Welcome to Kitchen Radio!
This cooking podcast takes place in a different home kitchen every episode, where Jennifer (HCNY’s founder) teaches her guest how to cook a dish they have always wanted to learn. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in.
New episodes arrive every 2 weeks, with “Sidebar” segments rounding out the weeks in between, where Jennifer answers listeners’ burning culinary questions. To submit a question for a future segment, email a voice memo to jennifer@homecookingny.com.
[NOTE: We are an a brief hiatus since going into other people’s home kitchens is not the thing to do right now. We’ll be back!]
Episode notes and recipes are below.
E10: Shrimp & Grits with Chef John: “It’s Better with Butter”
February 18 | New York City
Chef John Scoff hails from Charleston, South Carolina, where he was the executive chef of a low-country bistro before coming to his senses and joining the Home Cooking New York’s teaching team in 2005 (he was following his then-girlfriend, now-wife who was moving north for a teaching job). His most sought after class is Southern Brunch, so I asked him to share some of his signature takes on this Southern classic dish.
E9: Handmade Bagels with Erica: “The Gluten Matrix”
February 4 | Brooklyn, NY
Erica Wides is one of our school’s beloved chef-instructors and brains behind our Handmade Bagel Workshop. And since I’ve never attempted to make one from scratch, I thought it was time to remedy that hole in my repertoire and have her show me the ropes. I’ll happily gloat that the bagels we made were at the very least, on par with some of the best bagels I’ve ever eaten.
E8| Louisiana Gumbo with Joe: “Trinity”
January 21 | Cold Spring, NY
Joe learned how to make gumbo from watching his grandmother cook batches of it in her 1950s Louisiana kitchen. Now he makes it out of his own kitchen on special occasions (or whenever he has a poultry carcass lying around) using the same, well-worn cast iron skillet his grandmother used. In this episode, Joe shows Jennifer how to make a proper Cajun roux and how to temper it before adding it to the simmering stock (to minimize its “Cajun napalm” quality), which Joe seasons with his own blend of “leaves and seeds.” Jennifer also learns a thing or two about sassafrass leaves, okra, and the trinity of black, white, and red pepper.
E7| C
hana Masala with Margot: “Sour Power”
January 7 | Wappingers Falls, NY
Margot is tired of predictable flavor of the Indian food she makes at home, and wants to learn how to make a curry that will really knock her socks off. Her husband Josh is a newfound vegetarian, so we decided to cook up a batch of chana masala, a richly-spiced chickpea and tomato curry that has a secret, sour ingredient that will help Margot brighten up all of her future Indian dishes.
E6| Lamb Chops with Meredith: “Lamb Chop-Off”
December 24 | Beacon, NY
Meredith and I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen together over the years. We briefly had a radio show called “Chewing the Fat” on our local station, where we’d talk about what we cooked for dinner that week. Riveting stuff, folks. She also photographed my last cookbook, “Six Basic Cooking Techniques.” She originally wanted to learn how to cook liver for this episode, but I simply couldn’t get excited about that. So we settled on lamb, which I am very excited about.
E5| Stir-Fry with Ryon: “Garage Wok”
December 10 | Newburgh, NY
Ryon is a contagiously-friendly photographer and optician, who manages my local uber-hip, eyewear store, Luxe Optique. He also doesn’t eat many meals at home, so I focused on teaching him how to make flavorful, one-pan meals at the end of the day. In order to do so, we first had to dig an old wok out of his garage, which we scrubbed and scrubbed until it was clean enough to cook up a classic stir-fry.
E4 | Korean Pancakes with Chef Jae: “Going Big”
November 26 | Astoria, Queens
We’re switching it up a bit for this episode: I am now the lucky student as Chef Jae Jung teaches me how to make a proper Korean pancake. Chef Jae has spent the last 10 years in the hallowed kitchens of some of the nation’s top restaurants, from Le Bernardin to Oceana, and most recently as a sous chef at the Michelin-starred Cafe Boulud. She is currently taking a well-deserved break from the culinary rat race, and had the time to school me in this quintessential dish, one of many fantastic recipes from “A Place at the Table,” a new cookbook that features the recipes of the nation’s top foreign-born chefs.
E3 | Roast Chicken with Laurel: “A Stand-Up Chicken”
November 12 | Nyack, NY
Laurel wanted to learn how to roast a chicken, despite being squeamish about having to deal with the honesty of a whole, raw bird. But it is that good feeling that comes from serving up a well-roasted chicken that inspired her to move past that and embrace the challenge. While she will likely ask her magician husband for carving assistance in the future, there are many roasted chickens (and homemade gravy!) in her future.
E2 | Breakfast Burritos with Sam: “Walmart Beans”
October 30 | Beacon, NY
Sam Anderson used to attend my cooking classes when I used to teach out of my kitchen in Beacon, NY, many years ago. He was an excellent student (and an award-winning writer to boot), filling his recipe sheets with beautiful marginalia. He was the first person I thought of when I was looking for guest home cooks for this podcast. Sam wanted to learn to how to make a good breakfast burrito at home, something he always orders when he spots it on a restaurant menu.
E1 | Kuku Sabzi with Rebecca: “Chlorophyll Punch”
October 15 | New York City
Rebecca Miller Ffrench certainly knows how to cook — she’s a talented cake baker and cookbook author, after all — but she has never cooked Persian food before, despite having enjoyed many a meal in the homes of Persian rug makers (her husband is a rug dealer). She loves bright flavors and learning about new ingredients, so teaching her how to make a classic kuku sabzi, a Persian herb-packed egg dish, was a great way to kick off our pilot episode.