Leek

These are the pot stickers popular in Shanghai and many other southern Chinese cities. Panfried until crisp on the bottom and then cooked through by steaming, they have a delicious combination of crunch and chew in the dough and a springy, flavorful center. They are best served hot out of the pan (but beware of their tongue-burning juices!). Gyoza is the Japanese version of this type of dumpling and mandoo the Korean version. They may be filled with pork or have a vegetarian stuffing; usually, their skin is somewhat thinner. You can buy gyoza or mandoo skins at the market or just roll the Chinese skins a little thinner yourself. Dumplings may be filled and dusted with flour and refrigerated, covered, for a couple of hours or frozen for a few days. But they’re really best when cooked right after being filled. Leeks are usually full of sand. The easiest way to clean them in this recipe is to chop them, rinse in a strainer, and shake dry.

I got this recipe from Guido Pezzini, the patriarch at Pezzini Farms in Castroville, California, who claims that just about every dish his mother cooked included artichokes in some form. This soup is one of his favorites. The Pezzinis are a delightful and caring family, with Sean, the grandson, as the next generation in training.

One of the mistakes I see many cooks making is automatically reaching for a can of chicken broth whenever a recipe calls for a bit of stock or a sauce needs an additional 1/3 cup of liquid. But the strong flavors of a broth—and the saltiness of canned broth in particular—can often change the flavor direction from where you want to go. And it’s an unnecessarily expensive and sometimes wasteful habit, if you only use a bit of the can and discard the rest. Instead, I encourage you to adopt one of my favorite thrifty kitchen practices: making your own simple vegetable broth when you are cooking, using it as a multi-purpose “moistening agent” for a host of dishes.

Pork shoulders (also called butts or Boston butts) are terrific roasts, in my opinion, more delicious than pork loin and definitely less expensive. With a nice layer of fat on top, a good proportion of fat through the muscle, and lots of connective tissue, the roasted meat has wonderful flavor and soft, moist texture. It’s easy to roast—you don’t need to erect a foil tent for it—and the shoulder-blade bone, which adds flavor and speeds roasting, is simple to remove when you’re serving the meat. (It is also easy to braise, as you will find in the following recipe for Salsa Genovese). Shoulder roasts range from 4 to 8 pounds, bone-in, or larger. This procedure will work for any-size roast, though the vegetable and seasoning amounts are for a 5-to-7-pound shoulder, the size you’ll usually find in the butcher’s case. To feed a big crowd, ask the butcher to cut a larger shoulder for you, or cook two smaller roasts in one very big roasting pan. Be sure to increase the vegetables, seasonings, and cooking liquids proportionally with your meat. Some of the other choices you have with this easy roast: should you mash all the roasting-pan vegetables into the sauce—the simplest method—or cut and caramelize them to serve as a side dish? Or a bit of each? (See page 344 for more information.) It’s up to you. Do you want to glaze the roast? I’ve got a good maple syrup glaze to share—see recipe that follows.

I know that “boiled” anything is not a popular concept these days (one reason I call this “poached”), but don’t disdain or neglect this elemental dish. It is still one of the easiest and most satisfying one-pot meals we can give our families. It’s also faster to make than ever: the big birds I buy—plump, meaty, and best when organically raised—are thoroughly cooked, tender, and moist after barely 45 minutes in the broth. When you really want to make it festive, substitute a capon for the chicken. And with markets that offer an unprecedented array of produce and herbs in all seasons, we can surround the chicken with a greater variety of vegetables than our great-great-grandmothers ever had at one time. In this recipe, I’ve loaded the pot with seven hearty and aromatic vegetables (almost 5 pounds’ worth), but you can certainly choose others or vary the amounts. Just cut enough vegetables overall to give everyone a bountiful serving, drizzling the meat and vegetables with some extra-virgin olive oil and a few grains of sea salt to make it complete. But I also hope you’ll top each portion, as I do, with a dollop of salsa verde, a traditional condiment for boiled foods. The bright, acidic flavor and fresh, uncooked texture of the finely chopped salsa are a perfect counterpoint to the poached meat and vegetables—it makes a meal of boiled chicken exciting as well as comforting.

Using orange brightens and brings sunshine to fall and winter vegetables.

Squash is one of those vegetables that, when in season, are celebrated in Italy. It is used in pasta, stuffings, risottos, and soups. By being roasted, as it is here, the squash, like Cinderella, is transformed. It becomes the centerpiece rather than a side dish.

I love custards—when they are properly baked, that is, so each spoonful feels like velvet and truly melts on the tongue, releasing all its flavors. This is one of the most basic pleasures of eating, one that my family enjoys and that I want to share with you. Here is a custard that has everything: lots of the flavor of fresh mushrooms, dried porcini, sage, garlic, and leeks, all concentrated and deepened in the skillet, and a creamy custard that holds all these flavors in suspension. When a spoonful of this melts on your tongue, you’ll understand why I love custards. Serve it as a first course at a special dinner, or as the centerpiece of a holiday brunch. This recipe is for eight small custards and is easily multiplied to make more. The recipe details the important steps in making any custard, so, if you haven’t made one particularly successfully before, pay special attention. For uniform baking, I recommend that you use identical molds to bake up a batch, if possible. If you don’t have any, I encourage you to buy a set of inexpensive 1/2-cup ceramic molds—get eight or a dozen; either a small shallow soufflé shape or the taller traditional custard cup is fine. You’ll use them forever, I hope.

I have always loved leeks, but now they have a particularly romantic context in my life. The first time I met my (then future) husband, Chip, he cooked chicken with leeks, a dish that knocked me out. (I guess I should mention that he worked as a professional chef in New Orleans for ten years.) He blanched the leeks, so they were bright green and pliable, then wrapped them around a stuffed chicken breast. It was the most beautiful, seductive presentation. Since then, every time I cook with leeks I think of that dish—and him. Leeks have an interesting, subtle flavor that suggests asparagus or salsify (a root vegetable). A lot of Americans don’t know how to use them, and they tend to be pricey. But this simple bistro presentation shows that they are worth the splurge. This is the most basic French preparation for leeks, and one of the most delicious. It’s also the recipe that sold me on them forever.

This sumptuous appetizer stars oysters in an elegant and creamy guise. The oyster mixture spills over the sides of a thick triangle of toasted, buttered bread, and the whole thing is topped off with smoky bacon and snipped chives. The flavors of this dish are great with champagne and have a holiday feel, but it’s delicious anytime you can get great oysters. You could also toss the warm sauté with bow tie pasta for a decidedly rich Sunday supper.

Cod is a lean fish that is available year-round and can be baked, broiled, or poached. Its mild taste pairs well with sharp flavors. Other firm, mild fish, including halibut, sole, or haddock, can be used in place of cod.

Depending on the weather, serve this comforting soup hot or cold. You can quickly chill it by placing it into a metal bowl set into an ice bath; stir frequently until the soup reaches the desired temperature.

So, I know pasta and winter squash sounds like a strange combination, but I promise it’s really good. Not only that, but all the colors make this a beautiful dish as well. The easiest way to peel the squash is to cut it into quarters first, then scrape out the seeds and cut off the peel. Because they’re so hard, if I do it any other way I’m afraid my knife will slip and I’ll cut myself

I got the idea from Lidia Bastianich to make soup bases that pack a lot of flavor on the weekend, then freeze them and thaw them as needed, adding various ingredients on the fly to take them in different directions. I like to concentrate the base, which saves freezer space, and then thin it out when I make a finished soup. Before you thin it out (and jazz it up) for the final soup, this base may remind you of a certain fluffy Thanksgiving side dish (minus the mini-marshmallows, thankfully), but there are some key differences. Besides the lack of cream or sugar, the most important one is the cooking method: Rather than boiling peeled cubes of sweet potato, I like to roast them, concentrating the complex flavor, which is highlighted by subtle hints of thyme and curry. This makes an especially vibrant backdrop to such treatments as Sweet Potato Soup with Chorizo, Chickpeas, and Kale (page 43). There are many other possibilities. You can sprinkle ground chipotle or pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika) for heat and/or smoke, or add toasted pecans, yogurt (or sour cream or crème fraîche), and other sausages or cured meats.

This layered, all-in-one brunch casserole is great for when you’re serving four or more people because it can be prepped before your guests arrive. It’s an old-time casserole with the added flavor of leeks and some delicious homemade fried onion straws on top.

Modern pasty recipes, especially those in the more touristy enclaves of Britain’s farthest southern county, stretch the recipe almost as far as Titus, swapping beef for pork, the rutabaga for apple, even daring to crimp the finished turnover on the top instead of at the side. I make one without meat, in which I use goat cheese and thyme along with the usual starchy filling of potato and rutabaga. It is filling, yet somehow soft and gentle, too.

I say fontina because that is what I had in the kitchen last time I made this—it’s a fondue cheese that melts sublimely and doesn’t overpower the leeks. But Taleggio, another milky Italian, would be just fine, too.

Like asparagus, leeks produce a particularly subtle risotto. The crucial point is not to let them color. Cook them over low heat, with a lid on if you wish, or maybe with a piece of wax paper on top. Either way they must not brown.

To balance the sweetness of leeks, we can use a little white wine vinegar, especially tarragon, or lemon juice. The addition of either removes any risk of the dish cloying. The recipe that follows is one of my all-time favorites for a good, easy midweek supper. What especially appeals is that although the sauce tastes rich and almost creamy, it has no butter or cream in it at all.

To our list of ingredients that balance the leek’s (and onion’s) tendency toward sweetness, we can add green peppercorns. Outside the anise-scented emporiums of Chinatown they are difficult to track down in their fresh state, but bottled ones in brine are perhaps even better here. Deep-winter stuff, this. Some fresh, crisp greens might be appropriate with it, some winter salad leaves or maybe a plate of lightly cooked spinach. Whatever, I do recommend some plain, steamed potatoes to balance the general richness. Green peppercorns in brine are available in cans or bottles from well-stocked specialty markets and delicatessens.

Good cooking often comes from simply going with what is around at the time. Ingredients that are in season at the same time tend to go together—in this case, the last of a hat trick of leek soups made with all that is left in the depleted winter vegetable patch.

Users of The Kitchen Diaries may feel they recognize this recipe. Previously I have always made it with cubed lamb, but I recently tried it with lamb shanks and left it overnight before reheating it. The presence of the bone and fat and the good night’s sleep have made such a difference that I thought it worth repeating here. You could make it a day or two in advance to good end.