Nut Free

Fred used to offer this dish to girls at the restaurant L’Express because it was cheap and quirky. But in the end, that’s how he came across: cheap and quirky! Although it is no longer offered at L’Express, we sometimes make it at Joe Beef both for old time’s sake and because it’s just very good. You should count on two days to make this recipe, the first for filtering and chilling the consommé and the second for assembling the aspics. The classic version includes cooked ham, tarragon leaves, and egg whites cut and assembled in the shape of lilies. Now we do it with Spam, lobster, fava beans, crab, or anything we suspect will be delicious in a set consommé. You can purchase oeufs en gelée molds online, or you can use standard muffin tins made of silicone.

Mint is a classic accompaniment for lamb. And it wasn’t until Jennifer May shot this classic braised lamb recipe with its mint condiment that we really appreciated its beauty. It’s something we imagine on the Sunday table of Mayor Drapeau, who brought Expo 67 and the ’76 Olympics to Montreal (and chased away the hookers and the gangsters—albeit temporarily).

Occasionally we refer to Le Repertoire de la Cuisine, the little brown book of classic French recipes, to find inspiration for the Joe Beef menu. It’s a gold mine of forgotten culinary knowledge, including the sauce paloise, a classic variation on sauce béarnaise that uses mint instead of tarragon. You decide on the meat. If you freak on kidneys, use kidneys. We like it on a mutton chop, one chop per person.

This is one of our favorite dishes from the old classic French repertoire, essentially a big moist meatball served on a bone. According to legend, Pojarsky (or Pojarski), a favored innkeeper of Czar Nicholas, was made famous by his killer meatballs re-formed on a veal chop bone. Serve with a frond of blanched fennel.

Not long ago, restaurants were just fun places to eat out—not the foodist temples of today. And they were often an ode to the owner’s homeland, hobby, or previous livelihood: a ski or fishing lodge, a Bahamian beach hut, a Chinese pagoda. At the top of our list is the stube, the Austrian ski shack with crossed skis hung over the mantel, beer steins, pretzel buns as bread, schnapps, and kabinnet. The menus here would invariably feature sides of mustard in glass jars, parsleyed potatoes, krauts and wursts of all kinds, and, ultimately, the schnitzel—crisp and hot and overlapping the plate like Dom DeLuise on a bar stool. We include schnitzel on the Joe Beef menu twice a year: in the spring with peas, cream, and morels, and in the fall with chanterelles, eggs, and anchovies (of course). Ask your butcher for 4 large, pounded schnitzels. Sizewise, default to your biggest pan. You can top the schnitzel with Oeufs en Pot (page 29), or with a plain fried egg with a lemon wedge alongside.

When we opened Joe Beef, we made all kinds of promises, oaths of sorts: no cranberry juice, we would wash dishes ourselves, we would stay open on Monday nights. We also said we would always have (at least) one breakfast item on the dinner menu. Of course, we are closed Mondays and never do the dishes ourselves, but we do always have one breakfast item on the menu. Oh, and we still don’t serve cranberry juice. We see foie gras the same way we see skateboarding: we had a phase, like most everyone. But then it stopped, and now it’s here and there and we enjoy it in small doses. If you come to town and want to feast on foie gras everything, make a pit stop at Au Pied de Cochon; they are good friends and do it better than anyone. Our favorite way to serve foie gras is with a breakfast-sausage patty or with peameal bacon, a well-peppered over-easy egg, and an English muffin. Add a dash of maple mustard and you’re happy, whether it’s 7:00 A.M. or 7:00 P.M. (You’ll have plenty of mustard left over, but that’s okay. It’s good with everything from salmon to corn dogs.) Remember, when you sear foie gras, be generous with salt, use a good pan, and most important, be prepared for a smoke show. Work fast and have a tray and tongs at hand before you start.

Some chefs have decided cedar-planked fish is out of fashion, but we are still making it into the 2000s for two reasons: because it’s delicious and because our friend Mathieu, who is an amazing sculptor, will sometimes show up with some pretty radical cedar boards. Before starting this recipe, it’s a good idea to fill up the sink and soak your cedar board in cold water for as long as you can. This prevents a fire and makes the board a perfect steam generator for cooking the fish.

At Joe Beef, we serve this dish with East Coast scallops, about 5 or 6 per person, with a few tablespoons of hollandaise and a nice spoonful of pulled pork on top. Such a portion is a food-cost disaster and intimidating to some*, but the scallops go down easily and they’re better topped with pork than some foamy composition. To make this dish, you are going to work on the pulled pork first, then the hollandaise, and lastly the scallops, as they take only minutes. You will end up with an excessive amount of meat, which you can use to make some pulled pork sandwiches (page 151).

The great thing about this recipe is that even if you mess it up (which is tough to do), you still have a delicious mushroom and bacon cream that you can pour on toast and call it a day. This is a classic coddled egg but with much more garnish.

We take this name from an old Iron Chef episode when the host declared “Battle Homard Lobster!” Yes, homard and lobster mean the same thing (like “minestrone soup”). Among other things that don’t make any sense: this is probably the most popular Joe Beef dish.

Nowadays, every restaurant seems to have marrow on the menu. But for decades, the after-work evenings of local chefs have usually ended up (drunkenly) in the same place, L’Express, with its infamous three large trunks of marrowbone, sel gris, and rounds of cabbage. There is something about hot marrow in a cold climate; it’s the kind of thing you want to eat when snow is melting off your boots. Essentially a thick French peasant (cultivateur) vegetable soup with marrow, this recipe is a Joe Beef winter standard. Marrowbones are always from the hind legs of the animal. You want them crosscut, which reveals a long tube of marrow. If you have purchased them frozen, thaw them in the fridge first.

This dish, which calls for a whole fresh duck foie gras, has been on our menu since day one. We like it with a thin layer of our Madeira Jelly poured on top, but almost any compote, jam, or jelly can be served alongside.

Quick: Fire up your slow cooker for a filling and healthy winter feast. "The low heat preserves more nutrients than grilling, frying or boiling, and helps prevent the formation of carcinogens," says Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., nutritionist and coauthor of the 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth. We're loco for this Crock-Pot treat.

No offense to salsa, but come on, who doesn't love a gooey, cheesy bean dip, bubbling hot like lava from the broiler? If you're a chile head, you'll probably want to up the number of chiles and leave the seeds in. If your friends are more, ahem, delicate, then stick with one chile and remove the seeds and ribs.

Consider this recipe a double whammy. Not only do you end up with a dreamy, cheesy bread pudding, but you also get the recipe for an excellent loaf of Irish soda bread. The bread is so easy to make—there's no yeast involved—don't be surprised if you find yourself baking a loaf often. It makes excellent toast. Many Irish cheeses are now sold in our supermarkets, but you'll have good results with any sharp Cheddar. Buried in the recipe is a nifty trick: Adding a bit of Parmesan to the mixture helps amplify the flavor of the Cheddar.

Every Super Bowl spread needs a refreshing salad to counterbalance the array of must-have dips, cheesy snacks, and meaty mains. Because the elements of this are all chopped, it's a salad that's easy to toss, easy to serve, and best of all, easy to eat.

Orzo is the Italian word for barley, and the slender, grain-shape of orzo pasta makes for a no-fuss, neatly consumed salad, particularly if you are balancing a plate while perched on the edge of a sofa or standing around the TV watching the Super Bowl. Although the salad makes for a great accompaniment to the Stuffed Sliders Your Way, your vegetarian friends will thank you for providing them with an option they will really enjoy as their main dish.

The Irish are famous for their smoked salmon, so it's a natural for a St. Patrick's Day party. Of course, you don't have to use Irish smoked salmon for these toasts; any cold–smoked salmon will work well, but if you're feeling flush, you will be treating yourself to salmon that is super–silky in texture with a distinct smokiness that comes from spending time near smoldering hardwoods such as oak and beechwood. If topping your salmon with anything other than a gentle squeeze of lemon seems like heresy, don't knock our tangy–sweet malt vinegar syrup until you've tried it. You just might get hooked.

I love pumpkin pie so much that I've requested it as my birthday "cake" every year since I was about thirteen. I happen to have been born in October, so that helps my choice make some sense. I am also fortunate enough to be married to Dave, whom I refer to as a pie guru. The point is, I've eaten a lot of pumpkin pie, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that this is the best pumpkin pie ever. If someone feels otherwise, I am ready for a throwdown, because I can guarantee that their version does not have a grainy cornmeal crust and salty, crunchy pumpkin seeds on top. And without those elements, there's just no match.