124 stale recipes

Plum cake is the grand Victorian celebration fruitcake: pounds of raisins, currants, dates, citron, and almonds bound by spiced butter cake batter. Christmas, weddings, and christenings on a serious scale.

Kakuluwo (Sri Lankan crab curry) simmered in two stages of coconut milk with shallots, ginger, garlic, fenugreek, turmeric, curry leaves, and a finishing splash of lime. Bold, fragrant, deeply spiced.

Risotto primavera packs spring vegetables into creamy arborio rice: green beans, peas, asparagus, artichokes, carrots, and tomatoes folded in stages, finished with butter and Parmigiano. The garden in a bowl.

Never-fail fudge with marshmallow cream, chocolate chips, evaporated milk, butter, and walnuts. A foolproof candy recipe that reaches soft-ball stage in 5 minutes of boiling and fills two 9x9 pans.

Slow-simmered chicken and okra gumbo with a medium-brown roux, fresh tomatoes, and onions. The okra cooks down past the slime stage into a thick, velvety Louisiana classic served over rice.

Giant almond Florentines bake whole 8-inch caramel-almond rounds in foil pie pans, then finish with a chocolate-coated bottom. Crisp, lacy, and dramatic. The classic European cookie scaled up to plate-size.

Vegan Cuban-style black beans with two stages of green pepper, classic sofrito, and a finish of apple cider vinegar. Slow-simmered until the beans crack open. Plant-based comfort that holds its own.

Southern sweet potato pie with mashed sweet potatoes, warm spices, and a brightening splash of fresh lemon or orange juice. Pecan halves on top add Southern charm. The two-stage bake delivers a custard that sets without cracking.

A two-layer cocoa cake with a cooked fudge frosting made the old-fashioned way, heated to soft-ball stage and beaten until thick. Cake flour keeps the crumb feathery light against that dense, candy-like frosting.

Banquet meat loaves are a 50-serving, banquet-scale recipe for tender ground beef loaves bound with sauteed onion, celery, eggs and breadcrumbs moistened with beef stock. Bake-ahead, slice and reheat for caterers and large gatherings.

Well, I hope this recipe helps in the use of turtles, though I suspect you will have to have a very large family or like turtle soup a lot, or scale the recipe to a more manageable quantity.

Puppy's Breath Chili is a no-bean Texas-style bowl of red built on chunks of sirloin and layers of chili powder and pureed dried chiles. The spices go in staged like a cook-off champ, finished with lime and Tabasco.