Peas are so perfect on their own, it’s a wonder it ever occurred to anyone to cook them in the first place. But fortunately someone did. A trillion peas later, after endless refinements on the art of making a pea more perfect than a pea, the French Laundry created its cold pea soup, a spring rain cloud of viridian sugars skimming a truffled forest. But before Thomas Keller could make his soup, we had to grow up watching Julia Child chiding us about making the blanching water incredibly hot, and salting it, and treating the pea with the utmost love and care. It was Julia Child who rescued cooked peas from the ignominy of creamed cafeteria concoctions, restored their preciousness, and gave them back to us like so many incandescent pearls rolled from the fair hand of nature. A drop of saffron cream shot through with a taut bolt of salt cradles and charges this blanched pea with its own electricity.
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Serve a thick slice for breakfast or an afternoon pick-me-up.
Reliable cabbage is cooked in the punchy sauce and then combined with store-bought baked tofu and roasted cashews for a salad that can also be eaten with rice.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.