Recipes By Julia Moskin
392 recipes found
Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins With Orange Streusel
This master recipe for juicy, whole grain berry muffins is both extremely flexible and extremely rewarding. It is sweet but not sugary, packed with whole grains but not dense, and reasonably rich in fiber, protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. The fresh berries and nuts are interchangeable with dried fruit, coconut or sunflower seeds. And the muffins freeze beautifully; they can go from a 300-degree oven to the breakfast table (or the car) in about 20 minutes.
Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are very forgiving, and with a good masher, hot potatoes and enough butter and salt, cooks can accommodate religionists of the fluffy style and partisans of the creamy and dense. Be openhanded with salt and butter but stingy with milk, which will flatten out the bright, earthy potato taste. You might also enjoy this video of the recipe that walks through a few variations. (And for everything you need to know to make perfect potatoes, visit our potato guide.)
Chinese Smashed Cucumbers With Sesame Oil and Garlic
In China, cucumbers are considered the ideal foil for hot weather and hot food. Versions of this salad, pai huang gua, are served all over the country, sometimes spiked with dried chiles and Sichuan peppercorns for more dimensions of flavor. In Beijing, people buy whole chilled cucumbers from street vendors and munch them on the go, much as Americans become attached to their cups of iced coffee in summer. The smashing process, a classic Chinese technique, cracks the skin, helps release the seeds and splits the flesh into appealing craggy pieces. Salting and chilling the cracked cucumbers give them the perfect cool, crunchy, watery mouth feel.
Best Gazpacho
More of a drink than a soup, served in frosted glasses or chilled tumblers, gazpacho is perfect when it is too hot to eat but you need cold, salt and lunch all at the same time. Gazpacho is everywhere in Seville, Spain, where this recipe comes from, but it's not the watered-down salsa or grainy vegetable purée often served in the United States. This version has no bread and is a creamy orange-pink rather than a lipstick red. That is because a large quantity of olive oil is required for making delicious gazpacho, rather than take-it-or-leave it gazpacho. The emulsion of red tomato juice, palest green cucumber juice and golden olive oil produces the right color and a smooth, almost fluffy texture.
Bulgogi
Bulgogi, a Korean classic of marinated grilled beef, is easy to make and fun to eat; it’s no wonder it is one of the country’s most successful culinary exports. As with most Korean barbecue, the meat is seasoned with sesame and scallion, and has ripe pears in the marinade to tenderize the meat and add a characteristic sweetness. Round, pale yellow Asian pears are traditional, but Bosc pears are just fine. The meat is only half the recipe: Just as important are the crunchy vegetables, pungent herbs and savory sauces that all get wrapped together into delicious mouthfuls. Perilla is a common Korean herb in the mint family, but if you cannot find it, you can try other herbs like shiso or cilantro. Make sure to wrap your bundle tightly: According to Korean tradition, you must finish it in a single bite!
Orange-Currant Scones
The orange zest and currants in these tender scones are an homage to the chef Judy Rodgers of the Zuni Cafe in San Francisco, who made her storied scones until 1997. The dough and method here, though, are adapted from Heather Bertinetti, the pastry chef at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. The genius of this particular scone recipe is in the geometry. Slicing a rolled-out slab of dough into squares or rectangles is infinitely simpler than cutting out rounds — and there's less chance of toughening the dough by re-rolling it and adding more flour. You can use any kind of chopped dried fruit in place of the currants.
Classic Marinara Sauce
Homemade marinara is almost as fast and tastes immeasurably better than even the best supermarket sauce — and it's made with basic pantry ingredients. All the tricks to a bright red, lively-tasting sauce, made just as it is in the south of Italy (no butter, no onions) are in this recipe. Use a skillet instead of the usual saucepan: the water evaporates quickly, so the tomatoes are just cooked through as the sauce becomes thick. (Our colleagues over at Wirecutter have spent a lot of time testing skillets to find the best on the market. If you're looking to purchase one, check out their skillet guide.)
Butter and Buttermilk
This recipe is adapted from Anne Mendelson, the author of “Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages.” It’s a bit of a project. There’s a fair amount of stirring, processing, straining and separating. But the result is butter and buttermilk from your own kitchen, making this a fun recipe to make with children in advance of meals featuring their flavors.
Tsak Sha Momos
Momos are shaped like half-moons or like plump round purses. And although they can be made with store-bought wrappers, most Tibetan households have a small wooden dowel reserved for rolling out the thin rounds of dough. Back in Tibet, wheat was even scarcer than meat, so momos were treats for special occasions like Losar, the Tibetan New Year celebration.
Ginger-Glazed Short Ribs
Spoonbread With Roasted Green Chilies
Chinese Chile-Scallion Oil
This formula, adapted from the chef Barbara Tropp, yields both a fragrant, fiery oil and a brick-red chile sludge. They work as well in a wok as they do in a bean soup or meat braise, on cold noodles, or to enliven subpar takeout.
Tomato Chile Jam
If ketchup put on $300 Japanese cult-brand jeans, this is what it would taste like: global, hip, sexy. This formula — infinitely adaptable, good with cheese, with fish, with spring rolls, as a chutney, as a sambal — began with the New Zealand chef Peter Gordon and was adapted by Darina Allen, the Irish cooking teacher. It appears in her book “Forgotten Skills of Cooking,” the first book anyone interested in craft cooking should read.
Horseradish Beer Mustard
This mustard, from “Tart and Sweet,” by Jessie Knadler and Kelly Geary, is easy, fiery and great. Use it to elevate a simple dinner of sausages, roast chicken or steak.
Perfect Corn Muffin Mix
Way back in 1996, when the Magnolia Bakery opened on Bleecker Street, before cupcake-mad crowds packed every inch of the place, it actually served breakfast. At tables. These muffins, no longer served at the bakery, are relics from that time, incomparable in flavor and butteriness. Most mixes include lard, which I don't mind in principle, but don't want to eat in its shelf-stable form.
Vin d'Orange
Oranges steeped in rosé produce a powerfully pretty house wine, with a flavor akin to Lillet or Campari. The most traditional versions from the south of France are made with bitter Seville oranges, the ones used for marmalade. This recipe, from Sally Clarke, a chef in London, is adjusted for the sweetness of American fruit. Your citrus should be organic and clean, because anything on the peel will end up in the wine. The end result is lovely plain or mixed with sparkling wine or water.
Chai Masala
Sweetened, spiced hot tea is sold all over India by chai wallahs, or tea sellers. Chai masala refers to the spice blend used to make masala chai, the spiced beverage. This version, which is adapted from “Street Food of India” by Sephi Bergerson, is made with black tea, fresh ginger, green cardamom pods, milk and sugar. Make it your own by adding cinnamon, cloves, pepper, fennel or star anise.
Salsa Verde
Danny Mena, the Mexico City native who is a chef at Hecho en Dumbo, described a good salsa as being “poignant” with heat when he spoke with Julia Moskin in 2010. This recipe for his salsa verde employs a good number of chiles — anywhere between eight and 12 — alongside a couple of pounds of tangy tomatillos. Ms. Moskin described it as “a rounded, tomatillo-based trickle of concentrated flavor with Serrano chiles.” This cooked sauce is ready quickly, and just as good as a table sauce as it is in a larger main, like chilaquiles.
Korean Fried Chicken
Yangnyeom dak, or Korean fried chicken, known for its crunchy exterior and spicy-sweet glaze, became popular in South Korea when fast-food places opened there after the war. Along with budae jjigae, tteokbokki and corn cheese, it’s part of a category of food known as “anju,” or dishes typically eaten with alcohol, but it's a crispy, sticky delight no matter what you're drinking. This five-star version, which was adapted from “Quick & Easy Korean Cooking” by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee (Chronicle, 2009), can be made with boneless chicken thighs or bone-in wings.
Thai Laab Gai (Chicken With Lime, Chili and Fresh Herbs)
Laab gai is a dish of browned ground chicken, mint, basil and red onions dressed with lime juice and ground red chiles that's popular in Laos and Isan, neighboring rural sections of Thailand. (The dish is sometimes spelled larb, lob or lop.) It's perfect hot weather food: spicy, crunchy and light, but rich in flavors and contrasts. Traditionally, this dish is made with a roasted rice powder that's prepared by toasting raw rice in a wok, then grounding it to a powder, but you can find premade roasted rice powder at Asian markets. Whatever you do, don't skip it — it adds a nuttiness that's essential to the authentic flavor of the dish.
Oatmeal Crème Brûlée With Almond and Orange
At Primehouse in Chicago, David Burke ropes in orange and oatmeal for a crème brûlée: orange zest, stirred into cooked oatmeal with brown sugar, sits at the bottom, contrasting with a creamy custard and a caramelized sugar top. He serves it in eggshells after brunch, with its salt bombs like sausages, eggs Benedict and smoked fish. “Putting salt and sweet together is always going to be successful,” Mr. Burke said. “That’s the classic candy bar trick.”
Banana Bread
Here is an easy way to use up the bananas on the countertop, or brown ones thrown in the back of the freezer. Don’t overmix the ingredients, and make sure the bananas are very ripe.
Jerk Chicken
Done right, jerk chicken is one of the great barbecue traditions of the world, up there with Texas brisket and Chinese char siu. It is Jamaica to the bone, aromatic and smoky, sweet but insistently hot. All of its traditional ingredients grow in the island’s lush green interior: fresh ginger, thyme and scallions; Scotch bonnet peppers; and the sweet wood of the allspice tree, which burns to a fragrant smoke. “It’s not a sauce, it’s a procedure,” Jerome Williams, a Jamaican-born Brooklyn resident, told The Times in 2008 on a Sunday in Prospect Park, where families arrive as early as 6 a.m. for lakeside grilling spots, a few of which are actually authorized by the parks department. “It has to be hot, but it cannot only be hot, or you get no joy from it.” This recipe delivers that joy.
Green Beans With Ginger and Garlic
Here is a recipe for fresh green beans, boiled just until barely tender and bright green, then tossed in a pan with minced garlic and ginger. The beans can be cooked a day ahead, leaving nothing more to do before the meal than to assemble everything over high heat.