Recipes By Ali Slagle
505 recipes found
Cornell Chicken
Herbaceous, tangy, juicy and crisp-skinned, this chicken is a common grill staple at fairs, fundraisers and cookouts in central New York. The recipe was developed in the 1950s by Dr. Robert C. Baker, a professor of food and poultry science at Cornell University, as a way to get people to eat more chicken. (It’s hard to believe it now, but at the time, chickens were more valued for their eggs, not their meat.) To provide more flexibility and control, a few changes have been made to the original recipe, but the essentials remain: Marinate bone-in chicken in oil, vinegar, egg and poultry seasoning, then grill and baste with the same mixture. The egg gives the chicken a creamy coating that also keeps it from burning (much like mayonnaise).
Crispy Rice With Salmon And Avocado
This recipe for golden-crisp blocks of sushi rice topped with cool and creamy salmon and avocado is a riff on a spicy tuna and crispy rice dish created by Katsuya Uechi, a Los Angeles chef who was inspired by yaki onigiri. While the dish does require a number of steps and is best eaten right when it’s made, you can break up the work by cooking the rice and seasoning the salmon with lemon zest and jalapeño up to 24 hours ahead. (In fact, the results will be better if you do.) Right before serving, slice and fry the blocks and top with the salmon and avocado. These gorgeous two-bite treats make an excellent party hors d'oeuvres or full dinner with a cucumber salad.
Ricotta Pasta Bake
Thanks to a whole lot of ricotta, this baked pasta is so creamy and milky that it’s nearly as fluffy as pudding. The dish has a sweet tang from roasted lemon and tomatoes, plus a crisp bread crumb topping to contrast all that plushness. Because the sauce is mostly cheese, it’s worth seeking out ricotta that doesn’t have gum or stabilizers; you’ll get the best results from ricotta that is made of just milk, salt and perhaps a vinegar or natural culture.
Chili Mac
“Nothing induces a feeling of security and comfort better than the come-hither aroma of an honest pot of chili mac keeping warm on the stove.” Many would agree with what Jane and Michael Stern wrote in “The Lexicon of Real American Food” (Lyons Press, 2011), whether they’ve had the thrifty, hearty combination of macaroni and chili at a family dinner table, around a campfire, bellied up to a bar somewhere near Lake Michigan or even in an M.R.E. in a military dining room. This supersavory version is a cinch, requiring just one pot and minimal chopping. (For another common chili pasta, see this Cincinnati chili con carne.)
Caramelized Onions
Soft, caramelized onions can add sweetness and richness to any dish that calls for sautéed onions, but they are especially good in soups, curries, sandwiches, pastas and dips — which is to say, everywhere. (Keep a container on hand, refrigerated for 1 week or frozen for a couple months.) Typically a time-intensive process, this recipe speeds things up by starting the onions covered to help release their liquid and repeatedly pouring in water and scraping the bottom of the pan to incorporate the delicious browned bits. Be sure to stand by and stir the onions often to prevent burning, although you’ll want to anyway to soak up their smell.
Easy Couscous
Because the couscous in American grocery stores is already steamed and dried, it just requires hydrating in hot liquid for about 5 minutes to transform the North African semolina pasta into fluffy beads. This recipe makes 4 cups of cooked couscous, but you can follow a one-to-one ratio of couscous to liquid to make any quantity you like. Couscous is the ultimate blank canvas: Eat with tagine or grilled meat, or toss into a salad.
Chipotle-Coconut Chicken
This grilled chicken is silky and humming with smoky heat thanks to a two-ingredient marinade of coconut milk and chipotle chiles in adobo. Coconut milk is used in marinades in South and Southeast Asian cuisines because it tenderizes and adds a sweet creaminess to meats, tofu and seafood. Canned chipotles are a heavy-hitting ingredient thanks to the heat of the smoked, dried jalapeños and the feisty adobo they’re packed in. Together, they’re all you need to marinate and glaze chicken. As for serving ideas, consider eating the chicken alongside grilled vegetables, over rice or in tortillas.
Vegan Green Goddess Dressing
Green goddess dressing was served for the first time, in the 1920s, at the Palace Hotel, in San Francisco, at a banquet in honor of George Arliss, who starred in the play “The Green Goddess.” Herbaceous, creamy and tangy, the original recipe used mayonnaise, scallions, chives, tarragon, parsley, anchovies and vinegar. This vegan rendition mostly sticks to tradition, but employs tahini for body, basil for sweetness and soy sauce for a flavor that’s similar to anchovy. Keep the dressing thick for a dip, or thin it to coat sturdy salad leaves like romaine, iceberg, escarole or radicchio.
Grilled Broccoli and Halloumi Salad
This recipe steers the broccoli, cheese and raisins from Southern broccoli salad to the grill, with a few updates. Cooked over fire, slender spears of broccoli get sweet and smoky, and the cheese (a sturdy, grillable one like halloumi) gets crispy and chewy. Raisins are replaced with fresh grapes, which skip the grill and get tossed with lime zest to become extra-sour bursts. Shower this dish with lime juice, olive oil and mint for a classic combination made anew. For a heartier meal, serve over quinoa, salad greens or grilled bread.
Steak Seasoning
This savory steak seasoning has an easy-to-remember ratio: two parts each of salt, black pepper, paprika and garlic or onion powder to one part each of ground coriander or cumin and dried herbs. It’s reminiscent of peppery Montreal seasoning, which was said to have only been used on smoked meats until an intrepid employee at Schwartz’s Deli started sprinkling it on steaks to great acclaim in the 20th century. If time allows, season steaks up 24 hours ahead, which boosts flavor and helps keep spices from burning.
Oatmeal
For a loving bowl of oatmeal you can pull off first thing in the morning, use a trick from Samantha Seneviratne: Cook the oatmeal in a skillet instead of a pot. The oatmeal will be creamier and more evenly cooked in under 10 minutes, ready to be topped to your heart’s desire. Plus, a skillet is easier to wash, making this recipe extra kind to your still-waking-up self.
Rib-Eye Steak
For crusty, juicy and flavorful rib-eye steaks, pat them dry for better searing and season liberally with salt and pepper before cooking in a cast-iron skillet (which retains heat), then flip the steaks often for fast, evenly cooked steaks. Finally, baste them with butter and, if you like, aromatics like shallots or fresh herbs, to deepen their deliciousness. This method also works for sirloin or strip steaks of the same size. Serve with an arugula salad, green beans or twice-baked potatoes. (For grilling instructions, see Tip.)
Old Bay Grilled Shrimp
The appeal of this grilled shrimp recipe lies in the combination of sweet shrimp, savory Old Bay and the singe of the grill, but the secret ingredient may be the baking soda, which keeps the shrimp snappy and tender. Old Bay seasoning is a beloved blend of sweet paprika, celery seed, dried mustard and other secret spices; it’s often used on Maryland blue crabs, but once you try it on shrimp, you’ll pine to use it elsewhere, too. (Try popcorn, corn or a Bloody Mary.) This recipe is brightened with lemon, garlic and parsley, but hot sauce, mayonnaise or drawn butter wouldn’t be out of place.
Chicken Noodle Soup
With carrots, celery, egg noodles and specks of green herbs, this homemade chicken noodle soup is classic and comforting, but instead of boiling a whole bird for hours, this quick and easy recipe calls for stock and cooked chicken, so it’s doable on a weeknight. Because the majority of the soup is the chicken stock, use one that’s sippable on its own, whether store-bought or homemade. Without noodles, the soup can be made and refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months; add the noodles when reheating the soup. For chicken noodle soup using raw, bone-in chicken, try this recipe.
Whiskey Sour
The whiskey sour is a trusted combination of sweet, sour and spirit. A true classic, it’s remained largely unchanged since its first printed mention in 1862 in the book “How to Mix Drinks” by Jerry Thomas. This recipe gives instructions for its two most common forms: frosty over ice or frothy with an egg white (also known as a Boston Sour). For a spicier, drier drink, use rye instead of bourbon; for a New York Sour, float 1/2 ounce red wine over the top; and for garnish, consider an orange slice or maraschino cherry.
Zucchini Salad With Sizzled Mint and Feta
Crunchy and tart like salad-e Shirazi yet sturdy enough to sit out for a couple hours, this salad dresses snappy raw zucchini and salty feta simply, with vinegar and oil. But while summery salads can be ephemeral, this one has staying power because its seasonings — a za’atar-like combination of dried mint, sesame seeds and dried chile — bloom in the olive oil for a rich undercurrent of flavor. Serve this dish as a side or build it into a whole meal by adding cooked grains, beans or another protein.
Spicy Tuna Salad With Crispy Rice
This recipe transforms the sushi-restaurant specialty of spicy tuna crispy rice — raw spicy tuna balanced atop bricks of seared rice — into a straightforward, pantry-friendly, any-night meal. Instead of portioning and frying rice, you can cook seasoned rice in a skillet until it crisps, then scoop it onto plates. The tuna stays spicy and creamy, but this recipe calls for humble canned tuna instead of raw. Sliced cucumbers add freshness, but feel free to embellish further with sprouts, avocado, nori sheets or jalapeño slices.
Tomato Cheddar Toasts
Tomato and Cheddar toasts don’t need fussing — just crusty bread, swoops of mayonnaise, perfect summer tomatoes and the sharpest Cheddar you can find. It’s in the construction where things can go from good to great. Instead of cheese that’s sliced (which can be stiff and unrelenting) or broiled (and coagulated), take a cue from Chris Kronner’s burger wisdom in “A Burger to Believe In” (Ten Speed Press, 2018) and stir finely grated Cheddar into the mayonnaise. When slathered on hot, toasted bread, the cheese will melt into a creamy base somewhere between a queso and pepper-free pimento cheese. It has the pluck of sharp Cheddar, albeit in a plush and delightful form.
Oven BBQ Chicken
Lacquered with barbecue sauce, this juicy chicken swaps constant flipping on the grill for a mostly hands-off process using the oven and one smart trick: The dry-rubbed chicken roasts most of the way on top of barbecue sauce. The resulting sauce becomes thickened and glossy from the chicken’s rendered fat. It’s then spooned onto the chicken and roasted until sticky, caramelized and rich with flavor. Serve the extra sauce with dinner, for dipping chicken, or spooning directly into your mouth. (For boneless barbecue chicken, try this stovetop method.)
Basil-Butter Pasta
This pasta captures the essence of basil, without pesto’s garlic, nuts and salty cheese tussling for attention. It smells like a sun-warmed basil plant, one of summer's greatest moments. To make it, simply blanch basil leaves to lock in their color, then blitz them with butter. As the bright-green basil butter melts onto hot pasta, it carries the sweet pepperiness (and the smell, too!) of the herb into every nook and cranny.
Fruit Salad
A bit of sugar and lime makes a standout fruit salad: The duo accentuates fruit’s flavors and sweetness while creating a syrup to gloss the fruit. Massage lime zest into the sugar so its oils release, then stir mixed fruit with the lime sugar and some lime juice. Taste and tweak until the result is electric. You could also add chopped mint or basil, ground cinnamon or coriander, vanilla bean seeds, chile flakes or grated fresh ginger.
Beef Chow Fun
Chewy, caramelized, slightly charred noodles are the star of beef chow fun, the Cantonese classic. (“Chow” means “stir-fry” and “fun” means “rice noodles.”) Scorching wide, springy rice noodles on a very hot surface achieves something similar to wok hei, the smoky savoriness that is the signature of wok stir-fries. The dish’s history is not certain, but according to “The Wok” by J. Kenji López-Alt (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022), some believe it originated at a food stall in Guangzhou (then Canton), China, during the Japanese occupation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. A Japanese military commander ordered hor fun noodles, but the stall was out of the starch needed to make the gravy. The cook improvised, stir-frying the beef and noodles with a thin, savory soy sauce until it was absorbed. It was so good that it stood the test of time.
Filet Mignon
For filet mignon that is supremely tender and stress-free, slow and steady wins the race. Skip the smoking-hot pan and the oven finish. Instead, flip often in a medium-hot skillet and baste with butter. The moderate temperature develops a browned crust without toughening the meat and makes hitting the ideal temperature for a rosy-pink center much easier. It's like a culinary version of the tortoise and the hare. The butter, studded with black pepper, adds a spicy richness to the lean and mild meat, though feel free to add smashed and peeled garlic and rosemary or thyme sprigs to the pan as well. Serve alongside a wedge salad, sautéed spinach and mashed potatoes.
Tofu and Asparagus With Frizzled Leeks
This almost-no-cook vegan meal is a spunky mix of flavors and textures: Fried leeks add crunch and sweetness; asparagus provides snap and pleasant bitterness; miso lends savoriness; and tender, mild tofu balances it all out. The leeks get frizzled in oil, then the mixture is poured over the miso-dressed tofu and asparagus for an aromatic finish, similar to techniques common in Chinese and Indian cooking. (You could also swap in juicy, crunchy snap or snow peas, cucumbers or celery.) Serve over rice, soba or rice noodles, or spring lettuces drizzled with lemon or lime juice.