Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Good afternoon!
Are you around tomorrow evening? I’ll be chatting with the one and only Amateur Gourmet/Adam Roberts about his first novel, Food Person at the cozy Archestratus in Greenpoint. [Tickets here]
The End of Chicken-Breast Dominance [Atlantic]
I promise; I didn’t forget about us! It’s just been a week so far, despite it only being Tuesday. But I’ve got all eyes on this coming holiday weekend, three blissful days of officially welcoming summer. I don’t care if Actual Summer is nearly a month off and the weather won’t exactly be “beachy” — I’m trading sneakers for sandals, jeans for sundresses, and cleaning out the grill because this winter was too long and I need to see the ocean.
Below, a few of my favorite recipes to usher in the first holiday weekend of summer including classics like my broccoli slaw and strawberry-rhubarb crumble to newer favorites like the beach bean salad and an unbelievably refreshing strawberry lemonade.
Plus, this week we have an interview with Casey Elsass, whose first solo cookbook — but who has quietly ghostwritten many of your favorite cookbooks — What Can I Bring? is out today. Casey did something really fun for the photo shoot; he invited some of his food friends to stop by and hold a dish for photos and I got to carry a chocolate layer cake that smelled so good, it was torture not to run my finger through the frosting. [I might not be cut out for cookbook modeling, it turns out.]
Finally, there’s a new site recipe for Eggs Florentine, my favorite brunch dish. You should make it while listening to the latest episode of The Recipe with Kenji and Deb all about Eggs Benedict, Florentine’s more popular cousin — that is, everywhere but in the Smitten Kitchen.
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.”
The latest full episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is all about Eggs Benedict! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
P.S. Did you catch a tiny cameo on The Simpsons [S36 E16] “Stew Lies” two weeks ago? We — but really, it was Kenji’s recipe — contributed the recipe for the top-secret Gewalteintopf Stew featured in the episode.
eggs florentine
New! An ode to brunch at home with a you-can-totally-do-this recipe for my forever favorite brunch dish, Eggs Florentine with the best kind of egg (poached), spinach, a butter-griddled english muffin and a gentle cascade of the answer to a question nobody but the French, bless them, would ever ask, “Why don’t we make mayonnaise with butter instead of oil?”
broccoli slaw
A forever summer staple that's secretly a love letter to buttermilk-and-cider-vinegar ranch dressing, but the homemade kind. It makes great "buckets" of broccoli inhalable, and converts all broccoli skeptics. I hope you love it, too. [Video below!]
tzatziki potato salad
Cucumbers, dill and absolutely no mayo are together about as light, cool and refreshing as potato salad can get.
pasta salad with roasted carrots and sunflower seed dressing
A pasta salad for pasta salad-phobes with a dressing with crunch and acidity, and vegetables for substance, not just flecks of color. The result is a spring dreaming-of-summer favorite.
beach bean salad
This is my platonic ideal of a summer bean salad -- one that keeps well, getting better as it marinates, and travels fantastically to anyplace your sunny afternoon takes you.
fake shack burger
I used to believe I couldn't possibly make the kinds of burgers I prefer -- thin, smashed to a salty craggy-edged crisp -- without an outdoor grill and I was so wrong. Here's everything you need to know to make a glorious imitation of a Shake Shack burger at home with no special tools or obscure ingredients.
carrot and white bean burgers
An unfussy veggie burger recipe from simple pantry ingredients from Lukas Volger. Add smashed avocado, pickled red onion, and hot sauce and you’re in for a colorful treat, a perfect ending to a summer week.
garlic-mustard glazed skewers
A complex marinade from simple ingredients that takes no time and little forethought to make and brush on skewers of whatever you like to grill. Yes, please.
strawberry-rhubarb crumble
At the bright pink intersection of rhubarb and strawberry seasons (that is, exactly now) is this, one of those Why Do I Even Bother Making Other Desserts desserts, a generous balance of rubbly, buttery, lemony crumbs and perfectly cooked berries and rhubarb. It wants to be your favorite, too.
ice cream cake roll
Ice cream cakes should always be this pretty, and this easy. This one is all cookies-and-cream ice cream cake with rainbow sprinkles, lucky us. I know rolled cakes are often a pain, but this one from Jessie Sheehan is anything but — and quick too.
easy strawberry lemonade
An easy, lazy strawberry lemonade that is the most vivid and delicious I've ever made. It tastes the way cotton candy smells at a carnival, and that's about the highest praise I can give anything.
AN INTERVIEW WITH CASEY ELSASS
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 Casey Elsass. His new cookbook, What Can I Bring? Recipes to Help You Live Your Guest Life, is out today.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
Weirdly, it was the pandemic—during those early days when we were all in quarantine, my friends and I would have Zoom happy hours, Zoom game nights, Zoom birthdays, but I was really missing human connection and gathering. I said the book title as a joke in a group chat, and then thought to myself, Wait, that's actually a great idea. So I spent the next few years secretly filling a Google Doc with fragments of writing, recipe sketches, chapter names, and didn't tell a soul until I felt ready to pull it all together into a book proposal.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
Can a parent pick their favorite child?! Yes, of course I can. I'm most proud of the Bruce Bogtrotter Cake. (And shoutout to you, Deb, for modeling it so gorgeously in the book!) If you're around my age of 30-mumble, you probably had a formative experience with the cinematic masterpiece, Matilda: the scene where Miss Trunchbull makes Bruce Bogtrotter eat an entire chocolate cake in front of the whole school. What a dream! I developed my recipe to be made per layer, so you can do a single layer snacking cake, double it up, or go for the full triple, depending on how Brucey you're feeling.
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?
Well, great news: Every recipe in this book is ranked by effort level! In Your Sleep are the super easy ones, Roll Up Your Sleeves take a little more effort, and Bragging Rights are for my show-offs out there. So if you're looking for low-effort, high-reward, I'd send you straight to Salt + Vinegar Salsa Verde. You throw all the ingredients in a blender and end up with a perfect salsa that you serve with—twist!—a bag of salt and vinegar chips for an extra flavorful punch. It's an easy way to win any party.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
The book is called What Can I Bring?, so of course it's filled with 75 recipes to save you from a total meltdown when asking the big question we all have to ask. But it's also a loving guide from one home cook with a lot of experience (that’s me) to a lot of home cooks with various levels of experience (that’s you, plural). I am someone who loves food, and by that I mean I genuinely love all food in all its forms. I don’t believe in looking down or judging or calling things “high-low.” I cook from the principle that anything you can get your hands on can become something extraordinary, and I hope everyone feels welcome to find joy and excitement in these pages, build confidence, get their creative juices flowing, and feel ownership over their own set of go-to recipes.
Thank you, Casey! You can order What Can I Bring? right here.
broccoli slaw
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.
What’s the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser? It’s an 11-inch, 4-quart braiser — essentially a lower profile enameled cast-iron Dutch oven that works as as well as a deep sauté pan as it does a soup pot, roasting pan, or even casserole dish that perfectly fits a pasta bake. Not a week has gone by in the decade I’ve had mine when I don’t use it at least three times. Looking for a Mother’s Day gift? We just got in a limited run of a stunning blue color for spring!
Your braiser purchase contains three new recipes (two savory, one sweet) by me that work perfectly in your new pot. If you’re looking for even more ideas, I created a category on the site to highlight some of my favorite dishes I make in mine.
See you next week!
