Classic American Dishes
When I first started getting into cooking, I sought out all sorts of inventive or ambitious recipes; crudo with radish matchsticks or mint-crusted roast leg of lamb, finicky seared lobster dishes or ginger-glazed honey salmon. But I’ve recently gotten the impression that maybe there’s a giant hole in my cooking knowledge: the classics.
So I got myself an American Classics cookbook which seemed appealing for the apparent precision and work that went into finding the right recipes for these classics. And in Julie and Julia fashion (except, y’know, not boring and whiney), Gosia and I are going to cook our way through it, with Gos tackling the baking and dessert recipes and me taking on the cooking stuff.
Regular dinners with friends for the more successful or easier dishes will, of course, be a must. So I’m curious to hear what are some of your favorite classic american dishes — or what you even consider to be “classic american” since it is a bit of a catch-all.
Comments
Macaroni and cheese. Really excellent potato salad. Buffalo wing sauce. Apple goddamned pies.
Four excellent suggestions. I absolutely love Martha Stewart’s Crack n’ Cheese recipe, but I’d really love to find a recipe that uses less expensive cheese. $30 is a bit more than I’d like to spend to make a single dish to serve 4-6 (unless Sammy is over, than 3-4).
Gosia’s mom has a pretty amazing potato salad recipe that I need to get.
Buffalo wing sauce, however… buffalo wing sauce has foiled me again and again. I just can’t seem to get it right. It’s just butter and hot sauce, so… I dunno what I’m missing. Maybe better hot sauce. Maybe something else.
And yes. Apple Pie needs to be conquered. Neither of us have ever even attempted it. The very idea that certain apples, based on acid levels, break down or hold their form better than others… that fact alone makes me want to make it. I just need to have people over who’d eat it. Cause I probably won’t.
I have always ribbed off Alton Brown’s mac and cheese; though Martha’s has the best reviews. Experimenting with different cheeses is the second most fun part (the most fun part is deep frying it the next day).
My favorite potato salad was from the fish fry at the Frisco firehouse.. My mom later explained that a whole bunch of people made their own, and they just mixed it all together in a huge vat. Huh.
Wing sauce is like. I don’t even know. I’ve done the butter and Tabasco and it’s fine but there’s just got to be something better.
There are a million ways to pie. It will be interesting. I love to make pies. I especially love to make them in muffin tins.
And actually, speaking of pie, what about chicken pot pie or the like?
I LOVE Chicken pot pie. I’ve neve messed with pies or crusts of any sort, so that’s definitely something I need to try.
Oh boy, this is the stuff I grew up on.
- stuffed peppers
- pot roast
- chicken pot pie
- stew
- roasted chicken with vegetables and dumplings
- pork chops
- mashed potatoes
- potatoes au gratin (which I always hated, so maybe you can make them not so slimy and actually enjoyable)
- hamburger helper-type things
- tuna fish on toast (with hardboiled eggs, a cream sauce, and peas)
- Spam
- meat sauce for spaghetti
- lasagne
- tacos
See the problem with this excercise is that these are all going to be very provincial and personal dishes and recipes subject to personal taste. Most are “comfort food”. So your options are to either try lots of different recipes from lots of different people who do them all different ways, or you sort of negate doing it in the first place if you don’t already have preferences with regard to all of these dishes.
Kevin said:See the problem with this excercise is that these are all going to be very provincial and personal dishes and recipes subject to personal taste. Most are “comfort food”. So your options are to either try lots of different recipes from lots of different people who do them all different ways, or you sort of negate doing it in the first place if you don’t already have preferences with regard to all of these dishes.
That’s why I got the book I got. They take some of the legwork out for me by trying 20-30 different recipes for each, writing a long article on what they tried and what didn’t work and why, and then present you with what they consider the best recipe and a few variations.
The fact that there is such a range for all of these dishes is what makes it appealing to me. There’s no getting it wrong and I’m not going to feel very afraid of improvising on the spot. This is more about actually seeing and tasting whatever the hell chicken cacciatore is and filing that recipe, in all it’s forms, away in my brain.
How about a solid tomato sauce recipe?
That I got in spades. Italian side of the family n’ all.
I love this idea. Are you going to try to make seasonal dishes? I’m spending the summer on my friend’s farm in Kentucky and last night I made my first attempt at rhubarb dessert. It didn’t come out so bad, especially with ice cream or cool whip. And it was a relief to just go into the backyard to get more rhubarb when I needed more.
I also found out that I can barely lift the size 10 cast iron skillet. That was lame.
Aw man, cool whip? I was all about cool whip/squirty-can until Gosia showed me how to make my own whipped cream. If you have an electric hand mixer, it literally takes two minutes. Pour in cream. Mix until it starts getting whipped-cream-y. Spoon in some sugar and vanilla extra. Whip a bit more. Eat.
Thing is, I started doing this mostly cause we always had heavy cream on hand for cooking and whatnot and never had whipped cream around. Turns out, I completely lost my taste for the pre-packaged stuff which now tastes metallic and artificial to me.
Anyway, yeah, totally doing seasonal stuff as much as possible.
I hate Cool Whip and always have. But I also dislike home made whipped cream as well. I can hang with the Ready Whip spray can stuff because the can process (whatever it is) makes it more airy and lighter. It’s just the heaviness which I don’t care for.
I’ve never tried making it with light cream. I wonder if it’d be any airier or if it’s only the aerosol delivery method that does it.
I’ve tried it with light cream and while not as heavy as with heavy cream (duh), it still was too heavy and creamy for my tastes.
It’s gross but I really love cool whip. But it looks like butter making is on the agenda tonight (thanks to Gert the cow out back) so once we have butter, I will make cream and then whip it and have my own homemade cool whip.
make chicken pot pie and invite me over!