Notes about Recipes in this book

• Spring rolls with chile-garlic sauce (Boh biah tote)

  • DKennedy on March 06, 2015

    P. 21

• Tapas-style meatballs (Albondigas en salsa)

  • JKDLady on September 13, 2015

    This was good, but I thought too much oil. I also think I would add a bit more flour and cook it more. We found the sauce too thin. This also makes very large meatballs. I would make them smaller. I do agree this is a good recipe. I served them over egg noodles for a main meal. It reminded me somewhat of Swedish meatballs.

• Creamy corn chowder

  • JKDLady on September 17, 2015

    This is a delicious soup. I missed the step of puréeing the soup. This was an important step, I think, in terms of making the soup look better. The taste was wonderful, but I did comment that it wasn't the prettiest soup. I then reread the recipe and noticed the puréeing instruction. I was worried that I should have used whole milk instead of 1%, but it didn't matter. I can't wait to make this again - using all the instructions!

• German split pea soup (Erbsensuppe)

  • babyfork on October 01, 2018

    This was pretty similar to other split pea soup recipes I have made with the difference being the addition of celery root. This was very tasty and I would make again. I did puree about 3/4 of the soup and mix it with the remainder. Go easy on the salt in the beginning as the smoked ham hocks are salty. Then taste after cooking and adjust.

• Woody DeSilva's champoinship chili

  • wcassity on January 01, 2012

    Thick, hearty and spicy. But a bit too one-note.

• Ricotta and roasted pepper frittata (Frittata con ricotta e peperoni)

  • TrishaCP on June 06, 2015

    I made this on a weeknight because I had all of the ingredients on hand. I used jarred peppers so it came together pretty quickly. The flavor profile is pretty classic, and it was a perfectly fine but not very memorable meal. I have other frittata recipes that I enjoy much more, so probably will not return to this one.

• Baked ziti with sausage

  • chawkins on January 17, 2026

    Excellent dish. Made half a recipe with 2 links of hot Italian sausages (about 7 oz) and a lb of 80% ground beef. The beef gave out a lot of grease which I mopped off with paper towels. Quite a number of elements needed to be prepared and put together at the end, the end result was well worth the effort.

• Orecchiette with rapini and goat cheese

  • wcassity on January 01, 2012

    Our absolute family favorite. I frequently make it with kale instead of broccoli rabe. My toddlers request this a couple of times a month. They love noodles and the creamy, tangy sauce. I mix the cheese in versus dropping it on top.

• Figaretti's "Godfather II" linguine

  • Lu1950s on March 08, 2013

    Subbed parmesan reggiano for the Asiago cheese. I've left out the mussels and increased the shrimp and it was delicious.

• Red-chile chicken enchiladas

  • krusso119 on December 14, 2012

    Excellent recipe, my family loved them. The only reason I gave it 4 1/2 stars instead of 5 is that the amount of chicken it calls for seems like a ridiculously small amount for a big pan of 16 enchiladas. The recipe calls for the meat from 2 chicken legs and I used the better part of a 4 lb. rotisserie chicken. And because I used a rotisserie chicken I had no left over cooking liquid from cooking the legs that the recipe calls for, so I used chicken broth to soak the chiles in and make the sauce from. Worked out great.

• Chicken tikka masala

  • Lu1950s on March 08, 2013

    Yum! I subbed crushed tomatoes for the whole tomatoes. I had to use ground coriander and cumin because I didn't have the seeds. The "paste" was more like a liquid slurry. The end product was still good. Served with naan.

  • JKDLady on September 13, 2015

    There were several cooking techniques that I liked in this recipe. I especially liked the way the chicken was cooked. It was seared without being overcooked, and it was so fast. Mine took 8 minutes instead of 5. I also liked straining the tomato seeds. I will use that tip more often. I find the seeds so bitter and crunchy. My paste was also very liquidy, so I added a bit more garam masala, but it still was not a paste. I did use the whole seeds, but I wish I hadn't. The texture was all wrong with the rest of the dish. I only had 3/4 cup of cream, and that was enough for us.

• Chicken paprikash with dumplings (Papriká csirke)

  • TrishaCP on August 15, 2012

    I can't comment on the dumplings as I didn't make them, but the chicken paprikash was great just with simply boiled potatoes. Savory and absolutely comfort food in every sense of the term. I was generous with the paprika (heaping tablespoonfuls) and I think that's the way to go.

  • JKDLady on June 04, 2014

    I found this to be pretty boring, and I used part semi-sweet paprika. It was also difficult to eat the meat on the bone with all the sauce. The dumplings were too hard/chewy so I must have cooked them too long. I would try 5 minutes instead of the 6-8. Maybe I made them too small. I ended up with 51 of them. No one in the family particularly cared for this, and the leftover sauce did not improve with age.

• Sweet-and-sour pork chops (Maiale in agrodolce)

  • jumali on August 30, 2011

    I'll make this over and over--simple prep and delicious.

  • JKDLady on September 13, 2015

    I found this quite boring. I rate this a 2. I put the wrong rating in, but I am not allowed to change it.

• Sid's fried onion burgers

  • psarrett on April 13, 2024

    Very easy to prepare, fast to cook, and with outsized flavor considering those factors. This is my new favorite way to make burgers.

• Katharine Hepburn's brownies

  • TrishaCP on June 10, 2013

    This brownie recipe is pretty well-known. (I vaguely recall that it is in one of the Gourmet cookbooks too.) The key here is that it uses very little flour (only 1/4 cup)- which makes for extremely fudgy brownies that I believe are best eaten after cooling. Cakey brownie fans, this is NOT the recipe for you.

• Oregonian

  The food and faces add luscious context to the accessible recipes, which for the most part use easy-to-find ingredients, even in the more exotic dishes.

  Full review