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What Is Your Comfort Food Recipes - Yahoo Recipe Search
Food52I loved the idea of this contest, but I found it difficult to come up with just one recipe. I come from a family of really wonderful cooks. For us, sitting down to a meal is not just about eating to nourish our bodies, but food provides comfort, sustenance, and, most of all, love. The recipe that I finally decided to submit is one that I grew up eating, and throughout my childhood, was my favorite dish. I first tasted it in my great-grandmother's kitchen. She immigrated to America from Italy, and she was an extraordinary cook. I remember that she had a brick oven in her backyard, where she would make homemade pizza and bread. She would make ravioli on her kitchen table and roll the dough out with a broomstick handle. But the dish that she is really remembered for, by everyone in my family, is her Sunday sauce. This is the ragu that she made every Sunday morning before going to church. She would serve it in the afternoon as part of an elaborate Sunday dinner to her husband, children, and grandchildren. When my great-grandmother's son married a young Irish woman (my grandmother) she had to learn how to make this sauce. When my grandparents' son (my father) married my mother (who is of Mexican descent) my great-grandmother taught my mother how to make this sauce. Now I make it as well. But like all of the women in my family, I have slightly altered the ingredients and cooking techniques to make the sauce my own. But despite the changes I have made, I still consider this the sauce that I grew up eating. I now make this sauce for my own six-year-old daughter, and it is my hope that when she grows up, she will make it for her children and remember its roots. This is not week-day evening cooking, when dinner can be on the table in 30 minutes. If I want to make a pasta sauce on weekday evenings, I usually turn to a fresh pomodoro sauce or an aglio e olio sauce. No, this is a weekend sauce, ideally made on a Sunday, when the cook cannot be rushed. It takes time to roast the meats, simmer the sauce, and taste the ingredients as they come together. But it is the most rewarding dish thatI know how to make, and despite its simplicity, it always receives accolades. Some cooking notes: What gives this sauce its incomparable flavor is the pork, so don't be tempted to substitute another ingredient. Go to a butcher shop and get homemade Italian sausages. I guarantee that you will taste the difference in the sauce. As for the bones, the best cut is neck bones, which is what my mother uses. However, I find these hard to source, so really any small pork bones will do. I have used spare ribs, pork side bones, and a farmer at my local greenmarket sells me pork soup bones. All have worked well. Do not discard the bones after you have made the sauce. They are wonderful to gnaw on. (In fact, the bones were my grandfather's, my mother's and my favorite parts of this dish to eat. We used to fight over who got to eat them!) As for the tomatoes, use really good quality tomatoes. You can definitely taste the difference. I like Muir Glen organic Roma tomatoes. Try to find a brand without a lot of added salt. And any sort of dried pasta will work with this dish, but I like a shape with some ridges and corners that the sauce can cling to. Penne Rigate or rigatoni are both good choices. My favorite pasta brands are Italian imports -- Latini and Rustichella D'Abruzzo. Once you have tasted pasta made from bronze casts, you will never go back to supermarket pastas. - cookinginvictoriaFood52Having grown up in California, I don't know much about Southern food. My idea of Southern comfort is a big bowl of chili and a slice of hearty cornbread. I love the process of making chili - it is not so much about the precise recipe but the rhythm of stirring and simmering and tasting and adding in ingredients as you see fit, so there is a lot of room for variation in this recipe. Use whatever beans you have on hand. If you want it spicier, add more chili powder or a chopped habanero pepper. If you want it sweeter, add some more molasses. Try it with more or less cocoa powder. Taste as you go. I like my chili smoky with a deep rich flavor. This chili is just that - pleasantly spicy but also sweet. Since this chili has no meat, it relies on a variety of spices for flavor, and the combination of cocoa, chipotle, and garam masala spice is what makes this chili stand out. Next time I make this, I am going to add 2 tablespoons of almond butter or peanut butter to give it a richer taste.Food.comThis is an adopted recipe. Here's what the original chef had to say about it: "This is a dish I learned to cook from my friend from Hyderabad, India. Don’t let the name fool you – its coconut, yes, but this is not like eating a Mounds candy bar – it’s not sweet at all. The powder is a condiment, served with buttered basmati rice and it is delicious. It’s Indian comfort food! I usually make a batch of the powder at the beginning of the summer and it lasts for a while. Serve the buttered rice combination with chicken or fish grilled on the BBQ – it’s delicious and people will ask you what this is – it is not a heavy coconut flavor at all! Dry roasted channa dal, coconut powder and the other ingredients are available at Indian grocery stores. You will need a food processor and a coffee/spice grinder. You could easily cut the recipe in half if you are afraid to make that much of a commitment. Naturally you do not have to make so much rice, but this will give you an idea of the proportion of rice to powder…for an individual serving, you can add a teaspoon or two of the powder to your buttered rice. Two cups of basmati rice will serve about 8 to 10 people – it’s relative. The powder recipe makes 5 cups. Prep time reflects the time it takes to make the powder."YummlyIf you have some stale bread in your pantry, you may be much closer to a delicious meal than you imagined. Mixed with a few basic ingredients, dry bread cubes can become knodel — traditional German bread dumplings. Sometimes called 'semmelknodel,' these dumplings are quick and easy to make. They're an inventive way to transform old bread into a warming side dish, or the base of a hearty a main course. Dry bread cubes are simply moistened with milk and eggs, and flavored with minced onion, fresh parsley, and some black pepper. This mixture is formed into balls, and simmered until fluffy. Knodels are particularly popular in Bavaria. They're an ideal accompaniment to traditional dishes like jägerschnitzel or rouladen. They're also in popular in Austria, in the Tyrol region especially, but you'll also find them in the most elegant restaurants of Vienna. The northern Italians even have a version of knodel, also in the Tyrol region. These are classic winter comfort food. In Germany and elsewhere, they are both a childhood favorite and a sophisticated, satisfying staple. Although hearty and satisfying, the ideal knodel are also light and fluffy. These tasty Bavarian dumplings are not at all tricky to make. But a few simple tricks will ensure great results. ## Tips And Tricks For Easy Knodel Preparation And Perfect Results _Start with dry bread:_ Knodel originated as a clever way to use up dry bread rolls so stale bread is the best base for light knodel -- they'll soak up a mixture of milk and egg. If you don't have stale bread, you can do what German cooks do: cut the bread into small cubes and toast them in the oven on a low temperature, much like croutons. Be careful to not let the bread cubes get too dark, but lightly browned bread cubes can give your dumplings a nice toasty flavor. _Use your judgement:_ While this knodel recipe provides the quantity of bread, milk, and eggs you need to make it, knodel recipes are flexible and forgiving and because all bread types are different, you may need a little more or a little less bread. Some bread is very airy and absorbent and can soak up lots of liquid. Other bread may be denser and need less liquid. What you are looking for is a mixture that will hold together nicely and form a smooth ball. If your mixture is too wet, the bread dumplings will fall apart as they simmer. If it's too dry, the dumplings may turn out to be dense and heavy. If you aren't sure you have the right consistency, go ahead and cook a test dumpling. If it falls apart in the water, you need to add a little more bread to help the mixture hold together. If the fully cooked dumpling is too heavy, you can loosen up the mixture with some extra milk. _Use a light hand:_ The key to making feather-light dumplings is a light touch. You don't need any special equipment to make knodel - just a large bowl and your hands. Mix the dough only until it comes together. Some of the bread cubes will remain intact, giving the finished dumplings a little texture. _Get your hands wet:_ Knodel dough can stick to your hands. Before you begin to shape the dumplings, make sure your hands are completely free of any traces of dough. Then get your hands nice and wet. This makes forming the balls much easier. You may need to periodically rinse your hands as you make the dumplings. _Smooth surface:_ Knodel dough is delicate. You want the dumplings to hold together as they simmer, so make sure the surface of your dumplings is absolutely smooth. Be careful not to leave any cracks or openings for water to seep into the dumpling and break it apart. This also ensures that your dumplings look great on the plate. _Simmer, don't boil:_ Easy does it with knodel, every step of the way. Just as you mix the dough gently, and form the dumplings smoothly, you'll want to cook them gently, too. A full rolling boil may break the fragile knodel apart. Before you start to cook, let the water boil to make sure it's hot enough. But then lower the temperature and wait for the bubbles to subside. Slide your knodel into gently simmering water, not boiling water. _Give them room:_ Knodel expand as they cook. Use a large pot to give your dumplings room to swell up and to cook evenly. Fill the pot about three-fourths full. The water temperature will lower as you add the dumplings and deep water will keep its heat better. But you also want to leave enough room for the dumplings. ## Versatile Dumplings There are many knodel recipes to suit every occasion and every taste. And you can easily customize your favorite recipe. For example, although most dumpling recipes call for white bread, you can use whatever bread you like, or even a mixture of breads, to make your bread dumplings distinctive. Most classic German knodel are served as a neutral side dish flavored with some onion and fresh parsley and little else. Semmelknodel can also be added to your favorite chicken soup to give classic American chicken and dumplings a German twist. You can also add meat to them -- some Austrian knodel recipes call for bacon or sausage for a dish that needs little more that melted butter to make it delicious. These simple bread dumplings can also turn a salad into main course fare, like in this recipe for Beet and Knodel Salad that takes its inspiration from traditional German cuisine. In this sweet and tangy salad, the boiled beets are tossed in a light honey mustard sauce. The savory bread dumpings, made with gruyere cheese for added flavor and texture, make an ideal accompaniment. Serve this German-style Beet and Knodel Salad on its own, or pair it with grilled meat.Food52Earlier this year Mem and I went to Thailand and Cambodia, It feels like a lifetime ago now, but one thing that stays fresh in our minds is the food. Although Thailand has a more famous cuisine, Cambodian & Khmer food has so much to offer. Their national curry is certainly one to be proud of. The amok curry, traditionally made with fish, egg and coconut. What I really loved when I tried it was the pop of kaffir lime leaf. I wanted to make at home but as a vegan curry and thought aubergine would be perfect to replace the fish. Cambodian cuisine is more subtle than Thai, we were a little worried after having been in Thailand that we wouldn’t be as satisfied and excited by the flavours, but we were wrong! Although the flavours can be less of an assault on the senses the food is still enchanting, the famous pepper, kampot pepper, shines through in many of the dishes. This curry, while light on the palate was just so moreish and dreamy. The comfort of coconut& tons of fresh kaffir lime leaves made me fall in love with the dish. So I created my aubergine version a few months ago for our Flamingo yoga brunch and have been meaning to share the recipe ever since. Somehow it got a little delayed, as things often seem to in my world, but now here it is! Not 100% authentic amok curry, but I’d say it’s just as delicious. Just make sure you get the fresh kaffir lime leaves. Frozen are also quite good, you can find them in Asian supermarkets probably more easily than fresh. I wouldn’t advise using dried, which I don’t find comparable at all. I served the curry with red rice. A very tasty, whole & healthy rice.Food.comGF isn't hard or expensive - just use what you have on hand! This is an easy weeknight recipe, great for satisfying a comfort food craving.Food52There's something about Lemon Poppyseed that feels like oh-so-cozy comfort food. I can feel some childhood nostalgia, rooted in some level of pride that I preferred fruity muffins and carrot cake above chocolatey pastries - a fact that made me feel different from other kids who loved candy and chips, living in an eternal sugar high, only to be punctuated by a savory pop of junk food. Comfort food, as it turns out, seems to be a very American thing. As, I learned, seem to be poppy seeds. At least, that's what I thought. After looking everywhere in Stockholm, Sweden, and concluding that poppy seeds were (very oddly) an American luxury, I had my dad send me a few big bags of poppy seeds. A couple of days after receiving my contraband from overseas, I stumbled upon them in a random store - vallmofrön, if you are curious. As for this recipe - I've made it a small mission to replicate my favorite non-Paleo sweets into a flavor-infused variety of different chia pudding. There's no denying that a bowl of chia pudding holds more nutrition than a muffin, and a fraction of the sugar (heck, if you really want a kick in the tastebuds, you could hold the honey altogether!). Speaking of a kick in the tastebuds - if you hate lemon, you'll hate this recipe. 4 tablespoons is a substantial amount of lemon juice, so feel free to experiment to fit your palate. Personally, I was in need of some intensity in my mouth, and found 4 to be the perfect number.Food.comI had never had Bread Pudding before I went to Vegas and had it at a buffet. Well, I fell in love. My obsession use to be chocolate, but since I've lost 52 lbs. I gave it up. NOW, my obsession has become THIS version of Bread Pudding. ( I have to be careful how much of this I make, so I don't gain all of that chocolate weight back!) I found this recipe on the "Momswhothink.com" website and I hope it is ok to post it here. This is true comfort food. Do not over bake or you will lose the eggy texture of the bread. The cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla are the key ingredients to the rich flavor of this dessert. I use french bread, and have even used dry bread that has been sitting around a few days. I even used wheat french bread once and it turned out great! The sauce is more a vanilla, butter, cream sauce. I usually make about 4 times (yes, that is what I said!) in order to smother the bread pudding. One recipe of it is just not enough. Ummm. Make the sauce while the pudding is baking and you will save time. You can also use a Hard Sauce if you would rather. (recipe # 102574 sounds like a good one.) Even if you have never tried Bread Pudding, be daring, and try it. I use to turn my nose up at it, and now, I cannot wait for an excuse to make it, again and again. Enjoy!Food.comThis is my husband's favorite rice pudding. He will sometimes eat a bowl for his meal. This is what you call real comfort food. The recipe was one from the Saint Mary, Georgia library.
