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Recipes

Long Island Larder: Pumpkin Mousse

Although this recipe appeared in a Larder column several years ago, I heard that several people had loved it but lost it, so here it is again. Choose a plain or fancy fluted mold of two-quart capacity (or a bundt cake pan). Oil it lightly and chill it before you start. Another advantage of this dessert is that it can, and should be, made at least 24 hours in advance — even two days is fine. The flavor and firmness develop and the mousse is easier to unmold after this time. Unmolded before dinner, covered with plastic wrap, and replaced in the refrigerator, this is a fairly carefree finale to dinner. Serve with clouds of real whipped cream only barely sweetened.

Dec 24, 1987
Long Island Larder: Cranberry Sherbet

Sherbet can be frozen in a bowl in the freezer of your refrigerator, then aerated with a food processor or electric mixer when it is semi-frozen, then refrozen.

Dec 24, 1987
Long Island Larder: Mincemeat and Pear Crepes

Crepes are easy to make, can be done ahead, and produce spectacular results flamed at the table.

Dec 24, 1987
Fillet of Pork With Sauteed Pears

“All that glitters is not gold” . . . and all that is gold does not glitter. The pig, that estimable creature, while no thing of beauty and generally not highly regarded as to character, nevertheless supplies some of the world’s best fare. The porker, from snout to tail, is perhaps the most utilitarian of all our domestic animals and yet is perhaps the least treasured of meats.

Oct 22, 1987
Long Island Larder: Ways to Eat Broccoli and Swiss Chard

Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables were common on Colonial tables, but somehow got lost by their descendants. Although such truck, as broccoli, kale, chard, and a green known confusingly to Italians and precious few others as broccoli rabe and broccoli rapa, have been around for centuries, many cooks still have no idea of what to do with them.

Oct 8, 1987
Long Island Larder: Peaches in Butter, Peaches in Cobbler

Homing in on which crop is fleeing fastest, I've had lush, fragile, irrevocable peaches on my mind. But then I often do. Native South Carolinians and Georgians, of course, have a near obsession with this fruit: Peach ice cream is the only flavor, peach cobbler the only pie, peach butter and never apple on biscuits and toast. Peaches in winter were the prerogative of royalty until recent times. . . . Now we can freeze up a big batch fairly effortlessly and decide in the calm of late autumn just what to do with them – jam, chutney, ice cream, pie, or simply a luxurious dish of peaches and heavy cream.

Sep 10, 1987
Long Island Larder: 'A Chicken in Every Pot'

A “chicken in every pot” is one political promise that has come all too true, at least in the United States, where chicken is about the cheapest protein going except for eggs. Chicken, achingly available in every place and season, is no longer universally regarded as a treat. To many, it’s more of a duty — either to waistline or bottom line.

Jul 2, 1987
Long Island Larder: Mussels With Chili Mayonnaise and 'Glorious Vegetables'

Mussels are another local glory found on local menus. At Bobby Van’s, they are served “mariniere” (simply steamed in wine and herbs) year-round. But there are so many ways to serve these cheap, easily cooked shellfish: cold as a first course with various sauces or in soups or hot entrees.

Aug 22, 1985
Fish Mousse With Oyster Sauce, 1985

Either cod or flounder are good local choices for the fish mousse — almost any firm, fresh white fish will do. Naturally one would not choose expensive striped bass; that would be like making hamburgers out of ground filet mignon.

Mar 7, 1985
The Long Island Larder: Charcoal-Grilled Beef Tenderloin

When the first gas ranges were introduced in France about the middle of the 19th century, they were greatly distrusted. Meat baked in an oven was despised by Alexandre Dumas, who decreed that all food in his household be prepared on wood or charcoal fires. Grill cooks (rotisseurs) feared to lose their livelihood.

Jun 14, 1984
Long Island Larder: Aioli Garni

"Garlic's taste is briefest pleasure—
Eat in haste, repent at leisure.
Garlic's like the poor, like sorrow—
Here today and here tomorrow."

-Justin Richardson, from an anthology by William Cole, "...And Be Merry"

May 31, 1984
Potato and Leek Soup

This soup has existed about as long as farming has in western civilizations. It is the mainstay peasant soup of France and can be used as the founda­tion for any number of other vegetable soups. In restaurants this soup is near­ly always pureed, but in the old-fa­shioned country version it is not — the vegetables are simply cooked to near disintegration. My version is a compro­mise because it is intended as a main dish and somehow a pureed soup never seems to make it — the hungry mouth needs something to chew on, I guess,

Serves four.

Nov 3, 1983