Recipes By David Tanis
747 recipes found
Butter-Braised Asparagus
For the first-of-the-season asparagus, keep it simple with butter, lemon and sweet herbs. For the best texture, peeling the stalks really makes a difference.
Spanish Asparagus Revuelto
In Spain, wild asparagus is very popular, and it’s a sure sign of spring. Because the variety of wild asparagus there can be a slightly bitter, cooks blanch it in boiling water before sautéing in olive oil. (In North America, both wild and cultivated asparagus are sweet, so this step is unnecessary here.) This dish features typical Spanish ingredients — garlic, chorizo and bread crumbs — incorporated into soft scrambled eggs, for a hearty breakfast, or a simple lunch or first course.
Pasta With Fresh Tomato Sauce and Ricotta
This wonderful pasta is made with nothing more than fresh tomato sauce and good ricotta, plus a little pecorino. It’s most delicious if you keep the pasta quite al dente; use just enough sauce, no more; give it a good pinch of crushed red pepper; and season it with enough salt of course.
Wok-Fried Asparagus With Walnuts
Not all asparagus dishes are delicate and subtle. Try this stir-fry to see how well the sweetness of asparagus and spicy bold flavors go together.
Asparagus and Chicken Salad With Ginger Dressing
Asparagus takes easily to many kinds of seasonings, so after you’ve tired of having it plain with butter or homemade mayonnaise, try this spicy dressing laced with ginger and chiles. Adding smoked chicken is a nice way to make a more substantial first course or light lunch. You can purchase smoked chicken at better butcher shops or online, but equally good is grilled chicken at room temperature, or cold poached chicken. I sometimes substitute lightly smoked ham or smoked slab bacon, simmered until tender.
Tofu and Herb Salad With Sesame
Tender sweet herbs are the foundation of this lovely, delicate salad that’s dressed with a creamy yogurt sauce flavored with sesame, lime juice, ginger and green chile for kick. Feel free to use any combination of the herbs mentioned in the recipe, though you could also incorporate large leaves of butter lettuce. Topped with cool cubes of soft tofu, this dish is a very flavorful and refreshing first course or light lunch.
Stir-Fried Spicy Asparagus
Holding out for regional produce may seem absurdly romantic, or a little stubborn, but there’s no denying the thrill when, after months of apples, potatoes and sturdy greens, suddenly asparagus appears in full force at the market. Finally, spring has arrived.
Charred Asparagus With Green Garlic Chimichurri
Chimichurri is the South American green herb sauce that goes with just about everything. Easy to put together, it tastes best freshly prepared. When green garlic is in season in spring and early summer, use that; or substitute 2 or 3 regular garlic cloves at other times of the year. To keep it green and fresh tasting, add the vinegar just before serving. Char the asparagus in a hot cast-iron skillet or griddle, over hot coals, or under the broiler. Pencil-thin asparagus cooks quite quickly this way, but medium-size spears may be substituted.
Shaved Asparagus and Radish Salad
An easy salad to put together, this is a celebration of the first asparagus of the season, which is sweet enough to eat raw. Omit the anchovy in the dressing if you wish, but it’s there to provide a boost of flavor, not to taste fishy. Any type of radish will work but, for a really vibrant salad, look for the many colorful varieties of daikon radish available at many farmers’ markets.
Smoky Lentil Stew With Leeks and Potatoes
Rustic with deep flavor, this stew improves after a day in the fridge. Make the whole recipe, and eat it over several days — or freeze it for later. If you can’t get small Spanish Pardina lentils or French lentilles du Puy, use any size green or brown lentil. (Carnivores may want to add chorizo or jamón.) The stew is rather brothy at first, but thickens upon sitting. Thin with a little water when reheating, as necessary. For optimum results, be sure to use fruity, zesty-tasting extra virgin olive oil — it really makes a difference.
Mediterranean Lentil Salad
Here’s a summery lentil salad topped with tomatoes, roasted peppers and feta, garnished with hard-cooked eggs, anchovy fillets and good canned tuna. Studded with olives and sprinkled with oregano, it’s a sort-of niçoise salad by way of Greece, an easy main course suitable for a picnic or a no-fuss make-ahead supper.
Spinach and Tofu Salad
Here’s a spinach salad that takes cues from Japan and is hearty enough to be a main course. Try to find crisp, medium curly-leaf spinach, which will hold up when dressed. (Baby spinach leaves will surely wilt.) Other sturdy greens — such as mizuna, curly endive or Napa cabbage — can stand in for spinach, or you can combine several kinds of greens.
Vegan Mapo Tofu
Mapo tofu is a justly popular menu item in many Chinese restaurants. It is a quickly cooked dish of braised tofu with minced pork (sometimes beef) in a bracing spicy sauce made with fermented black beans and fermented broad bean paste, along with hot red pepper and Sichuan pepper. This meatless version with fresh shiitake mushrooms is completely satisfying, and surprisingly easy to make. For the best texture, use soft tofu rather than firm, taking care to cook it gently to keep it from crumbling.
Spaghetti With Lentils, Tomato and Fennel
There are many recipes for pasta with lentils, a multitude of which are thick and stewlike, more lentil than pasta. This one emphasizes the pasta. The hearty lentil topping is a bit like a Bolognese ragù, and the addition of fennel — seeds, bulb and chopped green fronds — gives it surprising brightness and zest. For even more flavor, add some of your stored-away Parmesan rinds to the sauce. (Carnivores can add a little chopped anchovy or Italian fennel sausage.)
Red Lentil Loaf
Vegetarian lentil loaf has a long history of masquerading as meatloaf. With its brownish-grey color and a red ketchup glaze, it does its best to look and taste like meat (though it never does). This delicate red lentil loaf is not at all like that. It’s all about the lentil flavor — sweet and vegetal. The seasoning veers a little bit Turkish, with lemon, cumin, cilantro, dill and yogurt. It is delicious served at room temperature or warm.
Lentils With Chorizo, Greens and Yellow Rice
Interpretations of beans and rice — a humble, hearty, filling and delicious meal — are found throughout the world, made with various types of dried bean (sometimes called peas). In many versions, the cooked rice and beans are folded together in the pot. Others, like this one, serve the rice on the side. Here, lentils are cooked Spanish-style, with chorizo and greens for a thick stew. If you want it to be soupier, thin it with a little water or broth, and feel free to omit the sausage to make it vegetarian.
Riso al Forno With Crab and Shrimp
For a casually elegant dinner, this rice casserole fits the bill for a crowd-pleasing main course. It’s generous in the kind of meat you use and its timing: You can use any kind of shellfish, including shrimp or lobster, and you don’t serve it directly from the pot, so there’s no urgency. You can cook the rice and fold in the shellfish up to 2 hours in advance of serving, then top with shrimp and crumbs, and bake.
David Tanis’s Persian Jeweled Rice
This dish is called jeweled rice because it is golden and glistening, laced with butter and spices and piled with nuts and gem-colored fruits. In Iran, it is typically served at weddings or other celebrations. Great platters of it appear at banquets. It also goes beautifully with a weeknight roast chicken. You will probably need to do a little shopping to make this traditional dish. But it is well worth it, and most good supermarkets can supply what you require.
Vietnamese Lemongrass Beef and Noodle Salad
Bun bo xao, a zesty stir-fry of marinated beef hot from the wok paired with room temperature rice noodles, makes a satisfying main-course salad year-round. Dressed with a classic Vietnamese dipping sauce and topped with roasted peanuts, the flavors are clean, bright and restorative. Yes, this recipe calls for a lot of ingredients, but the prep is simple, and it’s an easy introduction to Vietnam cooking for the uninitiated.
Barmbrack (Irish Sweet Bread)
This traditional Irish sweet bread is known as barmbrack, or bairin breac in Gaelic, or speckled loaf, since it is run through with raisins. This is a perfect bread for breakfast or tea, spread with good butter, toasted or not. The recipe has been adapted slightly from one by the well-known Irish cookbook author Rachel Allen; her original calls for chopped candied peel instead of citrus zest, and fast-rising yeast instead of dry active yeast.
Spicy Couscous Salad With Tomatoes, Green Beans and Peppers
Pearl couscous, also called Israeli couscous, is a round pellet-shaped pasta, larger than regular couscous. You may substitute Lebanese mograbiah or maftoul, or the large Moroccan couscous called mhammsa. All are available in Middle Eastern food shops. Fregola from Sardinia is also an option.
Spring Vegetable Ragoût With Brown Butter Couscous
The amazingly flavorful couscous here is the result of a trick from the chef Mourad Lahlou, whose San Francisco restaurants, Aziza (currently closed) and Mourad, feature a modernist approach to Moroccan cuisine. Freshly steamed couscous is tossed with sizzling brown butter, lots of chopped preserved lemon and a splash of saffron. It is seriously good with just about anything, especially seasonal vegetable ragoûts. (Saucy braises of lamb, chicken or fish also pair well with it.) The recipe below uses spring vegetables, but you can substitute others throughout the year.
Irish Brown Soda Bread
When baking soda was introduced in the early 19th century, Irish home cooks adopted the product almost immediately. With soda, a loaf of bread could be ready in as little as one hour, as opposed to using yeast or sourdough starters, which require rising time. The recipe is a slight adaptation of one by the Irish cookbook author Rachel Allen. It is most delicious freshly baked, and best toasted the next day.
Summer Vegetable Couscous With Spicy Pesto
Hearty but not heavy, this stew uses lots of summer vegetables available from the farmers' market. It’s a little complicated to put together, but both the vegetable stew and the couscous can be made in advance, even a day ahead, without suffering. (And if you are short on time, you can skip Step 1 — cooking the dried chickpeas — and use 2 cups canned chickpeas instead.) In season, look for other varieties of sweet peppers besides conventional bell peppers, and colorful tomatoes and onions as well. Even though the directions on most packaged couscous claim it can be cooked in less than 10 minutes, taking the time to steam it further makes it lighter and more digestible.