Recipes By Jeff Gordinier
58 recipes found

Bobby Flay's Chicken With Roquefort
This recipe came to us from Bobby Flay in advance of the opening of his restaurant Gato. The chicken gets a jolt of flavor not only from the cheese but also from a honey and sherry vinegar gastrique, basically a sauce made from caramelized sugar or another sweet ingredient like the honey, deglazed with vinegar and then reduced.

Perfect Instant Ramen
Make some instant ramen. Slide an egg into the hot broth, then some butter. Crown the steaming noodles with slices of American cheese. Scatter a bunch of toasted sesame seeds and chopped scallions across the top, if you want to. Hardly a recipe! But for the chef Roy Choi, who gave it to The Times in 2014, doctored instant ramen is a taste of Korean-American straight-from-the-bag soul food. The butter, egg and cheese help coat the ramen noodles and deepen their flavor. “It’s our snack, it’s our peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it’s our bowl of cereal,” Mr. Choi said. “It’s something that has been a part of my life forever.”

Stephanie L. Tyson’s Sweet Potato Cornbread
Stephanie L. Tyson, the chef at a Winston-Salem, N.C., restaurant called Sweet Potatoes, likes to blend one Southern staple into another: sweet potato cornbread laced with a holiday-friendly undercurrent of cinnamon and nutmeg. Ms. Tyson has said that the cornbread just clicks with a side of greens, but we have a feeling it will play well with cranberries and gravy, too.

Hearty Quinoa and White Bean Soup
Soup doesn't have to be loaded with meat to be deeply satisfying. This one from Mary McCartney, devoted vegetarian, cookbook author and a daughter of Paul, is proof of that fact. Quinoa adds a lovely bit of texture, and beans – practically any variety will do – add heft and a wonderful creaminess as they break down in the broth. This recipe begs to be tampered with, so feel free to add more beans, vegetables, quinoa or fresh herbs. One reader even added a few cups of cooked pasta. It's almost impossible to mess up, so don't hold back.

Miso-and-Apple-Glazed Baked Ham

Tricolor Salad Alla Splendido
An Italian restaurant standard is kicked up a few notches in this recipe from Mario Carbone, the chef at Carbone restaurant in New York. If you find it hard to track down Italian frisée or various types of radicchio, you can substitute the usual trio of arugula, endive and radicchio. A helping of poached tuna adds richness and a hint of a salade niçiose.

Laurent Tourondel's Favorite Granola
This recipe came to The Times from the chef Laurent Tourondel. The focus is on texture: rolled oats, corn flakes, steel-cut oats and sliced almonds combine for a hefty crunch, while honey, vanilla, cinnamon and orange zest give it a golden warmth. The granola comes together quickly and will bake in 20 minutes or less. Store in an airtight container for a week, but you’ll probably run out before then.

Rosemary and Pistachio Granola
This recipe came to The Times from the chef Steve Redzikowski of OAK fourteenth in Boulder, Colo., and moves granola out of the breakfast realm while still remembering its hippie roots. It is a savory mix, pairing rosemary and red-pepper flakes with a flourish of juniper berries. As with most granolas, simply mix the ingredients and toast them in a low oven until crisp. The result here makes for a substantial afternoon snack, but try it using it as a crust for red meat. It’s a surprising addition to dinner.

Bobby Flay's Lemon Potatoes
Bobby Flay's restaurants have traditionally centered on the cuisine of the Southwest or of Spain. The menu of his new restaurant, Gato, will encompass regions around the Mediterranean — Spain, yes, but Italy, Provence, Greece, North Africa. “Lots of citrus," he said, like the Meyer lemon in this recipe for crushed potatoes. (The New York Times)

Yorkshire Pudding
This recipe is from the British-born chef April Bloomfield, who says it dates back to an era when an English pub might cook a hunk of meat by dangling it from a hook above a roaring fire. The “pudding” emerged from a pan full of runny batter that would have been placed beneath the meat to soak up the juices. “The heat of the fire would make the Yorkshire pudding rise up, and all the fat would seep in,” she said. (Life back then was “nasty, brutish, and short,” as Thomas Hobbes once griped, but apparently there were upsides.) Of course, making Yorkshire pudding these days is a more domesticated undertaking. “Now what happens is you kind of recreate that,” said Ms. Bloomfield, who serves it as part of an order-ahead prime-rib feast at the Breslin Bar & Dining Room in the Ace Hotel in Manhattan. “It’s very soulful,” she said. “Give me 10 Yorkshire puddings and a thin sliver of beef, and I’ll be very happy.”

Fountain of Youth

Glazed Grilled Carrots
These glazed carrots, from Karen and Quinn Hatfield of the Los Angeles restaurant Odys and Penelope, are caramelized and sweetened from a quick hot turn on the grill, then tossed in a salty dressing of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic and ginger. Turning the carrots often and moving them around on the grill keeps them from burning. And if your carrots are burning but aren't yet cooked through, transfer them to a baking sheet and finish cooking in a 400-degree oven.

Backyard Flank Steak Teriyaki
This sweet-and-salty steak comes from the writer Jeff Gordinier’s mother, who cooked it on a grill on their patio in California, under the grapefruit tree, after having soaked for hours in her teriyaki marinade. But marinated flank steak is such a foolproof crowd-pleaser that it can translate to any American topography. Serve in high summer as the sun goes down and the temperature drops.

Crepes-Style Manicotti
For many Italian-American families, in New Jersey and elsewhere, the Thanksgiving smorgasbord doesn’t feel quite right without a little touch of red sauce. So you say: “Manicotti? That doesn’t really go with turkey and stuffing and cranberries.” What, you want to argue about it? Besides, Thanksgiving also represents an American expression of abbondanza, the Italian concept of too-muchness that makes a meal feel epic. Here, courtesy of Reservoir Tavern, which has been serving customers in the Boonton area since 1936, comes a recipe for baked manicotti that uses crepes in place of pasta. Nicola Bevacqua, a member of the family that owns the place, said that his own family digs into this melted-cheese masterwork each holiday, as do the New Jersey locals who drop by to pick it up. The crepes, he assured us, “are light and airy and will leave you plenty of room for the turkey.”

Pocket Dressing
In a lot of states, people don’t just eat food on Thanksgiving; they hunt for it. Lora Smith, a writer and farmer with roots in Kentucky, sends along a recipe handed down from her great-grandmother, for her family’s “pocket” dressing: a baked patty of dressing that slides easily into the pockets and knapsacks of rabbit and quail hunters. The Smiths also have the patties at the table, where they are passed around on a platter. Texture is key. The outside must be browned and crisp. Inside, softness comes from cornbread and biscuits, and chewiness from foraged mushrooms. A family member (traditionally, the oldest matriarch) leaves a thumbprint indentation on each patty before baking, so that a little gravy can settle and soak in. The hunt continued through Thanksgiving weekend. “They’d again take the leftover dressing wrapped in wax paper with them, and sometimes turkey sandwiches or turkey with fresh biscuits pulled out of the oven that morning,” Ms. Smith said. “My father always carried a small backpack where he kept extra leftovers and cold bottles of Coke. His other job was to carry the rabbits and quail they shot in the backpack.” When the weather was especially chilly, the patties solved another problem. According to Ms. Smith, “they also served as nice hand warmers.”

Grilled Broccoli With Apricot Puttanesca
This astoundingly good recipe came to The Times from Nick Anderer, who made it over an open fire when he was the chef of Marta in New York. A sweet and sour puttanesca is draped over charred broccoli still warm from the grill, creating a dish that goes well next to a piece of grilled fish or meat. Do cut the broccoli into large florets; it makes them easier to manage on the grill.

Charred Broccoli
New Nordic cuisine has spread far beyond Scandinavia in the last few years, and this dish goes a long toward explaining why. The broccoli, seared but still crunchy, is brightened by a beguilingly salty, savory and garlicky aioli, then finished with buttery seasoned panko. While the recipe requires multiple steps and some attention to make sure the bread crumbs and garlic are not overcooked, the preparation pulls together easily. This dish also lends itself well to situations where time may be limited, as both the aioli and bread crumbs can easily be prepared ahead of time. The result is a composed, umami-laden dish that is rich but balanced.

Mendiant Tart With Dark Chocolate Ganache

Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir
Some of the best wine on the planet comes from Oregon, and with this recipe Jenn Louis, the chef behind Lincoln Restaurant and Sunshine Tavern in Portland, has found a way to weave it into the Thanksgiving feast: as a boon companion to cranberries. “Many deep red wines, or port, can overwhelm the punchy berry,” said Ms. Louis. “Instead, Oregon pinot noir keeps the cranberry sauce bright and clean.” The recipe here doesn’t hold back; it is shot through with allspice, cloves, peppercorns, rosemary, cinnamon, vanilla and honey, in a mix that calls to mind the rusticity and abundance of the Pacific Northwest.

Massaman Syrup

Tita Em’s Chicken Wings Adobo
Tita Em is a nickname for Zosima Arceo Phojanakong, also known as Emma, who happens to be the mother of King Phojanakong, the chef at Kuma Inn on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her background is Filipino, and Mr. Phojanakong’s recipe for chicken wings is a spin on something that his mother used to cook every week for her family when the chef was a boy: a whole chicken simmered in a silky, peppery adobo gravy. In Mr. Phojanakong’s version, that sauce gets extra creaminess from coconut milk. At Kuma Inn, the wings have become a signature dish.

Kumquat and Clove Gin and Tonic

English Pea and Onion Salad
Jonathon Sawyer is no snob. Although he runs the kitchens in a slew of acclaimed restaurants in the Cleveland area, including The Greenhouse Tavern, the chef decided to honor Thanksgiving and his home state, Ohio, by sending along a personal recipe that calls to mind the processed-food delights that, for decades, characterized the cooking of the Midwest. “Think of this salad as a little slice of nostalgia from the canned-and-frozen households of the mid-20th century,” he wrote in an email. Mr. Sawyer recommends frozen peas (“I think frozen peas are magical,” he said) and organic eggs, but over the years he has seen the dish made with Miracle Whip, cubes of cheese from the deli, powdered Ranch dressing, French’s fried onions. “The real goal of having a salad like this on the holiday table is it’s a tart, sweet and delicious break from the overindulgence of roasted birds, velvety gravy and buttery potatoes,” he said. And hey, that break from the overindulgence happens to have bacon in it.

Bay Scallop Aguachile
Adapted from John Martinez, Super Linda, Manhattan