Two decades after he opened his landmark Campanile with his then-wife Nancy Silverton, Mark Peel has a new cookbook called New Classic Family Dinners (written with Martha Rose Shulman) – an unexpected title from a chef famous for his refined Mediterranean fare. But then Peel has always harbored a secret love for down-home American cooking. One of his first jobs was as a fry cook at a 24-hour freeway truck stop in the San Gabriel Valley (where he grew up) called Cindy's. And he says that in a lot of ways, the more than 200 deeply American recipes in New Classics is simply a summation of everywhere he's been – and where he thinks cuisine is going.
Merrill Shindler: Mashed potatoes? Mac 'n' cheese? Chicken pot pie on the cover? Say what?
Mark Peel: Honestly, this is my home cooking. Chefs get lazy on their day off. After a week cooking, maybe you broil a chicken, you grill some ribs. And what I realized was that I loved cooking the clichés and making them fresh again. So many of these dishes began with the old tired recipes from 50 years ago. I love those old recipes – they say so much about a fresher, more innocent time. Chicken cacciatore, clams casino, eggplant parmigiana. They were done and overdone so much, we forgot they could be good. But at some time, at some point in the past, they were really good. Once upon a time, they were cooked with passion.
MS: Do you cook these dishes at Campanile? I mean...meatloaf?
MP: I've cooked a lot of them, especially at the family-style dinners we do on Mondays. We offer three courses for a set price, with all the plates in the middle of the table like you're eating at home. It's been very successful – people like feeling as if they're eating with their family. Over the year, I've tried to work those meals around themes. I'll do a few weeks of Greek dishes, a few weeks of Italian dishes. And I've found myself gravitating to old-fashioned American cooking. Like mashed potatoes – real mashed potatoes with a lot of butter, a lot of cream. I use obscene amounts in my mashed potatoes.
MS: So, you're the Maestro of Mashed Potatoes. But most of us know you as the Guru of Grilled Cheese...
MP: Thursday night is grilled cheese night. It's so much fun. Everyone understands grilled cheese – butter a pan, put cheese on a slice of bread, cook until melted. So, we raised the bar. We use really good bread from La Brea Bakery, the country white, which is perfect for grilled cheese. We use cave-aged Gruyère, the best butter. Just starting with that, you've already got a great dish. But then, we have add-ons – marinated onions, whole grain mustard, you can get it open face with burrata, stewed garbanzos with roasted tomatoes, crisp garlic chips, you can go on and on. Grilled cheese is like a fugue – you can do so much with it.
MS: Ok, there's a lot of wiggle room with grilled cheese. But c'mon – mashed potatoes are, you know, mashed potatoes. Right?
MP: It's so easy to do them right. But so many people do them wrong. You peel them. Then you steam them instead of boiling them. They come out drier that way – you want them drier. Then you combine two parts mashed potato, one part cream and one part butter. Puree them by pressing them through a sieve. A masher works fine if you don't have a sieve.
MS: So...that's 50% potato...and 50% cholesterol. Sounds like my type of dish. But I'm lazy. How about putting it through a Cuisinart?
MP: Don't put it in a Cuisinart. The machine breaks up the starch cells. The result is the potatoes seem greasy. You can put in all the butter and cream you want, and it won't seem greasy. But the Cuisinart is too rough. And I've got to emphasize that the potatoes have to be dry. Otherwise, the dish is too watery. Great mashed potatoes are halfway between a solid and a sauce. They're so soft, so good and so easy.
MS: I grew up on Kraft mac 'n' cheese. What could be better than that? I mean, it glowed in the dark.
MP: Sorry, but Kraft ruined mac 'n' cheese. Mac 'n' cheese is a casserole, not a fluorescent thing on a plate. I love variations – adding Gorgonzola, truffle oil. A great mac 'n' cheese is made from good macaroni, the dry stuff in the box is fine, cooked al dente. Then, you make a béchamel, a thickened cream sauce. You swirl in good cheese, like cheddar or mozzarella. I love wild mushrooms in my mac 'n' cheese, though they're not absolutely necessary. Fresh or dried – they're so different. They're like a drug.
MS: Years ago, you told me you were a fan of the roast chickens kept on the hot shelves at Ralphs supermarket. Is it as good as the roast chicken in the book?
MP: The roast chicken in the book is great. But Ralphs is just down the block from the restaurant. After a long day in the kitchen, it's really close.
– Merrill Shindler