My father, an Italian, was a spaghetti expert. “Meatballs,” he said, “need to be as big as your fist.” On spaghetti nights, he’d watch with his arms crossed as I dug into one of his homemade meatballs, which, back then, were almost the size of my head. “A meatball has to sit on the spaghetti like an egg in a nest,” he continued. No matter that it looked like a bowling ball squashing the last breath out of every noodle on my plate. The meatball was always the main attraction. Spaghetti was secondary.

In my childhood, a meatball’s most familiar place was on top of a mound of sauced-up noodles. As I got older, these meaty nuggets made appearances at cocktail parties swathed in barbecue sauce, between tiny hamburger buns as sliders, even as massive floaters in soup (albondigas, anyone?). The meatball’s versatility knew no bounds, gracing the plate in large and mini versions, spicy or sweet, sometimes made with a combination of meats and spices. Even with all these possibilities, a meatball in its simplest form is just meat, some seasoning and something to bind it all together. The spices, the exotic-sounding ingredients – those all stem from the same, basic recipe. Once you have that, you’re free to experiment to your heart’s content.

Tuck this basic meatball recipe into your back pocket so it’ll be at the ready when you need some easy meals and appetizers. Though it calls only for ground beef, don’t be shy about trying other meats, like pork and chicken. For a little heat, sub out some of the ground beef with spicy sausage. You can also experiment with herbs and spices while you’re at it. I’ve included some suggestions for serving at the bottom of the recipe.
BASIC MEATBALLS
Yield: 22 to 24 meatballs

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup onion, minced
• 1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking pan or cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. Shape mixture into the size of golf balls and place on prepared pan about 2 inches apart. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until cooked through and slightly browned. Remove from oven and serve alone, or in the following variations.
Cocktail-style: Grab a bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce and empty its contents into a pot. Simmer meatballs in barbecue sauce until hot. Pour all into a serving dish, and serve with cocktail forks or toothpicks.
Hawaiian sliders: You’ll need a package of Hawaiian rolls, pineapple rings and apricot jam. Split Hawaiian rolls in half and toast on a baking sheet in the oven for a few minutes. Empty jar of apricot jam into a pot or microwave-safe bowl, and heat until jam is pourable. Brush each meatball with apricot jam and place on Hawaiian roll. Top with pineapple and serve. You can also grill the pineapple rings.
Meatball sandwiches: You’ll need 4 French rolls, 8 slices of provolone cheese and 2 cups of marinara sauce. Simmer about 16 of the meatballs in marinara until hot. Split French rolls in half lengthwise and place on a baking sheet. Line each half with slices of provolone cheese, and toast in the oven until cheese is melted. Spoon in 4 meatballs per French roll and serve.
Spaghetti and meatballs: Simmer meatballs in marinara sauce until hot. Spoon over spaghetti noodles and toss.
Soup: Whenever a recipe calls for meatballs (like Italian wedding soup, or albondigas), drop these in.
To store: Cooked meatballs can be kept in an airtight bag or container for up to two months. This is convenient if you plan to make spaghetti or soup in the coming weeks. Just take a few out of the freezer and pop into the sauce or broth to heat through.

If you’ve been around long enough, you may have noticed things are getting a bit green in here, what with a salad and a broccoli rabe-heavy spaetzle as my last two recipe posts. Green just seems like the thing to do in the middle of February. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing to counteract all that V-day red we’ve been seeing, or maybe I’m jumping the gun into March. Either way, it just feels right.

These recipes were inspired by the simple pear, basil and parmesan salad I made for L.A.’s Stir It 28 event for Haiti last weekend (that of which I adapted from Leite’s Culinaria). People really seemed to like the combination of pear and basil.

For those not familiar with Stir It 28, read the rundown here. A handful of dedicated and super-friendly food bloggers, caterers and chefs descended on Greg/SippitySup’s lovely Hollywood Hills kitchen in the name of Haiti. (I’m compelled to mention here that Greg has excellent taste in knives. Shun, baby.) We cooked for an estimated 75 guests, all whom donated to the Stir It 28 Haiti fund. For more coverage of the L.A. event, visit the Duo Dishes, The Food Addicts, Uncouth Gourmands, South Bay Rants n Raves and Domestic Divas. (I’ll add more links as they come in!) If you didn’t attend the event, you can still donate to the cause by visiting Flanboyant Eats or CocoCooks and clicking on the logo. All proceeds benefit Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti. Donations will be accepted until Feb. 28.

So back to the recipe: The pesto portion of these recipes can be doubled, tripled – quadrupled even – to suit your needs. And if you have more than an hour on your hands, I suggest cooking the onions down until they’re really browned — not just a golden brown. The darker they are, the sweeter they will be.

PEAR AND PESTO CROSTINI
Yield: 2 to 3 servings (or if you’re me, 1 serving)

• 1/2 loaf French bread
• 2 cups packed basil leaves
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano
• 3 tablespoons your best olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 Bosc pear

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice French loaf into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and brush (or spray, if you have one of those nifty Misto things) with olive oil. Place slices on baking sheet and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, or until edges are a deep golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. While those are in the oven, make your pesto. In a food processor, combine basil leaves, garlic clove, pine nuts and Romano cheese. Pulse until pesto is coarse in texture, like coarse sand. Add in olive oil and process until fully incorporated. Taste. Add salt and pepper, if needed. Scrape pesto into a serving bowl or dish and set aside. (You should have about 3/4 cup.)
3. Cut pear into thin slices and place on a platter with crostini and pesto. To assemble: Spread pesto over crostini and top with pear and fresh ground black pepper, if desired. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for skirt steak/caramelized onion recipe.)

SKIRT STEAK, CARMELIZED ONION AND PESTO CROSTINI
Yield: 2 to 3 servings

• 1/2 loaf French bread
• 3 medium onions
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons your best olive oil, divided
• 2 cups packed basil leaves
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano
• 1/4 pound skirt steak
• Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice French loaf into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and brush (or spray, if you have one of those nifty Misto things) with olive oil. Place slices on baking sheet and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, or until edges are a deep golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Slice onions crosswise into thin rings. Place in a pot over medium heat with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. You’ll know onions are ready when they turn a super-caramel color. (You can always cook them down even more, until they’re jam-like and brown. There’s no right or wrong here.)
3. Make your pesto while the onions are on the stove. In a food processor, combine basil leaves, garlic clove, pine nuts and Romano cheese. Pulse until pesto is coarse in texture, like coarse sand. Add in 3 tablespoons of olive oil and process until fully incorporated. Taste. Add salt and pepper, if needed. Scrape pesto into a serving bowl or dish and set aside. (You should have about 3/4 cup.)
4. When onions are done, remove from heat and start on the steak. Heat the remaining table of olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Sprinkle skirt steak with a bit of salt and pepper and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes (depending on thickness) on both sides. Transfer steak to a cutting board and rest it for 10 minutes before slicing meat crosswise.
5. To assemble: Slather on the pesto, top with caramelized onion and skirt steak. Enjoy!

– Cynthia Furey

Dear readers, I am in a funk. And not the good kind that allows you to wear a sequined gold dress and your sunglasses at night. The kind where everything you cook burns or tastes weird and everything you write reads cliché. It’s not a good place to be.

But onward we go, because cooking and writing is what we do here, however cringeworthy or awesome either turn out.

In the span of one week, four out of the five dishes prepared by my hands ended up as spectacular trainwrecks – ones that made microwaved frozen meals look like five-star food. The sole saving grace was this pasta with meat sauce, which is made annually at the first sign of winter’s chilly weather. It’s a hearty sauce thicker than blood, like an Italian chili almost, that goes well with garlic bread and even eaten alone in a bowl with a large spoon, should you be so bold.

In this case, it’s paired with a fresh pasta recipe adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio,” using just the basics: flour and eggs. Nothing else.

I’ve been making this meat sauce for years, and thus it’s a recipe built on intuition. It’s a sauce that does its job and does it well, and with all of the flops I’ve been cranking out lately, it also helps to remind me that success, however little or large, is very, very sweet. And filling. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipes)

This Italian meat sauce borrows from its Bolognese sibling by including cream. Garnish the plate with basil chiffonade and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, if you please. Both sauce and pasta recipes can be doubled when serving more than two.

LOW-AND-SLOW MEAT SAUCE
Yield: 2 to 3 servings

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion, minced
• 1/4 cup carrot, minced
• 1/4 cup celery, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1 3/4 cup (about 14 ounces) crushed Italian tomatoes
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a 3-quart pot over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef. Remove from pot and drain. Set aside.
2. Add olive oil, onion, carrot, celery and garlic to pot and sweat for 2 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook for about 5 to 6 minutes, or until tomato paste darkens in color. (This will deepen its flavor.)
3. Add red wine to pot and use wooden spoon to scrape any bits of fond that may be stuck to the bottom of the pot. Let wine reduce in half, about 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes, water, brown sugar, oregano, basil and ground beef. Bring sauce to boil, then reduce heat to low cover with pot lid slightly ajar so steam can escape. Simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste sauce and adjust seasonings to preference. Add heavy cream and butter to finish, and serve with fresh pasta noodles (recipe follows).

PAPARADELLE PASTA NOODLES

Adapted from “Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman
Yield: 2 servings

• 2 eggs
• 6 ounces all-purpose flour

1. Mound flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add eggs and use your fingers to swirl them around the flour until they are completely incorporated. (Dough will be kinda flaky in the beginning but will start looking like dough the more you mix.)
2. Remove dough from bowl and knead on a floured worksurface for 8 minutes, or until dough becomes uniform and no streaks of flour can be seen. Wrap with plastic and let rest for 10 minutes.
3. Using a floured pasta machine, feed dough through on lowest setting (for my Imperia, this is No. 1). Fold dough in half and repeat once.
4. Continue to roll out pasta until you reach your desired pasta thickness (Imperia: setting 5 or 6 is ideal). Place pasta sheet on a floured surface and cut into 1-inch strips. To cook: drop paparadelle into a pot of boiling, salted water for about a minute. Drain and serve with pasta sauce.

I always thought that any grilled sandwich with at least a 2:1 ratio of cheese to meat/veggies/etc. could be correctly defined as a grilled cheese. Currently 44 percent of voters on Serious Eats disagree. To this majority, grilled cheese is nothing more than bread, cheese and heat. Are they right?

Think of Campanile’s Grilled Cheese Night, and how it might offend this group of purists with it’s weekly nightmare of “grilled cheese” dishes like burrata with capers, both versions of Croque and Ahi tuna. None of these fit the literal meaning of grilled cheese as defined by this group. (I picture the purists huddled in a picketing pack outside of the restaurant, holding signs depicting sandwiches with big red Xs drawn through them.)

If we continue accepting only literal meanings, then many playful spins on certain culinary words wouldn’t quite work. Any reference of the word “steak” that doesn’t apply to actual meat would be wrong (one example that comes to mind is Marcel’s watermelon steak with tomatoes on season 2 of “Top Chef”). I’d also argue that the only true grilled cheese is just the cheese itself, like a grilled Halloumi or queso fundido. Being rigid in definitions takes the fun out of creating new dishes, doesn’t it?

Serious Eats reader Pavlov sums it up best with his comment: “A grilled cheese is whatever I say it is!”

That’s perfect. A grilled cheese is defined by whatever you say it is. It can be classic or have all the bells and whistles of a Campanile grilled cheese.

So today, my definition of grilled cheese has marinated onions, Dijon mustard and skirt steak — a personal homage to my favorite offering on Campanile’s menu. If you’re inclined, you can serve it with watermelon steaks for a truly non-literal meal.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

GRILLED CHEESE WITH SKIRT STEAK AND MARINATED ONIONS
Yield: 4 servings

• Marinated onions:
• 2 medium yellow onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

For sandwich:

• 1 pound skirt steak
• 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 slices French bread
• 4 slices medium cheddar cheese
• Whole grain Dijon mustard
• 4 teaspoons butter

1. To make marinated onions: Place onions, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper into a large bowl and toss to coat. Refrigerate for a half hour. Turn onions and marinate for another 30 minutes.

2. Drain onions from marinade. In a sauté pan or pot over medium heat, cook onions until shriveled and golden brown, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes. (These will cook down like you won’t believe. Also, the onions will have enough oil on them to cook without sticking, so there’s no need to add any more.) Set aside. Onions can be made a day or two ahead.

3. Heat 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil in the same sauté pan you used for the onions. Season skirt steak and cook for 3 minutes on each side for medium rare. Remove from pan and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing meat on a bias.

4. Butter French bread slices, using 1/2 teaspoon for each slice. Layer onions, cheese and steak slices. Spread mustard over inside of one slice of bread. Grill sandwiches about one minute on each side until browned. Serve hot!

A lot of us have quite a tailored list to go through before we bestow the “Best” title upon anything having to do with barbecue or pulled meat.

For one, the best barbecue has to come from the hands of people who travel to county fairs by Mack Trucks packed with logs, iron smokers and grills the size of sedans. If it doesn’t come from a vehicle that beeps while backing up, we don’t want it.

If we have it at a restaurant, it has to be served by a burly dude in overalls and a shirt that looks like it was snatched from a picnic table. Better still if his fingers are perpetually curled into a loose fist, even when he’s not holding an iron pitchfork. And his smokehouse has to be no smaller than your two-car garage.

In other words, if it ain’t dirty or country, we don’t want none. Please turn your non-beeping vehicle around and go back whence you came.

It’s a similar story when we’re barbecuing at home. There are rituals up the wazoo, making it more of an event rather than a cuisine or cooking method. Many of us prep for days, marinating and coaxing any and all flavor into the meat. We won’t even look at our grills unless they can be filled with a pricy sack of (soaked) wood chips. No meat will touch anyone’s lips until you’ve stealthily added the “secret ingredient” to it, either. Modesty? Forget about it. “This is the absolute best (insert slow-cooked meat here) that you’ll ever know,” you say, as you plunk a heaping pile of charred and sauced animal onto a tablecloth resembling the ‘cue waiter’s shirt. “It’s the best. I’m the best. You will never have it better than this. Ever.”  (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more)

We are so funny about our food. I love the enthusiasm and the ritual of a summer barbecue as much as the next person, but I miss the days of throwing some meat on a grill – naked of any bells and whistles or what have you – and just going with the flow. Some of the best steaks I’ve had are the meat-plus-fire kind, minus any marinades or sauces.

So when I’m making pulled pork or beef, I like to season it only with salt and pepper before it goes on a grill. No secret ingredients. When I bypass the grill and make it in the oven (gasp!), not even the purists seem to notice.

But then again, I’ve got some bells and whistles up my sleeve, too. I like to serve this pulled beef slider-style with sweet Hawaiian rolls and grilled pineapples. (You can also sub pork shoulder for beef.) If you’re going this route, you may need to season your beef again, after you add barbecue sauce. And with the addition of bacon (seriously, why not?), you get some of the salt you need to cut through the sweetness. As for sauce, I haven’t had a chance to perfect my own (yet another ritual in itself), so I experiment with the gazillion bottles of sauce out there to try. I like Stubb’s barbecue sauce, for a more vinegary North Carolina taste.

PULLED BEEF

• Yield: 4 servings
• 6 strips bacon
• 2 pounds beef chuck
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• salt and pepper
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 to 3 cups of barbecue sauce
• Hamburger buns or Hawaiian rolls

PROCEDURE:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper. Lay bacon strips over parchment. Bake pan for 10-15 minutes, or until bacon is crispy. Remove from oven and let cool on pan. Reduce oven heat to 250 degrees and leave oven door open while you dress the beef.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the bottom of a medium roasting pan. Place meat in roasting pan, and coast with sugar (you want kind of a thin crust). Season generously with salt and pepper and cover with onions. Tent pan with aluminum foil.
3. Roast meat for 3 to 4-1/2 hours, or until beef is fork tender and can be pulled apart easily. Remove from oven, and set aside to cool slightly. Meanwhile, chop bacon into small-dice bits.
4. When meat can be handled, shred apart and add barbecue sauce and bacon. Mix until evenly coated and bacon is distributed. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add more barbecue sauce if you will. Serve hot on toasted buns or Hawaiian rolls.

– Cynthia Furey

After writing this post on weird food laws, I was left with a hunk of Roquefort and not a single idea what to do with it.

When you don’t have a hunk of Roquefort, you can think of tens of recipes to use it in – I mean, crumble it over a salad at the very least, right? But when you have a little Roquefort wedge nestled between your palms, it’s an entirely different story. You’re nervous. It’s like a femme fatale, the Roquefort, taunting with all of its sultry. You have me now, but whatever will you do with me? And then there’s you, the bumbling man who should have been careful with what he wished for, questioning his manhood with a worried look to boot. Gulp. What will I do with you?

So there I was in my kitchen, with a pungent hunk of Roquefort, a head full of imagined silver-screen romance scenarios between me and the cheese, and an inexplicable, massive brain fart. Reluctantly, I put it back in my fridge. My little mademoiselle, it’s not you, it’s me, I said. I need more time.

For the next week, the Roquefort lingered patiently in my fridge while I plotted out some smooth moves. I wanted something substantial, yet something that would also use the Roquefort in a subtle way, without letting it overpower the other ingredients. The week finally yielded what I had been waiting for: A rough recipe sketch of pork with apples and Roquefort. It would be a roulade, to marry everything into a single, unified dish. After a seemingly endless period of debate, there would be a happy ending for the Roquefort and I after all. Don’t they always say that good things come to those who wait?

For this recipe, you’ll need some kitchen twine, a meat mallet and a thermometer. The apple butter sauce is a spinoff of beurre blanc, which is usually a light butter sauce reserved for seafood. The addition of chicken stock or broth beefs up the sauce – so it can stand up to a the Roquefort and protein. I serve the roulade over a pile of roasted yams with sea salt, which add a little more salt and sweet to the dish. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

PORK ROULADE WITH ROQUEFORT AND APPLE BUTTER SAUCE

• Yield: 3 to 4 servings
• 1 1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch nutmeg
• Pinch salt
• 2 pounds pork loin
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup Roquefort, crumbled
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 teaspoon shallots
• 1/4 cup reserved apple juice (see recipe)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons chicken stock
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper, to taste

PROCEDURE:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash, peel and core apples. Chop into a small dice and add to a saucepan over medium heat. Add lemon juice, sugar, water, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cook until apples are soft, about 8 minutes. Strain liquid from apples and reserve to use in apple butter sauce. Allow apples and liquid to cool while preparing pork.
2. Butterfly pork loin and pound until flat, with an even thickness throughout.
3. Mix Roquefort cheese and 3/4 of cooled apples in a small bowl (reserve 1/4 of apples for apple butter sauce). Spread apple mixture onto flattened pork. Roll pork loin into a loaf and secure with kitchen twine. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Heat olive oil in a sauté pan over high heat. Sear pork loin on all sides. Place loin on a baking sheet and cook in oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until thermometer placed in center of roulade reads 155 degrees F. Remove from oven and set on cutting board to rest.
5. To make apple butter sauce: In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, add white wine and shallots. Cook until white wine is “au sec,” or almost dry.
6. Add 1/4 cup apple juice, chicken stock and remainder of apples. Reduce until slightly thickened.
7. Remove from heat and whisk in butter until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper. Serve apple butter sauce over sliced pork roulade.

– Cynthia Furey

My Food 101 column on beef burgundy ran today in The Orange County Register (woo!), and I’m relieved that So Cal’s weather is finally cooling down. Two days ago, I was fretting mess, imagining faceless people reading the paper in shorts and big sunglasses, chuckling at the thought of attempting my recipe given the hot weather. I love sunny weather as much as the next person, but who wants to eat a winter braise when it’s 85 degrees out? Thank you Mother Nature, for sending rain and allowing me to appear relevant.

• Say ‘Oui’ to beef Burgundy
• By CYNTHIA FUREY
• Special to the Register

Boeuf Bourguignon is a classic French dish, both hearty and elegant when served over mashed potatoes, thick egg noodles or with a crusty baguette to sop up the flavorful sauce. Maybe you’ve shied away from making it the past because it sounds difficult (heaven only knows that I did), but fancy French dishes are often easier than they sound. “Boeuf Bourguignon” essentially translates to “Beef Burgundy,” or beef cooked with Burgundy wine. This French stew is a great intro to cooking with wine if you never have before.

Classically, the dish starts on the stove and finishes in the oven, but you can skip the oven and continue the braising process stovetop. Use a heavy-bottomed pot if you have one, and when in the home-stretch simmer, turn the burner on as low as you can go without the flame flickering. The stew will braise slowly, resulting in a home filled with the sweet aroma of wine, and a pot full of fork-tender chunks of beef.

Most braising recipes call for a sturdy cut of meat that can withstand the low and slow cooking without turning into mush. Cuts like beef chuck and stew meat work well because they contain a lot of collagen, a strong connective tissue that eventually melts down into a gelatin. The result is soft, buttery meat that you can pull apart with your hands (or fork). While you’re cooking, you can actually see this process for yourself: In its initial cooking stages, the meat cubes seem to seize up, and it becomes difficult jab with a fork. But as time passes on and the collagen melts away, the beef becomes softer, taking on the flavors of the wine, until finally you are left with meat that falls apart and is a delight to eat.

Before cutting beef into cubes, trim meat of excess fat, paying close attention to the silver skin, a silvery, thick membrane that may be present on top of the chuck roast. This is inedible. To remove, run your knife under the silver skin and peel it back from the roast.

There are differing opinions on what quality of wine to use while cooking. Some believe that you can use a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and the stew will be just as flavorful as if you had used a Reserve or high-end wine. And then there are some that swear by cooking with the latter. I’ve always adhered to this rule: If it’s a wine you wouldn’t drink, don’t use it to cook. Which means, if you’ve been known to toss back a glass of Two-Buck Chuck and not even flinch (and there’s nothing wrong with that), then you will be fine using it in your dish. Always use a wine that you enjoy drinking. In this recipe, you can also substitute other dry red wines for Burgundy, like Pinot Noir, Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon.

This recipe is simple: You finish the initial preparation, then dump everything into a pot and let the heat do all of the work. A bonus: Boeuf Bourguignon is more flavorful the following day (the sitting time allows for the flavors to meld) so it’s a great do-ahead dish for a dinner party. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON/BEEF BURGUNDY

• Yield: 2 to 3 servings (can be doubled)
• 2 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-1/2- to 2-inch cubes
• 1/4 cup flour
• 3 strips thick cut bacon, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion, minced
• 1/4 cup carrot, minced
• 1/4 cup celery, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
• 1-1/2 cups beef broth or stock
• 1-1/2 cups burgundy wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 cup (or more) frozen pearl onions
• Salt and pepper, to taste.

Procedure:
1. Place beef cubes and flour into a large Ziploc plastic bag. Shake bag to coat beef cubes with flour. Set aside.
2. In a 3- or 4-quart pot over medium-high heat, fry chopped bacon in olive oil until crispy. Remove bacon from pot with slotted spoon and set aside on a paper towel.
3. Remove beef cubes from plastic bag and shake off excess flour. Using the same pot as bacon, brown beef cubes in batches. Remove from pot and set aside with bacon.
4. Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic to pot. Cook for about a minute. Add mushrooms and cook for 4 to 5 minutes more, or until mushrooms begin to brown and shrink.
5. Slowly stir in beef broth and wine, using a wooden spoon to scrape fond (those brown bits) off of bottom of pan. Beef should be covered by liquid. If it isn’t, you can add a bit more wine. Add bay leaf, thyme, cooked bacon and browned beef to pot.
6. Bring pot to boil and reduce heat to low. Cover pot and simmer for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
7. Remove lid from pot and add frozen pearl onions. Turn up heat to medium and cook for an additional 30 minutes uncovered, stirring occasionally, to heat pearl onions through and to thicken liquid.* Season with salt and pepper. Remove and discard bay leaf. Serve hot.

*Cook’s note: At this stage, you can cook the stew for longer than 30 minutes to achieve desired liquid thickness. Generally, the stew is done when the liquid is nappe, or when it leaves a thin coating on the back of a spoon.

– Cynthia Furey

Beware, fellow foodies, of the population that boasts membership to our brotherhood but who are actually in a different class all to themselves. They’re called “food snobs.” And they’re very, very dangerous.

Foodies are always looking for what we call “authentic” cuisine, but we know that the term is a loose one and can mean any number of things, depending on the individual foodie. But for food snobs, the word “authentic” is rigidly defined.

Examples: Food snobs wanting Italian will only go to a place owned by a Scarface mob boss twirling his moustache and plotting your off if you make a face like his Nonna’s spaghetti has too much salt. For a bowl of pho, food snobs will only walk into the shoebox-of-a-restaurant with a lucky dollar on the wall and an English-translated menu that you want to edit with a thick, red Sharpie.

Foodies also frequent these places (which are actually quite good), but unlike food snobs, we are willing to try that Italian place owned by Koreans or the Vietnamese place out in the middle of Kansas. Food snobs will not.

Food snobs also think “authentic” means “extreme.” $50 for cassoulet at a French bistro? Authentique. 50 cents for a street taco? Muy autentico. Foodies love these places too, but we also frequent places where cassoulet doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and tacos cost $5. Food snobs will not.

Foodies know that cuisine can be authentic as long as it’s made with good intentions. Which means we think stellar of that pizza place owned by the blond with the beer gut. Which means we heart Rick Bayless. In the eyes of a foodie, the people who produce authentic food are the people who produce dishes enthusiastically, with passion. People like you and me.

So what else does authenticity mean to foodies? It means that you can make chicken tikka masala without a drop of Indian blood coursing through your veins. And it means that I, a Viet/Irish/Italian hybrid, can make a decent bowl of pho. My recipe may not be authentic by food-snob definition, but you can be sure that its intentions are good.

(CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR RECIPE)

PHO HAPA
Yield: 6 servings

• FOR BROTH:
  2 onions, halved
  1 piece ginger, quartered
  6 pounds beef bones
  1 to 2 pounds oxtail
  5 quarts water
  1/2 cup fish sauce
  2 bay leaves
  1 cinnamon stick
  1 tablespoon black peppercorns
  3 star anise
  6 whole cloves
  2 tablespoons light brown sugar
  Salt and pepper, to taste
• One package rice sticks (pho noodles)
  Beef tenderloin, thinly sliced
• GARNISHES:
  Bean sprouts
  Cilantro
  Lime
  Thai basil

Procedure:
1. Over the open flame of a burner, char onion and ginger halves until fragrant and blackened.
2. In a 10 to 12-quart stockpot, place beef bones and oxtail. Cover with 5 quarts of cold water (bones should be completely covered. If not, add more water).
3. Bring beef bones and water to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 1-1/2 hours, skimming all impurities from bones that float to the surface.
4. Add cinnamon stick, star anise, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, fish sauce and sugar to broth. Continue to simmer for another 1-1/2 to 2 hours, skimming surface of broth as needed.
5. Taste broth. Depending on how much marrow is in the bones you use, you may need to simmer for longer and reduce the liquid to get that full-bodied beef taste. Remove bones and spices from broth. Season with salt and pepper.

6. (This is an optional step.) When broth is to your liking, cool broth and place in refrigerator overnight. In the morning, take pot out of fridge and skim fat off of surface of broth.

To assemble:
1. Reheat broth to a boil. Soak pho noodles in a bowl of water until soft. Drain.
2. Heat water in a 4- to 5-quart pot. When water comes to a boil, add soaked noodles. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until noodles are soft. Drain, and portion noodles into bowls.
3. Place thinly sliced raw tenderloin on top of noodles. Ladle broth over meat and noodles. Top with garnishes and serve hot.

– Cynthia Furey