Recipes By David Tanis
750 recipes found
Yellow Beet Salad With Mustard Seed Dressing
If you are beet-phobic because you fear the inevitable crimson stains, try golden yellow beets instead. Yellow beets, nearing orange on the color spectrum, are slightly milder than red ones. They make a beautiful assertive salad, dressed with horseradish, mustard and mustard seeds.
Catalan Stew With Lobster and Clams
Romesco, the delicious rust-colored sauce from the Catalan region of Spain, is justly popular, served alongside grilled fish or as dip for vegetables. It is typically made with fresh and dried red peppers, roasted almonds and hazelnuts, a fair amount of garlic, and day-old bread fried in olive oil. Sometimes, however, instead of being used as a sauce, it is added to a fish stew. Known as romesco de peix or simply romescada, it may contain several kinds of fish and shellfish. In this version, which features lobster and clams, rather than stirring in the romesco at the end, the ingredients are added in stages from the beginning, for depth of flavor.
Jalapeño Pickles
These medium-spicy pickles, versions of which can be found throughout Mexico and Central America, make a perfect garnish for burgers, tacos or sandwiches, or they may be served with drinks. They are often made only with jalapeños, plus a little onion and carrot. Jalapeños vary in heat: Some are very spicy, some not. If you wish to make the pickles spicier, add a few serrano chiles, split lengthwise.
Beet and Tomato Salad With Scallions and Dill
A little bistro in Normandy, France, inspired this salad that’s so satisfying in its simplicity. Bright and fresh, the beets and tomatoes are dressed in a tart vinaigrette and served side by side, rather than mixed together. Though the combination may seem unusual, it’s delicious. For the best flavor, choose ripe tomatoes and cook your own beets (don’t be tempted to use the precooked vacuum packed type). Feel free to cook the beets and day or two in advance.
Spicy Pickled Carrots
These sweet and spicy pickled carrots are simple to make. The chef Pierre Thiam pairs them with black-eyed pea fritters, but they make a great condiment for just about everything.
Dandelion Salad With Beets, Bacon and Goat Cheese Toasts
Tender dandelion leaves make a sensational salad. This one is modeled after a classic Paris bistro salad, but the vinaigrette has fresh ginger and lime juice to stand up to dandelions' faintly bitter flavor. It still tastes very French, as do the goat cheese toasts.
Watercress Salad With Raw Beets and Radishes
This colorful salad, made with peppery watercress, is easy to put together. Dressed only with lemon juice, a separate horseradish cream is passed at the table. Serve a small portion as a first course or a more generous amount as a main course for a light lunch.
Cumin-Flavored Salt
This easy-to-make cumin-flavored salt is traditionally served with Moroccan roast lamb, but it’s good on just about everything, even fried eggs. It tastes best freshly made, but will keep for about a month in a closed container.
Chocolate Chestnut Cake
This wheat-free chocolate cake with the earthy flavor of chestnuts is surprisingly light. The recipe is a slight adaptation from one in Alice Medrich’s baking book "Flavor Flours." The cake may be baked a day or two in advance of serving.
Black-Eyed Pea Fritters
The chef Pierre Thiam puts a twist on these traditional Senegalese accara, or black-eyed pea fritters. They are sold on street corners throughout West Africa, usually on fresh baguettes as a sandwich. But Mr. Thiam treats them a bit like falafel and stuffs them into fresh pita bread instead. The spicy pickled carrots he uses as a condiment are based on a recipe from his Vietnamese godfather. Accara are deliciously light and fairly addictive, and they make a great snack with drinks.
Smoked Trout and Beet Salad With Pink Caviar
This pretty winter salad gets an upgrade with a garnish of trout roe, sometimes known as pink caviar. Salmon roe is an option, too, as is a dab of relatively inexpensive paddlefish caviar. Make the salad as a first course composed on individual plates, or, for a stand-up cocktail affair, serve a small amount of the mixture spooned into the sturdy red leaves.
Five-Spice Duck Breast With Blackberries
Once you know the technique, cooking a large Muscovy duck breast is no more difficult than cooking a steak. Fragrant five-spice powder — a heady mix of Sichuan pepper, fennel, clove, star anise and cinnamon — is the perfect duck seasoning, and juicy blackberries make this a brilliant summertime dish. Muscovy duck is found at better butchers, from online sources or even at some farmers' markets. Grill the duck if you prefer, but make sure to keep dripping fat from igniting and scorching the meat. The breast meat is quite lean despite its fatty skin, so it is best cooked to a rosy medium rare or it will be dry. Serve it warm, at room temperature or cold.
Fritto Misto di Mare
Every culture does fried food, but Italian cooks do it especially well. The concept of fritto misto (mixed fried things) can apply to vegetables, fish or meat. Here, with a beautiful assortment of shellfish, the only requirement is that everything be spanking fresh. In Italy, fritto misto is nearly always served as a first course. It is especially nice in bite-size pieces, to precede a meal as a stand-up antipasto.
Green Chile Cheeseburger Deluxe
In New Mexico, where many traditional dishes contain roasted green chiles, it’s only natural that hamburgers get the chile treatment, too. If you don’t have access to fresh New Mexican green chiles, try fresh Anaheim chiles. Lacking those, use roasted jalapeños that have been peeled and chopped; thinly sliced raw jalapeños; or pickled jalapeños — a compromise perhaps, but better than no chiles at all. As for cheese, any good melting kind of “queso amarillo” will do, but domestic Monterey Jack or Muenster may be even better.
Goat Cheese Ice Cream With Fennel, Lemon and Honey
Very popular a few years ago, goat cheese ice cream deserves bringing back to the fore. The goat cheese supplies a tang similar to the flavor of cheesecake. Layer the honey into the ice cream mixture after it has churned. Blueberries make a nice accompaniment. For peace of mind, make the ice cream one day before serving.
Butternut Squash Panade
A panade, originally an economizing vehicle for using old bread to feed a family, is a delicious dish in its own right. Essentially a savory bread pudding made with layers of caramelized onions and winter squash, it makes for a hearty meatless main dish. A panade can also substitute for bread stuffing and be served alongside a roasted bird.
Baked Greek Shrimp With Tomatoes and Feta
This traditional Greek recipe disregards the notion that seafood and cheese don’t mix, and it works beautifully, resulting in a harmonious balance of flavors. Though it can be made year round with canned tomatoes, it is sensational with fresh sweet ripe ones, so best prepared in summer. Serve it as a main course with rice or potatoes, or in small portions as an appetizer, taverna-style.
Fennel Salad With Anchovy and Olives
This salad is a zesty first course or a fine lunch. A range of sharp flavors — garlic, anchovy, lemon and briny olives — contrast beautifully with the anise-scented fennel bulb. Dress the salad just before serving, so the sliced fennel stays crisp. It may seem silly to smash and pit your own green olives, but they look better and taste meatier that way. In any case, please don’t cut pitted olives crosswise into little slices.
Baba au Rhum
A classic French dessert, baba au rhum is a syrup-soaked, soggy, boozy delight. The dough here is intentionally soft and sticky, for a light, tender result. Be sparing in adding flour, incorporating just enough to make it manageable, or refrigerate the dough, then work with it. (Chilled dough is easier to handle.) This recipe yields a dozen babas, but you can bake them all and soak only as many as you intend to serve. You can freeze any baked, unsoaked babas for up to 2 months, then prepare them a day in advance and keep them in an airtight container at room temperature. Any leftover syrup keeps indefinitely in the fridge.
Mediterranean Smashed Chickpeas
You smash half the chickpeas in this recipe to make a spread, sort of a warm rustic hummus enhanced with garlic cumin and hot pepper, along with a liberal drizzle of olive oil. You can use either freshly cooked dried beans or canned chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans), though freshly cooked is always preferable. Tuck some into a pita for a vegetarian sandwich or serve as a dip to eat with bread and olives; a dollop of minty yogurt and a drizzle of tahini sauce make nice additions.
Thai-Style Spare Ribs
These ribs are often served in Thailand to accompany ice-cold beer, said Andy Ricker, the chef and owner of the Pok Pok restaurants in New York and Portland, Ore. He warns against overcooking them: Thai diners prefer ribs on the chewy side rather than falling-off-the-bone tender. They may be cooked over indirect heat in a covered charcoal grill, but it is far easier to bake them in a slow oven, then reheat (on the grill, if you wish) at the last minute. The ribs are quite flavorful on their own, but serve them with a spicy dipping sauce if you prefer.
Vietnamese Braised Pork Ribs
Not all ribs are baked or grilled. These are oven braised with a Vietnamese spice mixture, which makes them succulent and juicy, and very tender. You can braise them a day ahead and keep them refrigerated in their juices; they reheat beautifully.
Button Mushrooms à la Crème
I enjoy wild mushrooms, but I happen to like ordinary white button mushrooms, too; the cultivated kind, the ones that are also called champignons de Paris (especially by the French). I suppose they are considered pedestrian in foodie circles, and that’s a pity. This recipe makes great use of them. It’s a simple one, with only a few ingredients: a bit of butter, a handful of sweet herbs and some tangy crème fraîche. Try it as an easy side dish or over noodles.
Carrot Salad With Cumin and Coriander
These lemony carrots taste lovely just as the recipe is written, perfumed with toasted cumin and coriander, a hint of garlic, and a touch of cayenne. This recipe draws its inspiration from Moroccan carrot salads, many of which use cooked vegetables, but this version uses slivered raw carrots instead. But if you want to splash out, try a pinch of cinnamon, and top with lots of fluffy chopped cilantro and thinly sliced jalapeño. Or add crumbled feta and olives. For the best-looking salad, use the julienne blade of a food processor, or cut the carrots into thin matchstick shapes with a sharp knife. The large holes of a box grater will work, too, but the result won’t be quite as attractive. (But avoid those supermarket bags of pre-grated carrots. They’re not suitable here.)