Food & Wine September 2018

WHAT MAKES A GOOD RECIPE? The good ones yield a delicious result, of course. The best ones tell a story worth repeating. In the pages that follow, we share the very best recipes that Food & Wine has published in the past 40 years. On their own, recipes like F&W contributor Andrew Zimmern’s Baltimore-Style Crab Cakes (p. 101) from 2012, loosely bound by mayonnaise, egg, and crushed saltines, offer up pure dinner gold. Julia Child’s 1994 recipe for Ham Steaks in Madeira Sauce (p. 62) will make you wonder why you ever stopped serving ham steaks. In 2010, former Test Kitchen Supervisor Marcia Kiesel shared the very best chocolate cake you will ever taste (p. 93), and Paul Chung, who worked in the F&W mail room in 1995 and sidelined…

NOT LONG AGO I was sitting in Press restaurant in St. Helena, California, in the heart of Napa Valley, drinking a bottle of wine from 1979—a William Hill Cabernet Sauvignon. It was everything you’d want in an older wine: complex aromas and flavors recalling dried currants, dry leaves, tobacco; a sustaining acidity that lengthened those notes until they finally ghosted away. It was made the year after Food & Wine was founded. I wasn’t even old enough to drink on the day that wine went into its bottle. The thing about great older wines is that they occupy both then and now. Looking back through the lens of that wine takes you to the dawn of the American wine revolution. In the late 1970s, the reverberations of the now-famous Judgment of…

The 2014 Napa Valley Merlot ($29) from Flora Springs does justice to this sometimes-maligned variety: It’s plummy and spicy, and calls out for the accompaniment of something grilled. Though Pine Ridge Vineyards made its name on Cabernet, current winemaker Michael Beaulac has a deft touch with whites as well, something his floral 2014 Dijon Clones Carneros Chardonnay ($38) shows clearly. Whether the black cherry–rich 2015 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($50) from William Hill Estate Winery will last as long as the 1979 vintage I tasted recently is debatable, but it’s certainly a pleasure to drink right now. Originally built in 1885, Far Niente was abandoned during Prohibition. In 1979, entrepreneur Gil Nickel brought it back to life and established a now-long-standing cult following for its layered, rich Chardonnay. The 2016 Estate Bottled ($70)…

IN THE INAUGURAL ISSUE of Food & Wine, legendary chef Jacques Pépin shared his recipe for the perfect souffé. “Why their awesome mystique?” we asked. “Why does the idea of making one turn fearless kitchen lions into cowering lambs?” Pépin, who had recently published his tome of French cooking, La Technique, was the perfect teacher to introduce readers to the method for making “towering, golden-roofed, steamily fragrant” souffés, giving detailed directions on everything from preparing the dish with a paper collar to beating the egg whites properly. This ethereal recipe is just as good today as it was 40 years ago. ACTIVE 20 MIN; TOTAL 1 HR 15 MIN SERVES 6 3 Tbsp. granulated sugar3 Tbsp. all-purpose flourUnsalted butter, softened, for greasingCrème Pâtissière (recipe follows), at room temperature2 Tbsp. Grand Marnier1 Tbsp.…

PAULA WOLFERT was one of the earliest and steadiest contributors to F&W, bringing in stories and recipes from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. In one of her first features for the magazine, Wolfert penned an article about three great Alsatian chefs cooking their mothers’ food. Included was André Soltner, then the chef-owner at the legendary Lutèce in Manhattan. Soltner opted to re-create his mother’s potato pie, which Wolfert said was “a simple thing, yet elegant.” It consisted of a flaky pâte brisée filled with thinly sliced potatoes, bacon, hard-cooked eggs, herbs, and crème fraîche. Wolfert noted how strongly Soltner felt while preparing the dish, with “pleasure and nostalgia… plainly visible on his face.” This is home cooking at its best, from one of America’s most revered French chefs. Paired…

ONE OF THE WORLD’S most celebrated chefs and a leader of the French nouvelle cuisine movement, Paul Bocuse was an icon. Bocuse’s irresistible chicken, cooked with vinegar, represented two big trends of the times: big, bold flavor (from the vinegar) and a focus on overall lightness, which Bocuse championed. With just a handful of ingredients and simple directions, this is a dish we have never stopped making. (See p. 34 for the recipe.) Poulet Au Vinaigre, 1980 PHOTO P. 20 TOTAL 1 HR; SERVES 4 Paul Bocuse’s take on chicken in vinegar sauce brightens and modernizes the classic French dish, swapping fresh tomatoes for tomato paste, using lower-acid rice wine vinegar in place of red wine vinegar, and significantly reducing the amount of butter. 3 Tbsp. clarified unsalted butter (see Note) or 2 Tbsp. unsalted…