Recipes By Mark Bittman
981 recipes found
Stone Fruit Patchwork Bake
You can use any stone fruit or berries you like; just adjust the amount of sugar and lemon juice to get a mixture that’s sweet but not cloying, and with enough acidity to taste a bit sharp. (Many plums and berries won’t need any lemon juice.) You can make it in a baking dish, as I do, a pie plate or even a cast-iron skillet. In any case, the result will be a rustic but delicious pie-like dessert.
Spinach and Apples
Skewered Grilled Fruit With Ginger Syrup
This is a melange of quickly grilled fruit, brushed with a ginger sauce that itself takes about five minutes to put together. The sauce is a simple sugar syrup -- half sugar, half water, boiled together until the sugar melts -- and is infused with a lot of ginger. You could use other flavors instead (mint, lemon verbena, thyme, even chili), but ginger seems perfect to me.
Mark Bittman’s Banana Bread
This banana bread from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" is really something special. One-fourth of the flour is whole wheat, which contributes a kind of depth you’d miss if it weren’t there. There are walnuts — not unusual, but again, you’d miss them if they weren’t there, And the key, secret ingredient, is coconut. Which really puts the thing over the top.
Citrus-Almond Poundcake
This poundcake is richer, moister and more flavorful than any you’ve tasted, and it’s not difficult to make. (Much of it is done in the food processor; do not pulse more than you must.) The consistency and flavor rely on the almond paste in the batter, and a simple soak of lemon juice, orange juice and sugar; the cake acts like a sponge, absorbing the sweetened citrus juice. A word of advice about this or any other Bundt cake: butter and flour the pan well. Even nonstick Bundt pans can be tricky. There’s nothing more frustrating than having your cake fall partly out, leaving the pretty top bit clinging to the pan.
Vanilla Pudding
If you can start with truly natural dairy — definitely not ultrapasteurized and ideally bought from a farm or a farmers’ market— you are really ahead of the game. Real vanilla beans also make a palpable difference. I have stopped making vanilla pudding with vanilla extract. Although the flavor of extract is perfectly acceptable, when the dominant flavor is vanilla, you can really taste the difference if you start with a good bean.
Grilled Pork Skewers With Peanut-Basil Sauce
Peanut butter is more than just a sandwich spread, or a perfect accompaniment to chocolate. It can also substitute for tahini or be a worthy addition to certain meats. Here, it serves as the basis of a dipping sauce and marinade, a counterbalance to smoky pork skewers. A great warm-weather dinner, it's ready in minutes, on the grill pan, the grill, or even the broiler.
Food-Processor Apple Tart
I use the food processor for just about every pastry dough there is — and have for 20 years. And I cut far more even slices, far faster than I ever could by hand, of almost anything sliceable.
Orange Cake, Ancona-Style
Orange cake is a terrific dessert to serve after the rich, meaty stews of winter: boeuf bourguignon, short ribs, lamb tagine. The method that Marcella Hazan uses here — poking holes into the cake and letting orange syrup seep in — has a similar effect to brining: what would otherwise be a dry cake becomes flavorful, fragrant, and juicy. And it’s even better than brining, because it always works, takes no time, and also makes the cake last longer.
Free-Form Apple Or Pear Tart
PBJ Sandwich Cookies
Cookies made with peanut butter seem to keep getting better, especially as we learn to appreciate salty desserts. The peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich cookie recipe here was inspired by a nearly savory PBJ dessert at Momofuku Ssam Bar a couple of years ago.
Mark Bittman's Basic Pizza Dough
10-Minute Fruit Gratin
Hoecakes With Fruit
Roast Turkey Breast
Roasting a whole turkey breast for Thanksgiving, rather than an entire bird, offers a few clear advantages. It cuts roasting time at least in half, reduces the hassle of carving, and frees you to create more interesting side dishes. But perhaps the best argument for roasting a breast is that you can produce white meat that is truly moist, as opposed to the dried-out white meat that results from roasting a whole turkey until the legs are cooked through. A breast of about three pounds is fine for a party of four, while one weighing six pounds or more can serve about 10. And yes, there are usually enough leftovers for sandwiches.
Afghan-Style Pumpkin (With Yogurt Sauce)
Thai Beef Salad With Mint
Tomato Salsa With Fruit
Fruit Salsa With Chipotle Puree
Butter-Poached Stone Fruit
Stone fruit is summer in your hand. To me, there isn’t a better unmessed-with food than a good, ripe peach. Still, stone fruit can be fun to play around with, and a recipe for one kind is a recipe for almost all. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, mangoes and cherries all respond similarly to sautéing, poaching, macerating, grilling, roasting and drying. And once cooked, stone fruit goes with just about everything. The length of cooking time will vary, depending mostly on the quality and ripeness of the fruit. Peel it if you like, or leave the skin on to retain texture and extra flavor. (Peeled fruit will cook through faster.) To peel, plunge fruit into boiling water for 10 to 20 seconds to loosen the skin, then slip it off. When you pit the fruit — and you will need to remove the stones for each of these recipes — do so over a bowl to catch the juice, and use it instead of water where needed.
Shaking Beef
This savory-sweet stir-fry, known as bo luc lac or “dice” in Vietnamese, gets its English name from the constant shaking of the pan performed by the cook while browning the meat. It can be tough work to move the hot wok constantly, and the intense heat can burn the ingredients in a wink. This recipe, adapted from the one served at Slanted Door, Charles Phan’s immensely popular Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco, has been simplified for the home cook. Once the meat is marinated, it is quick work – 20 minutes from start to finish – but don’t try to expedite matters further by dumping all of the meat into the wok at once. Cook the meat in two batches (a pound at a time) so you get a nice, crisp sear.
Sugar Snap Peas With Horseradish
Sausages With Grapes