Category Archives: Recipes (Savory)

Bi-Rite’s Pork Cutlets with Sweet Bing Cherries

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Cherries for dinner? Oh, yes!

Why just bake galettes, pies and cobblers with fresh cherries when you can enjoy their snappy sweetness in savory sensations, too?

Case in point, “Pan-Fried Pork Cutlets with Bing Cherries.”

It’s a recipe from “Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

The cookbook, written by Bi-Rite Owner Sam Mogannam and food writers Dabney Gough, takes you through the history of San Francisco’s most celebrated grocery store, where you’ll find not only top-notch produce but hard-to-find ingredients that are the darling of chefs.

The book takes you through each store department, teaching you the low-down on how to read labels, discern ingredients and use them at their best in a myriad of recipes.

Fruit takes to pork like peanut butter to chocolate. Cherries are no exception. Yes, you’ll have to pit them, but you use only about 18 of them, which doesn’t take that much time at all.

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A Mother’s Day Care Package

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My Mom's tasty care package.

Tied with ribbons, double-taped or adorned with a wad of stamps, care packages come in all shapes, sizes and forms.

But inside, they really all contain the exact same precious thing — the warm, comforting reminder of: “I’m thinking of you.”

My late Mom always conveyed that message with a rather unusual care package — a dish of Chinese-style chicken and rice.

A simple recipe that she made up years ago, the dish is a supremely savory, one-bowl meal of Jasmine rice cooked with Chinese black mushrooms and chunks of dark meat chicken marinated in soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil. The rice takes on the flavors of the marinade, mushrooms and chicken until they all become fused as one.

It’s a dish my Mom would make regularly for our weeknight family dinners, stir-frying the chicken in a big wok before folding in the rice that had cooked separately in a rice cooker. As a kid, that was my task after school — to wash and measure out the water for the rice, before pushing the button on the rice cooker so the fluffy grains would be ready and waiting for my Mom when she arrived home from work to finish making the dish.

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A Comforting Soup for Mustard Fiends

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Mustard in the soup and mustard on the croutons. What's not to like?

Yes, that would be me.

A mustard fiend. At any one time in my fridge, you might find at least four kinds of mustard lurking on the shelves.

A stone-ground one, a fiery Dijon, a brown deli classic for my husband’s sandwiches, and perhaps a more unusual sweet caramel type.

Mustard has so many uses — stirred into vinaigrettes to help them emulsify; whisked into pan sauces to add that unexpected piquant note; and slathered on chicken before rolling in bread crumbs and baking to a golden crisp.

But leave it to San Francisco uber blogger Heidi Swanson of 101Cookbooks to think of adding mustard not only to a velvety soup but to the croutons that garnish it.

Genius!

“Cauliflower Soup with Aged Cheddar and Mustard Croutons” is from her book, “Super Natural Every Day” (Ten Speed Press), which just won a James Beard Foundation award.

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Wild About Ramps

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The love affair with ramps.

For the longest time, I’ve had serious ramp envy.

You see, when spring hits, chefs and foodies throughout New York go bonkers for ramps, otherwise known as wild leeks. They feature them in all manner of imaginative dishes and preparations. In West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, there are even annual festivals devoted to the pungent allium that has broad green leaves sprouting from a fuchsia -tinged stalk and a white, scallion-like bulb.

But in the Bay Area, they’re a scarce commodity.

And so, for the longest time, I just sighed at this time of year, knowing a prominent part of the country was indulging lustfully in an ingredient I just couldn’t get my hands on.

Until last week, when I ventured into Berkeley Bowl and nearly jumped three feet in the air when I spied ramps in the produce section. I took a whiff and was met head-on with a most assertive garlic aroma. I was hooked.

The ramps, from Oregon, weren’t cheap at $12.95 a pound. But I just had to have some.

Armed with a bounty I’d never seen before, let alone used, I was momentarily perplexed at what to do with the ramps now that I clutched them preciously in my hands.

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You Say “Tomato”? I Say “Tomato Bread”!

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A beautiful loaf with the taste of summer.

With summer tomato season still months away, what’s a tomato lover to do?

Why, indulge in tomato bread instead.

“Pane al Pomodoro” (tomato bread)  is from the newly revised classic, “The Italian Baker” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

San Francisco author Carol Field traversed Italy for two and a half years to write her original version of this book in 1985. Now, it’s been updated with color photography and new equipment sections. Inside, you’ll find recipes for everything from breadsticks to focaccia to tarts and pastries.

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