Recipes By David Tanis
750 recipes found
Potato Soup With Indian Spices
This easy vegetarian soup is surprisingly full flavored. (To make it vegan, substitute cooking oil for the butter and ghee.) If you want it more stewlike, use less water; if you want it brothy, use more. It keeps well and actually tastes even better a day or two after it is made. I like to add a pinch of asafetida (also called hing), which can be found in specialty spice shops or Indian groceries and lends a heady aroma that is especially good with potato dishes. Don’t worry if you don’t have it on hand. More important are the sizzled cumin seeds, mustard seeds and garlic (the tarka) added when the soup is finished, which really give the soup its character. If you find the soup too thick upon reheating, just add a splash of water and adjust the salt as necessary.
Lobster Salad With Green Beans, Tomatoes and Basil
This summery salad makes a fine celebratory lunch or cold supper and makes great use of seasonal vegetables. Everything is dressed with a bright basil vinaigrette. A dab of aioli on the side is a welcome option, too. The hardest part here is steaming the lobsters, but don’t worry. It’s easy — and economical — to do it yourself. Still, if the idea doesn’t appeal, many fishmongers sell steamed lobsters for an additional fee. Or you can buy prepared lobster meat, though that’s a bit more expensive. If you decide to do that, you’ll need at least one-third pound per person.
Pickled Carrot Slices
A garlicky spiced brine lends depth to these pickled carrot slices, and a final sprinkling of fresh dill adds spark.
Cold Spicy Kimchi Noodles
Could this be the anti-ramen? Either way, it’s my new favorite cold pasta, custom-made for hot summer weather because it is refreshingly and unapologetically spicy. Make the sauce in advance, but wait to toss with the noodles until just before serving. While you could order Korean ingredients online, it’s more fun to go to a Korean supermarket, if only to see all the different types of kimchi. Korean red pepper flakes are without seeds, and only medium hot, so you can use a lot.
Classic Masala Dosa
A properly made crisp and savory Indian dosa is wonderfully delicious, and fairly simple to make at home, with this caveat: the batter must be fermented overnight for the correct texture and requisite sour flavor. However, once the batter is ready, it can be refrigerated and kept for several days, even a week. With a traditional spicy potato filling, dosas makes a perfect vegetarian breakfast or lunch. Serve them with your favorite chutney.
Shrimp Pasta With Corn and Basil
This particularly American combination of flavors — shrimp and corn — is light, summery and very tasty, both sweet and slightly spicy. If you are feeling flush, you can make this pasta with lobster instead.
Lobster Succotash
If you take some liberties with traditional American succotash you can transform it from a side dish to a deluxe starter or even a main course. Fresh shelling beans, such as cannellini beans or cranberry beans, are available at farmers' markets from mid-to-late-summer. If you can’t find them, use frozen limas.
Kimchi Noodle Cake
This savory pan-fried noodle cake made with rice noodles (or leftover cooked spaghetti) packs a lot of flavor with just a few ingredients, ideal for a quick breakfast or lunch. The mixture can be assembled well in advance. It’s more steamed than fried, but a crisp bottom is revealed when the cake is flipped. Look for the red pepper paste (gochujang) at Korean markets.
Greek Skillet Pies With Feta and Greens
The Greek cookbook author Aglaia Kremezi has no problem making phyllo dough at home whenever she makes anything pie-like. With a little practice, anyone can do it. For these simple skillet pies, she recommends grilling them in an iron stovetop ridged pan or on a grate over coals. Filled with feta and herbs, these flat thin-crust pies give a new meaning to grilled pizza.
Winter Squash and Wild Mushroom Curry
This is comfort food, Indian-style, adapted from a recipe by Madhur Jaffrey. It’s also vegan, and perfect for a fall evening. Use a mixture of cultivated mushrooms; they come in all shapes and sizes. Look for royal trumpets, a large, meaty type of oyster mushroom; shiitakes, and small portobellos. Use some wild mushrooms too, if you can, like golden chanterelles, lobster or hen of the woods. You can make this as spicy as you wish, but be sure to include some cayenne and green chile, to complement and play off the creamy coconut milk sauce. Serve with basmati rice, rice noodles or mashed potatoes.
Mozzarella With Charred Radicchio and Salsa Verde
A simple, pleasurable contrast: Sweet, milky mozzarella is paired here with slightly bitter radicchio, blackened and smoky from high heat. Coating both is a salsa verde made with extra-virgin olive oil, green herbs and a touch of caper and lemon. You want really good mozzarella, and it must not be served straight from the refrigerator. Allow it to come to cool room temperature, and it will taste a thousand times better (this is true of most cheeses, by the way).
Mushrooms on Toast
Beloved by British and other Anglophone cooks, mushrooms on toast is a hearty savory dish that can be made quickly. It’s cheap and delicious if you use ordinary cultivated mushrooms, and suitable for any time of day: breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner or late snack. One pound of mushrooms is just right for two servings.
Nectarine-Raspberry Cobbler With Ginger Biscuits
A cobbler is a traditional baked dish of sweetened fruit with a biscuit-dough topping. It’s best to bake the fruit untopped for a half-hour or more before adding the raw disks of dough — some say they look like cobblestones — and baking them for another 15 minutes. It is the ideal home dessert, all bubbly fruit and golden crisp. This particular biscuit dough is studded with pistachios and candied ginger. Let it cool a bit before serving, with whipped cream, crème fraîche or ice cream.
Grilled Chicken Pita With Yogurt Sauce and Arugula
You might need a few common ingredients from the grocery store — chicken breast, cucumbers, yogurt, herbs — to make this satisfying pita sandwich, but it’s not at all difficult to put together. It’s a year-round favorite. If you’re in the mood to bake, try making your own pita bread.
Farro Salad
Farro, an ancient grain, has long been a common ingredient in Italy, but it is now gaining in popularity in the United States. You can use farro to make a type of risotto or in soups, but dressed with a lemony vinaigrette, it makes a lovely grain salad, enhanced by a variety of green vegetables.
Miso-Glazed Sea Bass
Fish baked in miso is quintessentially Japanese, but I first learned about it years ago from the very American James Beard. Miso marries well with oily fish like salmon, mackerel or black cod, but mild firm-fleshed fish like sea bass or halibut also make fine candidates. Simply coat fish fillets or steaks with a mixture of miso, sake, mirin and a little ginger. An egg yolk may be added to help burnish and glaze the fish under the broiler. Serve with a pile of wilted greens dabbed with sesame oil.
‘Instant’ Kimchi With Greens and Bean Sprouts
Instant kimchi requires no fermentation and is ready to use as soon as it is seasoned. It makes a fresh salad-like accompaniment for meat or fish dishes, whether Korean or western.
Frutti di Mare Rice Salad
In the southern Mediterranean, savory rice salads are popular and are great for a light summer lunch or supper. The rice is first boiled in well-salted water like pasta and dressed with a zesty vinaigrette. This version is topped with a pile of briefly cooked shrimp, calamari and mussels, and summery ingredients like cherry tomatoes, green beans and basil. The salad is served at room temperature, and most of it can be prepared in advance, so it is exactly what you want when the weather is sweltering.
Italian-Style Fish Stew
This is a simple Italianate fish stew, with classic Mediterranean flavors. It’s easy to put together and everything can be prepped ahead. Just pop it the oven 30 minutes before dinner.
Spinach Lasagna With Fennel Sausage
Making lasagna from scratch, including the pasta, is a time-consuming project that is absolutely worth the effort, especially for a holiday dinner. If you have a friend to help you in the kitchen, so much the better; or, spread the work over a couple of days. Of course, you may use store-bought fresh or dried lasagna noodles instead of making the pasta yourself, or use a favorite tomato sauce recipe of your own. This lasagna is delicate and rich, best served in small portions.
Crostini With Sun-Dried Tomato and Anchovy
These little toasts are simple to assemble, especially if you have sun-dried tomatoes and anchovies on hand, and are a great snack to have with drinks. This makes eight crostini, enough for four polite diners to have two each before dinner. Scale up if your crowd is a bit more ravenous.
Quick Pickled Ginger
Peaches in Red Wine
Arugula Salad With Chopped Egg and Prosciutto
This salad mimics a traditional salad favored in Switzerland called nüsslisalat mit ei, featuring clusters of mâche (a.k.a. lamb’s lettuce or corn salad). Arugula is easier to find in North America, sold as baby arugula or as “wild” arugula, which has jagged leaves. Larger leaves of garden arugula or baby spinach, or a combination, would also work.