A Summer Feast

 What would make up the menu at a summer party? There could be fresh veggies maybe Grilled meat of some kind is a must A dessert featuring the fruit of the season is another must. Luckily there is amenu featuring all of these.

Regular contributors  Genvieve Ko , Melissa Clark, Yewande Komolafe and Eric Kim created such a feast in today;'s New York Times Wednesday Food section. This is the perfect pulled together dinner for an August birthday celebration at home or even after a fun pool party with friends. What's exciting is that it starts off with a tangy appetizer, a baked feta dish with spicey tomatoes and honey. The classic Greek cheese is baked with a mix of tomatoes, garlic onion, olives and capers wich have been tossed in olive oil ,and Aleppo peppers. along with sea salt. Honey is spooned around the feta . It's baked in a 425 degree Farenheit oven until the  tomatoes break down and the cheese has melted. Halfway through stire the veggies andat the end stir the veggies and feta together .The feta may look curdled. Add fresh mint or basil. serve with either sliced toasted baguette, pita or crackers. You could easily bake dessert too at this time if you want too. It;s a  buttery blueberry crisp that also has almonds in in for flavor and crunch.It's baked with fresh blueberries A half cup of melted and cooled butte is added to the crisp for a really rich flavor and the crisp is baked at 375 degrees Farenheit for forty minutes. Serve with either vanilla ice cream or better yet fresly whipped cream.

There are two different meat recipes. Make both if you're having a big crowd  or try either one  for a smaller crowd. There is coconut dill salmon with green beans and corn The fish and green beans are cooked in separate tin foil packets. The salmon is grilled in a dressing made of coconut cream, brown sugar mustard and vinegar. The beans are grilled and mixed into a salad with corn and tomatoes.The fish's dressing is also used on the veggies. Pile them on the fish fillets and serve with more dressing. Pork lovers will love the grilled pork chops with plum barbecue sauce. The sauce is made with fresh plums, in season right now.They're simmered in a mix of sauteed onion,applle cider or rice  vinegar brown sugar and chili sauce (although you could use Heinz ketchup for a milder flavor). The onion is sauteed first in oil and then the chili sauce, brown sugar and vinegar added. The sliced and pitted plums are then simmered in until the sauce has thickened. Served with  the grilled pork chops which have been seared on both sides for two to three minutes.

A summer feast is easily made. Try this one for a warn evening full of good food.It's a great way of  celebrating th season.

Computer Cooking?

AI has taken over much of our lives today.Yet can it take over our kitchen and our time honored recipes? Can  artificial intelligence give us the perfect Thanksgiving dinner? That's what both chefs and home chefs want to know.

Regular contributor  Priya Krishna along with AI tech writer Cade MIller for the NY TImes, explored the possiblities in yestrrday's New York Times Food section. This is a new branch of AI but it is making headway. These computer generated recipes do share many aspects with their handwritten counterparts. There is the list of ingredients, exact measurements , step by step instructions and even fabricated notes with personal touches. The best test of these, as food editors and chefs of all sorts know is Thanksgiving. Ms. Krishna, along with other New York Times Food writers, Melissa Clark, Genevieve Ko, Erik Kim and Yewande Komolafe decided to try out a technology known as GPT-3 to devise a holiday menu. GPT-3 is a neural system that's more adept at analyzing large amounts of data. it has created credible recipes in the past. In fact some can pass for human generated ones. in order to create recipes, Ms. Kirishna had to put in her background along with likes  like Italian and Thai food along with making not too sweet desserts.It also asked for what ingredients she often cooks with. she then added "Show me a Thanksgiving menu made for me."

How did the computer do?The first recipe was pumpkin spice chaat or bite sized snacks that can be used as appetizers. Ms. Kirishna was confused by the concept but impressed with the program's inventiveness. Minutes later she had a palusible menu. Along with the pumpkin spice chaat there were recipes for green beans with miso and sesame seeds, a turkey with a soy-ginger glaze and a naan based stuffing. She wanted a cranberry sauce that wasn't too sweet and a little spiced and she got one with those exact requirements.. There was also a pumpkin spice cake with orange cream frosting. How did it all work out? The personal notes about using the flavors of Ms Krishn'as childhood fot the turkey were a li. The naan stuffing required thirty-two components. The recipes were light on salt and fat.  Still there was hope - until they were tasted. The naan stuffing tasted like chana masala and fruitcake got into a bar fight, There was no butter or oil to moisten the bird and it came out incredibly dry and stringy,. It was also flavored with only one garlic clove. The chaat tasted like grassy mush. The cake looked like two pancakes sandwiched together with icing. Her felloow food writers were hard with their comments, with Ms Ko summing it up - "Food with no soul."

Should we rely on AI for our recipes? No, We need the human touch for delicious recipes and time honored dishes. It's this that makes meals especially holiday ones memorable and beloved.

Good Fourth of July Recipes

 What makes a good holiday? Its' recipes. For the Fourth of July,  its' ones that reflect the American culinary landscape that's ever changing. It's combining them with the produce of the season to create tasty summer dishes.

Regular contributor  and senior editor Genevieve Ko  gave an excellent array of good recipes in yesterday's New York Times Wednesday Food section.what is great about this is that it reflects the rich multi ethnicity of this country. You could easily start with the Puerto Rican churrasco. This one from Von Diaz requires skirt steaks first marinated in a mix of garlic clove, oregano, white vinegar and olive oil.Adobo seasoning is added to this for more flavor. The meat can settle in this from ten minutes to overnight.  The marinade is then shaken off right before grilling fro two to three minutes.  Since it is a thicker cut it will need to be flipped a few times for even cooking.The sauce also called wasakaka is a mix of fresh parsley, cilantro and oregano leaves ground into a thin paste. Adobo seasoning and garlic is also added to this .You can use a mortar and pestle or a food processor for this. what can go with this ? A double tomato salad (which I will be making tomorrow) is the perfect foil. It's a cool mix of fresh and sun dried toamatoes. Since' it's a barbecue side there is pasta added., preferably long and twirly ones. Torn mint, basil or arugula  are also added along with  raw pine nuts, hazelnuts walnuts or almonds for crunch.

What would be the best Fourth of July dessert? Ms Ko recommends Kim Severson's decade old peach cobbler recipe. Years ago Ms. Severson , another Food section contributor took well regarded cookbook author, Edna Lewis.s one . The crust has two(!) sticks of butter in it mixed with three cups of sifted all purpose flour. There is still lard or vegetable shortening added but only a tablespoon. It should be frozen first and then cut into small pieces.There's also sugar added too. The filling has eight cups of peaches mixed with, four tablespoons of it along with freshly grated nutmeg, sugar and salt.  This is placed between the rolled out dough, cut into discs.  Four tablespoons of butter is cur up and placed on the filling before the top is slid on.Seal the edges to create a crust and slice in a few slits to let the steam out. Bake for fifteen minutes at 425 degrees Farenheit. You could gild the lily by serving it with . whipped cream or vanilla ice cream .It's still good on it's own.

The Fourth of July should reflect all of the US. Start with the Puerto Rican churrasco and Italian influenced tomato salad. Finish with the all American peach cobbler for a true American holiday.

Dumplings For The New Year

 The Lunar New Year is fast approaching it and with it comes all the treats of the season. One of them is a plate of dumplings. These are easy to make and fun to eat. Even creating the dough or skins is a simple task. Celebrate the Year of the Ox with a tasty plump dumpling.

Genevieve Ko wrote about these delicious dumplings in today New York Times Food section. Ms Ko, author of Better Baking also gave a few good recipes and how tos  as well. Any home chef, whether novice or experienced can create them. There are two, one savory, filled wit tofu and veggies and the other sweet,  tang yuan, stuffed with sesame seeds, peanut butter and sugar swimming in a sweet ginger soup. Making the dough is therapeutic. There's a soothing rhythm to kneading and rolling out the dough cutting the circles, then filling them.Many home chefs think that making skins or wrappers is hard. They're really not. It's a mix of just flour and hot water. Using the last ensures wrappers that are thin and simple to pleat. Make them with cold water and you wind up with ones that are tougher and more elastic.The tang yuan requires a different dough. The sweet dumplings have wrappers made from rice flour and a cooked mix of water and a neutral oil like grapeseed. Both kinds of wrappers need to stand, the savory for half and hour the rice flour one for only ten minutes.

The fillings are tasty and can be modified. You can be vary them or put your own spin on them. Ms. Ko uses tofu mixed with spinach, watercress or baby bok choy. There's also celery stalks too added and chili crisp for flavor. Chili crisp is a fiery savory/sweet mix you can buy or make yourself. It's a blend of red pepper flakes, ginger, sugar and cinnamon. There's also soy salt to balance this out. The dumplings are  cooked immediately in a mix of oil and water. This ensures a crispy bottom and a tender top. Keep in mind oil and water cooking together can be lethal so keep a cover on the pan until the rapid firecracker popping stops. By then the water has evaporated and you can finish cooking the dumplings in an uncovered pan. As for the sweet ones, they're cooked in the ginger soup. This again is a mix of scrubbed ginger with either rock or granulated sugar. This will only take ten minutes and then divide the dumplings and soup into individual bowls. The filling is a combined mash of ground and toasted sesame seeds and peanut butter. This is put into a freezer to firm up before being turned into filling.

It's the Year of the Ox! Celebrate with savory and sweet dumplings. They're a great way to ring in the Lunar New Year.

Cooking One Step At A Times

 Does anyone actually follow cookbook directions these days? Don't we kind of adjust the recipes to our tastes, adding this, omitting that. Yet doing such makes home chefs miss out on the dishes history or the reason it was included in the book. Cooks will also miss the intended flavor of the recipes along with their nuances and subtleties.

Genevieve Ko, cooking editor of the Los Angeles Times and the author of the healthy baking cookbook,  Better Baking wrote this interesting article in yesterday's New York Times Food section. She feels that home chefs can get to know the creators better, understand their backgrounds and figuratively  leave their kitchens and enter someone else's. She gives ideas about how to get the most out of executing a recipe. The first is look for recipes written to be followed precisely. To assess the deliberateness of a recipe creator, took to recipes and instructions guaranteed for success. Another must is choose recipes that will work as published. Ms. Ko suggests flipping to the cookbook's acknowledgements to see if testers are thanked. Most major media companies do professionally test and edit recipes before publication. One of the best pieces of advice is pick recipes that sound surprising in some way. Try something different that's out of your wheelhouse. Ms. Ko tried an East African dish  from In Bibi's Kitchen  written by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen. She followed contributor Jeanne Razanamaria's recipe to the letter and came out with a tangy dish with earthy flavors.

Ms. Ko offers more advice.  Home chefs must track down ingredients, even ones that are hard to find. The search is part learning about other cuisines and cultures. You can get any ingredient on Amazon or at other sites. Also check the internet to find where ethnic groceries in your area. They too can offer advice and steer you to the right ingredients.As with any set of instructions read the recipe carefully and stick to it. Before you start anything, read the top note or even the whole cookbook to contextualize the dish. Another important must do read the recipe carefully to anticipate the steps because methods may differ from what you expect. Also resist the temptation to alter it especially if it's close to a recipe you know. Sticking exactly to the instructions will reveal the surprise of a vibrant flavors. One of the most important things to do is taste with an open mind. We tend to think we know what dishes should taste like but if there's a variation or new ingredient it may be a bit off putting. Our palates will evolve with the recipes we try. Ms. Ko also includes a coconut chicken curry and , that Madagascar white bean stew and a dulce de leche chocoflan.

Look though your cookbooks and reread the recipes you want to try. Stick to the recipes. It'll open up your mind to new methods, techniques and ingredients. Adhere to the instructions and create memorable dishes.