Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Category: Main Courses

  • Transforming Thanksgiving Leftovers

    So it’s the day after Thanksgiving and your fridge is exploding with a mangled turkey carcass, half a pan of stuffing, gobs of gelatinous cranberry sauce…and you’ve got no idea what to do, right? Don’t microwave another paper plate filled with stale leftovers.  Transform the leftovers into something different and better!  Turkey Meat Tamales Coming…

  • Colcannon (Irish recipe for St. Patrick’s Day)

    An instructional video is at the bottom of this recipe. Colcannon is an Irish classic.  They’ve been eating it for centuries.  Normally it’s a mixture of mashed potatoes and kale that would commonly be eaten with pork.  But in my version, the kale gets replaced with red cabbage, and I mix the pork right in. …

  • Ma’o Farms Vegetarian Curry

    On a recent trip to Hawaii, Adrien from MasterChef and I had the chance to visit an amazing farm called Ma’o on the west coast of Oahu near Waianae in the Hawaiian homelands, where only native Hawaiians are permitted to live.  This farm is run entirely by youth (mostly under the age of 25) and…

  • Rustic Italian Veggie Pie

    I saw a picture of something like this in a vegetarian cookbook, and since my household is temporarily vegetarian while my veggie friend is visiting from Brasil, I decided to make my own version.  This is a pretty easy dinner, very hearty, sort of like a calzone.  You could really use a variety of ingredients…

  • Wild Mushroom and Egg Yolk Raviolo with Black Truffle Cream Sauce

    You probably shouldn’t make this.  Food this good shouldn’t exist.  It sorta ruins the rest of the food in the world after you eat it.  But if you MUST… I first had a raviolo (“raviolo” just means a BIG ravioli) stuffed with egg yolk at Joe Bastianich’s restaurant Osteria Mozza, where Mario Batali is the…

  • Crispy Eggplant in Pumpkin Coconut Curry

    Indian food runs a close second to Thai food for me, in terms of complexity and deliciousness!  Curries, which are remarkably simple between Thailand and India, are savory sauces with a complex blend of sweet, sour, spicy, and savory notes.  My favorite curries are the ones with a coconut milk base, rather than a broth…

  • Hoppin’ John (Black Eyed Peas for New Year’s)

    Hoppin’ John (or Hoppy John) is a centuries-old tradition in the American South.  On New Year’s Day…sometimes even at the stroke of midnight…families and friends grab steaming bowls of this hearty stew of black eyed peas, rice, and pork, which is supposed to give us good luck throughout the new year.  The theory is that…

  • Butter Chicken

    ***NOTE***  This recipe has been updated as of September 2019 to improve efficiency and flavor. After tweeting to Chef Suzy Singh, a fellow MasterChef contestant, that I was making Butter Chicken (a dish she made on the show) I received numerous tweets asking for my Butter Chicken recipe.  While I’m entirely certain it’s not as…

  • Transforming Thanksgiving Leftovers

    So it’s the day after Thanksgiving and your fridge is exploding with a mangled turkey carcass, half a pan of stuffing, gobs of gelatinous cranberry sauce…and you’ve got no idea what to do, right? Don’t microwave another paper plate filled with stale leftovers. Transform the leftovers into something different and better! TURKEY MEAT Tamales  Coming…

  • Ben’s Legendary Green Chile Stew

    A video tutorial is located at the end of this video! This is the most delicious of all stews.  A regional specialty of New Mexico, the favored chiles for this stew come from farms near the town of Hatch.  If they are not available in your area, you can buy them online fresh in season,…