“more than just ingredients, it is an accumulation of knowledge, sourcing, collaboration, farms, orchards, fields, and artistry.”
After almost a quarter of a century as executive chef and co-owner of Lula Cafe, Chef Jason Hammel has written his debut cookbook about his popular restaurant in Chicago’s trendy Logan Square neighborhood. The Lula Café, which was nominated as a finalist for Outstanding Hospitality by the James Beard Foundation, is often described as trailblazing with boundary-pushing new dishes gracing the menu every week and Hammel credited with being in the vanguard of sourcing local and organic ingredients to use in his restaurant well before it became a trend.
All of these factors are in play in The Lula Café Cookbook: Collected Recipes and Stories (Phaidon Press). Included are 90 full recipes and 40 “building block” pantry recipes.
Hammel, a consulting chef at Marisol in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and a co-founder of Pilot Light, a food education nonprofit that invests in teacher leadership and fosters good food choices, has crafted an intriguing and beautiful cookbook. The recipes have very detailed instructions, are accompanied by artistic full-color photographs, and often include a suggestion of how to serve the dish to get the best effect and taste.
Some are esoteric and might be daunting to everyday home cooks who are looking for quick and easy. Count among those the Sweet Corn, Cipollini Onion, and Raclette Tart with its many steps and side recipes and the Toasted Bay Leaf and Chocolate Crème Brûlée, which calls for making both candied hazelnuts and candied kumquats as well as a brûlée base.
Hammel says the recipe for Carrots, Plums, and Dill came about when they were experimenting with using a shio koji, the mold used for making such Japanese fermented products as miso, soy sauce, and sake, to marinate meats such as pork shoulder and quail—yes that’s how much they pay attention to detail at The Lula Café. They then moved on to using shio koji for vegetables, which is how Carrots, Plums, and Dill came about. All these dishes would be well worth the effort for those so inclined (and who want to invest in a shio koji) but there are others that have the same sophisticated look but are much more approachable.
One such dish is Pasta Yiayia, a staple at the restaurant. (See recipe below).
“I married into this dish,” writes Hammel. “This is the recipe my wife most associated with her grandmother and namesake, Amalia, who came to Chicago from a village near Sparta, Greece, as a child. I never got the chance to meet this side branch of the family tree. But I can see Amalia now when I set Pasta YiaYia in front of my children.
“There is nothing more central to my wife’s family than this maternal line—a branch of creativity, grit, beauty, and bravery—traced back to Amalia herself and now carried on by the flavors, stories, ingredients, and techniques in this recipe. I imagine my wife as a child, as her grandmother set down a bowl of pasta dressed with feta, brown butter, garlic, and cinnamon. I can only imagine that these flavors connected her to a place in an old world she’d never known.”
Another easy to try is the Turmeric Tangerine Teacake that Hammel praises his pastry chef, Emily Spurlin, for creating and marveling at her skills at melding the flavors so the turmeric bounces off the baking spices, olive oil, and yogurt. And in this season of fresh produce, Tomato Tonnato is another good choice to try.
The stories accompanying each recipe shows the almost poetic take Hammel and his staff take to creating the food they prepare and serve. It is more than just ingredients, it is an accumulation of knowledge, sourcing, collaboration, farms, orchards, fields, and artistry.
Lula Cafe’s Pasta Yiayia
From The Lula Cafe Cookbook (Phaidon, 2023)
Serves 4
Yiayia Sauce
- 1 ¼ cups (10 fl oz/300 g) milk
- 1 tablespoon Roasted Garlic Purée (recipe follows) + 1 teaspoon oil from the Roasted Garlic
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup (5 oz/150 g) crumbled feta
- ⅛ teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
To Serve
- 8 oz bucatini (Hammel and Lula use Misko No. 2)
- 1 cup (3 ½ oz/100 g) grated Parmesan
- Generous ½ cup (2 ¾ oz/70 g) crumbled feta
- Ground cinnamon, to taste
- ¼ cup (2 ¼ oz/55 g) butter
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1. Make the Yiayia sauce. In a small pan, combine the milk, roasted garlic, garlic oil, minced garlic, and cinnamon.
2. Bring to a simmer over low heat and cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.
3. Remove from the heat and let cool.
4. Transfer the milk mixture to a blender, adding the feta and xanthan gum, if using. Purée until smooth.
5. Gently warm the sauce in a large, wide pan over low heat while you prepare the pasta.
6. To serve, bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Salt generously. Add the bucatini to the boiling water and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes.
7. Strain and transfer the pasta to the pan with the warmed sauce, tossing until thoroughly coated.
8. Add half the Parmesan and feta, and toss again until just incorporated. The feta can be chunky and half melted.
9. Transfer the pasta to warm serving bowls or a platter and top with the remaining feta and Parmesan. Sprinkle cinnamon on top and keep the serving vessel(s) in a warm place.
10. In a small pan over medium heat, combine the butter and sliced garlic, swirling them around as the butter melts and begins to simmer. This will be your brown butter. Adjust the heat so the butter foams and simmers without burning. You’ll see the cloudy mixture eventually separate and brown. Shake the pan in short forward-backward movements to aerate the foaming butter and circulate the slowly caramelizing milk solids. As the butter caramelizes, it should smell sweet, rich, and nutty. When both the garlic and butter are golden brown, remove the pan from the heat and drizzle the brown foaming butter all over the top of the pasta. It will sizzle evocatively. Serve.
Roasted Garlic
- 3 heads garlic, top sliced to expose cloves
- 2 ½ cups (18 fl oz/550 g) vegetable oil, plus extra as needed
Preheat the oven to 300F/150C. In a small baking dish or loaf pan (tin), add the garlic and the oil. If the oil doesn’t cover the garlic all the way, add more to submerge it. Cover the dish with foil and cook the garlic until golden, tender, and lightly roasted, about 1 hour. Leave to cool, then store the garlic in the oil. When ready to use, squeeze the roasted garlic purée out of the cloves.
