Recipes By Florence Fabricant
975 recipes found
Linguine With Lobster and Avocado
The summer season was beginning, whetting the appetite for a copious seafood salad or a tangy ceviche. But instead, I tore a page from ceviche’s playbook and assembled a pasta dish with the avocado, tomato, jalapeño, scallion, cilantro and citrus juice, along with lobster, to mingle with pasta. The result was brightly fresh-tasting, a warm-weather charmer with a touch of spice. Even during the brief cooking, some of the avocado will melt into the mixture, suavely coating the strands of linguine. But be sure that some of the avocado is still intact. The dish is satisfying as the main event yet light enough to serve as a first course followed by chicken or sausages hot off the grill.
Greek Fisherman’s Stew
It's summer, and no matter what you choose to drink, your plate should be bright with ripe beefsteak tomatoes and basil. If those treasures of the season complement a piece of fish, so much the better. Consider a kakavia, something Greek fishermen may assemble right on their boats, adding ingredients in fairly quick order as they cook in a round-bottomed pot also called a kakavia. It's a dish that welcomes wines that are clean-cut but with lip-smacking acidity balanced by sunny suggestions of melon and tropical fruit, like Austrian rieslings.
Hot-Cross Buns
The hot-cross bun has been a Good Friday treat, eaten to mark the end of Lent, for centuries. It is a sweet yeast roll, fragrant with warm spices, studded with dried and candied fruit, and decorated with a cross on top. Bakers traditionally created the cross by slashing the dough or by laying strips of pastry across the crown of the bun; modern bakers usually use white icing to make the cross. While these are at their best when served warm, preferably soon after they have been baked, a quick toasting a slather of butter would more than salvage a day-old bun.
Chocolate-Pumpkin Layer Cake
This rich and decadent spiced pumpkin cake is just the thing to serve for an autumn celebration, Thanksgiving or otherwise. Chocolate chips and chopped pecans are added to the pumpkin batter for extra sweetness and a bit of welcome crunch. For those who like to plan ahead, it can be made and frozen – iced and all. Just put the entire finished cake on a plate or a baking sheet, unwrapped, and freeze it overnight until it is hard. Then it can be wrapped without damage to the frosting, and returned to the freezer. Layers can also be wrapped well and stored, to be iced later.
Tahini Chocolate Cakes
These luxurious tahini chocolate cakes from the cookbook "Smashing Plates" by Maria Elia are served with crème fraîche, dusted with lime zest, and are ideal for those seeking to indulge their sweet tooth with something small and fudgy.
Indoor S’mores
You may not have a grill or the weather may not be cooperating, but you can still revel in this childhood favorite, and it's a brilliant way to make s'mores for a crowd. Also brilliant: melted chocolate is spread on both of the graham crackers for each s'more, so the chocolate envelops the marshmallow with each bite.
Stilton Soufflé
Creamy Potato Gratin
There is an annual color war in our household, with one faction demanding sweet potatoes with marshmallows, the other countering with a potato gratin. I parcook the potatoes in half-and-half before baking the gratin. It’s easier to fine-tune the seasonings that way. And if there are leftovers, reheat them in the microwave and serve before the end of the weekend; this is not a dish that freezes well.
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
These are classic mashed potatoes, brightened up with a substantial amount of garlic. Feel free to adjust the garlic to taste, and to deepen the flavor, try roasting the cloves before mixing them in with the potatoes. (For everything you need to know to make perfect potatoes, visit our potato guide.)
Baked Ricotta With Spring Vegetables
Here’s a multipurpose dish that is perfect for spring, but can also highlight other seasons. It comes from Dan Kluger at Loring Place in Greenwich Village. He made it in winter, studded with squash and mushrooms. For spring, he scattered pickled ramps, favas and spring onions on top. But he said that other seasonal vegetables like artichokes, peas, morel mushrooms and asparagus could be used. As summer rolls in, there will be a different cast of characters to consider, like zucchini, cherry tomatoes and peppers. The dish works as a first course for four or a lunch dish for two, and could even replace salad and cheeses at a more elaborate dinner.
Roquefort, Leek and Walnut Tart
The open-face Alsatian tarte flambée can be as versatile as a quiche. Most often it’s given classic treatment, with bacon and onions on a pastry-lined bed of crème fraîche and fromage blanc. But why stick to tradition? You can make it with mushrooms, omit the bacon and dot it with caviar, add smoked salmon, pave it with zucchini slices, and explore other cheeses, including Taleggio and chèvre. Here’s an assertive version that keeps the bacon but opts for Roquefort cheese, leeks and walnuts. And instead of pizza dough, which is a typical underpinning, for a more expedient result, you can make it with pie pastry.
Bufala Negra
At Philip Marie in Greenwich Village, John Greco uses ginger beer to top a bourbon cocktail seasoned with a splash of good balsamic vinegar, a slight variation on the original made with balsamic syrup and ginger ale, which was created by Jerry Slater of H Harper Station in Atlanta.
Potato Noodles
Here’s a grandmother’s recipe related to gnocchi but from a grandmother who was not Italian. In this recipe from my mother, Annette Gertner, a potato-based dough is formed into small noodle shapes, which are tossed with bread crumbs and onions, Austrian-style. Another way to serve the noodles is to gently fold them with warm sour cream and chives.
Flank Steak With Zucchini
Marinate the meat at leisure, allow enough time to salt the zucchini to extract excess moisture and you are ready for speed-dial cooking. Once cooked, the dish can also bide its time, to anchor a summer buffet at room temperature.
Cold-Weather Negroni
This wintry adaptation of a Negroni gets a deeper character and color from an amaro that’s heavier than the typical bright Campari, and the dusky richness of amontillado sherry. The burnt thyme adds a woodsy aroma, but can be an optional touch. At a winter pop-up in the Williamsburg restaurant Sunday in Brooklyn, where the drink is being served, it is called Ugly Sweater Weather.
Whiskey-Orange Bread Pudding
A bottle of workmanlike Scotch or other whiskey can be as useful in the kitchen as it is on the bar, contributing alcohol and flavor to a range of recipes. A splash of it can sharpen a pan sauce for steak or pork, it’s excellent flambé material, and it’s especially compatible with dried fruit. I have soaked dried currants in whiskey to add to a simple chocolate cake. For this recipe, which takes its cue from the Blood and Sand cocktail made with orange juice and Scotch, I used the spirit to bolster a warm bread pudding laced with orange, both grated zest and candied peel, and finished with a marmalade and whiskey glaze. Supermarkets and fancy food shops, as well as online sources, sell candied orange peel. But absent that ingredient you can substitute slivered dried Turkish apricots.
Pecan Pie Ice Cream
This pecan pie ice cream is built on a base of French vanilla, with toasted pecans, cloaked in maple syrup, swirled in. Making the vanilla custard for this French-style ice cream is a delicate operation, like producing hollandaise, because of the fragile nature of eggs when they are heated. Perform this part of the recipe when you can give it your full, undivided attention. If preparing this custard in a saucepan over direct heat makes you nervous about overcooking and curdling the eggs, you can make it in a double boiler, but it will take at least 20 minutes longer to get the custard to thicken.
Rice With Mushrooms (Arroz con Champiñones)
This recipe — adapted from “The New Spanish: Bites, Feasts and Drinks” by Jonah Miller and Nate Adler, the owners of Huertas in the East Village in New York — offers the cook a simple primer on paella. The method is a template best made in a paella pan and, as a bonus, it will free the cook from the notion that paella must be some kind of production number involving a budget-busting and time-consuming load of chicken, pork, seafood, vegetables and the like. This version features mushrooms and not much else. But its largely unadorned canvas will accept embellishments. Some tomato purée in the broth perhaps? Certainly. Seared sea scallops, shrimp, some sausage, pieces of duck confit, chickpeas, grilled peppers, eggplant chunks or baby artichokes? Those, too, but definitely not all at once.
Porgy Fillets With Pickled Jalapeño-Herb Sauce
Dane Sayles, the chef of East Hampton Point in New York, believes porgies can take strong flavorings, so he adds spicy pickled peppers and their pickling liquid to his herb marinade. He also whizzes in some tahini, which smooths the emulsified mixture. At his restaurant, he blanches the herbs (drops them in boiling water for 10 seconds, then plunges them into ice water before draining) to help fix their color. It's something you can do as well and should remember the next time you make pesto.
Los Amores
This vibrant, ruby-red cocktail — devised for Valentine’s Day by Bien Trucha, a group of Mexican restaurants in the suburbs of Chicago — is a superb opener for an intimate dinner. But there’s no need to limit the drink to one annual event. Serve it at Mother’s Day; it’s actually mild enough for brunch. It also suits an anniversary party, a summertime celebration and — prepared in a generous quantity to fill a punch bowl — one of December’s festive occasions. It’s easily made. The drink was inspired by the classic Kir Royale (Champagne and cassis) though a variation that suggests a margarita is another option: Replace the strawberries with a couple of blood orange segments and use a triple-sec liqueur instead of the cassis. Garnish it with a blood orange segment.
Pumpkin-Ginger Sorbet
This autumnal sorbet can be made vegan-friendly by substituting agave syrup for the honey. If you would rather not use canned pumpkin, try roasting honeynut squashes, 40 minutes at 400 degrees, then scraping out the insides, which become a smooth purée under the heat; two squashes will give you enough purée for this recipe.The sorbet is excellent served with slivers of candied ginger on top or with pieces of pumpkin seed brittle. And it’s surprisingly amenable to tracings of chilled dark chocolate sauce.
Grilled Lamb With Scallion Pancakes
Here is a recipe for grilled lamb inspired by Northern China. It’s treated to a five-spice and soy sauce rub, and served, in a nod to Peking duck, with cucumbers, hoisin sauce and pancakes. The pancakes are not the typically thin crepes served for wrapping slices of Peking duck. Instead they are classic scallion pancakes, a dim sum item usually eaten alone. Here they’re spread with hoisin sauce and topped with slices of lamb and cucumber. Alternatively, you could serve the pancakes like tortillas, to wrap around the lamb, taco-style. Either way, it’s party food.
Braised Beef With Eggplant
The food of Provence usually evokes summer, with lovely vegetables, salads, seafood and a whiff of lavender. But there’s a wintry side to it as well. When a fierce mistral wind blows, it’s time to crank out beef stews and roasted meats. This braised beef dish, a pot roast, keeps a Provençal flavor profile, with eggplant, garlic, fennel, rosemary, orange, black olives and tomatoes. It’s prepared to allow the eggplant to maintain its character and not disintegrate. I like to braise a nice piece of tri-tip sirloin, but this recipe will suit any cut of beef you prefer for braising. Serve the dish with plain broad egg noodles dressed with a splash of good olive oil.
Hake With Clams in Salsa Verde
This Basque classic from Marti Buckley's cookbook “Basque Country: A Culinary Journey Through a Food Lover's Paradise,” requires a bit of quick stove work once the clams start to open. You must be sure there is a nice amount of liquid in the bottom of the pan, enough to swirl around so the flour coating on the fish and the olive oil can thicken and emulsify the sauce. And though it's called salsa verde, it's not a dense herbal purée as in Italian cooking but a fresh, rather sheer parsley-based mixture.