Recipes By Emily Weinstein
38 recipes found
Tall and Creamy Cheesecake
This is not really a New York cheesecake recipe — there’s no lemon (although there could be) — this is an all-American cheesecake of the big, beautiful, lush and creamy variety, the kind that causes gasps of delight when you bring it to the table and sighs of satisfaction when you and your guests savor bite after bite. The cake’s velvety texture is a result of a long turn in the mixer, and a cool-down process that requires patience, but not much effort. It’s also a cheesecake you can customize. You can make the cake milder or tangier by using all heavy cream or all sour cream, or a combination of the two. You can add fruits or nuts, swirls of chocolate or drops of extract.
Curried Squash Soup With Frizzled Leeks
Cheesy Hasselback Potato Gratin
This golden and glorious mash-up of potato gratin and Hasselback potatoes, from the acclaimed food science writer J. Kenji López-Alt, has been engineered to give you both creamy potato and singed edge in each bite. The principal innovation here is placing the sliced potatoes in the casserole dish vertically, on their edges, rather than laying them flat as in a standard gratin, in order to get those crisp ridges on top. Allow extra time for the task of slicing the potatoes, for which it's helpful to have a mandoline or food processor (though not necessary, strictly speaking). And do buy extra potatoes, just in case; you want to pack the potatoes tightly and keep them standing up straight.
Simplest Strawberry Tart
This gorgeous tart is adapted from "Sweeter Off the Vine," by Yossy Arefi, a cookbook of fruit desserts for every season. It's an ideal vehicle for the ripest strawberries at the height of the season, a dessert that makes more of a splash than just serving berries and cream but still has that simple charm. The only tricky part is the crust, which could crack as you transfer it to a serving board. But if that happens, don't despair. It's meant to be effortlessly loose and casual, and you can cover the damage with swirls of mascarpone and a blanket of berries.
Ciabatta
Long before Emily Weinstein was the editor of NYT Cooking, she wrote columns about learning to cook and bake for the Food section’s long-defunct Diner’s Journal blog. This recipe, part of her penultimate baking column, comes from Sarah Black, who was credited for bringing ciabatta to New York in the early 1990s. Make sure to bake it to a very dark brown: Color is flavor here, and the deeply burnished crust makes for a fabulous end result.
French Yogurt Cake With Marmalade Glaze
In France, this cake is usually served with a little sweetened crème fraiche, but it lends itself to other toppings as well. Fresh soft fruit, like sliced peaches or plums, is a natural with this as is berries with a touch of sugar. And, because the cake is plain and just a little tangy from the yogurt, it pairs happily with lemon cream, curd or mousse and is delicious with chocolate mousse or chocolate sauce.
Corn Risotto
This creamy, pale yellow risotto is studded with chewy fresh corn kernels, making for a nice mix of textures. Making your own corn stock deepens the flavor of this dish, but if you don’t have the time, chicken stock will work. The dish is also pleasingly light, for risotto — finishing the dish by folding in airy whipped cream adds richness without also adding heft. Add the cream quickly and carefully right before serving. If it sits in the hot risotto it will melt — which wouldn’t be the end of the world, of course, since you’ll still have a wonderfully creamy risotto.
Piparkakut
In 2009, The New York Times asked readers to send photos and recipes of their holiday cookies. About 100 people answered the call, including Naomi Donabedian, a graphic designer who lived in Brooklyn. She submitted this recipe for piparkakut, a Finnish cookie that incorporates cloves, black pepper, cardamom, ground ginger and orange zest. She wrote of the “big 3D flavor” imparted by freshly ground cardamom, but you can use pre-ground cardamom if you like. The dough can be difficult to roll out, but keep at it. This crisp, delicate, aromatic cookie will be your reward.
Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia Child
In this unusual brownie recipe from the Boston pastry chef Rick Katz, half of the recipe’s eggs and sugar are mixed in with the chocolate, while the other half are beaten until they double in volume and are as light as sponge. Whipping the eggs creates the surprisingly creamy, soft and definitively fudgy texture.
Pumpkin Pie With a Vodka Crust
This recipe made waves among home bakers when it was published by Cook's Illustrated magazine in 2008 because of its brilliant use of vodka in the dough, which all but ensures that the baked crust is tender. The vodka, which evaporates in the hot oven, is essential here, and you shouldn't taste it in the finished crust, so do not skip it. The filling is delicious too, pillowy with a deep, rich flavor. Cook's Illustrated advised readers to add the filling to the prebaked crust when both the crust and the filling are still warm; it helps ensure accurate cooking times and a crisp crust.
Rustic Apple Streusel Pie
Be sure to slice the apples thin so that they cook in the amount of time needed to bake the crust — this isn’t a chunky filling.
Banana Cream Pie
This recipe, from Dorie Greenspan's wonderful cookbook "Baking: From My Home to Yours," is simple but decadent, and very forgiving for the beginner baker. It’s a glorious mess of fruit and cream — the pressure is off to make it look perfect.
Frizzled Leeks
Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough
Blueberry Crumb Cake
It’s easy to find an occasion to serve this cake — breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or snacktime will do. The dominant flavor here is the berries. Don’t be tempted to increase the amount of walnuts in the topping — scarcity makes them even more delightful.
Spice-Poached Apples or Pears
Cooked fruits and simmered compotes are among the simplest of French family sweets. While they’re usually served with little more than heavy cream, crème fraîche, or plain yogurt, they can also be paired with rice pudding or French toast, moistening the pudding or toast with the poaching syrup and then spooning over the fruit.
Liberian Peanut Soup
This Liberian peanut soup, recipe courtesy of Helene Cooper, should satisfy peanut butter lovers, as well as anyone who wants a thick, rich, meaty dish.
Shrimp Risotto
Risotto can often be an intimidating dish, but this recipe, adapted from Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore’s “Fish Without a Doubt,” doesn’t have to be. It came to The Times in 2009, part of Emily Weinstein’s column on learning to cook. It worked for her, even though she didn’t prepare any of the ingredients ahead of time — or stir constantly as so many risotto recipes demand. Feel free to adapt the recipe as she did, substituting packaged seafood stock for the homemade shrimp stock, and chopped basil for the basil-infused oil.
Spring Vegetable Soup
You need not (and may not want to) use all the vegetables below at once; try mixing and matching. All measurements approximate.
Simple Steamed Clams or Mussels
This straightforward method of cooking mussels or clams produces an excellent dinner in 30 minutes. You can build in extra flavors by varying the aromatic vegetables, the liquid and the last-minute stir-ins. All you need is some bread or simply cooked rice, grain or potatoes to sop up the broth.
Tender Pie Dough
This makes a large batch of dough. Divide it in half and use both halves, or freeze one portion to use another time.
Gratinee of Cauliflower
Creamy, cheesy but not too thick or heavy, this is a good side for a pork loin.
Sablé Breton Galette With Berries
The sablé is a sweet shortbread that’s buttery and noticeably salty. In this version, the dough is purposely very soft (it’s too soft to roll and cut for cookies) so that it can be patted and pressed into a tart pan, baked, and used as the base of a beautiful berry dessert. You can spread the galette with lemon curd and top it with sliced strawberries or whole raspberries, but it is equally good with whipped cream or ice cream in place of the curd. In fact, it’s good on its own — just cut it into wedges. If you’re not serving a group, leave the galette plain, and when you need a slice or three of tart, cut the galette and top it on the spot.
White Bean and Collard Soup
This is an ideal soup for roasted stock, if you're able to make some. Other beans you can use in this recipe: split peas, black-eyed peas, pinto or any pink bean, or black beans.