Recipes By Mark Bittman
973 recipes found
Spaghetti With Fried Eggs
Here's a quick and delicious pasta dish to make when you have little time, and even less food in the house. All you need is a box of spaghetti, four eggs, olive oil and garlic (Parmesan is a delicious, but optional, addition).
Chocolate Soufflé
Some of the most experienced home cooks are afraid of soufflés. They’ll never rise, they’ll immediately fall, they’re difficult to make, they’re temperamental. Yet people do want to make soufflés — or want them made for them. Hence this recipe, which is not only not scary, it’s also easy. It can be made ahead of time, it’s rich and light, it will dazzle your significant other (or anyone else), and it requires no more effort than it takes to beat a few eggs.
Sweet Potato Fries
These addictive seasoned "fries" from Mark Bittman are actually baked, but we promise you won't miss the grease. The spice mix – garlic powder, paprika, salt and black pepper – can be used on regular potatoes as well (you'll just need to increase the baking time a bit).
French 75
A fresh drink with lemon juice and gin, this concoction takes its nationality from a topping of Champagne.
Vodka Soda
Cool and refreshing. Vodka, soda, lime. That’s it. Perfect for a bar stop and also for cocktail hour at home.
Black Bean Burgers
Also known as McBitty's Bean Burgers, these veggie burgers from Mark Bittman are loaded with black beans, porcini mushrooms, garlic, smoked paprika (or chili powder) and soy sauce, for a satisfying patty you can serve with all the usual burger fixings.
Pressure Cooker Short Ribs in Plum Sauce
A pressure cooker can take an afternoon's project and turn it into a dinner-in-an-hour affair. Case in point: These short ribs, adapted from the cookbook author Lorna Sass, would have required a few hours on the stove. Here they can be made in a fraction of the time.
Pressure Cooker Black Bean Soup
This inky soup, made in a pressure cooker, shows off black beans at their toothsome best. Adapted from the cookbook author and pressure-cooking maven Lorna Sass, the soup gets a bold finish with a mound of tomato-avocado salsa. It is hearty enough to serve for lunch or a light dinner.
Pressure Cooker Lamb Meatballs
This recipe for lamb meatballs with a Greek-inspired tomato sauce, adapted from the cookbook author and pressure-cooking maven Lorna Sass, comes together in well under an hour.
Zucchini Soufflé
To keep the soufflé as light as possible, the zucchini is grated (the food processor makes short work of this), and then cooked with onion and garlic until it’s really soft, almost melting. (If there’s liquid in the pan when you’re done, drain it to further lighten the mixture.)
Lemon Soufflé
This soufflé, adapted from Mark Bittman's famous tome, "How to Cook Everything," is rich, fluffy and very easy. You can also make orange or Grand Marnier variations. If you want to make individual soufflés, use a little more butter and grease four 1 1/2- to 2-cup ramekins.
Salmon With Salsa Fresca
There was a time when the appearance of the first ripe tomatoes would have inspired me to make the southern Italian sauce of raw tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil. These days, I turn to a Mexican-style salsa fresca: tomatoes, white onion, chili and loads of cilantro and lime. I love salsa with fish, and since it is wild salmon season, the marriage seems opportune. Halibut and swordfish, whether grilled, broiled, roasted, or even steamed, are equally fine. Though the salsa is quick to prepare, it's best if allowed to sit for 15 to 30 minutes before serving. The tomatoes' juices will run, and the flavors will mingle. No more than an hour, though.
New Orleans BBQ Shrimp
Barbecue shrimp is an old New Orleans recipe that has nothing to do with barbecue or with grilling. Its name comes from the spicy, smoky flavor the shrimp derive from being cooked with Worcestershire sauce and lots of black pepper. It is a fine and almost absurdly fast dish — once the shrimp are peeled, you can have it on the table in 10 minutes — with a rich, savory sauce that completely belies the little effort it takes. But as I discovered once I started playing around with it, the key ingredient is neither Worcestershire sauce nor pepper, but rather butter. If you start with about a tablespoon for each serving of shrimp, you can add almost any flavor you like and create a sauce with the same creaminess and rich flavor. But start with Worcestershire sauce and pepper!
Mark Bittman’s Shrimp In Green Sauce
Green sauce means different things to different cooks, but I like the Iberian interpretation best. It draws its color from parsley and its impact from chilies, scallions, and, mostly, garlic. I find it difficult to use too much garlic here, and have never really reached the outer limit; my recipe calls for six cloves, but twice that amount is not unreasonable. Shrimp is the perfect candidate for this green sauce: it can withstand high heat, it gives off some juices while it cooks, and its pink hue is absolutely gorgeous when surrounded by the flecks of green. This dish won't take you much more than half an hour. And although it's a perfect week-night meal, divided into eight it makes an impressive starter for a dinner party.
Fried Zucchini
Fried food is probably not on anyone’s lists of healthy eats, but you have to start with this: Fat is good for you. There are differences among fats, of course, but with trans-fats in full retreat and lard and butter making comebacks, the whole fat-eating thing is starting to make some sense. Of course, the key word is moderation. You can eat fat as long as it’s high quality and you don’t eat it to the exclusion of plants. That’s one reason you shouldn’t reject deep-frying at home; I do it about once a month. The second reason is that you know you love it. The third is that it can be fast and easy. The fourth is that you can deep-fry plants. (And anything else.)
Za’atar-Spiced Zucchini
Za’atar, a Middle Eastern spice mix made from dried thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds, gives this grilled zucchini a fragrant and herbal twist.
Stir-Fried Sweet Potatoes
In a 2010 love letter to the food processor, Mark Bittman gave the machine the ultimate compliment: “I upgraded its position in my kitchen from a cabinet to a spot on my itsy-bitsy counter,” he wrote. Here, he uses the machine to chop and grate vegetables, cutting down on prep time (and any possibility of shredding your knuckles on a box grater). The end result is a quick side dish, full of flavor from the ginger and soy sauce.
Pasta Alla Norma
This traditional Sicilian pasta dish of sautéed eggplant tossed with tomato sauce and topped with ricotta salata makes for a satisfying vegetarian dinner, and it can be thrown together in under an hour.
Baingan Bharta
This satisfying vegetarian dish is adapted from a recipe belonging to Julie Sahni, the popular Indian chef, cookbook author and teacher. Its preparation is very similar to baba ghanoush in that you roast and mash the eggplant before seasoning it with aromatics, herbs and spices, but its flavor profile is wildly different. Here, turmeric, garam masala and jalapeño add warmth, while the addition of lime juice provides brightness. Serve it as a dip with flatbread (like pita or store-bought roti), or as a main dish with rice and raita.
Braised Eggplant, Pork and Mushrooms
The honest, straightforward cuisine of the Hakkas, a nomadic people dispersed all over China, may be thought of as a country cousin of Cantonese. Dishes from the Hakka diaspora may not have the distinction or impact of those from Sichuan, but because they’re interpreted broadly (note the addition of ketchup in many versions of pork and pineapple in the United States), they’re fun, and they’re easy to cook. This simple recipe for braised eggplant with pork and mushrooms, adapted from "The Hakka Cookbook: Chinese Soul Food From Around the World" by the food writer Linda Lau Anusasananan, is one such dish. Be sure to use small Asian or globe eggplants as they're more likely to keep their color and shape, and if you like more sauce, double it up.
Grilled Asparagus With Lemon Dressing
Although steamed asparagus has an unmatched purity of taste, I love the earthy, charred flavor added by the grill, a flavor that can also be achieved with stove-top pan grilling, which combines high heat and a dry, heavy skillet.
Pan-Roasted Asparagus Soup
This simple soup can be ready in under an hour and takes full advantage of the flavor of asparagus by pan-roasting it before puréeing. Fresh tarragon takes it up a notch.
Fast Tomato Sauce With Anchovies
Despite their reputation, anchovies are not overpowering, at least once cooked. Used with garlic as the start of a fast pasta sauce, they dissolve almost instantly and add a mysteriously meaty complexity that makes the sauce seem as if it had simmered for hours. Tossed with linguine and arugula, they make a simple dish sophisticated. If you're feeding a crowd, it doubles or triples beautifully.
Vegan Chocolate Pudding With Cinnamon and Chile
This winner of a pudding, made with silken tofu, takes about as much time to make as hot chocolate. And in fact the combination of cinnamon, chile and chocolate recalls Mexican hot chocolate. Use the highest quality chocolate — semisweet or bittersweet, please — you can lay your hands on. After all, it's the flavor of the chocolate, not the flavor of the tofu, that will dominate. The texture is almost unbelievably good.