roasted cabbage with walnuts and parmesan

I began making variations on this dish about a year ago and since then it has become — and I’m sorry, I know how annoying unrelenting, gasping praise of every recipe that crosses your social media threshold can sound, despite feeling certain that here it’s warranted — everything. It’s a warm salad for cold weather. It’s Starter Cabbage for people who are cabbage suspect (savoy is lacier and less heavy than the white/red stuff). It’s a quick vegetable dish that’s not a salad or bland broccoli that my kids, by some rare miracle, agree to (they like the crispy crackly outer leaves). It’s even better from the tray (which keeps it hot) than it is from a plate, which is basically a reward for being as lazy as I prefer to be. With prep and even oven-warming, it takes exactly 20 minutes to make. Finally, it’s the kind of humble, economical dish that feels good at a time of year when we need to shell out for so many extra things.

The recipe is inspired by one in that astoundingly good vegetable cookbook I talk about a lot here (see: this asparagus salad and this soup) because I think (ahem, after my own two) you might enjoy it a whole lot: Six Seasons. I made, okay, quite a few changes — the cooking time was too long without flipping it, and it’s better when cooked on two sides. The original recipe has saba (an acidic wine reduction) or vinegar but I got the flavor I wanted with just lemon. There were breadcrumbs but I skip them; the cabbage is roasted in butter, not olive oil, but I found it just smoked a lot. I add lemon zest, since I’m already using a lemon. The nuts are already toasted in the recipe, but mine never are so I worked it into my take, below. Honestly, I haven’t looked at the original recipe in so long (you won’t need to once you’ve made it once or twice), I had to pull down the book just to see what changes I’ve made.

I’ve also made the dressing more complex at times. A minced anchovy or tablespoon of minced olives or capers goes great here. I’ve put the parmesan on first and returned the tray briefly to the oven to singe it on a little. I’ve also skipped the parmesan and you can too; it’s really not doing the heavy lifting here. I know we egg-eater-types say you can put an egg on anything, but here, you really can. If I was left to my own devices and not pulled constantly in directions by the lure of newer recipes I can’t wait to try and the background noise of people with their own opinions about how often we should eat cabbage for dinner, a pan of this with a crispy egg or two on top would be a weekly habit. I’m hoping it can be yours, instead.

Randomly, New Orleans: I got to spend 48 kid-free hours in New Orleans a couple weeks ago and wrote up our whirlwind itinerary here, should you be interested. [There’s also one for our Ireland trip this summer, and I owe you one for a long weekend in Paris in June. No, I don’t always get to travel this much, but it’s been a lucky year — this written from a hotel in Cincinnati, no less.]

PREVIOUSLY

Six months ago: Potato Vareniki
One year ago: Drop Cornbread Biscuits
Two years ago: Endive Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs and Walnuts
Three years ago: Root Vegetable Gratin
Four years ago: Kale and Caramelized Onion Stuffing
Five years ago: Smoked Whitefish Dip with Horseradish and Sticky Toffee Pudding
Six years ago: Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock
Seven years ago: Granola-Crusted Nuts
Eight years ago: Baked Pumpkin and Sour Cream Puddings
Nine years ago: Spaghetti with Chickpeas
Ten years ago: Moroccan-Spiced Spaghetti Squash
Eleven years ago: Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Garlic Chips
Twelve years ago: Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes with Sautéed Apples
Thirteen years ago: Dreamy Cream Scones

Roasted Cabbage with Walnuts and Parmesan

• SERVINGS: 2 TO 4
•  TIME: 20 MINIUTES 
• SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM SIX SEASONS

Don’t use too big a cabbage. I’ve gotten some shockingly large ones from the grocery that were too dense inside to get a nice crisp to them, without steaming first. Go with two small rather than one giant one, if you have options.

• 1 medium-large (1 3/4 pounds) or two small heads savoy cabbage
• 7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Scant 1/2 cup (1.75 ounces) walnut halves and pieces
• 1 large or 2 smaller garlic cloves
• 1 large lemon
• Red pepper flakes, such as Aleppo (optional)
• Grated parmesan, to taste

Heat oven to 475ºF. Remove any damaged outer leaves of cabbage and cut it 8 (for small ones) to 12 (for a large one) wedges. Coat a large baking sheet with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Arrange cabbage wedges in one layer, drizzling or brushing them with 2 more tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until charred underneath (don’t panic if you see a few thin black edges; they’re going to taste amazing). Use a spatula to flip each piece over and roast for 5 more minutes, until the edges of the cabbage are dark brown.

Meanwhile, while cabbage roasts, place nuts on a smaller tray or baking dish and roast them next to the cabbage for 4 to 5 minutes. Remove and scatter them, still hot, onto a cutting board and coarsely chop them. Scoop into a bowl and finely grate the zest of half a lemon and all of the garlic over it. Add remaning 3 tablespoons olive oil to walnuts, a few pinches of salt and red pepper flakes and stir to combine. If you’ve got a couple minutes to let it all infuse as it cools, let it rest. When ready, squeeze the juice of half your lemon in and stir to combine. Adjust flavors to taste, adding more lemon if needed; you want this dressing to be robust.

The moment the cabbage comes out of the oven, spoon the walnut dressing over the wedges. Grate parmesan all over, to taste. Serve immediately, while piping hot. There will be no leftovers.

Tools: This is forever my favorite spatula, and particularly helpful here when you have unweidly wedges to flip. I prefer a Microplane rasp with more surface area and use this one.

popcorn party mix

Let me get the possibly obvious out of the way: I, Deb Perelman, unapologetically, shamelessly, unwaveringly love Chex Mix. Sure, the last time I made it to the letter I was in high school and decided to have a party where we’d invite boys too (yes, I was as cool in high school as you’d expect) and it seemed so strange to me, this aggressive mix of steak sauce, spices and butter, but holy moly was it good.

So, let’s not pretend this is anything but a Smitten Kitchen homage to this beloved mix — which I’m sorry to reveal, did not bring all of the boys to my yard, er, parents’ wood-paneled living room. These days, I make it a little differently. At some point, the Chex cereal became popcorn, not because I don’t like crispy crunchy magically woven pillows of corn, wheat and rice cereal, but because I love popcorn that much more. I add nuts, pretzels and something cracker-y to it. And then, as should surprise exactly nobody, I brown the butter for extra toasty depth. I add some mustard, in both Dijon and powdered English mustard formats; smoked paprika, because it completes me, and sometimes a tiny bit of dark brown sugar too. I tend to make massive amounts of it and

…Hide it from myself. I can’t be around it. I’ve tried again and again but it never works. It always leads to awkward dinnertime conversations like “Why aren’t you hungry, mommy?” and then I have to lie to my sweet, impressionable child and tell him it’s because I ate too much broccoli at snack time.

So, do the right thing: make this and bring it to a party, preferably at someone’s apartment, far from the clubby madness below. Think about what a weird — here might be some grievances, but even I cannot stand the sound of me complaining — but also wonderful year it’s been — a new Smitten Kitchen! a new book on the (distant) horizon! and maybe even a redesign at last! — with, I hope, an even better one ahead. Cheers to you, friends. This wouldn’t be any fun without you.

Your Favorite Smitten Kitchen Recipes of 2014:

1. Corn, Cheddar and Scallion Strata
2. Blue Sky Bran Muffins
3. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake
4. Carrot Cake with Cider and Olive Oil
5. Better Chocolate Babka
6. Homemade Dulce de Leche
7. The Crispy Egg
8. Sizzling Chicken Fajitas
9. Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix
10. Coconut Brown Butter Cookies
11. Blueberry Crumb Cake
12. Sunken Apple and Honey Cake
13. Grilled Peach Splits + News!
14. Chicken Pho
15. Classic Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Praline Sauce
16. Double Chocolate Banana Bread
17. Cauliflower Cheese

My Favorite Smitten Kitchen Recipes of 2014:

1. Cheese Blintz
2. Warm Lentil and Potato Salad
3. Squash Toasts with Ricotta and Cider Vinegar
4. Pretzel Parker House Rolls
5. Cauliflower Slaw
6. Cold Noodles with Miso, Lime and Ginger
7. Three Ingredient Summertime Salsa
8. Chocolate Hazelnut Linzer Hearts
9. Broccoli Cheddar and Wild Rice Casserole
10. Morning Bread Pudding with Salted Caramel
11. Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew
12. Better Chicken Pot Pies
13. Nancy’s Chopped Salad
14. Easiest Fridge Dill Pickles
15. Carrot Salad with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas
16. Three-Bean Chili

More New Year’s Eve Snack Ideas: Over here.
More New Year’s Eve Cocktail Ideas: Over here.

Popcorn Party Mix

3 tablespoon olive or a neutral oil
6 tablespoons (70 grams) unpopped popcorn kernels
1 cup nuts (I used peanuts, which weigh 140 grams)
2 cups bite-sized pretzels, or bigger ones, broken up
1 cup broken-up plain bagel or pita chips, oyster crackers or melba toast
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons (8 grams) dark brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, adjusted to taste
1 teaspoon ground smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or more to taste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder

Heat oven to 250°F (120°C).

Pop your popcorn: Place 3 tablespoons olive oil and 2 to 3 kernels in a 3-quart or larger pot and cover with a lid. Turn heat to medium-high. When you hear these first kernels pop, add the remaining kernels and replace the lid. Using potholders, shimmy the pot around to keep the kernels moving as they pop. When several seconds pass between pops, remove from heat. You should have just over 6 cups. Dump into a giant mixing bowl and add the nuts, pretzels, chips or crackers to the popcorn.

Brown your butter and make the sauce: Wipe out your empty pot and place the butter in it, set over medium heat (no lid needed). Melt the butter and keep cooking it, stirring occasionally and watching out for hisses and splatters, until the bits at the bottom of the melted butter puddle begin to turn golden and light brown. Remove from heat, and whisk in Worcestershire, sugar, spices and salt. If you ended up using pre-popped or seasoned popcorn with salt, or salted nuts or crackers, you might go easier on the salt. If you like your mix quite traditionally salty and none of your packaged ingredients were coated with salt, you might up it to a full teaspoon.

Pour butter-spice mixture over popcorn mix and toss, toss, toss, until all the ingredients are evenly coated. Spread out on your biggest baking sheet or two medium-sized ones. Bake for 45 minutes, tossing the ingredients around every 15 so that they cook evenly. Let cool completely on trays, then pack into jars and get on your way.

endives with oranges and almonds

I realize this might not look like much. It probably looks suspiciously like a salad, which means it’s probably going to be the last kid picked for your holiday cooking olympics. It doesn’t taste like ginger, linzer or crushed candy canes. It smacks of January Food, the stuff of resolutions and repentance, and there’s no time for that now. But I need to tell you about it anyway, urgently, because the preoccupation with this salad has hit me so intensely, so wholly, it’s basically the only thing I want to eat, and since I’m ostensibly the grownup here, this is exactly what I’m going to do.

I had this for the first time two weekends ago, when I got to spring a surprise Miami Beach getaway on my husband as a belated birthday present. We had dinner the first night at José Andrés’ Bazaar, the kind of prolonged, indulgent meal that, I’m sure purely coincidentally, usually only occurs when we’re not simultaneously parenting. I don’t think we had a bite of food that was less than pristine. I’ve been a little obsessed with Andrés’ cooking since I lived in DC, right around the time Jaleo opened. I remember piling in there one night in 1999 with friends in town from New York and one told us that he really wanted to study in Paris the next year, but he needed someone to stay in his rent-controlled East Village apartment and also take care of his cat while he was gone. My roommate and I have never volunteered ourselves so quickly, not that anyone asked me my “welcome to new york” story. Even without such life-changing memories, the food was perfect, and no matter how many pork and scallop products were on the menu, there were always vegetables too, treated as carefully and respectfully as the finest jamón serrano. Our Miami meal was no different, which is why I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that of everything we ate, it was this seemingly random composition of goat cheese, almonds, oranges, chives, sea salt, endive, sherry vinegar and olive oil that I haven’t stopped pining over since.

My mother and I had this for lunch on Friday. I had more with dinner. I managed to eke another plate in on Sunday night and I can tell you with unwavering certainty that I will be eating this alongside my latkes on Tuesday. It’s at once a salad, appetizer and also finger food for parties, because, well, if you think I ate those little endive boats with a knife and fork, you might be mistaking me for someone with better breeding. Besides, how better to taste the happy commingling of fragrant citrus, tangy cheese, crunch of deeply toasted almonds, droplets of intense sherry vinegar and fruity olive oil, all finished with sea salt than to grab it by the endive boat and sail off with it?

On the radio: I’ll be on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC at 1 p.m. EST today, and we’re talking about Hanukah food delights: latkes, doughnuts, brisket and more. [Details]

One year ago: Linzer Torte
Two years ago: Cashew Butter Balls
Three years ago: Peppermint Hot Fudge Sauce
Four years ago: Broiled Mussels
Five years ago: Ridiculously Easy Butterscotch Sauce
Six years ago: Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake and Sausage-Stuffed Potatoes
Seven years ago: Apple Cranberry Crisp and Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
Eight years ago: Boozy Baked French Toast, Onion Soup

And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Frozen Coconut Limeade
1.5 Years Ago: Bowties with Sugar Snaps, Lemon and Ricotta
2.5 Years Ago: Chocolate Swirl Buns
3.5 Years Ago: Rich Homemade Ricotta

Endives with Oranges and Almonds
Inspired by a version at José Andrés’ Bazaar in Miami Beach

Prep time: 10 minutes
Servings: 4 as an appetizer or 2 as a light meal

3 oranges (I used 2 navel and one cara cara orange)
2 heads of endive
2 ounces soft goat cheese or chevre, crumbled
1/3 cup sliced almonds or chopped marcona almonds, well-toasted
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil for drizzling
Sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon minced chives
Flaky or other sea salt, to finish

Cut the top and bottom off your oranges, exposing the citrus flesh inside. Then, resting on either end, cut the peels, including the white pith, off the oranges. [Set aside for orangettes!] Use your knife to cut between each membrane and orange segment, cutting only so far as the center, which should release the orange segments. You can chop them once or twice more, so the pieces are not too large.

Trim end off endives and arrange individual leaves on a medium platter. Add a few orange chunks to each, then goat cheese crumbles and almonds. Season with black pepper, then drizzle with a very thin stream of olive oil. Add a few droplets of sherry vinegar to each “boat.” Scatter chives over and finish each with sea salt.

Dig in. No forks needed, unless you’re classy.

mixed citrus salad with feta and mint

Like many New Yorkers, I have a healthy fear of the Upper West Side’s Fairway Market (the Harlem one isn’t so bad, but the Pulaski Skyway is technically closer to my apartment). Sure, they sell everything in the world, but from my rough estimation, the store contains everyone in the world at any given moment and it turns out, the quickest way to turn me into the kind of person with plumes of smoke pouring from my ears as I white-knuckle a shopping cart is to ram into the back of my ankles with yours. Ahem. So yes, I don’t shop there very often.

But last weekend! Last weekend I went to their new store in New Jersey… ah, New Jersey with its wide-open spaces and aisles wide enough for two shopping carts in opposing directions and acres upon acres of refrigerated produce space. I about lost it when I saw more than a dozen varieties of citrus and suddenly this citrus salad idea that I had been kicking around in the back of my head became The Next Thing I Absolutely Had To Make.

I’m a sucker for a colorful, lettuce-free salad, and in warmer times my defaults are this Mediterranean Pepper Salad or anything that allows me to go nuts with purple carrots. But in dreary January, these pink, orange and red-celled wheels of citrus were a sight for sore eyes, this fresh platter a brief and delicious respite from considering things to braise, roast and cook for hours. My mind turned to cruise ships, damp island breezes and marshmallow wrists and legs in tiny swim trunks and for a few minutes I completely forgot we’ve got months of winter to go. I call that a salad miracle.

One year ago: Bittersweet Chocolate and Pear Cake
Two years ago: Anything-But-Clementine Clafoutis
Three years ago: Hibernation Fare

Mixed Citrus Salad with Feta, Onion and Mint

3 to 4 tablespoons red onion, cut into tiny bits
4 pieces of citrus, preferably a mix of grapefruits and oranges but use what you can get, and what you like to eat (spoiled by the spread at the store, I used 1 pink grapefruit, 1 cara cara and 1 blood orange, and 1 mineola)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon smooth Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3 to 4 tablespoons (1.5 ounces) feta cheese, chopped or crumbled
1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped or cut into tiny slivers

Place your red onion in the bottom of a medium bowl. Nest a strainer over the bowl.

Prepare your citrus fruits by beveling the stem end of one, cutting enough off that you reveal the pith-free flesh of the fruit. Repeat on the other end. Rest your fruit on one of its now-flat surface and begin cutting the peel and pith off in large, vertical pieces. You want the fruit’s exterior to be “white”-free.

Turn the fruit back on its side and cut it into 1/4-inch thick wheels, removing any seeds and thick white stem as you do. Place the wheels and any collected juices from the cutting board in the strainer over the bowl with onion. Repeat with remaining citrus fruits. (As the extra juices drip over the bowl, it will soften the raw onion bite.)

Spread the fruit slices out on a platter. Scoop out the onion bits (a slotted spoon or fork does the trick) and sprinkle them over, leaving the juice in the bowl. Whisk one tablespoon of juice (this is all I had accumulated) with red wine vinegar or lemon juice, Dijon and olive oil. Season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the citrus, sprinkle with feta and mint, adjust salt and pepper to taste, serve immediately and daydream of warmer places.

tomato sauce with onion and butter

I could no longer resist this sauce, and frankly, I don’t know why I even tried to: food bloggers obsess over it, and they’re not a bad lot to base a recipe selection upon. Adam of Amateur Gourmet fell for it five years ago. Molly at Orangette raved about it over two years ago, with a bonus approval marking from Luisa at Wednesday Chef. Then Rachel Eats fawned over it too, and Rachel, you see, she lives in Rome right now — I want to be in Rome right now — Rome, where you can get authentic, perfect tomato sauce a zillion places every single day. And yet she stayed in and made this one. That sealed the deal.

So what is it with this sauce that it moves people to essays over it, tossing about exclamations like “brilliant!” and “va-va-voom” and promises that “something almost magical happens”? Is it garlic, a slip of red pepper flakes, a glug of red wine or a base of mulched carrots, onion and celery, as so many of us swear by in our best sauce efforts? Is it a spoonful of tomato paste or a pinch of sugar? Is it the best olive oil money can buy? It is none of these things, not a single one: It is butter. And an halved onion, cooked slowly as the sauce plops and glurps on the stove, then discarded when it is done.

Butter and the juice of stewed onion is all it apparently takes to transform a two-pound can of tomatoes to something velvety and lush. It manages to remind you of how fresh and sweet tomatoes are in the summer, but more fitting for the winter when canned tomatoes are the order of the day. And best yet, you can make it with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry, with the kind of limited attention span had by those of us who hang out with monkeys all day.

One year ago: Clementine Cake and Mushroom Bourguignon
Two years ago: Chicken Caesar Salad
Three years ago: Cauliflower and Brussels Salad and Leek and Mushroom Quiche

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions
Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking

Another thing that blew my mind about this sauce: I, for one, am a grated parmesan junkie. I not only sprinkle it over my bowl of pasta, I like to have additional nearby, to apply a fresh coat to the layers of pasta that follow. So you can imagine my shock to find that I liked this dish even more without the parmesan. The flavor of the sauce is so delicate, fresh and sweet that it needed nothing at all.

Serves 4 as a main course; makes enough sauce to lightly coat most of a pound of spaghetti

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)*
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan (it fit just right in a 3-quart) over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste (you might find, as I did, that your tomatoes came salted and that you didn’t need to add more) and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with spaghetti, with or without grated parmesan cheese to pass.

* I liked this enough to make us more the next day, but I only had a can of tomato puree. It also worked well, despite having slightly less texture. You will need a little less simmering time as the tomatoes are already broken down.