Tucker Shaw

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Spicy Cheddar Bread with Gochugaru

Several years ago, a colleague developed a recipe for a spicy cheese bread, filled with little pockets of Monterey Jack cheese and lots of red pepper flakes throughout. Yeasty bread, milky cheese, and prickly spice. I loved the combination, so I set out to create my own recipe.

Spicy Cheddar Loaf with Caramelized Onions and Gochugaru

I like all-purpose flour here, rather than bread flour, as the resulting loaf is softer. If you don’t have gochugaru, substitute an equal amount of red pepper flakes. I prefer mild cheddar over sharp cheddar here, to keep the flavors balanced, but either works. Be sure to cool the bread completely before slicing or tearing into chunks.

When You Hear the Term ‘Food Movie,’ What Comes to Mind?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve asked several food-and-film loving friends this question and their answers are remarkably similar: Big Night, Babette’s Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman, Chocolat. These answers aren’t wrong; all are excellent films with great food! But why is the short list so short? There are dozens, hundreds of other movies that teem with, even center around, food.

Cooking for One: Spaghetti with Miso, Garlic, and Scallions

Looking for a complex, captivating supper? Miso makes it happen. Because tomato and anchovy-based sauces are great, but so is switching it up.

Spaghetti with Miso, Golden Garlic, and Scallions 

Lemon zest, which packs more punch than lemon juice, offers a lively counterpoint to the miso paste, enhancing both. And fresh scallion brings, well, freshness, lifting the final dish with its wide-awake brightness.

An Unapologetically Sweet, Nostalgic Treat

I loved penuche as a child in the 1970s. When the plate came around, I’d surreptitiously take two pieces rather than the polite single piece. (At least I thought I was being surreptitious.) But as I grew older, the stuff appeared less and less frequently in my life. Time to bring it back.

Penuche (Brown Sugar Fudge)

Back in her New Hampshire kitchen, Gram used to make “brown sugar fudge.” A friend of hers made “butterscotch creams.” Still another made “penuche.” They were all, more or less, the same thing: Brown sugar and dairy, and sometimes other ingredients, cooked and cooled into a soft, sturdy, very sweet candy.

Seduction, via a Cookbook

Digging into some old gems, both serious (!!) and playful: it’s easy to roast them, but the truth is, they’re mesmerizing. Whereas many old cookbooks might help you get a grasp on what people ate during a specific era, these two show us something different: what the gatekeepers believed we should want to eat.

Cooking for One: Chicken and Rice

These days, when I make chicken and rice at home, I try my best to recreate the feeling of my back-in-the-day takeout nights. Not the exact recipes (I’d never be able to figure that out), but the feeling—a soul-warming mix of comfort, restoration, satisfaction, optimism.

Chicken and Rice for One

You can substitute one chicken leg quarter, trimmed, for the two thighs. If you don’t have medium-grain rice, substitute long-grain. You can make the sofrito and cilantro sauce up to a day ahead. Use unsalted chicken broth to avoid over-salting the dish (the Sazón provides plenty of salt). Serve this with hot sauce and a squeeze of lime, if you wish.

Toasted Sugar? Toasted Sugar!

You could reach for demarara or brown sugar to add a deeper molasses note. Or you could splash in a glug of maple syrup for a woodsy flavor. Or … you could use toasted sugar, which brings a beautiful caramel flavor, sweet and complex with just a wink of bitterness for contrast.

Toasted Sugar Cookies

The cream cheese adds a pleasant chew to these cookies, plus a subtle tanginess.

Toasted Sugar

You can easily double this recipe. Just use a larger, 9×13-inch baking dish. The cook time won’t change.

Come to the Cottage (Pie)

Cottage pie is a dish for a crowded table of hungry souls. Or is it? (No. And it’s best eaten straight from the skillet.)

Sausage Cottage Pie for One

This recipe calls for an 8- or 9-inch ovenproof skillet; if you don’t have access to one, you can do the stovetop work in any skillet, then transfer the meat mixture to a small ovenproof baking dish or ramekin to build and bake the pie. You may substitute beef, turkey, chicken, or lamb for the sausage. If you’d rather not use wine, substitute an extra splash of stock. Eat this straight from the skillet.

Springtime Is Maple Syrup Time

This is when I turn to recipes that showcase maple’s complex, magnetic sweetness—like, for example, these sweet, flavorful maple oatmeal almond cookies. They call to mind those little packets of “maple and brown sugar” instant oatmeal from my youth.

Maple Oatmeal Brown Butter Almond Cookies

If you can easily find Grade A Dark syrup, use that for deeper maple flavor. But Grade A Amber works just fine. Choose either light or dark brown sugar; the difference is negligible here. If you can’t be bothered to toast your oats and nuts, don’t worry, the recipe still works (your cookies will just be a little less flavorful). For a gluten-free version, you may substitute oat flour, but increase the amount to 1 1/4 cups, and be sure to rest the dough for a full 24 hours before baking.

Gently Braised Spring Vegetables

This is best eaten immediately after it comes off the heat, so be sure to have your garnishes ready to go. Speaking of garnishes, let your fancy be your guide. The chives and basil called for here are delicious, but so are tarragon, thyme, sorrel, parsley, cilantro, maybe some toasted pine nuts, perhaps a crumble of goat cheese or feta. A few pitted and halved olives would be excellent too, or a spoonful of capers for a briny pop. Once you’ve got the basic technique down, improvise. If you’ve got some crusty bread around, it’s great for mopping up the juices.

Cooking for One: “Braised” Young Vegetables

At the farmers market: tiny yellow potatoes, plump pink radishes, willowy stalks of asparagus, fresh baby carrots, some fresh basil, and a little bundle of chives. The plan was a big refreshing salad. But I changed plans, and instead, I decided to gently cook these early-bird vegetables to create a warming, but no less vibrant, springtime supper.

Cooking for One: Cheesecake

When you get cheesecake on the brain, nothing else will do. I recently embarked on a quest for a much smaller cheesecake, more “fun-size” than “full-size.” My only rule was not to use any specialty baking gear like mini pans or ramekins.