Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

My son, Eli, and his friends took up fishing a few years back. He has an awesome fishing rod, but he has since retired it. He has replaced fishing for varsity football, work (yes, he works – in a restaurant), and girls. He is 16 1/2 after all! Although he has given up the sport, his friends haven’t. And every time his friend Owen catches something wonderful, he calls me up and asks if he and I can cook together.

This past summer he caught massive amounts of blue fin tuna. I became the lucky recipient of pounds of tuna and when he called, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Tuna Tartare! Most of the ingredients can be found in the pantry, all that was missing was the fish. I made the ginger oil before he arrived, but waited to chop, cut, and assemble the rest of the ingredients until he arrived.

Upon assembly, I realized that I didn’t have any won ton skins on hand (not really one of my pantry staples), so I sent the teenagers to the market. They couldn’t find the won ton skins(never thought to call and ask…boys), but they managed to bring home 2 pints of ice cream and some other crap, that I NEVER buy and is way too disgusting to mention. I improvised with some tortilla chips. I ate it sans the chips and when the tartare disappeared, they asked for more. With a fridge full of freshly caught blue fin tuna, I couldn’t refuse.

Growing up my mother and grandmother fed us picadillo, a dish of ground beef, potatoes, tomatos, onions and spices. It was the perfect meal–delicious and satisfying–and always enjoyed with fresh flour tortillas on the side. It’s a dish I still crave to this day, and like most Latin cuisine it has its regional differences.

As I’ve traveled I’ve noticed that almost everyone has their own version of meat and potatoes, and it’s easy to see why. A traditional Irish corned beef and potatoes, a Kashmiri Rogan Josh served with slowly stewed potatoes, or Brazilian churrasco enjoyed with mounds of Brazilian potato salad- – mix a protein and a starch and happiness is always guaranteed…not to mention a fully belly.

Sometimes in my moments of quasi-food snobbery I chide my friends who refuse to join me for dinner, fearing I’ll pick something that falls outside their culinary comfort zone. I practically have to sign a form promising them no organ meats, no intense heat, no stinky cheese, no bellpeppers and certainly nothing that comes from the “strange” parts of an animal (which always leads me to ask why a rump roast isn’t strange but a tongue is, but whatever!) However, the perfect meal to satisfy my picky meat-and-potatoes kind of friends are, well, meat and potatoes. But only meat and potatoes in their most simple, smoky and stripped down form: steak frites.

If you’re looking for a more sophisticated dessert to impress your friends at your next dinner party, try this Austrian classic. America’s Test Kitchen updated the recipe and it’s pretty easy to do.

I made it recently for a small dinner party and was able to prepare it in the morning and refrigerate it until we were ready for dessert. For the best flavor, it’s important to let it stand at room temperature about an hour before serving.

Use the best bittersweet chocolate you can find, Callebaut, Valrhona, or Ghiradelli.

In soups or stews, when grilled or braised, or when poached or seared, halibut is a wonderful fish no matter the cooking method. Its white sturdy flesh holds together very well in different preparations. It has a meaty texture much like chicken and a subtle fish flavor.

A preparation, like this Italian poached recipe, is the perfect way to show off halibut in all its glory. Poaching the fish in a flavorful broth makes it a very appealing dish for a chilly fall day. There's a story behind the name of this recipe: acqua pazza in Italian means crazy water. Neapolitan fisherman would poach their catch of the day in a spicy, briny broth flavored with wine and herbs. More often than not, they would use seawater as the stock base. A few years ago I tasted a wonderful rendition of monkfish in acqua pazza at the now-closed Lunetta. I've had the inclination to make it at home ever since.

My recipe takes traditional acqua pazza and gives it an Asian twist. Inspired by the cuisine of Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who is well known for fusing classical French technique with Asian flavors, I create a recipe that builds flavor upon flavor.