Cheese

Otherwise known as green garlic and garlic shoots, spring garlic captures the essence of garlic without any harshness or bite. Unlike mature garlic, spring garlic should be featured in recipes that won’t overwhelm the delicate flavor, such as this risotto. Make sure you wash the spring garlic thoroughly to remove any sand.

Hedgehog mushrooms are close relatives to chanterelles, with a similar flavor profile but a little bigger. They are abundant beginning in mid-winter; if you can find them in the market, grab them up. Their richness makes them a fantastic match for aged provolone and crispy polenta. This dish makes a great side, but it is also substantial enough to make vegetarian guests very, very happy. If you like, you can grill the polenta instead of sautéing it.

When you pour out the polenta to chill, don’t worry about making it pretty. Do what we do at the restaurants and use a cookie or biscuit cutter to create even shapes, or cut out wedges or squares—use your imagination. Grilled or sautéed polenta makes an excellent accompaniment to meat, game, or poultry. Try a couple of disks nestled next to a pork chop, roasted chicken, or guinea hen. Firm polenta should be crispy outside, soft and creamy inside, like a good French fry. In short, everything you could want.

Adding the cornmeal to the water, and avoiding lumps, is the only challenging part of making good polenta. In the restaurants, we make it to order, and I vacillate between using fine and medium grinds, depending on the finished consistency I am looking for. The coarser polenta has more presence on the plate and such a deep corn flavor that I think it’s a good place to start. Of course, fine or “instant” polenta has the advantage of being quicker to make. Traditionally, polenta is made using a wooden spoon, though I use a whisk. If you don’t need or want this much polenta, you can halve the recipe with good results.

Using fresh ricotta as the base for gnocchi creates pasta of incredible delicacy with a richness that stands up well to bold sauces such as the short rib ragu. Think of forming the gnocchi as a meditation, enjoying the process and the feel of the dough under your fingers. This is a great basic meat sauce that’s a staple at Tavolàta. Using short ribs instead of ground chuck makes for better depth of flavor and richness. You can either grind the meat yourself if you have a grinder or an attachment for your mixer, or ask your butcher to grind it for you. This is a fairly thick ragu that goes especially well with ricotta gnocchi or freshly made pappardelle.

When the late summer months bring you perfectly plump corn, buttery chanterelles, and Walla Walla onions so sweet you could eat them like apples, there isn’t much to do but stay out of their way. This light but flavorful soup showcases each of the ingredients without overwhelming their delicacy. Because the corn and chanterelles offer such nice, contrasting textures, I prefer not to purée this soup.

This hearty soup showcases the very best of fall—sweet kabocha squash and earthy porcini mushrooms—simmered together in a rich Parmesan broth. Using the Parmesan broth as a base adds indescribable depth, and as they simmer, the mushrooms perfume the broth and become tender and silky. I add just enough cream to give the soup body while allowing the flavors to shine through. If you can’t find kabocha squash in your market, feel free to use other types of hard-skinned winter squash, such as butternut, or even sugar pumpkin.

Instead of cutting your knuckles trying to grate Parmesan close to the rind, keep your scraps in a resealable bag in your fridge. Once you’ve saved up about a pound’s worth of odds and ends—which wouldn’t take too long in my house—use them to make this rich, perfumed broth. Mushroom trimmings or pancetta pieces would also make nice additions, but avoid any vegetables that are too strongly flavored or they will overwhelm the flavor of the cheese.

Make this with homemade ricotta and you will be rewarded with a starter that is rich, pretty, and piquant. It is perfect for entertaining, because you can prepare the crostini, ricotta mixture, and salsa verde ahead of time and put the bruschetta together when your guests arrive.

Two things you should know about me and carpaccio: First, I don’t like carpaccio you can see through; I cut mine a little thicker, which gives it better texture and body. Second, I like my carpaccio loaded, the way some people think of nachos or pizza. Here I use some bococcini de pecorino that we keep in the restaurants and some tender baby arugula, but you could use shaved porcini mushrooms, shaved raw artichokes, or sautéed chanterelles—whatever you like. Just load it up.

Southerners love a good red velvet cake the way they love good, juicy gossip. That’s because there’s inherent drama in a towering white cake that, beneath swaths of innocent cream cheese frosting, possesses a shockingly crimson interior. Of course, they also love red velvet cake for its twangy buttermilk and cocoa–infused flavor and exceptionally smooth, supple crumb.

This pie is a peanut butter cup aficionado’s dream. It was the creation of my friend Jen, who was one of the bakers at Foster’s, and it has since become a Market staple—one of our most popular pies. With layers of crispy chocolate crust, smooth dark chocolate ganache, creamy peanut butter filling, and cool whipped cream, it is a true indulgence.

Surely, this moist, pecan- and fruit-flecked cake must get its name from the sugary nectar upon which fluttering hummingbirds lunch. This namesake sweet is at least as popular among the birds’ Southern human counterparts. Indeed, it is Southern Living’s all-time most requested recipe. This is my adaptation of the magazine’s classic version.

On a recent visit to South Carolina, I was lucky enough to visit Clemson University to try some of its famous blue cheese. The university first started making its tangy, marbled cheese in the 1940s, when a dairy professor realized that the cool, dank tunnel of an unfinished local railway line would make the perfect curing environment. Although the operations have since moved indoors, Clemson continues to make its Roquefort-style cheese in small batches using the same artisanal methods (see Sources, page 377). At the campus cafes, you can try everything from blue cheese pizza to blue cheese milkshakes. This rich, creamy dressing was inspired by the flavor of Clemson blue cheese—but in a pinch, any Roquefort-style cheese will do.

I first tried this when Bill Smith, chef of the famed Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, made a similar salad for a magazine feature. I know what you’re probably thinking—strange combination, right? But let me tell you, it really works. As much as I trust Bill’s palate, even I was surprised by how well the mild-sweet melon and acid-sweet tomato went together. I have since made many variations using different kinds of melons, tomatoes, herbs, and cheese, but this one is my all-time favorite.

The quick blanching process used in this superfresh salad unlocks the beans’ flavors without boiling away their satisfyingly snappy crispness. As with most salads, using few, minimally processed ingredients means that the quality of each ingredient—from the oil to the greens and even the salt—plays a significant role in the quality of the finished product. Using high-quality seasonal ingredients makes this salad positively shine.

This is my go-to grits dish, the first one I think to make and the one to which I keep returning over the years. I love how the roasted tomatoes, flavored by the country ham, form a rich, saucy sort of gravy for the creamy cheese grits. Cracklings add big flavor. If they aren’t available, substitute crispy pieces of thick-cut bacon.

Oven-caramelized squash and tangy blue cheese make this creamy side hearty enough to double as a vegetarian entrée. It makes an excellent weeknight supper crumbled with crispy bacon or prosciutto and served with a simple green salad and a glass of crisp, sweet Sauternes or creamy Chardonnay.

Over the years, my love of stone-ground yellow grits has turned me into a certified grits snob. And, like most Southerners with a grits chip on my shoulder, I tend to blame flavorless “quick grits”—the finely milled, prepackaged variety that has been pre-steamed to be partially cooked—for unfairly maligning this Southern delicacy’s reputation. So imagine my surprise when I discovered, thanks to an ingenious Craig Claiborne recipe, that this puffy, soufflé-like casserole is actually much better made with quick grits. There’s just no denying texture that light and airy. You can, of course, use stone-ground grits; the casserole will be a littler grainier but equally flavorful.