Bean and Legume

With baking, the texture of tofu turns satisfyingly dense and chewy. In many cities, you can find fresh and creamy locally-made tofu at farmers’ markets, food co-ops, and in Asian markets. Tender spring snap peas are quick to cook; here they are simply placed in a colander and cooked with the hot water from the soba noodles.

This dish pops with the bright flavor of fresh ingredients cooked quickly; but while the final “zap” is quick, preparation of this aromatic salad takes time. Enjoy it: you’ll use several cooking techniques, from searing zucchini to making croutons to preparing favas. For a shortcut, use store-bought croutons or buy shelled favas. Favas need to be peeled twice: First, pull the beans out of the pod by pulling on the stem and unzipping the side; then, after cooking, peel the thin layer of skin from each bean.

Enoki mushrooms are also known as “snowpuffs” or “golden needle” mushrooms because of their long, stretched stems and white caps. They come to us from Japan, where they are served raw or lightly cooked. Enoki are usually sold refrigerated in sealed plastic packets of 3.5 to 7 ounces. Despite their delicate appearance, they have a surprisingly meaty texture, especially when roasted. Mirin, or rice wine, is a sweet Japanese cooking wine that has a low alcohol content. If you can’t find mirin, substitute a tablespoon of honey mixed with a drop of white wine.

This rustic dish makes a wonderful cold-weather meal when paired with a green salad. Instead of the usual white top made of potatoes, this shepherd’s pie gets a toasted orange hue from winter squash, a common ingredient in Greek and Italian cuisine. You can substitute pumpkin, red kuri squash, or kabocha squash for the butternut. Gremolata, a fresh Italian condiment of parsley, lemon zest, and garlic, adds a bright citrus note.

This is a festive entrée for a holiday dinner. The aromatic vegetable stock is made right in the baking dish as the fennel cooks, and then turned into a rich sauce. The trick to carving out the fennel bulbs is to leave the sturdy outer layers intact, no less than 1/2 inch thick, or the bulbs can fall apart. If you like, you can mince half of the fennel scraps and add them to the filling. If you can’t find chestnuts, substitute toasted walnuts. Serve with a light, fluffy grain like rice or quinoa.

Red lentils are quick-cooking beans, making them an obvious choice for last-minute meals. Their texture is starchier than regular lentils, and they have a light, sweet taste reminiscent of potatoes. For a creamier soup, add a dollop of Cucumber Yogurt (page 184). For a hint of spice, serve it with the Cilantro-Jalapeño Sauce (page 184).

Serve these fragrant Indian-spiced cakes with sweet and tangy Cilantro-Jalapeño Sauce (page 184) to set off their flavor, and Cucumber Yogurt (page 184) for a creamy contrast. For a hearty lunch, perch a few cakes on top of a green salad, or pack them into a pita pocket along with shredded vegetables.

Although technically an appetizer, these stuffed wings are also a convenient main course at lunch—down two of them and I guarantee you’ll be happily full for at least 4 hours. The technique here takes a little practice; don’t forget to use a very sharp knife. I promise you, your efforts will be worthwhile: this dish never fails to impress. If you have any leftover rice, you can eat it on its own as a side dish, stuff it into grape leaves for a Mediterranean twist, or steam inside a corn husk for a delicious Japanese-style “tamale.”

Grilled squid, the Japanese version of fried calamari, is extremely popular in Japan’s neighborhood izakaya, or eating pubs. Whenever I order this dish I always think of my mother, who once warned me against eating squid from street vendors. My mom, always looking out for me! Using nice, fresh squid, this dish is simple to prepare and perfect with a cold glass of sake. Try to buy the largest calamari-style squid you can find.

Sea urchin, or uni in Japanese, is a favorite delicacy back home, one that can be enjoyed raw or mixed as a dressing for seafood. I love the creamy, rich texture and sweet flavor of sea urchin combined with the lemony butter sauce of this gnocchi dish. You can prepare the gnocchi ahead of time, if you’d like. Just toss it with 1 tablespoon olive oil and refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 1 month.

Loaded with nutrients, wakame has been an important part of the Japanese diet for centuries. And besides being good for you, it has a wonderful flavor that’s both briny and sweet. I love this seaweed and eat a ton of it. Wakame is also very convenient: because it’s dried, it can be stored for months, but it takes only minutes to reconstitute. This quick and easy soba dish is a delicious way to introduce this versatile ingredient to American cooks, especially when paired with fresh snow peas and tangy onions. Give it a try; I know you’ll love wakame as much as I do.

In the summer, we’d sit on the porch shelling the black-eyed peas that Dede had picked that morning. The purple hulls dyed our fingers smoky violet. I’ve used frozen black-eyed peas to prepare this soup, but don’t use canned, as they are too soft. If using frozen peas, reduce the cooking time according to the package instructions or until the peas are tender. Note that the dried peas must soak overnight or have a quick soak. Don’t skip the essential step of simmering the ham hocks in the chicken stock. The flavor and aroma are what makes this soup extraordinary.

My grandfather used lots and lots of black pepper, especially to season Meme’s vegetable soup. It tasted wonderful, so it wasn’t like he was trying to hide the taste. He just loved pepper. We always had vegetable soup in the winter, using the vegetables we had canned or frozen that summer. This recipe easily doubles or triples. I like to make a large batch and enjoy it a few days in a row. You can prepare this with the traditional ham bone or opt for a vegetarian version. Serve with piping hot biscuits.

My grandparents had a garden each summer and fall. To keep the soil rich and fertile, Dede would alternate between the fields in front of the house and behind it and the property down at the river. He planted by the moon and used time-honored wisdom as his guide. Meme would drive the tractor and Dede would follow behind with the plow. Dede loved green beans and would plant rows and rows. When he passed away, Mama tucked a handful in his suit pocket as he lay in his coffin so he wouldn’t miss them. These green beans are fresh and flavorful—a favorite Southern vegetable made with a classic French technique. This dish is excellent served hot, at room temperature, or chilled. If making it ahead, do not add the vinegar until the last moment or it will cause the beans to look mottled and green like hunter’s camouflage.

The aroma of the basil when combined with the green beans is vibrant and intoxicating. This dish is almost like a deconstructed pesto without the cheese, or a Southern version of green beans amandine, a once-elegant side dish, that in the 1970s became a sad image of itself, banished to cafeterias and dining halls.

This recipes involving as few dishes as possible. (I like to cook, not do dishes.) It’s also a bit larger than many of my vegetable dishes—it makes for delicious leftovers. Succotash has many versions, but all contain corn and beans. If butter beans are not available, I often substitute shelled edamame or black-eyed peas. Small farm stands, local and state farmer’s markets, and even the Whole Foods in my area usually carry shelled peas and butter beans in the summer. They are both doubly precious—extremely delicious and fairly expensive, the result of the luxury of not having to shell your own.

I think Dede, who loved green beans, would have choked if I had suggested serving them with olives and feta cheese. He was more inclined to enjoy beans simmered until very soft and laced with transparent bits of fatback, swimming in a deliciously salty broth. More often than not, before cooking, green beans only need their tough, unsightly stems removed. I guess we are getting lazy about everything, including green beans. I like to leave them whole, curly “tail” attached, instead of snapping them.

Butter beans are my favorite summer vegetable. Slowly simmered with a bit of fat for flavor, they produce a rich, soothing broth. We would often have them freshly shelled in the summer as part of the large Sunday dinner. Meme would serve a simple slice of white bread or leftover biscuits bathed in the salty broth for a light supper. There is a raging controversy over whether butter beans are the same as lima beans. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension states that lima beans and butter beans are interchangeable terms, and there is little difference in the varieties. I hate to besmirch the name of my alma mater, and the gardeners may think they have it all sorted out, but you can’t tell me—or many Southern cooks—that flat, tender, petite, green butter beans are the same as the larger, yellow, starchy lima pods. The difference is that some butter bean varieties are grown to harvest when young and immature and some are grown to harvest when older and more mature for drying. More often than not, I enjoy butter beans as pure, simple, and unadulterated by other flavors as possible, using canola oil and possibly finishing with just a pat of butter. If I am feeling particularly racy, I will add several tablespoons or so of freshly chopped herbs such as basil, parsley, or lemon balm.

Edamame is the Japanese word for soybean. Soybeans are somewhat mild in flavor, a cross between a pea and a fava bean. We’re lucky enough to sometimes find them fresh during the summer months, at the farmer’s market or a specialty store, but they are widely available frozen, both in the pod and shelled. Adults and children alike love edamame as a snack. Once the soybeans are cooked or reheated, drain them well, and season with coarse salt or sea salt. Squeeze the seeds directly from the pods into your mouth. Think highbrow boiled peanuts. Edamame may be eaten as a snack or a vegetable, and used in soups or stir-fries. I also like to mash them with potatoes, as in this recipe.

This famous New Orleans dish was originally served on Mondays, utilizing the ham bone left over from Sunday supper. Very low maintenance, it simmered on the stove all day while the women washed the family’s laundry and hung it out to dry. Although for the most part, Monday wash day is a thing of the past, red beans and rice is still often served as a lunch or dinner special at many New Orleans restaurants. Dishes of rice and beans are part of rustic country cooking in the Caribbean and all over the world. The inexpensive combination of rice and beans supplies essential amino acids not often found in plant proteins, and more readily found in expensive meat proteins. For the ham bone, traditional recipes now often substitute spicy boudin, smoked sausage, or Cajun andouille. Boudin is a spicy pork sausage with onion, rice, and herbs. Cajun andouille is a highly seasoned smoked sausage made from pork, whereas French andouille is made from the stomach and intestines. The andouille of Guémené, France, is crafted so that the intestines are placed inside one another, giving it the appearance of concentric circles before it is dried and smoked. This is potent stuff. I am always willing to try anything once, including chilled slices of smoked pig’s intestines. Let’s just put it this way, I’d rather have a heaping bowl of Mama’s Red Beans and Rice, and I’m not asking for seconds of French andouille any time soon.