Vinegared Romaine with Sour Cream, Bacon, and Herbs by Alison Roman

I love salads. Give me a big bowl of greens with all the fixings, plenty of texture (there must be crunch!), tossed in a tangy, zippy dressing with extra on the side, and I will love you forever. Maybe not forever, but for that day at least. 

To me, a great salad has a lot going on, and the various parts must all work together and complement each other. Decadence is encouraged, and so is simplicity! As long as the salad has excellent fixings, textural variance, and each part contributes well to the whole, I will love it. 

With this criteria in mind, I’ll break down this excellent salad. 

All the fixings: The elements, rather, are as follows: ½ head of romaine per person, ½ shallot finely chopped and marinated in white wine vinegar with salt and pepper, sour cream with salt and pepper, crispy bacon, and herbs. First, the finely chopped shallots are placed in a small bowl with the white wine vinegar to marinate and slightly soften. Then the sour cream is distributed to each plate and swirled over the bottom. Each half of romaine is then spread over the sour cream. Next, cook the bacon. I chose a pre-cooked bacon from TJ’s that just requires some microwaving. I like this kind because it’s fast, it doesn’t smell up my kitchen, it’s very crispy, and the package lasts a little while in the fridge. The bacon, left in full strip form, is tucked in between the leaves, so as to peak out at you with a hint of decadence and a wink. The shallot-vinegar mixture is spooned over the salad and topped with lots of chopped herbs (think dill, parsley, chives, etc.). 

Textural variety: The milky sour cream provides a smooth counterpoint to the crunchy bacon, crisp romaine stem, and soft romaine leaves. Every bite has an equal opportunity to be both crunchy and soft. 

Complementary parts: This dish has several distinct flavor elements that balance one another perfectly: creaminess of the sour cream, salty/fatty pork flavors of the bacon, tangy/acidic bite of the shallots and vinegar, and the earthy depth of the herbs. 

I didn’t like my first Alison Roman salad, but this one turned things around. This one is also what Alison calls a “knife-and-fork salad”. Yes, exactly, you need to eat it with a knife and fork. Which personally I find to be a fun activity. I like cutting up my own lettuce and bacon and distributing each ingredient to form the perfect bite. Some might call this “playing with my food.” I call it “craft time.”

I’ve now eaten this salad many times. I love that I don’t need to chop the romaine or toss it before serving. The assembly is so simple, especially if you follow my bacon recommendation, and it’s full of pleasing flavors. I’ve made this for lunch, for guests, for a casual date night dinner, and for a midday snack. And I’ve gotten flexible with the ingredients. A couple of sliced cherry tomatoes. Shaved carrot. A different dressing. As long as the same elements of something salty/fatty, something creamy, and something tangy/acidic are at play, it’s bound to be a great salad. 

47 recipes cooked, 178 to go.

Golden Chicken Broth with Turmeric and Garlic by Alison Roman

For several months, I’ve been saving chicken bones. I’d come to save several backbones from spatchcocked chickens, a couple of wings from recipes that just wanted thighs and breasts, and cooked, uneaten scraps that no one wanted. I was saving them all to make my very first homemade chicken broth. 

What better occasion to make this broth than in preparation for my second Covid-19 vaccine. We knew from friends and family that the second Moderna vaccine could warrant some less than desirable symptoms. The alleged window to appear was 8-12 hours post shot. So as soon as I returned home from my early morning vaccine, I got to work making this broth. 

First step is to place an onion, cut in half crosswise, and two heads of garlic, cut the same way, and a large piece of peeled ginger, cut-side down in the stockpot over shimmering canola oil. The goal is to get these ingredients a bit toasty, which takes only a few minutes. Alison specifies that she likes to keep the onion skins on for the added color they provide. 

Next, the other vegetables and spices are thrown in for softening: celery, chopped fennel bulb, bay leaves, whole star anise, and turmeric. Once these are slightly softened and equally coated in oil, the water and chicken bones get added. 12 cups of water and 3 lbs. of chicken bones to be exact. My bones were all frozen, so they were rather bulky at first, and I was afraid they wouldn’t fit in the stock pot. After several minutes of thawing, they eventually got unglued from one another, and sank to fit nicely in the pot. 

Since some of my bones still had meat left, I removed them after 30 minutes of simmering to pull the meat off so it didn’t dry out. I saved these little scraps for the chicken noodle soup I’d make next. Bones, fat, and cartilage all go back in the pot, and the stock simmers for another 2-2.5 hours, or until it’s reduced by about a third. 

The final step is to strain the broth. I used a large colander at first, just to catch all the chunky vegetables and bones. And then I used a smaller fine mesh strainer to catch any bits of bone or garlic that made it past the colander. 

The broth was indeed a golden yellow, and had a really pleasant taste. There was certainly a layer of oily fat on top, which in hindsight I would probably try to scoop away partially. But the flavor of that fat is important, too. And all the rumors are true, you can definitely tell the difference between a homemade broth and a store bought box of broth. 

Once the broth was ready, I made a simple chicken noodle soup, using Ali Slagle’s NYT recipe as a guideline, utilizing the broth and chicken scraps leftover from the bones. All of this was done by about 7 hours after my vaccine. 

At hour 12, things got real. I suddenly had a high fever, terrible body aches, chills and sweats, and a throbbing headache. This lasted through the night (I didn’t sleep much) and I had a milder version of it throughout the next day. I spent that whole second day on the couch, and at one point fell asleep for four hours in the afternoon. I’m so grateful for the privilege of gaining immunity, but it sure wasn’t all smooth sailing. The chicken broth and noodle soup sure came in handy. 

46 recipes cooked, 179 to go.

oh, she glows

Buttered Turmeric Rice with Crushed Almonds and Herbs by Alison Roman

Well since my modified turmeric revelation during the lemony tea cake recipe, I figured, why not keep testing my theory. This rice recipe affirmed that turmeric is nice when it isn’t the only thing you taste. The rice’s flavor is actually dominated by the toasted almond and butter flavors, more than anything else. Which means it can go really well with all sorts of other dishes. 

Let’s elaborate. Step one is to cook some rice. This recipe calls for jasmine or basmati rice. Over the last few years, I’ve become accustomed to substituting white rice for brown rice (health benefits, yada yada). But when I refer back to the rules, I’m reminded that I committed to maintaining the integrity of these recipes, which means no ingredient swapping unless totally necessary. Thus, I bought my first bag of jasmine rice in at least 3 years. 

I had forgotten how light and fluffy jasmine rice can be. And how much more quickly it cooks than brown rice! It only took 12 minutes to make 3 cups of rice. Once the rice is done, just set it aside. 

Meanwhile, it’s time to toast some chopped almonds in butter. I chopped my nuts by hand, mostly because I only had whole almonds, and I do like the texture of a roughly chopped nut (so many fun angles!). However, it should be noted that I will never be one to look down upon the purchase of pre-sliced or pre-chopped nuts. In fact, I grew up on a steady diet of kale and lemon salads topped with blanched slivered almonds. There are some days when I just don’t want to chop my own nuts. If you’re like me, then I say, “no shame!” 

After the nuts are toasty and the butter is browned, the nuts are removed and set aside with the rice, and the butter gets left behind. Thinly sliced shallots and turmeric take a dive into the butter and become soft and fragrant. Just a few minutes of cooking and you’re ready to plop the rice back into the skillet on top of the shallots and turmeric. 

This is the point where crispiness happens in front of your very eyes. Except you can’t actually see it get crispy because after the rice is pressed down into the skillet, you just have to leave it there and let the pan do the magic. Good thing I learned that “Believing isn’t seeing” from Judy the Elf in “The Santa Clause” movie with Tim Allen. Believe, though you do not see, that the rice is getting crunchier over the instructed span of 8-10 minutes over medium heat. FYI, at one point, I did lift up a corner of rice to check its progress (Alison says you can!) and realized that the pan needed to be rotated a bit for even crisping. 

Once the rice was crisped to my heart’s content, I plated it and topped it with the toasted almonds and a bunch of herbs. The texture was really fun and the flavor was subtle. I’d say keep the subtleness if you’re serving it with something else that’s loud and in your face. But if you want the rice to stand out more, don’t be afraid to maybe add a bit of coriander, possibly more salt, and definitely more black pepper. 

45 recipes cooked, 180 to go.

Roasted Broccolini and Lemon with Crispy Parmesan by Alison Roman

There are recipes I feel jazzed to write about. There are recipes about which I have not much to say. This is one of the latter. 

I didn’t begin to love vegetables as an adult until I learned how to oven roast them. I learned the vegetable to oil and salt ratio, a general oven temperature range, a sense for how to time it, and I haven’t looked back. Here is a great example of one vegetable to roast and how to pair it with other flavors. Broccolini roasted with lemon and some parmesan that gets all crispy. Everything you need to know is in the title.

My pal Margaret, who I reference often, encouraged me to keep it real here. I think I’ve done that thus far, but it’s a post like this that tempts me to embellish more than is necessary. So for brevity and clarity sake, I’ll bring this to a close. If you like roasted broccolini, and you think pairing it with lemon or parmesan sounds nice, then you my friend, should make some. 

44 recipes cooked, 181 to go.

Lemony Turmeric Tea Cake by Alison Roman

Small Victories is the name of a cookbook I own and love. It’s written by Julia Turshen who is a boss lady (check her out!). Every recipe in her book provides the reader with several “small victories” or opportunities to master a cooking technique or hack. This can look like how to make your own lasagna noodles, how to turn leftovers into a different meal, or letting your chicken come to room temp before roasting. Her book has encouraged me to pay more attention to small victories in my day to day. As someone who tends to put unnecessary pressure on herself to be impressive, I benefit from feeling accomplished in smaller tasks and letting that delight fuel me. For me, that can look like pushing myself 0.10 miles further on a run or remembering to take out the trash before it gets smelly. Little wins, folks. 

The lemony turmeric tea cake afforded me two small victories.  

Small Victory #1: I’ve said before that I don’t like turmeric. After trying this cake, I’d like to make an amendment to that claim: I don’t like turmeric when its taste overpowers my food. I can get behind turmeric if it helps complexify (is that a word) a dish without wrestling the other spices to the ground and claiming victory. A dessert is an odd way to learn this about my own pallet, but I was pleasantly surprised. 

Small Victory #2: I turned this glutenous recipe into a Gluten Free one! With the help of my pal Margaret pointing me to this King Arthur article, I made several small adjustments that really paid off. When I tried converting Alison’s Cocoa Banana Bread to gluten free, I simply swapped the AP flour for GF flour, 1:1. The result was a drier, thicker cake. But this lemon cake turned out light n’ fluffy as heck! 

Here are the alterations I made: 

• Swapped regular All-Purpose flour with Gluten-free All-Purpose flour, using a 1:1 ratio 

• Added a little less than 1 tsp. of Xanthum gum

• Used an additional egg: 3 eggs instead of just 2 eggs

Beyond flour, sugar, turmeric, and the typical baking dried ingredients, this recipe utilizes 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of zest. The first step is incorporating the sugar and the zest by rubbing it together with your fingers, thereby turning the sugar a light yellow and releasing the lemony aroma. The sugar is then whisked into the eggs, lemon juice and greek yogurt/sour cream. A stick of melted butter and other dry ingredients get folded into the batter just before pouring it into the cake pan. Thinly sliced lemons and sugar top the cake. The lemons looked really nice, but I had to be careful not to let them burn. 

Alison mentions in the recipe description that she often makes this cake to bring to an occasion or gathering, and then ends up eating all of it herself. I can relate. It’s only because Jordan begged me to bring half of it to a bonfire that I gave some away. 

43 recipes cooked, 182 to go.