Recipes By David Tanis
752 recipes found
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.
Savory Butternut Squash Pie
This is a substantial main-course vegetable pie. Use butternut or any other hard squash variety. The pie may be baked up to several hours in advance and reheated to serve. This allows flavors to meld and makes cutting the pie easier.
Pork Chops With Apples and Cider
There are some culinary combinations that cannot be improved upon, and apples and pork is surely one of them. This recipe calls for pan-frying boneless pork chops and serving them with butter-browned apples and a Normandy-style sauce made with cider and cream. It makes for a perfect cold weather meal.
Vermont Cheddar Mashed Potatoes
To some, Cheddar is synonymous with Vermont, even if it is produced in several other states, too. For most, mashed potatoes are an absolute essential for a proper Thanksgiving table. Combining them seems natural, whether customary or not. Using two-year-old aged Vermont Cheddar, which is deeply flavored but not too sharp, gives these creamy mashed potatoes a subtle Cheddar presence, neither overwhelmingly cheesy nor gooey. (For everything you need to know to make perfect potatoes, visit our potato guide.)
Lemon Tart With a Touch of Lime
This is a classic French dessert — impressive, but easy to make, if you are organized and get ahead on the prep work. It’s essential to make the tart dough and lemon curd in advance, up to 2 days ahead; otherwise it becomes too much of a project. The buttery cookielike dough is pressed into the pan, not rolled with a pin.
Lazy Lobster
A lobster for those who prefer eating lobster without the work and without a bib, this recipe is meant for an intimate supper à deux, whether for Valentine’s Day or not. Freshly cooked lobster is preferred, but some may splurge and buy a pound of preshucked lobster meat. Serve with crusty French bread or toasted thick slices of baguette cut on a long diagonal.
Slow-Cooked Lamb Shoulder With Green Beans
There are many ways to achieve a succulent braised lamb shoulder. In a covered grill over indirect heat or in a low oven, it will take about 3 hours, but you could also use a countertop slow cooker. It’ll take longer but you’ll know the meat is ready when it’s well seasoned and nearly falling apart. For convenience, you may prepare the braise a day or two in advance. Then finish it, cooking it with green beans (or a mixture of various summer beans) and hot pepper, then showering it with chopped parsley, dill and mint.
Broccoli Rabe Lasagna
Broccoli rabe (sometimes spelled raab, or known as rapini greens) is one of the most delicious members of the mustard green family. The leaves, tender stems and broccoli-like buds have a distinctive pleasant bitterness when cooked. For this vegetarian lasagna, some of the cooked greens are puréed to make a garlicky pesto and the rest is coarsely chopped and added to the layers. Find more lasagna recipes.
Spicy Crab Linguine with Mustard, Crème Fraîche and Herbs
This pasta dish is impressive, but it is barely any work at all, ideal for an impromptu gathering. The sauce is just warm crème fraîche, highly seasoned, along with a shower of herbs, and just enough green chile to cut the richness. (If you don’t want chile, increase the mustard and black pepper, and add lime zest.) Obviously, you’ll want the freshest sweetest crabmeat available. Substitute lobster if you can’t get crab, or use small shrimp, briefly cooked in butter, and feel free to vary the herbs — basil, mint, dill or chervil would be most welcome.
Spiced Lamb Meatballs With Yogurt and Herbs
These spice-loaded meatballs have a Turkish inflection. The warm yogurt sauce adds tang and richness, along with a sprinkling of tart sumac powder and chopped mint. American "Greek-style" yogurt is not always tart enough, but it can be thinned with a bit of buttermilk or even lemon juice. Whisking it with cornstarch and egg produces a silky sauce. Though the ingredient list looks long, this is a simple and impressive dish to make.
Greek Tomato Salad
The Greek approach to a good tomato salad, whether it has cucumbers and lettuce or not (this one doesn’t), is all about keeping it simple. Sweet, ripe summer tomatoes, salt and olive oil are all you need. The flourishes here — green pepper, red onion, chopped mint and pinch of oregano — are optional, but they add brightness. Good Greek feta cheese takes it over the top.
Melon, Cucumber and Cherry Tomato Salad
This is an extremely simple, yet spectacularly refreshing salad, especially when made from height-of-the-season summer produce. Ripe melon mirrors the tomatoes’ sweetness. Cucumber, a relative of melon, gives both crunch and flavor. A handful of basil and mint leaves, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice added just before serving, bring it all together.
How to Cook Asparagus
Asparagus is incredibly flexible, and it's incredibly delicious too. David Tanis shows you how to cook it.
Pan Con Tomate
Some version of tomatoes on toast — a juicy American B.L.T. or Italian tomato-topped bruschetta — is always a good idea, but that's especially true during high summer, when tomatoes are at their peak. One superior combination comes from Barcelona, where a slice of toast is rubbed with garlic and juicy ripe tomatoes, then anointed with olive oil. Most Catalan cooks simply cut the tomato crosswise and vigorously massage the toasted bread with the cut side. Others grate the tomato flesh and spoon it over the bread. This version adds tomato slices and a scattering of cherry tomatoes for a substantial first course.
Spiced Squash and Phyllo Pie
This savory vegetable pie is modeled after the classic Moroccan b’stilla, usually made with squab, pigeon or chicken. It isn’t traditional, of course, but this vegetarian version is quite delicious, flaky, buttery and fragrant with spices. A diced preserved lemon adds perfume and sharpness, but you can also use a regular lemon. B’stilla normally has a layer of scrambled egg, but here, it’s replaced with a mixture of thick yogurt and feta. As with the original, everything is encased in golden, crisp buttered phyllo, sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon and served piping hot.
Saffron-Ginger Pears
For a stellar dessert, poach pears and let them steep in a bright yellow saffron-ginger syrup. With saffron, a little goes a long way: A quarter teaspoon will not break the bank. Prepare these days ahead of serving and store them in their syrup; they’ll only improve in flavor. Served chilled with a dab of crème fraîche or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, this dessert is sheer luxury.
Roasted Eggplant Salad
In Morocco — and similarly throughout the Middle East — the most delicious salads are made with seasoned, cooked vegetables, not leafy greens. This dish, smoky eggplant salad with cilantro, infused with cumin, hot pepper and a generous amount of olive oil, is a winning combination. For the perfect flavor, you want to seriously blacken the eggplant. Choose very firm eggplants, which will have fewer seeds. The salad will keep, refrigerated, for several days.
Summer Fruit Salad
In another era, this kind of chopped fruit salad was called a Macedonia. Use as many kinds of ripe fruits as you wish, including melon, stone fruit, grapes and berries. The simple combination of homemade jam dissolved with a splash of white wine or liqueur marries beautifully with the fruits’ natural juices. Leave the compote to macerate a bit and serve chilled for a completely refreshing dessert.
Cherry Coconut Ice Cream Sandwiches
Who doesn’t like ice cream sandwiches? These are miniature, just 3 inches in diameter. Bright pink fresh cherry ice cream (there’s a little coconut milk in the custard) is sandwiched between lemony butter cookies, with a dash of grated coconut. This is a bit of a project, but it only requires about 2 hours of active cooking time over the course of 2 days.
