Orecchiette with spicy turkey sausage and broccoli rabe. I know—turkey sausage? But the stuff from DiPaola has great flavor and doesn’t get quite as dried out as what you get from the store; it’s actually really good. Plus, it’s good for you or something. Regardless, sausage and broccoli rabe is a classic combination served in restaurants around the northeast. Starting with spicy sausage and adding a bit of red sauce makes it that much more satisfying in my book.

This is easy to make. Brown the sausage then add your red sauce. While that simmers, blanch the broccoli rabe, then drain and squeeze against the walls of the colander or paper towels. Add the cooked orecchiette and broccoli rabe to the sauce, stirring for one more minute. Serve with your preferred grated cheese.

A nice hefty 50/50 short rib/ brisket burger and a perfect batch of oven fries. I kept the burger relatively simple—10 ounces of fresh ground beef, local ketchup, a thick slice of aged cheddar, heirloom tomato, and baby lettuce.

This batch of oven fries following Cooks Illustrated’s recipe came out really well, although they don’t always. This recipe is highly dependent on the quality of the potato, your oven, and flipping and rotating the fries at very precise moments which seem to have little to do with the times listed in the recipe and everything to do with how quickly and (un)evenly the potatoes feel like browning. At their best, as shown here, these fries are deep golden brown, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside, and not at all greasy.

I’ll also add a small note on the ketchup, First Field from New Jersey, which I discovered earlier in the day at New Amsterdam Market. This is delicious ketchup—a bit chunky and tasting of fresh harvested and roasted tomatoes. It’s on sale all summer and into early fall until supplies run out.

A perfect NY strip steak from Bryan Flannery. I love my local suppliers but Bryan’s beef is unparalleled. His cuts of California beef run a little smaller, so to compensate he’ll cut them nice and thick for you. This 24-ouncer was at least 4 inches thick, which is great, but does pose problems for cooking in a Manhattan apartment without scaring neighbors or alerting the fire department. So, I cooked this sous vide at 120 degrees for 1.5 hours then flash seared in a blazing hot cast iron skillet. This worked well—the steak was just above true rare, which normally would ruin my day, but in the case of sous vide I’ve found I actually like a few extra degrees.

In the background are truffled mashed potatoes and Sine Qua Non “Raven” Syrah from 2006. Of the recent SQN Syrahs, this one seems to be drinking best right now and was perfect with steak.

Butternut squash gratin. The best parts of a good gratin are the browned bits on the bottom of the pan and the crispy top. This dish is an attempt to maximize the amounts of both in every bite, while maintaining a soft and creamy middle layer. The recipe is a riff on the ubiquitous butternut squash with sage and onion gratin recipes you can find anywhere (this one is fine), so just pick one you like for ratios, seasoning, etc. The key to this version is making sure everything is arranged in a single layer and adding cream in two steps to ensure moistness. One medium squash fits perfectly in a 10-12 inch skillet and is a good amount for 2-3 portions.

Sage and onion are caramelized in a skillet while squash cut in little cubes steams. Remove skillet from heat and gently stir in squash and some chopped garlic, season, and arrange in more or less a single layer. Pour a little warmed heavy cream over everything, and top with bread crumbs soaked in melted butter.  Bake until almost finished (bubbling and browning on the top), pour a little more cream over the gratin and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes until finished.

Maple chipotle duck breast and maple roasted acorn squash. Great fall ingredients simply prepared with plenty of BLiS bourbon barrel maple syrup make for an easy midweek meal.

Steak and potatoes for steakhouse Friday. Actually, this is a Washugyu flat iron steak from Japan Premium Beef and four different varieties of sweet potato. I’ve written about the flat iron from JPB in the past, and the more I eat it the more convinced I am that it’s one of the best pieces of beef you can buy in the city.

Mussels steamed with white wine, vanilla, and red pepper flakes with fried Japanese sweet potatoes. This isn’t much to look at, but wow. I read Sam Sifton’s notes on Vandaag earlier this week with out much interest, but the 6th photo in the little slide show at the top caught my eye. It was an interesting looking clam prep with this caption:

Littleneck clams. But not just! Mr. Kirschen-Clark bathes them in aquavit, and fires them up with Aleppo pepper. Some vanilla intrigues, and parsnip frites provide crunch.

I’m already a huge fan of steaming clams and mussels in alcohol (usually white wine or limoncello) with chiles or other heat. But vanilla intrigues and parsnip frites? Yes please. My version was obviously a bit different, using mussels instead of clams, sweet potatoes instead of parsnips, etc. Also, this was experimental so I didn’t take much care for how things looked—if I was serving this to guests I’d be careful about the size of the dice of sweet potato and dress it up with a colorful herb. I’ll do this again someday soon, get a prettier photo and write up a proper recipe. But for now, this is what I did:

For the potatoes: Cut the sweet potatoes to roughly half inch dice, immediately putting them into cold water with a tablespoon of vinegar added (the Japanese variety of sweet potato are super-starchy and brown almost instantly). Heat on high, then boil for 10 minutes, until the potatoes are easily split with a knife but don’t fall apart. Dry on a paper towel and heat oil in the deep fryer to between 340 and 375. Mix some flour with salt and cayenne and toss the potato cubes in the mixture then shake off the excess. They should be lightly dusted. Throw these in the fryer for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown and no longer expelling water. Dry and salt.

For the mussels: Gently simmer white wine with half of a vanilla bean (I used Tahitian) and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes for 10 minutes or so. Turn up the heat, add the mussels, cover tightly and cook a few minutes until done.

To serve, add a fried sweet potato to every open mussel, then scatter the remaining potatoes on the plate. Try a bite with a juicy mussel and crunchy sweet potato. Definitely serve with grower Champagne!

Another crappy picture of really good home pizza. Same as last week’s Filetti, but with prosciutto. I love adding little folds of good prosciutto to this style of pizza, although it doesn’t look very nice.

I’m having a hard time not making pizza these days. It’s finally cooled off enough that I don’t mind blasting the oven, the NFL has started, and the fresh cherry tomatoes are so good this time of year. Homemade pizza like this can’t be that bad for you, right?

Duck and porcini mushroom ragu over fresh fettuccine. Despite the fact that this looks like the dog’s breakfast, the duck and porcini combination is really good. If you can find them, lola duck legs (mine are from Hudson Valley Foie and Duck), which are stronger in flavor, add a lot to this dish.  

As always, ragu is time consuming but easy. Start by searing the duck (and rendering and saving lots of fat), brown the mirepoix, then add red wine, chicken stock, tomatoes, seasoning, and put the duck back in. Simmer for at least an hour. Remove and shred the duck, add back in and simmer until thick, somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour. Serve over pasta with freshly grated parmesan.

Striped bass ceviche. Somehow after eating fresh caught striped bass most weekends for the past two summers (from Blue Moon Fish, of course), it never occurred to me to make ceviche with it. Big oversight! It shouldn’t be surprising that striped bass makes some incredible ceviche—it’s firm enough to stand up to the acid, breaks apart into giant flakes, and has great flavor. This simple, traditional ceviche was made with lime, jalapeno, red onion, cilantro, and sea salt.