Copyright © 2011 by Joe Yonan

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Ed Anderson

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yonan, Joe.
Serve yourself : nightly adventures in cooking for one / Joe Yonan.
p. cm.
1. Cooking for one. 2. Cookbooks. I. Title.
TX652.Y68 2011
641.5’611—dc22
2010040639

ISBN 978-1-58008-513-7

Printed in China

Design by Ed Anderson
Production by Colleen Cain

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition
4 2 s e r v e yo u r s e l f
 Sweet Potato Soup with Chorizo,
Chickpeas, and Kale
Turn the Sweet Potato Soup Base into a meal with spicy chorizo, hearty chickpeas, and vibrant green kale. This
makes a truly beautiful bowl of soup. If you’d rather keep this soup vegetarian, try the grain-based chorizo
substitute from Field Roast, one of the first meat substitutes I’ve actually liked. It’s available in natural food
stores in almost every state and through www.fieldroast.com.

1 cup Sweet Potato Soup Base (page 41), defrosted 4 or 5 leaves Tuscan kale (sometimes called black,
if frozen dinosaur, or lacinato kale), stripped from the
1/2 to 3/4 cup water or vegetable stock stem and torn into bite-size pieces
1 (3- or 4-ounce) link fresh Mexican chorizo
1/3 cup cooked chickpeas, preferably homemade
(page 47), rinsed and drained

Pour the soup base into a small saucepan over
medium heat. Whisk in 1/2 cup of the water and cook
until the soup is bubbling hot, 3 to 4 minutes. Add
more water if you want the soup thinner. Reduce the
heat to low, cover, and keep it hot.
until the chorizo’s fat starts to melt, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the chickpeas and cook until the chorizo and
chickpeas brown, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the kale and
stir-fry until the kale wilts slightly and brightens in
color, 1 to 2 minutes.

Heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Slice Pour the soup base into a soup bowl, top with the
through the chorizo casing and squeeze the sausage chorizo mixture, and eat.
into the skillet. Cook, breaking it up with a spoon,

S w e e t p otato e s , b e a n s , a n d ot h e r v eg g i e s 43
 Smoked Trout, Green Apple,
and Gouda Sandwich

Some of my favorite sandwiches need very little prep work, just the right combination of top-notch ingredients.
This is one of them. Dark bread, smoky fish, tart apple, and complex Gouda make magic together. All you have
to do is slice, spread, cut, eat, and smile.

1 tablespoon mayonnaise 1/2 small to medium Granny Smith apple, cored

2 slices pumpernickel bread and cut into 1/4-inch slices
2 ounces smoked trout, flaked with a fork A few leaves baby arugula or baby spinach
1 ounce aged Gouda cheese, cut into thin slices Freshly ground black pepper
or crumbled

To assemble the sandwich, spread the mayonnaise

on one side of both pieces of bread. Mound the
trout on one of the bread slices, then top with the
Gouda, the apple, and the arugula. Season with
pepper. Top with the other slice of bread, cut in
half, and eat.

1 2 8 s e r v e yo u r s e l f
sandwiches 129
1 5 6 s e r v e yo u r s e l f
 Cappuccino Tapioca Pudding
with Cardamom Brûlée
Makes 6 (1/2-cup) servings

There’s really nothing quite like tapioca pudding to take me back to childhood, when I would eat those plastic
cups of the store-bought variety. Of course, homemade is so much better, and it’s really not difficult to make.
It just requires a little patience and some stirring. I like to make a few cups at a time, eat one (or, okay, two or
three). Then, before things get really out of control, I portion the rest into 1/2-cup ramekins and store them in
the freezer. To take it over the top, I sprinkle just a touch of one of my favorite aromatic spices, cardamom, on
top, along with some sugar, and torch the top to get that crackly brûléed effect.

3 cups milk, preferably low-fat 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/3 cup small pearl tapioca 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 egg yolks, whisked to combine

Pour 1 cup of the milk into a heavy saucepan. Add
the tapioca and let soak for at least 30 minutes.
Pour the remaining 2 cups of milk into a mixing
bowl or glass measuring cup, sprinkle the espresso
powder over, let it sit for a minute or two, and then
stir to dissolve.
Remove from the heat and let it cool. Spoon the
pudding into 6 individual 1/2-cup ramekins and wrap
each in plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly
onto the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin
from forming. Refrigerate until chilled. It will keep it
the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for
up to 2 months.

Whisk the espresso-milk mixture into the tapioca
mixture, along with the egg yolks, salt, and 1/3 cup
of the sugar. Over medium heat, slowly bring the
mixture just barely to a boil, stirring constantly; it
will take 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce the heat until the
mixture is barely simmering, and continue cooking
the tapioca, stirring occasionally, until the beads
swell up and become almost translucent and the
custard thickens, another 15 to 20 minutes.
When you are ready to eat, unwrap one of the
ramekins of pudding (thaw it first if frozen), and
sprinkle the top with 1 teaspoon of the remaining
sugar and a pinch of cardamom. Use a small culinary
blowtorch to caramelize the sugar on top, keeping
the torch moving so you deeply brown but don’t
blacken the sugar, then eat.

Desserts 157