Recipes for potatoes au gratin, linzer torte from Ruth Reichl’s ‘My Kitchen Year’

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To Ruth Reichl, recipes are a conversation and should serve as a stepping stone for readers to adapt them to their own taste.

In keeping with that, she uses a relaxed tone in her new cookbook “My Kitchen Year,” directing home cooks to add a glug of olive oil, season with a shower of pepper or toss in a hefty dollop of bourbon.

“I was really clear that I wanted the whole book to have a narrative arc and that I wanted the recipes to be kind of like stories too,” she says.

Rather than a standard list of ingredients common in most recipes, she includes a shopping list of items that likely need to be purchased and a list of staples most people probably have on hand.

“That’s how I shop. When you go to the market you don’t really need to know that you need sugar. You do need to know that you need a butternut squash. It’s just done, for me, intuitively. It’s how I cook,” she says.

She also wants readers to experience the smells and feel of their ingredients, encouraging them to mix with their hands.

“There are things I love, like the butternut squash or when you’re peeling a peach or there’s this wonderful effect when you run the banana leaves across the flame where you can watch the colour ripple and change and I thought it would be a shame that people didn’t stop to notice that.”

“My Kitchen Year” is also available in an audio version.

“I thought they were crazy when they asked me to read it,” says Reichl. But with the recipes written in a conversational style and the ingredients incorporated into the directions, “it really does work.”

“In fact, AudioFile magazine put me on the cover because as a cookbook it really does work. You can stop it. It is like I’m standing there with you.”

Here are some recipes from “A Kitchen Year” to try:

POTATOES AU GRATIN

Reichl calls this side dish an “extravagant classic,” which she’s served at Christmas with a prime rib roast.

She writes: “The secret to these potatoes is that they’re cooked twice. First you plunk them into a big bath of milk and cream that’s been infused with a touch of garlic and bring them gently to a boil. Then you dump them into a baking dish, grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over them, and sprinkle the entire top with Gruyere before putting them into the oven where they drink up all the liquid as the cheese turns into a crisp crust.”

SHOPPING LIST

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) cream

1.15 kg (2 1/2 lb) boiling potatoes (such as Yukon Gold)

250 g (1/2 lb) Gruyere cheese (grated)

STAPLES

500 ml (2 cups) milk

2 cloves garlic, smashed

5 ml (1 tsp) salt

Pepper

Whole nutmeg

Butter

Pour cream and milk into a large pot. Peel potatoes and slice as thinly as you can, putting them into the pot as they are ready. Add garlic, salt and a few good grinds of pepper and bring it all slowly to a boil.

Meanwhile, butter a gratin dish or a rectangular baking pan.

When milk comes to a boil, remove from heat and pour contents into buttered gratin dish. Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over top and cover with grated Gruyere cheese.

The baking is pretty forgiving; you can bake at anywhere from 150 C to 200 C (300 F to 400 F), depending on what else you have in the oven. The timing is forgiving too; at the lower temperature it will take about an hour to absorb the liquid and turn the top golden; at 200C (400 F) it will take about 35 minutes.

Let it rest for at least 15 minutes before serving. But this, too, is forgiving. If the potatoes have to wait an hour, they will be absolutely fine.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

LINZER TORTE

Reichl writes: “Every Christmas my father went uptown (in New York) to purchase a linzer torte; it reminded him of his Berlin childhood. The year I was 12 I surprised him by baking one myself.”

“Much later I learned that the classic recipe requires considerably more effort than mine, but to this day I prefer this super-easy version. To me it will always be the taste of Christmas.”

SHOPPING LIST

250 ml (1 cup) icing sugar

425 ml (1 3/4 cups) almonds

125 ml (1/2 cup) raspberry preserves (the best you can find)

75 ml (1/3 cup) red or black currant jam

STAPLES

175 ml (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)

2 eggs

425 ml (1 3/4 cups) flour

Pinch salt

5 ml (1 tsp) ground cinnamon

1 lemon

Cream butter with icing sugar. Beat in 1 egg and 1 egg yolk (save leftover white).

Toast almonds and grind very fine.

Add nuts to butter mixture, along with flour, salt and cinnamon. The dough will be very stiff. Form it into a disk, wrap well and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Separate one-third of the dough from the rest and lightly roll out larger piece on a floured surface so that it fits into a 20-cm (8-inch) tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing it up the sides. Don’t worry if the dough falls apart; just patch and press it into the pan. Brush with reserved egg white and set aside.

Meanwhile, mix raspberry preserves with currant jam. Grate in zest of the lemon, enjoying the wonderful citric scent. Add juice of the lemon, mix well and pour filling into the crust.

Roll out reserved dough and make 1-cm (1/2-inch) strips.

Weave a lattice over top of jam; the dough will very likely break, but you can patch it, which will give your torte a pleasantly rustic quality. Brush with remaining egg white and bake in a 180 C (350 F) oven for about 1 hour.

Sift a little icing sugar over torte as it comes out of the oven, and let it cool completely before serving.