Ham

This hearty salad is perfect as a meal. The cannellini beans, ham, and eggs add a lot of substance, so this is no wimpy little bowl of greens. The best part, though, is that it’s so quick and easy to put together.

You’re in college now so it’s time to break away from boxed mac ’n’ cheese and try the real thing. It’s not hard to make and once you realize how creamy and cheesy the homemade version tastes, you’ll never go back to that boxed stuff. We added ham to this dish, but you could make it without the ham or with cooked chicken or broccoli. Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Who doesn’t love cheesy broccoli?

When I first tasted this Shanghai specialty in Vancouver a few years ago, I wondered how it could have escaped me so long. The stupendous filling is remarkably simple, with a mild bite from the raw daikon radish, smokiness from the ham, and richness from the sesame oil. The pastries can be shaped as rounds with an arty spiral pattern of layers or as oblongs with a handsome linear pattern of layers. They are a classic Chinese banquet morsel, but there’s no need to wait for a special occasion. Enjoy them as a snack, accompanied by other dumplings or a clear soup.

These delicate dumplings bursting with flavor were invented in the late 1800s in Nanxiang village outside Shanghai. Despite their name, they are not served floating in soup. The soup is contained within the thin, chewy-soft wrapper, along with a rich pork mixture. A delectable culinary trick, these “little bamboo steamer buns” (the literal translation of the Chinese name) are the quintessential Shanghai snack served at dumpling restaurants as well as small food joints. To get the soup into the dumplings, broth is gelled, chopped, and then mixed with the meat to produce a firm filling that can be stuffed efficiently into the wrapper. Under steam heat, the broth melts back into soup. Gelatinous pork skin is traditionally simmered for the broth, but many modern cooks employ agar-agar (see Note) or unflavored gelatin to insure proper gelling. For a robust soup, I infuse homemade chicken stock with smoky American country ham, which is often sold in slices at Chinese markets as “Virginia” or “Smithfield” ham; scrape and discard the black pepper coating, if present. Combining bread flour (Gold Medal brand, which has 12 percent protein, is what I use) with all-purpose flour for hot-water dough produces thin and elastic wrappers that don’t break during cooking or when picked up by chopsticks at the table. Fatty ground pork, the less expensive option at a Chinese market, or ground pork belly (cut it up into 1/2-inch cubes before processing), makes the most succulent filling. Prepare and gel the soup the day before to lessen your workload.

When we were traveling around the country shooting episodes of our Food Network show, Road Tasted, we ate lots of fried, barbecued, and sugary food (Hey, it’s a tough job but somebody has to do it). Wherever we were, Bobby would seek out a salad for lunch or dinner to add a little balance to his diet. The night he discovered chopped salad, it was love at first sight. He developed this easy week-night recipe as soon as we were back home. It’s a salad that accommodates almost any ingredient—feel free to add your own personal favorites into the mix.

Growing up in the South, we were surrounded by three-bean salads, which are something of an aquired taste. We ate up Mama’s beans and ham hocks, but give us kids a cold bean salad and we’d be out the backdoor. Well, now we’ve seen the error of our ways—plus canned beans seem to be better these days, less mushy and more flavorful. Here we toss them with spicy cheese and leftover ham for a main-course salad that’s delicious served with cornbread.

Mama’s main squeeze Michael Groover’s famous pinto beans inspired this simple, savory recipe. We use a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce to create a real rich broth around the soft, silky beans.

Endive is an overlooked vegetable in America—at least, few people cook it. But it makes a very special lunch or supper dish when done this way.

Anyone who has a garden knows about the pressure to eat up the zucchini you’ve planted. You hate to see it go to waste. But the advantage to growing your own is that you can harvest the zucchini while they are still very young and have a more intense flavor (and you can use the male blossoms, too). So here’s one more delicious way of appreciating this prolific vegetable. You can leave out the prosciutto and peppers if you like, but they do add considerable zest.

The large portobello mushroom makes a natural saucerlike container for tasty fillings. For modest appetites, one amply stuffed big mushroom will make a satisfying lunch or supper dish, but if you’re really hungry, make two.

Once you’ve made your small amount of hollandaise sauce, it is simple to put together that heavenly creation, egg (or eggs) Benedict,and enjoy it all alone for a Sunday brunch.

We used to get as a Christmas present from James Beard a whole genuine Southern ham, and it sustained us throughout the winter months. But it’s not so easy for the person living alone to cope with that much ham. My solution is to buy about a 1-pound slice of ham and bake it. I can enjoy it in this old family recipe, which gets rid of the usual watery, over salted taste that most of our commercial hams have today and gives the meat a wonderful flavor. You can have a few good slices of it the first night for dinner, and the leftovers are there to be used in all kinds of ways.

One of the very few items Crystal has of her Mamaw Maggie’s is her cast-iron skillet. Until recently she used the skillet only for making cornbread, but she has now discovered the pan’s varied talents. If you are not familiar with cast-iron pans, they can seem intimidating. All that talk of properly seasoning them, how to wash them (or not wash), seems like too much work. But trust us, the benefits of the cast-iron pan far outweigh any care concerns. They heat evenly and beautifully, and when properly cared for, they will last a lifetime. Crystal’s pan has lasted several lifetimes! This breakfast recipe will work with any oven-safe skillet, but when using a cast-iron skillet, your bottom layer of potatoes will get a nice crispness to it.

Ever had a Denver omelet? If not, you are missing out on a real treat. A Denver omelet (sometimes also referred to as a western omelet) is a tasty egg concoction typically prepared with Cheddar cheese, diced ham, onions, green bell peppers, and sometimes scattered hash browns. Its origins remain as scattered as the hash browns, but our best guess is that it probably originated one morning out on the range, cooked up by some hungry cowboys trying to fill their bellies. Inspired by their tasty creation, this recipe is the Queens’ Casserole version of the popular dish. Pile your diced ham, green bell peppers, onions, cheese, and hash browns a mile high and watch it bake to a beautiful golden brown. We added a kick of cayenne pepper to spice it up a bit.

Tomato or cream sauce? Who says you have to choose? This casserole combines marinara and Alfredo sauces to create a lovely pink sauce. The cream balances the acidity of the tomatoes, while sophisticated ingredients such as prosciutto and capers add an inviting gourmet touch to the meal. This recipe is perfect for Valentine’s Day, first dates, or anniversaries. Not only will there be a pleasing blush to your meal, but perhaps to your sweetie, too!

I’m a huge fan of potatoes! Which is why I love this dish. It’s the perfect base for poached eggs at brunch, to sop up the juices of a big rib eye steak (page 156), to complement my fabulous brined pork chops (page 170), or just for lunch. When this was on the menu at my restaurant and I was craving something porky, cheesy, and delicious, I’d have one of the line cooks fry up one of these lovelies for me to eat while I worked. Yum!