Weekend Cooking: The Good Food by Daniel Halpern and Julie Strand

I'm one of those cooks who remembers the pre-internet days of trying to hunt down recipes with global flavors. If you didn't start putting together a massive cookbook collection, you simply wouldn't have access to Persian stews or Asian soups or Mideastern salads.

In the mid-1980s, Daniel Halpern and Julie Strand's The Good Food: A Cookbook of Soups, Stews, and Pastas (reissued by Ecco in January 2019) was a godsend, even if you had to go to a specialty market (or grow your own) to find fresh cilantro. In the 21st century, every imaginable recipe is available with the click of mouse or a tap on a screen, and even small towns like mine carry international ingredients at the general supermarket.

Despite the wonders of Pinterest, I found The Good Food to be full of appealing recipes for the kinds of meals I love--soups, stews, pastas, salads, and spreads. This book celebrates foods from around the world that say, Come into my kitchen. Sit at my table. Stay a while. It's just the kind of cookbook I bought in the 80s, and it's likely I even owned a copy (before my big cookbook purge of several years ago).

The recipes range from basic stocks to the more complex, and I'm truly drawn to many of the comforting dishes. The cookbook includes cold soups (curried zucchini) and hot soups (corn chowder), familiar stews (jambalaya) and new ones (saag gosht), and simple pastas (olive oil, garlic, and parsley) and fancy ones (poached salmon and creamy vinaigrette). Plus there's a chapter on accompaniments (chutneys, salads).

To be honest, if you're all about up-to-the-minute trends and a zillion fashion photos, you might want to look elsewhere. But if you're interested in classic, solid, stood-the-test-of-time recipes for the types of dinners that welcome home family and friends, then The Good Food is your cookbook. Be aware that Halpern and Strand do not shy away from cream and butter and have a heavy bent for meats, fish, and fowl.

None of that bothers me, and I'm glad to have a digital copy (thanks to Ecco) in my collection. The following simple pasta dish is on deck for this coming week.

Baked Fusilli with Cheese Parsley, and Scallions
Serves 8
A variation on the classic American macaroni and cheese, this make a fine Sunday night supper when followed by a green salad. We prefer the texture of the fusilli, and it catches the bits of parsley, scallion, and cheese.

• Salt
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 pound fusilli
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/3 cup minced scallions, with 1 inch of the green
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 1/2 pounds white cheddar cheese, grated
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon butter

In a kettle, bring 5 quarts water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt and the vegetable oil. Add the fusilli, stir, and cook until not quite al dente. Drain thoroughly.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs lightly and then stir in the milk. Add the parsley, scallions, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the fusilli and toss. Fold in the cheddar.

With 1/2 tablespoon of the butter, coat a shallow rectangular baking dish, about 14 x 9 x 2 inches. Spoon the fusilli mixture into the baking dish. Sprinkle the Parmesan and the bread crumbs over the top and dot with the remaining butter.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven until the top is browned and the fusilli is bubbling, about 30 minutes.

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International Freebie!

If you'd like a PDF copy of the cookbook that accompanies Crystal King's The Chef's Secret (see my post from Monday), either comment on this post or link up your own foodie post and then fill out this form. Everyone who provides his or her email after commenting or participating will get a copy. Fun fact: I adapted one of my grandmother's recipes for the book!



I'll delete your email from the Google form after I send you your cookbook.
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