Recipes By Amanda Hesser
346 recipes found
Oyster Chowder
This oyster chowder was one of Amanda Hesser’s grandmother’s standbys, a recipe untouched over generations and passed along to The Times in 2005. If you have oysters, the rest is fairly straight-forward: Bacon adds smokiness, while milk and potatoes lend creaminess. And, as if that weren’t appealing enough, the whole thing is ready in 30 minutes or less.
Pickled Jerusalem Artichokes
Jerusalem Artichoke Purée
Sunchoke Bisque With Hazelnut Oil
Coleslaw With Apple
Thomas Keller’s Butternut Squash Soup With Brown Butter
This soup, an adaptation of one found in Thomas Keller's "Bouchon," should be approached as a labor of love; it requires several steps (including making vegetable stock) and four hours of cooking, but the result is astonishingly flavorful and complex. Sizzling brown butter is swirled in at the very end, giving the soup a rich toasted flavor.
Dorie Greenspan’s Chocolate Pudding
This chocolate pudding, which is adapted from Dorie Greenspan, is everything you want in a creamy dessert: It’s light and airy, just sweet enough, not too sticky, and above all, it tastes of good-quality chocolate.
Peas With Garam Masala
Coconut Noodles
This noodle recipe comes from Ma Thanegi, a Burmese writer in Yangon, Myanmar, who called it a dish "so easy, the worst cook in the world could make it."
Winter Squash Braised in Cider
Here, sweet delicata squash is braised in cider with balsamic vinegar and rosemary. The amount of the herb may seem like a lot, but it mellows out in the cooking and gives the squash an unmatched savoriness.
Green Chicken Enchiladas
You could poach chicken breasts for these enchiladas, as Amanda Hesser did when she first published this recipe in The Times in 2002, or you could use store-bought rotisserie chicken. After reading several comments from readers who felt the sauce needed to be doubled, we retested the recipe and agreed. We've updated the amounts accordingly.
Rigatoni With White Bolognese
White Bolognese, a meat sauce made without tomato, is a variation you rarely see in America.
Aunt Nora's Mock Lobster
Macaroni and Cheese With Ham
Sour Cream Cheesecake With Vanilla Bean
This elegant cheesecake is based on Amanda Hesser's mother's simple recipe. The crust is made of Nabisco chocolate wafers and butter. The bottom layer is a fluffy pool of cream cheese, eggs and sugar. The top is a thin layer of sour cream and sugar. Her recipe called for vanilla extract, but this one uses the seeds of one whole vanilla bean, which has a way of elevating all the other subtle flavors – cinnamon, chocolate and the tang of the sour cream and cream cheese – in a magical way.
Roasted Cauliflower
Cauliflower is an excellent blank canvas. You can steam or blanch it to keep its essential flavors intact, but by roasting or sautéing it, you can bring out its sweetness. Cauliflower will absorb the oil and seasoning, soaking up flavors much the way eggplant does, but it remains firmer. Roasted cauliflower can be served warm or at room temperature. It can also be part of an antipasto of roasted vegetables, or as an accompaniment to a roast chicken or lamb. And though they aren't obvious choices, scallops and lobster, both naturally sweet themselves, are delicious with roasted cauliflower.
Sweet Potato Pie
This mildly-sweet version of the classic Southern pie has a crisp crust and a filling that's surprisingly light. It's rich with egg and boldly spiced with nutmeg, but as fluffy as chiffon (a quality owed to the baking powder in the filling). This means you'll probably have room for two (or three) pieces. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)
Chocolate Baked Alaska
Baked alaska was once a restaurant show stopper. A layering of spongecake, ice cream and meringue, it was presented on a tray and flambeed at the table to heat the covering of meringue so you had both warm and cold sensations as you ate it. But some restaurants serve it in individual portions, relying on a blowtorch back in the kitchen to caramelize the meringue. When Amanda Hesser brought this recipe to The Times in 1998, the pastry chef Stacie Pierce of the Union Square Cafe used espresso caramel ice cream instead of vanilla or chocolate and served a big ball of it on top of a tender chocolate souffle cake, rather than the traditional spongecake. The warm and cold effect is the same, and the flavors, sharper and distinct, come across as more mature.
Evelyn Sharpe's French Chocolate Cake
Just as there will always be a place in the world for an understated but luxurious black dress, there will always be a place for flourless chocolate cake. This recipe from 1969 was one of the first published, long before the cake became fashionable. Today it may be a cliché, but it’s a swanky one. This cake is dense, but not the solid block of sweet that can make you wonder if you’re just eating chocolate ganache in cake form. Of course, since the recipe has so few ingredients, it is imperative to use truly delicious chocolate. The proportion of cacao, in case you’re wondering, should fall between 60 and 70 percent.
Chocolate Caramel Tart
It is hard to believe in this day and age – when salted caramel ice cream is almost as ubiquitous as vanilla – that desserts in which salt plays a starring role was once a newfangled concept. This recipe, an adaptation of one attributed to the pastry chef Claudia Fleming, came to The Times in a 2000 article by Amanda Hesser about the development of that very trend, and it is a perfect example of how it's done right. Layers of silky caramel and dark chocolate ganache topped with a sprinkling of crunchy, snow-white fleur de sel make this an unforgettable combination of flavors and textures.
Oxtail Braised With Tomato and Celery (Coda Alla Vaccinara)
Ms. Hesser brought us this recipe for the classic Roman stew back in 2002 after she visited Rome with her family. Oxtails are a fatty and tough cut of meat, but here, a lengthy braise yields a rich, unctuous sauce seasoned with cinnamon, clove and marjoram. It's delicious by itself or served over a hearty pasta, like rigatoni. And don't be deterred by the large amount of celery the recipe calls for. It reduces to a flavorful pulpy slurry that will surprise you.
Tuna-Macaroni Salad
If there is such a thing as comfort salad, then this is it: A cold and creamy, mayonnaise-laden pasta that evokes your grandma's “tuna mac,” but made a touch more sophisticated with the addition of cornichons and scallions. Amanda Hesser picked up the recipe, in 2006, from Clementine, a bakery and cafe in Los Angeles known for “its stylish take on home-style cooking.” They were selling it for about 9 bucks a quart, but you can make it at home for about a quarter of that. Thankfully, it's no more difficult to make than Grandma's. Just boil up some macaroni and drain. Combine with two cans of tuna (if you're feeling flush, you can add chunks of cooked fresh tuna like we did for the photo) one cup of mayonnaise, chopped celery, cubed Cheddar cheese, sliced scallions and cornichons and two spoonfuls of chowchow, a green tomato relish that's an optional addition. Season well with freshly ground black pepper and serve cold.
David Eyre’s Pancake
Writing in The Times in 1966, Craig Claiborne described making the acquaintance of this oven-baked pancake as if he had met Grace Kelly: “It was discovered some weeks ago at an informal Sunday brunch in the handsome, Japanese-style Honolulu home of the David Eyre. With Diamond Head in the distance, a brilliant, palm-ringed sea below and this delicately flavored pancake before us, we seemed to have achieved paradise.” (Life was good if you were a food writer in the 1960s.) Nearly 50 years later, readers are still making the dish, and swooning like Claiborne.
Spicy Chickpeas With Ginger
This recipe, adapted from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," takes dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, and pairs them with a sauce built on the robust, aromatic flavors of grated ginger, ground coriander, cumin and cardamom. It's an easy, Middle Eastern-tinged weeknight meal. As the chickpeas cook, prepare the sauce, and top with diced tomato, onion, jalapeño for added bite.