Rabbit Recipes for Chinese New Year

                            A GOURMAND'S TAKE ON THE LUNAR NEW YEAR

While Asians celebrate with feasts and parades, we're thinking about rabbit.  The word just keeps popping up this week.  Of course, when you enjoy cooking and eating, guess what comes to mind when you hear "rabbit" or "bunny".

We used to watch cottontails charging around the yard and start dreaming of rich, dark sauces with prunes and falling-apart meat of unparalleled tenderness.   Quick, while it's still winter, get out the recipes!   Here are a traditional French recipe, and a solid, American one.  

Traditional Lapin a la Chausseur from the French countryside

Tom Colicchio's Rabbit Ragout

Bon App!

Dinner tonight: Braised Groundhog or French Crepes?

                              Geez, we all have tough decisions to make.

Today's Times ran a story about, basically, road kill for dinner.  If groundhog or muskrat don't appeal, here's an excuse to eat crepes today. 

The French have been eating crepes since the 14th century, when subsistence farmers stirred milk into buckwheat.  These lace-patterned, super-thin pancakes are versatile.  Savory foods are tucked into square buckwheat crepes; sweet always into round ones made with white flours. 

Crepes can be made ahead.  The operation goes faster if you use 2 slope-sided saute pans side by side - or a griddle large enough for 2 6-inch rounds.  Or get one of your kids to do it.

Try these fillings.

ALTERNATE-SIDE WILD MUSHROOM RECIPES

                               
                             Easing out of the Snowbank
 

Each morning during this snow-emergency season, we listen eagerly for the status of alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations.  The city has been good to us NYC car-parkers this winter.  Each dusting of snow gives us one less reason to venture out, one more hour to devote to dinner.  The cold weather has us hankering for wild mushrooms.

• Crimini, portobello, shiitake and other cultivated mushrooms can hold a week or more in the fridge.  They can be used interchangeably in many recipes, such as this gut-warming, aromatic version of Indian dal.  
• Introduce a new layer of earthy flavor with Dried Porcini, in this hearty Wild Mushroom Soup.  
• Top thick slices of pork roast with chanterelles, sautéed and finished with a port wine and tarragon reduction.
• Sauté a mixture of wild mushrooms and bind with just a touch of hoisin sauce.  Tuck into a wonton wrapper with warmed, julienned bok choy or tofu.  

Snow Days and Slow Days

                                           FIRST YOU PREHEAT THE OVEN

Don't know about you, but when I'm not sure what to make for dinner, I absentmindedly preheat the oven, set some water to boiling, or heft a sauté pan to the stove.  Taking meal prep to the next step is an adventure.  My family can be assured, though, that nary a bowl of cereal will be placed in front of them.

When a snow day like today comes up, the tables turn - the kids get to do the cooking.  My daughter's choice was lasagna.  Since her vegetarian cousin was visiting, she substituted some shiitake and dried porcini for the meat. Try this NY Times recipe for Wild Mushroom Lasagna.

 

François' daughter spent her snow day baking a crusty pain de campagne.  Its tantalizing,   yeasty aromas had us all gnawing at our fingernails.  The wait was worth it: crunchy, airy, slightly sour.  It was adapted from a Food & Wine recipe.

State of the Plate Address

                               SNACK GUIDE TO PROLONGED TV VIEWING

Do certain munchies come to mind when you think about the Super Bowl or the Oscars?  Messy nachos,  truffled canapes?  Craft brews or elegant Champagne?   The flow of menu ideas is unstoppable.

My sitting-still limit is usually one Olympic slalom race.  Last night I made an exception for the President's State of the State speech, and tried to drag the kids in front of the TV with me (limited success, despite their fascination with all things video).   Our son popped some popcorn, which we all like better than the microwave variety.  To celebrate the occasion's brevity and egalitarianism, we added some barely-melted white truffle butter.  The popcorn kept me down through the whole 1h15, with only a couple of streaking breaks.  The kids began yawning loudly and took to their beds.

Wild Mushroom Recipes are Mushrooming on the Net

At this time of year, it may be a cliche, but we're detoxing from all that sugar and fat.  In step grains, beans, and vegetables, to change the way our appetites think.  

Wild Mushroom and Multigrain Soup makes winter more supportable. It satisfies the need for healthy grains, fills the stomach, and awaits us on the stove at the end of the day.

I'd make any of these recipes from the new site called Food and Home.  (of course they come from my cookbook).  Take some time to navigate, browse, and enjoy this inviting site.

Delectable Dish from this Year's Fancy Food Show

Here are my tasting notes from the Winter Fancy Food Show in SF, which rocked the rafters for 3 blindingly busy days..

Thousands of new food products, from stinky-yummy artisanal cheeses to distinctly memorable mung bean chips, will soon flood into specialty food markets.  Snack bars were reintroduced as upscale protein, low cal, high energy meal replacements.  Bacon made its way into tapenades, salts, chocolates, and even soda, if you can stomach that. Piquillo almond glop; chocolate flavored tea; smoked duck, pork, and jerky.   For entertainment, there were frisbee-shaped rice snacks shot out from a cannon.

Coming soon to specialty gourmet stores and supermarkets: foil pouch packs of tapenade, fruit drinks, chestnut soup, bbq sauces, spicy/healthy nut snacks.  Looka brand pyramids of chocolate mousse topped with cream clouds and raspberry coulis.  Chai whipped into everything except truffle butter - ice cream, slushies, espresso, savory biscuits, and sweet biscotti.  Our booth's most popular item was artisanal, spiced-rubbed bacons, perched along the sofi Silver Finalist statue awarded the Herbes de Provence variety.

What Were They Thinking? items on my list are barley sparkling soda and green tree cooking oil, snack-sized packs of seaweed sheets.  

Be the first on your block to turn chocolate into breakfast, farro noodles into ramen, and aloe drinks - which will presumably soften up your skin when spilled.


Bon App!