Recipes By David Tanis
759 recipes found
Spicy Carrot-Ginger Soup
Let’s proceed on the theory that everyone likes soup, and some soups are better than others. You might think of squash for an autumn soup, but this bright soup of carrots, stewed with ginger and jalapeño and finished with a good squeeze of lime and a handful of chopped cilantro, is an example of how not to make the all-too familiar stodgy too-thick purée. Still, feel free to try it with kabocha or butternut squash. If the soup is not to be served immediately, cool after puréeing, and reheat just before serving — it will taste fresher.
Orange Salad With Pomegranate
For dessert, a simple fruit salad like this one after a meal is always welcome, refreshing and palate-cleansing. The only real challenge is peeling the oranges with a sharp knife, leaving them spherical and ready to cut into thin slices. Want to doll it up? Surround the platter with Medjool dates or honey dates and serve with almond or walnut cookies.
Roasted Pepper Antipasto
A simple, pretty appetizer, this antipasto can be served in individual portions or as part of a buffet table. Roast your own in-season peppers for the best flavor, and spring for top-quality anchovies.
Fish in Tomato-Basil Broth
Steamed in a savory tomato broth, the fish in this easy recipe remains exceptionally moist. For the best results, use a white-fleshed fish, like cod, striped bass or halibut. Any extra broth is great to have on hand: Make this dinner, and you'll also get about a quart of chilled soup for lunch.
Plum Crostata
This showstopping Italian-style fruit tart nestles juicy ripe plums — any type, or substitute apricots — into a sweet pastry shell. This recipe makes enough for two crusts: Save the second in the freezer so you can make a second tart any time you like.
Summer Vegetable Niçoise Salad
You’ll find the green beans, wax beans, Romano beans and fresh shelling beans for this salad at the farmers’ market, making it perfect for a summer lunch or supper. With sweet cherry tomatoes and fingerling potatoes, it makes a substantial meal. Add good canned tuna, black olives or anchovy fillets too, if you wish.
Raspberry-Nectarine Icebox Cake
Chilled, creamy and not too sweet, this simple, no-bake icebox cake is a perfect dessert. In truth, it’s even a bit like tiramisù, but with ripe summer fruit. Store-bought ladyfingers make it easy; shop at the farmers’ market for the best fruit. Make it a few hours or even a day in advance of serving for effortless entertaining.
Chilled Avocado Soup
This chilled soup couldn’t be easier to make, packing a lot of flavor into a quick dish of just a few ingredients. Fresh, green and somewhat tart, it’s quite refreshing on a warm day.
Lemon-Blackberry Shortcakes
Berry season is the time for shortcakes, a classic dessert with berries, whipped cream and freshly baked sconelike biscuits. Here, a bit of sweet-tart lemon curd, prepared up to a week in advance and perfect with blackberries, makes these particularly special. Serve these assembled, on individual dessert plates, or, if you prefer, set out all the elements for guests to build their own.
Paprika-Rubbed Pork Chops
A marinade based on salt, sugar, ground coriander and various red-pepper powders infuses these easily pan-cooked chops. Double or triple the marinade for use on any fish, fowl, meat or vegetables (eggplant is especially nice). These chops can also be prepared on the grill. They cook quickly – 2 minutes on each side – over medium-high heat. Take care, though: Loin chops are quite lean and become tough and dry when cooked over high heat.
Turmeric Potato Salad
This French-style vinaigrette potato salad, infused with Indian flavors and finished with a tadka built on cumin and mustard seeds in oil, is a delicious picnic side, with or without the lettuce cups. Choose small, yellow-fleshed potatoes, such as Yukon, and top them with cherry tomatoes, sliced scallions, chiles and cilantro for a bright, perky and robust accompaniment to summer.
Cheese-Topped Cauliflower Steaks
Cauliflower “steaks” were all the rage in upscale restaurants a few years ago, but they’re easy to make at home in any number of variations. To get thick slices, you’ll want to invest in a couple of cauliflowers and be prepared to turn the trimmings into soup or use for stir-fry for another meal. Or simply skip the slices and use florets instead. You can serve these with a light marinara sauce, but they are very tasty with no sauce at all.
Strawberry Parfait
Ricotta cream — sweetened fresh ricotta, lightly whipped — is used in Sicily to fill cannoli or frost traditional cakes. Here, it’s combined with whipped cream and strawberries for a layered “parfait” and a very simple but impressive dessert.
Spring Salad
Some salads are tossed, while others, like this one, are composed. Feel free to improvise here: A few spinach leaves, watercress, a handful of raw sweet garden peas or fava beans, or thinly sliced raw artichoke can be nice additions. For a true celebration of spring, make sure to gather an assortment of complementary leaves, herbs and vegetables, and arrange them artfully.
Tofu Milanese
The breaded cutlets known as Milanese are often made of veal, pork or chicken, but, here, tofu stands in with excellent results. To accompany, broccoli rabe is a delicious choice, though mustard greens of any variety make a fine substitution.
Kumquat Panna Cotta
Panna cotta is a creamy dessert custard, set with gelatin instead of eggs. It’s lovely plain or with a drizzle of honey on top. And, of course, it’s delicious with berries or stone fruit. Here, it’s topped with quickly candied kumquat slices, but a spoonful of marmalade or other homemade jam can be nice instead.
Radicchio-Anchovy Salad
Radicchio, once rarely seen (by non-Italians), is now a familiar produce staple, and many farmers’ markets also feature other red-leafed radicchio varietals, such as Treviso or Chioggia. Feel free to mix and match, but pair them with an assertive dressing: The pleasant bitter flavor of the red leaves calls out for something bracing.
Baked Lemon Pudding
My repertoire of sweet lemon recipes is limited, but, as it happened, my friend, the Irish pastry chef JR Ryall, was in town, with his new cookbook “Ballymaloe Desserts,” for which I wrote the foreword. It contains a recipe for a homey hot lemon pudding. It's not a soufflé, but it has a light, airy feel. And, as it bakes, it separates into distinct layers, custardy on the bottom and spongy on top.
Dandelion-Beet Salad
Wild dandelion greens are abundant in the spring, and you can find the organic cultivated ones from California in most supermarkets. They have a pleasant bitterness and are best tossed with a zesty dressing like the one here. But if you cannot find dandelion greens, you can also substitute sturdy, peppery arugula or watercress.
Creamy Chicken and Spring Vegetables
Based on the French preparation known as blanquette, this light, comforting dish will please anyone who likes chicken potpie. It’s meant to celebrate fresh spring vegetables and herbs, but frozen peas, lima beans and artichokes are also fine here. The vegetable combinations can be altered to taste or to be fewer in number. This is the version for company, with its savory white gravy enriched with white wine. A dollop of crème fraîche is added just before serving, along with a shower of fragrant fresh herbs. There are a lot of ingredients listed, but it’s not hard to put together this elegant meal.
Carrot-Leek Soup With Miso
This light, simple vegetable soup is very quick to put together. A little miso is stirred in just before serving to add depth, and a final squeeze of lime gives brightness.
Triple-Sesame Tea Cakes
Sometimes just a few cookies are what you want for dessert, accompanied, when in season, by a bowl of mandarins or tangerines. These sesame cookies aren’t too sweet, and citrus fruit, eaten out of hand, makes a refreshing end to a meal.
Baked Fish With Mushrooms and Ginger
A firm, white-fleshed fish like halibut, bass or grouper makes a neutral backdrop for a zesty, savory topping of stir-fried mushroom. Any type of mushroom will work, but shiitake are especially nice. Serve with steamed rice.
Black Rice Bowl With Bok Choy and Mushrooms
A bowl of rice with vegetables makes a healthy and delicious meal, especially if the rice is whole grain. Whole-grain rice comes in many colors, from golden amber to rusty red to purplish black. This recipe calls for Thai black sticky rice (also called sweet or glutinous rice), which is pleasantly chewy. In Thailand, black sticky rice is most often used to make sweet rice pudding with coconut milk, but it tastes very good in combination with savory ingredients. If sticky rice is not your thing, you could use Chinese black “forbidden rice,” or any other whole-grain rice. With stir-fried greens and shiitake mushrooms, this visually stunning dish is full of goodness, kissed with ginger, garlic and sesame.