Cookingrecipes

All About Eve Total time: 5 minutes, plus 5 days infusing time Servings: Makes 750 milliliters of infused sherry Note: From Audrey Saunders of the Tar Pit. This can be served as an aperitif or used for other cocktails such as the Flame of Love (see recipe). 5 apples, such as McIntosh, thinly sliced 1 (750 milliliter) bottle fino sherry (such as Tio Pepe) 1. Place the apples in a large glass container and cover with the sherry.

Montresor & Fortunato Total time: 4 minutes Servings: 1 Note: From Damian Windsor of the Roger Room. 1 1/2 ounces amontillado sherry (such as Emilio Lustau) 3/4 ounce Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge 1/2 ounce Carpano Antica vermouth 1 each lemon and orange peel (each about 3 by 1 1/2 inches) 3 Spanish Queen olives Pour the sherry, Grand Marnier and vermouth into a mixing glass filled with ice. Express the oils from the lemon and orange peels by twisting (discard the peels)

The Flame of Love Total time: 6 minutes Servings: 1 Note: From Audrey Saunders of the Tar Pit, inspired by a recipe from legendary bartender Pepe Ruiz of erstwhile Chasen's. For the bay leaf-infused vodka, add 2 dried bay leaves (cracked in half) for each cup of vodka (Saunders uses Absolut for this recipe); set aside at room temperature 10 hours. 5 pieces (each about 1 1/2 inches round) orange peel (4 for coating the glass, 1 for garnish)

Dear SOS: Having encountered the best chocolate pie ever at Cold Springs Tavern, an old stagecoach stop in Santa Barbara, I'm wondering whether you can persuade the restaurant to share its recipe. I am quite certain it is prepared on premises, is served warm and contains walnuts. Dee Dee Ruhlow Burbank Dear Dee Dee: We loved the combination of chocolate with walnuts and rum in this very rich pie, perfect for chocolate lovers! Each slice is great served slightly warmed with a big glass of milk.

Walnut dipping sauce Total time: 3 minutes Servings: This makes about 1 1/3 cups dipping sauce. Note: Adapted from Akila Inouye 3/4 cup walnuts 1 tablespoon sugar Scant 1 cup soba-tsuyu dipping sauce Blend the walnuts, sugar and soba-tsuyu in a blender until the walnuts are coarsely pureed. You can adjust the ingredients to your taste. Serve on the side with soba. Each one-third cup: 88 calories; 2 grams protein; 5 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 7 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 3 grams sugar; 352 mg. sodium.

At Akila Inouye's Tsukiji Soba Academy in Tokyo, a specially made wooden cabinet has 108 small cubbyholes, each containing a scroll of thick brown or green paper printed with a question. "How to finish the soba dough so that the surface is completely smooth?" "What is the ideal shape of soba cutting knives?" "How difficult is it to mill buckwheat flour oneself?" The soba instructor's cabinet of questions is emblematic of the nuances of soba-making. Soba, revered in Japan -- especially on New Year's Eve, when it's eaten as a symbol of longevity -- is one notoriously tricky noodle.

Dashi-maki tamago (home-style Japanese omelet) Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes Servings: 4 Note: Konbu (dried seaweed), dried bonito flakes and light soy sauce can be found at Japanese markets. Tamago frying pans are available at Japanese markets, but you can use a round 10-inch nonstick frying pan. This recipe calls for a bamboo sushi mat, available at Japanese stores. Dashi 1 piece konbu (6 to 8 inches long) 4 cups water 2 cups dried bonito flakes (katsuo-bushi)

When I go back to Japan, some people assume that I head straight for sushi bars. But my favorite pastime is making pilgrimages to artisanal soba shops. If there is one food I love with a passion, it is soba, the thin, earthy-looking buckwheat noodles. I enjoy their natural sweet flavor and nutty aroma and eat them for lunch three or four times a week, and sometimes for dinner too. I'm not the only one who places soba on such a high pedestal. "Soba is the best Japanese food there is," my friend Noritoshi Kanai said to me the other day. An active 86 years, he has a breakfast ritual that consists of a bowl of soba seven days a week, surpassing even my soba consumption.

Soba-tsuyu (dipping sauce for cold soba noodles) Total time: 25 minutes, plus cooling time Servings: This makes about 6 1/2 cups of dipping sauce. Note: Adapted from Akila Inouye. Mirin (look for mirin made with just rice, rice spirit and malt) and dried bonito flakes are available at Asian markets. Hongaeshi (dipping sauce base) 1/3 cup sugar 1/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons mirin 2 cups plus a scant 2 tablespoons soy sauce Place the sugar and mirin into a pot over medium heat and dissolve the sugar completely.