Japan’s rugged far north. Unlike typical udon noodles, which look like thick spaghetti, inaniwa is shaped like linguine and tastes great chilled.

Su means “plain” in Japanese, which is how this dish got its name. But plain doesn’t mean boring—this is a simple and light dish that I love when I want to enjoy the chewy texture of udon noodles without eating anything too heavy. Wakame is a nutritious seaweed that’s found in many Japanese dishes. You can include spinach in this recipe, too, if you’d like. Just quickly blanch the spinach in boiling water, cool in an ice bath, and drain before adding to the individual bowls.

This summer recipe centers on a versatile ingredient that’s beloved in Japan but almost unknown here, one that I know you’ll enjoy. It’s called yamaimo, or mountain yam. This root has a nice, fresh taste, with a delicately sweet, nutty flavor and lots of umami, or sense of savoriness. The most popular variety, which you can find in Asian markets, looks like a tan-colored baton. Peel the skin and grate its white flesh. Raw yamaimo has a liquidy, slippery texture that might take getting used to, but it pairs beautifully with the toothsome soba in this dish. I’ve also added okra, a cooling Southern favorite that’s very popular in Japan.

My brother-in-law and I have a long-standing ritual whenever I visit my family in Japan: he welcomes me home with a plate of his own freshly made soba noodles. I can’t think of a more gracious—and delicious—greeting. I love the bright buckwheat flavor and irresistible nutty, sweet aroma of fresh soba, a sensation you simply can’t fully experience with dry noodles or fresh-frozen. This recipe is a bit challenging, true, but worth it. A few notes: First, professional soba makers use a “soba kiri” to cut the noodles, an expensive, specialized blade 12 inches long and 6 inches wide. But at home, a large kitchen knife works perfectly. Second, cooks in Japan traditionally use a lightweight wooden box as a guide for cutting soba, but anything lightweight with a straight edge will work fine, even a plastic ice cube tray. And finally, but most important: cut noodles should be cooked and served immediately. You can freeze any unrolled dough, well wrapped, for up to a month, or store fresh dough in the refrigerator for a few days.

Call this my Japanese-inspired take on cobb salad, except that it’s all vegetarian. It’s a perfect dish for summertime eating. I love sweet and crispy hearts of palm, which are native to Latin America. Try to buy them fresh, if possible, but canned works fine, too. The umeboshi-yuzu vinaigrette lends the vegetables an irresistible tangy and citrusy flavor. Ramen noodles served chilled are springy, chewy, and absolutely delicious.

Having grown up on Dede’s Cheese Straws (page 15), I never knew this version existed until I went to culinary school. Like Dede’s traditional Southern version, these savory, buttery bites get their kick from cayenne. If cayenne is too hot for you, simply substitute paprika or pimento (smoked paprika from Spain). Store-bought frozen puff pastry can be gruesome, so choose carefully; I always use Dufour’s, available online and at gourmet markets such as Whole Foods.

A Southern tradition, chow-chow is a spicy, pickled fruit-and-vegetable relish that utilizes the produce at the end of the harvest. The fruit and vegetables can vary from recipe to recipe, and can include green tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, cabbage, carrots, and cucumber. Since Meme and Dede had a pear tree in their yard, they made chow-chow with pears. When I called Aunt Louise to ask for this recipe, she started reciting, “A peck of pears, peeled, cored, and sliced.” I laughed. Members of my family teasingly offer loving sentiments accompanied by the phrase, “A bushel and a peck, and a hug around the neck.” But that is pretty much the extent of my definitive knowledge about a peck. However, a peck is an actual measurement: one-fourth of a bushel, which is about fifty pounds, depending on what is being measured. Bushel and peck baskets made of curved wooden slats with thin wire handles are still seen at farmer’s markets and farm stands all across the South.

Southerners are almost as fond of pickling as we are of frying. Submerging fresh produce in vinegar or a combination of sugar and vinegar meant there would be vegetables to eat in the winter months. Pickling recipes encompass not just simple cucumbers, but also more unusual ingredients, such as watermelon rind, green tomatoes, and okra. Okra responds very well to pickling; the vinegar virtually eliminates the slime factor, the main reason people don’t eat okra. I like to use one of these crisp, spicy pods instead of an olive for a Southern-style martini.

There’s an ancient pear tree at the edge of Mama’s driveway. The pears have thick green skin, are very aromatic, and have an intense pear flavor. Most certainly a now-nameless heirloom variety, they appear to be similar to an Anjou or a Bartlett. Remember the canned pears often served with cottage cheese in the school cafeteria? Those are Bartlett pears. Anjou pears are distinctive in that they remain green even when fully ripe. Meme and Dede preserved the pears from the yard in quart containers packed in heavy syrup. Meme served them chilled for dessert and topped with grated Cheddar cheese for “salad.” One of our favorite treats was the deep-fried, half-moon-shaped pies she made with pureed pears and biscuit dough.

Dede loved pickled peaches and all manner of preserves. Every year, there was a garden of fruits and vegetables. In the summer, my family would put up quart upon quart of green beans, peaches, and canned tomatoes, and in the fall, golden pears in syrup and muscadine preserves. He’d seal the lids tightly with his strong hands and place them in rows on shelves in the basement. The name of this recipe reminds me of the tongue twister, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Dede would often recite similar silly phrases, play word games, and come up with whimsical names for foods: “cat head” was a large biscuit. “Wasp’s nest” was loaf bread. “Floppy motus” was gravy. And Jell-O was appropriately called “nervous pudding.”

When I see Jonagold apples at the market, I buy them, always thinking of my sister, Jona. My parents got a little creative with her name. It’s feminine for John, my father’s name. A blend between Jonathan and Golden Delicious, Jonagold apples are great for apple butter and applesauce. They have a tendency to soften in the refrigerator, so they are best used shortly after harvest.

Muscadines are wild American grapes native to the Southeast. Scuppernongs are a variety of muscadines. Both grapes have a tough, thick skin that ranges in color from deep purple to greenish bronze. There are scuppernong and Muscadine arbors more than fifty years old at my family’s home. The thick branches are gnarled and twisted, forming a large canopy instead of growing in a row like traditional grapes. Dede made muscadine wine and stored it in the basement. It was unfiltered and quite sweet. We recently found a bottle, at least twelve years old, that had aged and mellowed to a honey liqueur. The wine-making ended when Dede passed away, but Meme and Mama have always made jelly from the copious amounts of fruit. I think I was in first grade when I had my first taste of store-bought jelly. It was the ubiquitous Concord grape jelly of childhood, and I remember not liking it. I had never had jelly before that wasn’t homemade. My friend’s mother very likely thought I was either a complete brat or a complete hick. As children, my sister and I would stand for hours at the arbor, using both hands and mechanically eating the fruit like locusts. We’d squeeze the fruit into our mouths and spit out the seeds and bitter skins. Once, I reached into the arbor to pick a greenish globe and just as my fingers started to close on the fruit, it moved. My scuppernong was the head of a green snake. Scared out of my wits, I ran screaming into the house. Meme’s constant reminder about staying out of the bushes because of snakes had finally come true.

There’s an incredible cookware store in Paris called Dehillerin. When I lived in France as a poor student, I would scrimp and save so I could buy one copper pot a year. Even though times eventually became richer, I still stick to my rule of one pot a year. One summer at La Varenne, after many marathon sessions making preserves, I decided my one purchase would be a copper confiture pot. This special French pot is designed specifically for making jams and jellies. It is large and wide at the rim, providing a large surface area, which allows a mixture to evaporate and thicken quickly during cooking. Trouble was, I was purchasing this mammoth pot on my way home to the U.S. after many months in France; I had no room for it in my luggage. I’m not certain whether they would now consider it a possible weapon, but that summer I flew home with my shiny new confiture pot saddled snugly in my lap.

Blueberries bring to mind fingers stained purple-blue, fruity pies and cobblers, and warm, fresh-from-the-oven muffins. When buying blueberries, look for plump, firm, fresh berries that are a light, powdery, blue-gray. If refrigerated, fresh blueberries will keep for up to three weeks. When blueberries are in season, freeze them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Once they are frozen solid, transfer to a freezer-safe container. This is a basic formula for making jam. I’ve added a small amount of candied ginger at the end. The underlying ginger flavor is subtle, but it really complements the blueberry.

Roquefort is a blue-veined, smooth, and creamy French sheep’s milk cheese with a strong smell and very pronounced flavor. It is one of the oldest known cheeses, having been produced in the south of France for almost two thousand years. Only cheeses made according to specific standards of production and matured in caves near the village of Roquefort, France, may be called Roquefort. Similar blue cheeses to try in this dressing include American Maytag Blue, a regional cheese from South Carolina known as Clemson Blue, English Stilton, and Italian Gorgonzola. Try this on green salad, with chicken wings, or with raw or blanched vegetables as a great crudité dip.

I’m not fond of a garlic press—cleaning out all the holes is a chore. I prefer chopping garlic, but finely chopping or mashing large quantities to a paste (see page 72) can be tiresome. Recently I picked up my Microplane, a rasp-type grater, and grated the garlic directly over my saucepan. A couple of swipes back and forth and the garlic had disappeared into the pan below.