What are your best recipes of 2008?

All -

I was nosing around and I didn't see any 2008 "Best Recipes" threads, but thought I would start one up!

This recipe is not new to me, but is an absolute surefire and I just had it again last weekend and think it is delicious. This comes from Robert Roderiguez' Puerco Pibil youtube video. His little videos are great and the pork is delicious. It is also similar to some recipes I have seen floating around on here for the same stuff.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gO8EiScBEjA

What has been going well at your kitchen?

Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken

Use it a couple times a month in the winter, make stock from the bones. Incredible.

Jacques Pépin's Chicken Breasts with Garlic and Parsley

I'm slightly embarrassed that this is from Martha Stewart, but I love it. It's incredibly versatile. The original recipe calls for asparagus, but I've used just about any vegetable that can be roasted. I'll use different soft cheeses as well. Throw in a little sausage or chicken, and it's a meal!

http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/recipes ... pasta.html

Mhays wrote:Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken

Use it a couple times a month in the winter, make stock from the bones. Incredible.

I will second this as this has always yielded absolutely delicious roast chicken!

Inspired by Gary's Smoked Salsa http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19736&p=206166&hilit=salsa#p206166 I made what turned out to be a very good chicken soup.

I grilled 2 chicken breasts, an onion, a tomato, an unripe habanero and 2 cloves garlic (in the husk)

Chopped it all up (removed the husk from the garlic and the skin from the tomato) and put it into a flavorful chicken stock I had made and frozen a while back. Let it sit over night in the fridge. Simmered gently, added some cumin, salt, and ground red chile, and added a squeeze of lime when serving. Very tasty! It would have been nicer with another tomato and some cilantro, but what I thought was cilantro in my garden was some baby parsley (oops).

for several summers now, a mainstay dinner has been penne tossed with feta, fresh tomatoes and dill - a recipe from Epicurious. the other night, I tossed in some diced summer squash - not bad! The next day, I topped the reheated leftovers with a runny fried egg from Ellis Farms. MY GOD! it was unbelievably fantastic.

here is the epicurious recipe.

I also hit on a good recipe for home fries (or hash browns, whatever you want to call them) - by using leftover steamed baby and fingerling potatoes (sliced into half inch pieces). I think you have to use low or medium starch potatoes for this recipe. Brown them in one layer in a very hot skillet with oil. toss in some leftover sauteed or grilled onions when flipping potatoes over. finish with copious chopped herbs.

Not something I'm making much in the summer, but I discovered Alton Brown's shrimp gumbo when it was still cold outside and I made it a couple times. Roux made in the oven was new to me, and it comes out perfect with almost no work.

Here's a tasty item that I had at a Mexican restaurant recently and then I roughed out a recipe for it.


SHRIMP WITH CHIPOTLE-ORANGE SAUCE OVER CINNAMON MASHED SWEET POTATOES
Servings: 2

FOR THE SHRIMP:
3/4 pound shrimp, jumbo, thawed; peeled and deveined with tail left on
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
-cooking spray, as needed
2 tablespoon butter, unsalted, divided
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon chipotle chile adobados, chopped with sauce
1 poblano chile, diced
1/2 jicama, peeled and diced

FOR THE MASHED SWEET POTATOES:
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into rough chunks
1 tablespoon butter, unsalted
salt, to taste
1/4 cup milk, whole
1 tablespoon brown sugar, dark
-cinnamon, ground, to taste
-cloves, ground, to taste

DIRECTIONS

FOR SCALLOPS:
Sprinkle shrimp with paprika and half of the salt. In a nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray, melt half of the butter over medium heat. Add shrimp; cook for 3-4 minutes until just pink. Do not overcook. Remove and keep warm.

Add remaining butter to skillet and heat over medium high heat. Add diced poblanos and jicama and saute for two minutes. Add orange juice, chipotle chiles and adobo sauce, and remaining salt to the pan; bring to a boil. Reserve.

FOR MASHED SWEET POTATOES:
Boil sweet potatoes in salted water until tender. Mash. Add butter, salt, milk, brown sugar,
cinnamon and cloves to taste. Beat with fork until light.

TO PLATE:

Place a serving-sized dollop of mashed sweet potatoes on plate; arrange 6 shrimp radially around the potatoes. Cover shrimp with sauce. Serve.

Can't wait to try Keller's roast chicken!

Judy Rodgers (of the Zuni Cafe) has a great one too:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4401342

Mhays wrote:Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken

Use it a couple times a month in the winter, make stock from the bones. Incredible.

I just made this tonight for the first time. Mother of god is that good. Served it with a little nuoc cham for dipping. I don't think I'm making roast chicken any other way ever again. Even the breast meat came out perfectly succulent and juicy. Wow. So simple. So perfect.

This is a take off of an appetizer from N9ne steakhouse, it has become my favorite summer salad or salsa. At N9ne, they use oregano and no olive oil, my new addiction to cilantro calls for the recipe below.

Mango/Avocado Dip or Salad (1 serving as salad or 2 as a dip)

1 Mango (chopped)
1 avocado (chopped)
3 tblspoons of thinly sliced red onion
1 fresh lime juiced
a little salt
a little olive oil
1 chile diced
handful of cilantro rough chopped

Combine all ingredients and eat as a salad or with some Pita Chips.

I just made this peach pie from epicurious this weekend, and I think I'm in love. I substituted 3/4 tsp of vanilla extract for the vanilla bean, upped the flour to 4.5 tbsp, and did blanch and peel the peaches (for fear of the texture of the skin-on peaches in the pie). It is so, so good. With a little homemade vanilla ice cream on the side...I could have died happy last night after that. If it didn't involve blanching and peeling peaches (one of my least favorite kitchen activities, thanks to too much canning as a kid), I would eat it all the time.

iahawk89:

I made the pasta dish you cited, and it's great. It does add quite a bit of fat to an otherwise healthy dish (I roasted the vegetables in olive oil, not butter to cut down a bit, already), but for a once in a while treat, it's simple and delicious.

Thanks,
Jonah

I'm glad you liked it Jonah. I use olive oil instead of butter for the veggies as well. And I use less then she calls for. We have it about once a month here.

Hands down, this is the one recipe I discovered in '08 and have made at least a dozen times to bring to parties or for my own couch-eating greed.

Nigella Lawsons Instant Chocolate Mousse.

I kick it up a notch with a bit of cayenne at times (Mmm spicy chocolate a la Vosges), or some nutmeg, or rum/Ouzo/Triple Sec depending on my mood. It may say instant, but it does best with a good three to four hours chilling.

G Wiv just posted about his visit to Zuni cafe for their famous roast chicken. But, airfares aren't THAT cheap and vacation time is limited so I'll have to live with the homemade version (which is one of my favorite recipes of 2008). The recipe has been posted online as noted above but I LOVE this cookbook so if you have room on your cookbook shelf... I also made the Zuni Mock Porchetta for Thanksgiving to serve alongside a turducken from Chefrain. I added a fennel and stuffed sausage stuffing and it was a big hit.
So, I second this as a great 2008 recipe (I know it's older than that but I made it for the first time in '08)
Zuni Cafe-- Chicken with bread salad

Well, this excerpts my 10 best of 2008:

Muhamarra - Red pepper/walnut dip from the Thanksgiving issue of Bon Appetit (about the only recipe I made from a year's sub, I'm not renewing). It's now my go-to "last minute I need to bring something to a party" dish, usurping my artichoke/parm dip of many years, partly because I'm often finding myself out of either canned artichokes, parmesan or mayo.

Sweet Potato Agnolotti with Sage Cream from the French Laundry cookbook. It was one of the faves of http://www.frenchlaundryathome.com and I can't argue with that one bit. I'm pleased to know that I have a half-batch of that pasta in the freezer, needing only about a stick of butter, a half-cup of creme fraiche and a bunch of sage to complete the dish any night I want to overindulge. (I also have a full batch of the fava bean angolotti, that has a slightly lighter, broth and curry-based sauce)

I am totally crazy about Michael Chiarello's Tomato Soup recipe. I cut down on all the fats and substitute whole milk for the cream to make the soup healthier. In addition, I add sauteed chopped spinach and cooked pastina or other small pasta to stretch and make it heartier.

I made a lot of desserts in 2008. Some of the recipes that I tried for the first time and that have become favorites include:

Honey Hazelnut Cake (from Chocolate & Zucchini)
Melt-in-Your-Mouth Chocolate Cake (from Chocolate & Zucchini; I like this best with a few teaspoons of Guatemalan cobanero chili added. Thanks, dansch, for turning me on to this cake!)
Plum Rosemary Upside Down Cake (from Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)
Brown Sugar Sea Salt Cookies (also from Bittman)
Blondies (with walnuts and dried apricots, from Bittman's How to Cook Everything by way of Smitten Kitchen)

OK, so I cooked a lot of Bittman...

Favorite non-dessert recipes include:
Lemon Gnocchi with Spinach and Peas (from Gourmet)
Minestrone with Beans, Pasta and Chard (from Everybody Likes Sandwiches)

I failed to include one recipe from my list above. I made the Everybody Likes Sandwiches minestrone for some friends who came over for dinner, and instead of dinner rolls or slices of bread, I served the soup with Jude's (by way of Apple Pie, Patis & Pâté) Pumpkin Seed Cream Scones. Absolutely lovely.