Recipes By Mark Bittman
973 recipes found
Tofu ‘Chorizo’
Crumble the tofu as if it were ground or coarsely chopped, then cook it until the water is driven out and you get a result which is very similar to ground meat and which takes on the flavor of whatever was cooked with it.
Cold Noodles With Sesame Sauce, Chicken And Cucumbers
It doesn't surprise me how often people order cold noodles with sesame sauce at Chinese restaurants. What is surprising, though, is how few people make the dish at home. It is incredibly easy to prepare, with common ingredients, and you can serve it as a main course or appetizer. You don't even need sesame sauce. Peanut butter is an acceptable substitute, as long as you use good peanut butter, simply defined as that made with peanuts and salt. (The name brands contain about 10 percent added hydrogenated fat, plus a couple of other typical additives.) Creamy is more common, but chunky is also good. It's easy enough to buy sesame paste (tahini) at health-food stores specializing in Middle Eastern ingredients and even at supermarkets. Sesame oil, which contributes mightily to the flavor of the finished dish, is a staple sold in Asian food stores (and, increasingly, in supermarkets).
Crisp Quinoa Cakes With Pine Nuts and Raisins
Three-Cheese-and-Mushroom Quinoa Risotto
Crisp Quinoa Cakes With Almonds, Rosemary and Dijon
Speedy No-Knead Bread
The original recipe for no-knead bread, which Mark Bittman learned from the baker Jim Lahey, was immediately and wildly popular. How many novices it attracted to bread baking is anyone’s guess. But certainly there were plenty of existing bread bakers who excitedly tried it, liked it and immediately set about trying to improve it. This is an attempt to cut the start-to-finish time down to a few hours, rather than the original 14 to 20 hours' rising time. The solution is simple: use more yeast.
Grilled Lebanese Flatbread
This recipe is a flatbread that’s somewhere between a Middle Eastern-style pita and an Indian naan. Like most leavened breads, this one consists primarily of flour, water and yeast. And, like any leavened bread, it requires some rising, though no more than an hour.
Smoky Quinoa Crumbs
Crisp Quinoa Cakes With Cilantro, Scallions and Sriracha
Not-Quite-Whole-Grain Baguettes
Sourdough Rye
Roast Shoulder of Lamb With Couscous-and-Date Stuffing
All Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread
The dough will be somewhat stiff. So to get it into the pan, first pat and coax it into a rectangle shape a little smaller than the pan, smoothing out the cracks and holes as you work. Then transfer the rectangle to the pan and use the back of your hand to gently press the dough into the pan.
Couscous Salad With Dried Cranberries and Pecans
This combination of pecans, cranberries and couscous has the feel and flavor of a classic autumn side dish without the heaviness. It can also be made a day in advance.
Spicy Big Tray Chicken
At Spicy Village in in Manhattan’s Chinatown, the Spicy Big Tray Chicken arrives on an aluminum tray. You eat it on a foam plate with a plastic fork or chopsticks. It’s a mound of chicken nearly afloat in a bath of dark, spicy sauce that contains star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, chile, garlic, cilantro, a few mystery ingredients and potatoes. Those of you who live in or visit New York should eat this dish whenever you can, but it can absolutely be prepared at home. It’s not precisely a simple recipe. But it’s an excellent project one. And you can improve on the ingredients. The restaurant uses both MSG and Budweiser in the recipe. We subbed in Modelo Negra and omitted the MSG, but you certainly don't need to.
Spinach Lasagna
Equal parts indulgent and virtuous, this meatless lasagna from Mark Bittman will please everyone at the table. Serve it with a green salad on a weeknight, or alongside a platter of meatballs for Sunday dinner. And listen: We won't tell anyone if you use no-boil noodles or frozen spinach. It's all good either way.
Champagne Cocktail
To toast The Minimalist column upon its exit from the pages of the Dining section, a Champagne cocktail — developed with help from the bartender Jim Meehan. It is appropriately celebratory and bittersweet.
Corn Salad With Tomatoes, Feta and Mint
Fresh raw corn shucked from the cob is ideal here. The juice from the tomatoes delivers just the right amount of acidity, so there’s no need for vinegar. Eat this as is, by the bowl, or toss it with cooked rice or beans for a more filling meal — you’ll want to add oil and vinegar accordingly. In midsummer, with peak-season produce, there is nothing better.
Roast Chicken
With an ingredient list just four items long (chicken, olive oil, salt, pepper), the genius of this bare-bones roast chicken is in its technique. To make it, thoroughly preheat a cast-iron skillet before sliding into it a seasoned bird, breast side up. In under an hour you’ll get a stunner of a chicken, with moist, tender white meat, crisp, salty chicken skin, and juicy dark meat all done to a turn. If you don’t already have a cast-iron skillet large enough to hold a whole chicken, this recipe is a good enough reason to invest in one.
Salmon Roasted in Butter
This simple fish dish is best made with wild salmon, but it works equally well with the farmed sort. It's astonishingly easy. In a hot oven, melt butter in a skillet until it sizzles, add the salmon, flip, remove the skin, then allow to roast a few minutes more. You'll have an elegant fish dinner in about 15 minutes. Don't be afraid to play with herb and fat combinations: parsley, chervil or dill work well with butter; thyme, basil or marjoram with olive oil; or peanut oil with cilantro or mint.
Provençal Salmon With Fennel, Rosemary and Orange Zest
In 1998, Mark Bittman and Katy Sparks, then chef of Quilty's in Manhattan, developed this easy recipe for salmon encrusted with fennel seeds, rosemary and orange zest. It's a simple though sophisticated twist on weeknight salmon. A couple things to keep in mind when making this dish: Make sure you use fillets of equal size. Buy skinned salmon fillet from the thick (that is, not the tail) end of the fish then cut across the fillet to make the four pieces. Also, allow the fish to sit for a while after coating to encourage the fragrant seasonings to permeate the flesh of the fish.
Flavorful Fish Stock
Here’s the problem with homemade stock: It’s so good that it doesn’t last long. What’s needed is something you can produce more or less on the spot. Although water is a suitable proxy in small quantities, when it comes to making the bubbling, chest-warming soups that we rely on in winter, water needs some help. Fortunately, there are almost certainly flavorful ingredients sitting in your fridge or pantry that can transform water into a good stock in a matter of minutes. These recipes are meant to be fast, so by ‘‘simmer,’’ I mean as little as five minutes and no more than 15. You can season these stocks at the end with salt and pepper to taste, or wait until you’re ready to turn them into full-fledged soups.
Four-Spice Salmon
Fish fillets can be a weeknight cook’s savior. They are healthful and easy to prepare, require little time to cook and take well to all manner of spices. In this straightforward recipe, adapted from the New York chef Katy Sparks, you start with salmon fillets, liberally rub them on one side with a mixture of ground coriander, cloves, cumin and nutmeg, and then brown them in a very hot pan so the spices form a crust. Flip once, and that’s it. For the best results, use fillets of equal sizes, cook them to medium rare, and use freshly ground spices. If you have only pre-ground, be sure they haven’t gone stale sitting in your cabinet too long. (Yes, spices can go stale.)
Chicken Tortilla Soup
This version of tortilla soup arises from a dish served at the Rose Garden restaurant in Anthony, Texas. We’ve streamlined the original recipe, using chicken legs as the base of the stock, pulling off the meat when it’s tender, and adding couple of beef bones to give the broth extra depth. Laila Santana, whose mother, Dalila Garcia, owns the Rose Garden, told us the recipe lends itself to improvisation. That it does, so feel free to tweak it to your tastes.