Recipes By Mark Bittman
974 recipes found
Not Risotto With Shrimp and Winter Squash
Pasta With Morels, Peas and Parmesan
Morels are expensive, but a few go a long way and there is nothing quite like them for flavor and texture -- chewy, meaty and that aroma, earthy and exotic. Even at $30 a pound, $7 or $8 seems well worth the price.
Asparagus With Morels and Tarragon
This dish is a French classic, a combination of strong, uncommon flavors that could have been designed to go together. Combining dried and fresh mushrooms is a reliable way to transfer the exotic flavor of truly wild mushrooms to tamer domesticated ones. Using the soaking liquid for the morels makes it certain that none of their essence goes to waste.
Double-Chocolate Rice Pudding
Split Green Mung Beans, Mumbai-Style
Curry-Rubbed Sweet-Potato Planks
Hortopita
This terrific recipe for a massive pile of mixed greens, herbs, leek and winter squash, all encased in homemade phyllo dough, came to The Times from the noted Greek-born food writer and cooking instructor Diane Kochilas, with whom Mark Bittman cooked in her Athens apartment. It’s a bit of work, to be sure, but Kochilas has codified the process so that it’s straightforward, and the results are both delicious and impressive. It's important to note that the phyllo dough created here need not be the extremely thin version we see in pastries, but rather a reasonably thin and easily worked dough rich in olive oil. It seems daunting. It is not.
Polkanes
Khatti Dal, Hyderabad-Style
Julie Sahni is an architect by training, but while teaching Indian cooking on the side, she was “discovered” in 1974 and written about in The Times by Florence Fabricant. She has since become a well-known author of Indian cookbooks. In 2012, she taught Mark Bittman how to make several different kinds of dal, including this one. Carefully follow instructions for the tadka — heated ghee or oil and spices. It is the finishing touch, unparalleled in its brilliance and simplicity, and pairing the correct tadka with its designated dal is if not critical then at least desirable. To make it, you take ghee or oil and heat it with seeds, spices and, usually, some kind of onions, often to a degree that other cuisines might consider “overcooked.” The tadka is poured into the dal just before serving, and the whole thing explodes with fragrance and flavor.
Bread Stuffing
Mark Bittman writes that this bread stuffing, based on a James Beard recipe, has been a staple on his Thanksgiving table for decades. First you make fresh bread crumbs: just whiz a few cups of slightly stale cubes of decent bread (crust and all, unless it’s super-hard) in a food processor. Keep the crumbs very, very coarse. Cook them with plenty of butter (yes, you can use olive oil) and good seasonings. Baked in a pan, this is delicious, with or without gravy. You could use it to stuff the turkey if you’d like — but once you've tried it cooked on its own, you won't look back.
Rhubarb Crisp
When you think of rhubarb you probably think of strawberry-rhubarb pie, a quintessential spring dessert, especially if it’s made by someone who makes good pies. I usually manage around one pie crust annually, so I need alternatives. Thus, when the spring’s first rhubarb shows up, I adjust the execution and produce a crisp. If rhubarb is young and fresh, you can trim it in seconds. If it has fibrous outer strings, peel them off as you would those of celery. Toss the rhubarb with orange or lemon juice and zest, and only a little sugar. (You can also substitute strawberries for some of the rhubarb if you want the classic combination.) Blend the ingredients for the crisp topping in a food processor, crumble the topping over the rhubarb mixture, and bake — it is nearly effortless and as good or better than a pie.
Braised Five-Spice Lamb Shanks With Soy and Ginger
For this recipe, two lamb shanks are seared and then braised for about two hours before being simmered in a fragrant mixture of soy, ginger and a few other things. Sauté some bok choy, stir it into the simmer and serve it all over rice. It is a savory Sunday night supper.
Mark Arax’s Marinated Lamb
Anne Rosenzweig's Winter Kimchi
Strawberries With Balsamic Vinegar
Grilled Or Pan-Grilled Steak With Chipotle, Bacon And Tomatoes
Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef-and-Noodle Soup)
In Vietnam, where there is enough rain, heat and sun to grow almost anything in large quantity, herbs are treated much like what most Americans consider "eating" greens. They sometimes form the bulk of salads and soups and are often used as wrappers, seasonings and condiments. Here, a pile of fresh herbs are served alongside this classic Vietnamese beef soup, so diners can add to taste. Basil, cilantro and mint are critical, but chervil, lovage, parsley, shiso, dill, marjoram and other tender herbs work, too.
Hijiki With Shiitakes And Beans
Steamed Cod With Mesclun And Sweet Soy Dressing
Crisp Spiced Chickpeas
Canned chickpeas bear a closer resemblance to cooked-from-dried than any other canned bean: They’re sturdy enough to withstand additional cooking without falling apart. Even after a 20-minute sizzle in a skillet with olive oil, they stay intact, their exteriors turning crunchy while their insides become creamy. Serve these as a party snack instead of roasted nuts, and you’ll have a hit. (The New York Times)
Celeriac Rémoulade
Grilled Tuna Stuffed With Mesclun
Pasta With White Sausage Sauce
Pasta and sausage are a combination that usually suggests a dense, heavy tomato sauce. But it can also mean the very opposite. Sausage, used in small amounts, can contribute to a relatively light, almost delicate pasta sauce. In fact, sausage is a gift to the minimalist cook: it comes already seasoned, and its seasoning can be used to flavor whatever goes with it. The technique is simple. It's easiest to start with bulk sausage, or patties, because then there's no need to remove the meat from a casing. (Though that is easy to do: Just slit the casing with a sharp knife and peel it off.) You crumble the sausage into a little melted butter, which adds smoothness to the final sauce (omit it if you prefer), add water or other liquid and finish with grated Parmesan.
Peanut Brittle
Here is a recipe for the easiest candy to make: brittle. The only thing even remotely tricky about it is getting the sugar to the tint of brown you want -- not too light, and definitely not too dark, which can happen in a flash. You can use any nut you want with this, but do add some salt if you use unsalted nuts.