Free In the Hands of a Chef by Jody Adams Page A

Dust your hands with flour and form the mixture into meatballs the size of marbles (about ½ teaspoon). Cover and refrigerate at least 15 minutes.
    3. To make the broth, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, leek, and mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes or until tender. Add the garlic and escarole, cover, and cook for 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock and herbs and cook, uncovered, for an additional 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
    4. Add the meatballs to the soup and poach for 5 minutes. Ladle the soup into warm bowls, sprinkle with the grated Parmesan, and serve. Offer additional cheese on the side.
Rabbit Soup with Garlic and Peppers
    T
his rustic dish is a
great introduction to cooking rabbit. The rabbit is seared, then simmered slowly in a garlicky soup broth. The meat is easily stripped from the bones after the rabbit is cooked. Rabbit is a natural partner to garlic and pepper, both sweet and hot. All the different peppers in this recipe—paprika, freshly ground black pepper, sweet red peppers, and hot red pepper flakes—weave together to make a hearty, peasant-style soup.
    MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS
    One 3-pound rabbit
    Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
    ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
    ½ pound chorizo sausages pricked with a fork (so they don’t split)
    3 medium onions, chopped into ¼-inch dice
    3 red peppers (about ½ pound each), peeled with a vegetable peeler, stemmed, seeded, and cut into ½-inch strips
    2 cups peeled garlic cloves (see Note) (about 2 heads or 25 cloves)
    1 tablespoon paprika
    4 bay leaves
    1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
    ½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
    8 cups Chicken Stock (page 31) or high-quality canned low-sodium chicken broth or more as needed
    2 cups cooked chickpeas (see page 230) or canned chickpeas, rinsed well
    2 tablespoons dry sherry
    6 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled (see page 55), seeded, and chopped into ¼-inch dice (or one 15-ounce can diced tomatoes)
    ½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

    1. Season the rabbit all over with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat (the pot should be large enough to hold the rabbit and sausage in a single layer). Add the rabbit and sausage and brown on both sides, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
    2. Add the onions to the pot, season with salt and pepper, and cook until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Lower the heat if the onions are cooking too fast. Add the peppers, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the peppers just begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, paprika, bay leaves, thyme, and red pepper flakes and cook for 1 minute.
    3. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, then return the rabbit and sausage to the pot. Cover and cook for 1 hour.
    4. Flip the sausage and rabbit so they cook evenly, add the chickpeas, and cook for another 30 minutes or so, adding more stock if needed. When done, the rabbit should be just about falling off the bone.
    5. Remove the rabbit and sausage from the pot. When it is cool enough to handle, shred therabbit meat off the bones. Slice the sausage into ½-inch diagonal pieces. Remove the bay leaves and discard. Season the soup with salt and pepper.
    6. Return the meat to the pot. Heat the soup to warm everything through. Add the sherry, tomatoes, and parsley and simmer for 5 minutes.
    7. Ladle the soup into warm bowls and serve.
    NOTE: To peel the garlic, blanch the unpeeled cloves in boiling water for 15 seconds, then shock in ice water and drain. The skins should slide off easily.

Salads
    S
alad ingredients are the ultimate
individualists. They may be tossed in the same bowl, but they never really blend together, and anything more than a few ingredients risks sinking the whole enterprise. The central point of salad is for a few items to stand out from the crowd while you balance texture,