Recipes By Hetty Lui Mckinnon
155 recipes found
Skillet Vegetable Potpie
Loaded with the season’s finest offerings, this pie comes together in one skillet and manages to be hearty yet light. Leek provides a sweet and aromatic base, potatoes add body, fennel delivers an earthy note and asparagus imparts crisp freshness. (You could also use broccoli or green beans.) Sour cream in the base offers a slight tang and keeps the sauce light. Be sure to chop all of your vegetables around the same size to ensure they cook evenly and are tender by the time the pastry is golden. If you like, add other seasonal vegetables like peas or fava beans in the spring, or cauliflower or brussels sprouts in the fall and winter. (Frozen vegetables work well, too.) When using store-bought puff pastry, thaw it in the fridge overnight. If you don’t have an ovenproof 9- or 10-inch skillet, simply transfer the mixture to a similar-sized round or square baking dish.
Singapore Noodles With Charred Scallions
While this dish is named for Singapore, it was not created there. Many believe it was invented in Hong Kong, in the 1950s or 1960s, by chefs seeking to add a different flavor profile to Cantonese dishes. It is now a much loved dish at cha chaan tengs, a type of cafe in Hong Kong, and at Cantonese eateries across the world. The original features meat, eggs and vegetables, but this vegetarian version showcases charred scallions, which add sweetness. Peppers are often included, but you could use carrots, cabbage, cauliflower or any thinly sliced vegetable that can be cooked in 3 to 4 minutes. The technique of “blooming” the curry powder in the oil ensures that the vermicelli is silky rather than gritty. Use a curry powder that has turmeric listed as one of the first ingredients, as it lends a lovely golden color to the noodles. (You can add ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder to a commercial curry powder if you want to ensure a bright hue.) To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Potato and White Bean Puttanesca Soup
Potatoes and cannellini beans provide the bulk in this hearty soup inspired by pasta puttanesca, while the garlicky tomato base is imbued with the briny punch of capers and black olives. The signature of puttanesca is heat, so adjust the amount of red-pepper flakes to your liking or use fresh chiles, if you have them. Reserve some of the olives and capers, and combine with parsley to make a topper that amplifies the sharp, bright flavors. Haphazardly mashing some of the beans and potatoes is an efficient way to thicken the soup, without the need for any additional equipment. In fact, it’s a great trick to have up your sleeve whenever you are looking to thicken soups or stews.
Mushroom Pasta Stir-Fry
While stir-fries have long gone hand-in-hand with rice, this recipe shows the versatility of the dish. Here, a quick stir-fry is transformed into a flavorful, unconventional pasta sauce. Five spice is a Chinese seasoning that is said to incorporate all five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. In this recipe, its blend of star anise, cloves, Chinese cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns and fennel intensifies the robust flavor of the mushrooms. Don’t overcook the broccolini; it should be crisp, with a bright green vibrancy. You could easily substitute broccoli, green beans, snow peas or other crunchy greens. And don’t skip the butter (or use vegan butter, if you prefer), as it provides a beautiful richness which brings the sauce and ingredients together.
Creamy One-Pot Mushroom and Leek Pasta
This deeply satisfying pasta, brimming with rich umami, is made in just one pot, an approach that bolsters its flavors. Once the leek and mushrooms are caramelized and sticking to the pot, they’re deglazed to lift all the extra depth from the bottom of the pan. (Use any liquid for deglazing, whether water, wine, stock, vinegar or tomato juice.) This recipe leaves the choice of mushrooms up to you: Cremini and shiitake are a good combination, but you could even use rehydrated porcinis. If you are craving greens to cut through the richness, stir a few handfuls of baby spinach into the pasta just before you turn off the heat.
Kimchi and Potato Hash With Eggs
Kimchi is punchy and potatoes are mellow, but together, they play off one another like the characters in an opposites-attract love story. Though universally adored for their comforting, creamy texture, potatoes often feel stodgy as the main ingredient of a meal, but pairing them with tangy, spicy kimchi lightens them up. Cut your potatoes into small cubes to ensure they don’t take too long to cook. Hash just does not feel complete without eggs, which make this a handy one-pan meal. Finishing the dish with a drizzle of mayonnaise (preferably Kewpie, but other brands are fine, too) and a sprinkle of furikake lends a playful edge, or you can make it even more fun to eat by wrapping up piles of the hash in nori, which adds a nice crunch and will remind you of a sushi roll.
Breakfast Udon
This bowl of udon is inspired by the delicate noodle dishes often served as the first meal of the day in Japan. A light, savory broth of dashi, soy sauce and mirin provides a gentle kickstart to your morning. Dashi, a simple seaweed-based stock, is foundational to many Japanese dishes, bolstering the umami flavors of the ingredients and providing balance to the overall dish. If you have 10 minutes and a piece of dried kombu in your pantry, make a quick kombu dashi (see Tip), but in a pinch, a lightly seasoned vegetable stock works, too. The jammy seven-minute egg and wilted spinach are enough to make this dish feel substantial, though you could also add slices of pan-fried tofu, tempura vegetable, seaweed or other hearty toppings to transform this into a complete weeknight dinner.
Cauliflower Piccata
Piccata sauce — that buttery, briny combination of lemon, butter and capers, silky in texture and tart in flavor — is not just for chicken or swordfish. It’s also a zesty anchor for roasted vegetables. Here, cauliflower is roasted at high heat, which concentrates the flavor, adds nuttiness and encourages caramelization, before being doused with the sauce. Chickpeas make this a fuller vegetarian meal, but leave them out if you’d rather. Piccata dishes are often served with long pasta, which tangle with the tangy sauce, but this one is also great alongside rice or tender-crisp vegetables like blistered green beans. While you are at it, try this sauce with sweet butternut squash, charred broccoli, earthy roasted carrots, golden wedges of cabbage or crispy slices of tofu. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Thai Curry Risotto With Squash and Green Beans
A wonderful weeknight dinner option, baked risotto requires minimal effort and can quickly feed a hungry family. Curry paste is the star here, effortlessly lending lots of flavor. Roasted squash brings a hearty sweetness, while the green beans deliver crunch and bite. You can be flexible with the vegetables: Roasted sweet potato, brussels sprouts, broccoli or cauliflower would work equally well, or stir a big handful of spinach or kale through at the final stages before serving. This recipe yields quite a bit, so refrigerate leftovers for up to two days and reheat with more stock. You could also repurpose risotto into rice balls reminiscent of arancini: Simply form into balls, coat in breadcrumbs and shallow fry until crispy.
Corn Salad With Mango and Halloumi
This salad brings together some of summer’s best and brightest ingredients: corn, mango and cucumbers. A perfect, just-ripe mango provides sweetness as a counterbalance to the saltiness of fried halloumi. The cheese is fairly easy to find in supermarkets, but if you are looking for an alternative, you can use queso blanco, which is less salty, but fries in a similar way. (For best results, fry the cheese just before you are ready to eat.) Pita chips turn this into a heartier meal. You can also wrap the salad in corn tortillas and serve with guacamole. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Tom Yum Soup With Tofu and Vermicelli
Tom yum is a hot and sour soup from Thailand with lively notes of lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and galangal. There are many variations of this iconic soup, including tom kha (coconut milk and dominant galangal notes), tom yum pla (fish) and tom yum gai (chicken). This version is vegetarian, hence not traditional, but it is reminiscent of tom yum koong nam khon, a creamy version that uses canned evaporated milk. (Use coconut milk if you prefer). Tom yum is often moored by nam prik pao, a staple Thai chile paste of roasted chiles, shrimp paste and fish sauce, but in this recipe, a combination of soy sauce, lime, garlic and sambal oelek provides a similar umami kick. The addition of vermicelli and tofu is also unconventional, but it turns this soup into a hearty, quick and comforting weeknight dinner. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.