Monday, April 14, 2025
Good morning!
Yes, the pong-pong fruit is that dangerous [NYTimes, unlocked]
The 2010s video frenzy that changed food forever [Best Food Blog]
Greetings from Amsterdam, where we are on spring break with the kids. If all goes well, we will spend this week gazing at tulip fields, riding our bikes around windmills, taking a canal boat tour, eating our share of Rijsttafel, and injecting as much spring into our systems as possible. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back. But for now, a few wonderful things:
A new feature on the website: The excellent people at Wordpress built smittenkitchen.com a new video index page. If you’ve followed my video recipe demos on Reels or TikTok, over the last year I’ve also embedded each in their respective recipe pages on the site and the index reflects all 170+ videos and counting. I hope you find it useful.
An Easter menu: This week’s newsletter focuses on my favorite Easter-ish recipes, from brunch to lunch to dinner. Honestly just looking at these brighter foods makes me want to have people over soon.
Plus, we have an interview with one of my favorite TikTok cooks, the talented Hailee Catalano. Her first cookbook, By Heart: Recipes to Hold Near and Dear, is out tomorrow, 4/15.
Cheers,
Deb
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers now that flowers are budding and the air is warming? I thought you’d never ask! Try the pea, feta, and mint fritters, toasted ricotta gnocchi with pistachio pesto, baked orzo and artichokes, and fettuccine with white ragù. To finish, I recommend the bee sting bars and the carrot cake with brown butter and no clutter. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
“One of the winning elements of ‘The Recipe’ is that it’s not prescriptive — rather than settling on one universal ‘perfect’ recipe, the chefs explain their personal preferences, then give listeners the information they need to make their own adjustments. By breaking their recipes down ingredient-by-ingredient, digging into what each one is doing, they make the science of cooking approachable and fun.” — New York Times, 7 Podcasts to Inspire a New Hobby
“J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Deb Perelman’s new podcast gets to not only the heart of how they make their recipes—but also the why behind each decision, too.” — Esquire, The 26 Best Podcasts of 2024
The latest full episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is all about French Toast! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
potatoes with soft eggs and bacon vinaigrette
I know it’s not for everyone but, for me, this is the brunch salad of my dreams: potatoes, soft eggs, a bit of greens, and a warm bacon vinaigrette seasoning everything. I think we should treat ourselves.
green bean salad with fried almonds
Green beans are one of my favorite vegetables, so I hope you try this green bean salad with crunchy almonds, pickled red onions, and so little fennel and celery, even the skeptics won't mind. I could eat it every week of the year and never get tired of it.
rolled spinach omelet
I'm completely obsessed with this omelet that's angling to be your holiday brunch centerpiece. The ingredients are simple (frozen spinach, cheddar, eggs), the process is quick (hand-whisked, bakes in 15 minutes), but the presentation is gorgeous enough for a fancy table. I hope you love it too. [Video below!]
leek, ham and cheese egg bake
Vying for a place on your weekend agenda: a giant puffed and bronzed bread- (but not decadence-, thank goodness) free egg casserole that serves a crowd, reheats like a treat and tastes like the inside of a very good quiche.
focaccia onion board
An Eastern European savory flatbread smothered in onions and poppy seeds with the classic chew and crisp of focaccia is a cinch to make and a heavenly alternative to bagels in a big brunch-y spread with cream cheese, lox and all the good stuff. Your kitchen is going to smell otherworldly.
lamb chops with pistachio tapenade
I love lamb chops more than any human being should and this is one of my favorite ways to prepare them, in which a paste of olives, pistachios, capers, garlic and herbs is smashed on mid-cooking and becomes one with the chops before they reach your plate -- it's also one of the easiest. (Hooray.)
crispy crumbled potatoes
Every craggy edge and erratic angle of these restaurant-style potato nuggets get perfectly browned and transcendently crunchy with this cooking technique, which could not be simpler. I hope they make all of your holiday brunch hopes and dreams come true.
braided lemon bread
Sweet, buttery dough, cream cheese and lemon curd filling, and studs of crunchy pearl sugar create the prettiest, easiest braided pastry I've made -- basically a mega-danish. What are you waiting for?
carrot graham layer cake
A moist, finely-layered carrot cake with warm spices and graham crumbs, stacked with all the cream cheese filling your heart desires. Needless to say, mine desires a lot.
yogurt panna cotta with walnuts and honey
No matter how fancy panna cotta sounds, it's remarkably simple to make at home, especially this Greek-inspired version with yogurt, honey and walnuts. Cut it into wedges, cake-style, or pour it into cups, breakfast/snack-style. Don't be surprised if it becomes a habit.
AN INTERVIEW WITH HAILEE CATALANO
My shelves are full of wonderful cookbooks I don’t get to talk about enough, so I’ve added this section so you can get to know the cool people behind them. Today we're chatting with Hailee Catalano. Her new cookbook, By Heart: Recipes to Hold Near and Dear, is out tomorrow, 4/15.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
My cookbook is a collection of homey, cozy, and seasonal recipes that tell the story of my life in food and those who have inspired me along the way: from falling in love with cooking and eating at home with my family, to culinary school, and then on to working in restaurants and developing recipes for home cooks. There is a whole chapter dedicated to my Grandma Tina, inspired by her Italian American recipes, that was such a joy to write. It also has inspiration from all the places I have lived, from growing up in the midwest, to now living on the east coast. All the recipes in the book are made with the home cook in mind but also include a lot of fun tips and techniques from my restaurant days—things I hope people can bring into their everyday cooking, outside of the specific recipes in the book, to make them a better home cook. From salads, to breads, to pastas, to proteins, and sweets, there’s something for every day of the week, any event or occasion.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
One of the recipes that felt most triumphant to get right were the Chocolate Chunk Sesame Scones. They were probably the recipe that took me the longest to really get down. They are inspired by my absolute favorite scone recipe from a restaurant I used to work at, Cellar Door Provisions in Chicago. I had never really enjoyed scones until I had the scones at Cellar Door. They had a beautifully dark, sugary, golden top and the most buttery tender inside filled with seasonal add-ins and so much love. I really wanted to attempt to capture that scone at home, and with much trial and error, I think I came up with something as close as one can get!
3. What recipe is so low-effort, high-reward that it's worth cooking for dinner tonight, even if we're tired and don't want to cook?
The Tomato and Anchovy Salad with Stracciatella. That being said, it needs to be made in the summer when tomatoes are the best they can be. It requires zero cooking and is essentially just assembly. This salad with some fresh bread on the side is the perfect late summer lunch. No stove or oven required.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
I wish people knew how delicious the Malted Milk Butter Cookies are! If you flip through the book, you might skip past them because they look somewhat unassuming. But they are truly one of my favorite cookies ever. The malt enhances the vanilla flavor in the cookie, making it the most delicious little shortbread cookie. They’re such a treat with a coffee in the morning or alongside some cherry vanilla ice cream at night. An all day, every occasion cookie.
Thank you, Hailee! You can preorder By Heart right here.
rolled spinach omelet
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most — yes, including the the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser (which is back in stock!). For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!
