cover story
These green beans will add pizzazz to
Thanksgiving dinner.
3/4 cup pecans, chopped coarse
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Salt and pepper
2 shallots, minced
2/3 teaspoon grated orange zest
Pinch of cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
11/2 pounds green beans, trimmed
2/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon minced fresh sage
Green Beans with Orange Essence
and Toasted Pecans
Toast pecans in 12-inch nonstick
skillet over medium-high heat,
stirring occasionally, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Off heat,
stir in 1 tablespoon butter, maple
syrup and 1/8 teaspoon salt.
Return skillet to medium heat
and cook, stirring constantly, until
nuts are dry and glossy, about
45 seconds; transfer to plate
and set aside.
Wipe out skillet. Melt remaining
Uncover and cook, stirring occasionally, until
beans are tender and sauce has thickened
slightly, about 4 minutes. Off heat, season with
salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to serving
dish, sprinkle with pecans and serve.
Makes 8 servings.
CARL TREMBLAY
can that model survive, given all the free information
out there on the Web?
CK: Ah, one of my favorite topics. Free information
is worth what you pay for it. My feeling has always
been that if you spend enough time and money—
and we spend a lot of both—developing recipes that
work, people will recognize the difference and think
it’s worth a relatively small amount of money per
year to be able to get access to recipes that most of
the time are going to work as promised.
This idea of giving stuff away on the Web is full
of problems. There’s so much free content, how do
you curate it? If I go online and put in “cherry
cheesecake,” I’m going to get 150 recipes back. I don’t
have time to make all 150, and I don’t know which
ones are good ones. So is it worthwhile to pay a little
money and go somewhere where they’ve actually
done the homework and you can rest assured that it
will work? Having an infinite amount of free content
isn’t necessarily a good thing if you want to cook.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30
CC: You’ve offered a few of your favorite recipes here.
What are your favorite holiday traditions?
CK: On Christmas Eve, I always do a major roast.
For dessert, I do a recipe for brioche tart and two or
three other desserts. On Christmas Day, we usually
have a simpler meal, a one-pot meal of some kind.
But I always make the bread from scratch—the
almost no-knead bread. And we do Yorkshire pudding and a chocolate-raspberry tart.
CC: Have you had any experience with Costco’s food
or products?
CK: Yes, we have. And our books [sell] well there
because I think the Costco audience is our audience.
The quality is great and the price is great. Almost
everybody here shops there, and we use it all the
time for what we do in the kitchen. C
Roasted Smashed Potatoes
This recipe is designed to work with
potatoes 1½ to 2 inches in diameter; do
not use potatoes any larger. It is important
to thoroughly cook the potatoes so that
they will smash easily. Remove the potatoes
from the baking sheet as soon as they are
done browning—they will toughen if left
too long. A potato masher can also be
used to “smash” the potatoes.
2 pounds small red potatoes
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Adjust oven racks to top and bottom posi-
tions and heat oven to 500 F. Arrange pota-
toes on rimmed baking sheet, pour ¾ cup
water into baking sheet and wrap tightly
with aluminum foil. Cook on bottom rack
until paring knife or skewer slips in and out
of potatoes easily (poke through foil to test),
25 to 30 minutes. Remove foil and cool 10
minutes. If any water remains on baking
sheet, blot dry with paper towel.
