Ingredients

Appears in
top 1000Culinary Artistry
Culinary Artistry

By Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page

Published 1996

  • About
  1. George = rice, Johanne = onions. George: I’d take Uncle Ben’s converted rice. Johanne: I loves onions in everything, and the underlying structure of a lot of my food starts with onions—whether stuffing onions into a chicken for roasting or making an onion base for soups.
  2. Pasta. We couldn’t live without pasta. We’d bring a string pasta, like linguini. There’s something sexy and satisfying about string pasta.
  3. Olive oil. We’d bring Capezzana or Provençal oil. We couldn’t live without the flavor; we use it in rice, and to sauté garlic.
  4. Wine. We’d bring Italian red wine to drink and to turn into vinegar. We love the balance of acid in food, and vinegar is important to bring out flavor.
  5. Salt. It’s important—it can perk things up and bring out their flavor.
  6. Johanne = chicken, George = pork. Johanne: I favor chicken because you can do so much with it. (See their Roasted Chicken recipe.) George: I like the flavor of pork; there are very few cuts of meat that have good flavor anymore.
  7. Tomatoes. For sauces! In our wedding vows, Johanne has to make red sauce once a week.
  8. Greens. George: Whether before or after or with a meal, I always crave a salad. Johanne: I even like a salad instead of dessert!
  9. Sugar. George: I use sugar a lot in my cooking; it gives a vibrancy and sparkle to otherwise dull things. Just a pinch of it, say, in a chicken dish will make the few ingredients in the dish come alive. And I use it for carmelization—when you brown food in caramel instead of oil, it gives a depth of flavor you can’t get any other way.
  10. Garlic. It’s important in pasta, and it tastes very different depending on how you cook it. You can use it sparingly when raw, or sauté it slowly and use it golden or brown. You can boil it in milk to get the mildest flavor, or roast it to bring out the flavor of caramel.