Monday, March 10, 2025
Good afternoon!
Hell Is Other People Chewing [The Cut]
A Love Letter to Gianduja, the Perfect Union of Hazelnuts and Milk Chocolate [Saveur]
The Dinner Treadmill [The Atlantic]
Apologies for the late Digest today — I’ve been en route to Cleveland, where I’ll be hanging out at the Hudson Library & Historical Society this evening. Don’t worry, I made some time for pierogis and kielbasa this afternoon; you could say I have some priorities straight even if my adherence to a newsletter schedule comes up lacking. Tomorrow I’m excited to tour The Chef’s Garden, which supplies organic produce to restaurants around the country. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.
This week’s newsletter is a celebration of pies for Pi(e) Day on 3/14, something that I used to roll my eyes at (ok “National Blueberry Popover Day,” which is apparently today) but I’ve now embraced wholeheartedly because: pie for breakfast! pie for dinner! Even hamantaschen, which we make to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim, are sort of like tiny pies. Plus, this week we have an interview with Alissa Timoshkina, who I hunted down (I was a little annoying) after spotting her new cookbook, Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe as I knew we’d be as excited about it as I am — right?
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 Crispy Chicken Cutlets! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
breakfast slab pie
A mammoth one-pan breakfast with the works (eggs, cheese, potatoes, spinach) that can be made well in advance, left for guests to reheat and eat as they wake up, plopped in little hands before sending the "underfoots" out to their day's destructive work, or, you know, a week of weekday mornings sorted. Basically, it's kind of a breakfast miracle.
spinach sheet pan quiche
What if you like quiche but there's never enough of it? This refreshingly green, mostly vegetable, and longtime favorite quiche has been stretched and tweaked to make a week of excellent lunches, and it's also a winner for weekend brunch.
over-the-top mushroom quiche
A towering, feeds-a-crowd quiche recipe adapted from Thomas Keller that you may not realize you need in your repertoire but will be absolutely convinced once you try it.
better chicken pot pies
The best chicken pot pies I know how to make: a perfectly seasoned, never overcooked stew beneath my favorite lid, which is so flaky it will seem like puff pastry. Serve with absolutely nothing because pot pies are a self-contained meal in a warm, filling and even-better-than-you-remember-them package.
french onion tart
A savory dinner tart version of my favorite soup, replete with the sweetly cooked onions, a hint of broth, and the nonnegotiable broiled cheese lid. This is the exact pick-me-up a wintry week needs, don't you think?
chocolate peanut butter tart
Two perfect flavors merge in one spectacularly easy tart that gives equal billing to a buttery shortbread crumb base and a compact salty-sweet layer of peanut butter followed by a thick shiny dark chocolate lid with a sea salt finish. It's like a Tagalong cookie that never ends.
banana cream pie
This is the banana cream pie that made me love banana cream pie: pressed-in vanilla cookie crust, the easiest one-pot custard, and a heap of slightly tangy whipped cream piped chaotically all over, using Erin McDowell's wonderful Book On Pie loosely for guidance. I hope you love it too.
chocolate pudding pie
The cold, richness of homemade chocolate pudding in a crisp, buttery pie shell with a raft of whipped cream and confetti of chocolate shavings on top will make a commotion heretofore unseen since strawberry met rhubarb.
apricot hazelnut brown butter hamantaschen
Exceptional, actually delicious hamantaschen (traditional filled, three-cornered cookies for the Jewish holiday of Purim) thanks to brown butter, hazelnuts, and apricot jam (but can always be made dairy-free). Who's hungry?
marbled cheesecake hamantaschen
Crisp, buttery, and marbled hamantaschen, triangular filled cookies for the Jewish holiday of Purim, or for everyone who knows how amazing little chocolate-vanilla cheesecake cookies will be. The recipe and method, even with the marbling, could not be simpler. I can't wait to see how yours come out.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ALISSA TIMOSHKINA
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 Alissa Timoshkina. Her new cookbook, Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe, is out now.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
The book was born out of years of eating the Eastern European way myself, and I really wanted to share more of this approach to vegetable-forward cooking with the world. But also the book was very much rooted in the fundraising campaign that I co-founded with my close friend, Olia Hercules, a Ukrainian food writer, author and activist. Our campaign has demonstrated how little is still known of the cuisines of the region, and how much interest there is to generate. The stories of Eastern European food are worth telling!
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
I am very proud of myself for stepping up to the challenge of working with the dough. So all the baking and dumplings dishes I am particularly proud of. I had so much fun testing these with my daughter who absolutely loved playing around with the dough and creating her own inventions alongside me.
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?
Most of the recipes in the book would fit this description. I love the repertoire of simple stews, soups and pasta sauces in the book. My absolute go-to week-night family meal is the Hungarian mushroom paprikash, which comes together in 10 minutes and requires only a handful of ingredients.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
Despite years of misconception of Eastern European food being bland, boring and meat-heavy, the cuisine of the region is bursting with fresh vegetable-focused dishes that are inexpensive, sustainable and seasonal. It really is the best way to cook and eat in this day and age.
Thank you, Alissa! You can order Kapusta right here.
all butter, really flaky pie dough
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!
