Recipes By Melissa Clark
1476 recipes found
Cottage Cheese Pasta With Tomatoes, Scallions and Currants
Satisfying the same creamy urge as mac and cheese, noodles with cottage cheese is a comforting Eastern European staple that’s sometimes topped with golden fried onions and a dusting of black pepper and cinnamon. This version trades caramelized onions for slivers of sharp raw scallion to contrast with the richness of the cottage cheese, which melts into a sauce upon contact with the hot pasta. The currants lean into the cinnamon's sweetness, while halved cherry tomatoes and mint make the dish juicy and fresh. It’s an unusual take on the original dish that’s easy to riff on — feel free to add or leave out ingredients to make it your own.
Sugared Shortbread
In 2012, The Times invited readers to submit their favorite cookie recipes. Amy Casey of Sparta, N.J., submitted this unusual recipe for shortbread that calls for melted butter and a little bit of rice flour (which is now relatively easy to find since it’s a popular gluten-free flour). You can mix this recipe in a bowl with a wooden spoon in about three minutes, and the rice flour gives the shortbread a sandy, singular texture that’s accentuated by the coating of granulated sugar on the top and bottom. You can substitute cornstarch for the rice flour, but you'll end up with a slightly softer crumb. Bonus: this keeps for weeks — but only if you hide it.
Olive Oil Zucchini Bread
This moist loaf, made with olive oil and yogurt, is less sweet and more complexly flavored than most zucchini breads. Grated lemon zest gives a gentle brightness, while brown sugar adds a caramel sweetness, and cinnamon makes it spicy and rich. Serve slices plain or buttered, or spread thickly with cream cheese for a more tangy and luscious variation.
Pumpkin Bread With Brown Butter and Bourbon
This hearty pumpkin bread is a sophisticated twist on the traditional version with the addition of bourbon (teetotalers can substitute apple cider), browned butter and cardamom.
Pantry Crumb Cake
More of a snack or breakfast than a showy dessert, a homey crumb cake doesn’t need the oohs-and-aahs of any guests. It’s the kind of thing a small family can devour in a few days, and a single person can freeze in slices, at the ready whenever the urge for brown sugar and butter hits. (Just wrap each slice up separately and store them in a container in the freezer; a slice will thaw in under an hour on the counter.) This cake is also extremely adaptable: Use whatever spices you like. If you don’t have oats, use more flour or chopped nuts. And feel free to use whatever fruit, fresh, frozen and thawed, or canned, you have on hand.
Creamy Homemade Yogurt
Homemade yogurt is a snap to make. All you really need is good quality milk, a few spoonfuls of your favorite plain yogurt to use as a starter culture, and some time to let it sit. You can substitute low-fat milk here if you’d rather; 2 percent works a lot better than 1 percent. Skim milk will give you a thinner yogurt, though if you add some dry milk powder to the milk as it heats (about 1/2 cup), that will help thicken it. Creamline (non-homogenized milk) will give you a cream top on your yogurt. Homogenized milk is smooth throughout.
Coconut-Lime Shrimp
You can make this gingery, lightly sweet shrimp stew as tangy and spicy as you like by adjusting the amounts of chile and lime juice. Using full-fat coconut milk gives you the richest and most flavorful dish. But light coconut milk will also work, resulting in something brothier and more souplike. Be sure not to overcook the shrimp. As soon as they turn pink, they’re done.
Turkey and Apple Sandwiches With Maple Mayonnaise
Here’s a new fall classic for a young student’s lunch box: a fresh sandwich of turkey and apple, bound together with mayonnaise spiked with maple syrup. For a kick, swirl a little Sriracha sauce into the mayonnaise.
Lemony Spinach Soup With Farro
Hearty enough to serve for dinner, but full of a salad’s worth of vibrant dark-leafed greens, this soup is both satisfyingly and extremely verdant. Puréeing a little potato into the broth adds creaminess and body, while chile and lemon juice make it bright and spicy. If you don’t have farro, you can leave it out, or substitute 2 cups of cooked rice (either brown or white). Farro adds a nice chewy texture and some heft to the bowl, but isn’t strictly necessary.
Tuscan Kale Salad
Kale salad may someday go the way of other clichéd salads of yore — the bean salad, the chef’s salad, the beet salad with goat cheese. But like all those other venerable mixtures, its ubiquity is due in large part to how good it can be. Take a bunch of raw Tuscan kale (also called lacinato or black kale), which is more delicate than other varieties, and slice it into ribbons. Toss those ribbons with a thick bright dressing of garlic paste, pecorino, lemon juice, olive oil and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Top with freshly toasted bread crumbs and a flurry of pecorino. The leaves are sturdy enough to stand up to the bold flavors and varying textures, but tender when you take a bite.
Beet and Radicchio Salad With Goat Cheese and Pistachios
Here's a hearty roasted beet salad that doesn't take hours to make. Cutting the beets up into small cubes shortens the cooking time and results in all over caramelization that you don't get with roasted whole beets. By the time you're finished prepping the rest of the salad, the beets will be done.
Instant Pot Rice Pudding
Rice pudding prepared in an electric pressure cooker is both speedy and simple — the kind of thing you can whip up in minutes in between other kitchen tasks. This version calls for short-grain rice, which turns plump and pleasingly sticky as it cooks in a combination of milk and heavy cream. Adding a vanilla bean lends deeply aromatic notes, but if you don’t have one, just stir 1 tablespoon vanilla extract into the pudding along with the egg yolks. Or skip the vanilla and add a teaspoon of whole cardamom pods to the pot to round out the spicy flavor of the cinnamon. Whipped cream might be overkill on a pudding this rich, but only in the very best way.
Pressure Cooker Bone Broth or Chicken Stock
The difference between bone broth and regular broth, or stock, comes down to the length of the cooking time and the addition of acid to the cooking liquid. They taste very similar, though the bone broth has a slightly more intense flavor and a thicker, silkier texture. They can be used interchangeably in recipes. Really, the main difference is that many people consider bone broth to be therapeutic: The longer cooking time of a bone broth allows the collagen and minerals from the bones and connective tissue to dissolve into the liquid. This is one of 10 recipes from Melissa Clark’s “Dinner in an Instant: 75 Modern Recipes for Your Pressure Cooker, Multicooker, and Instant Pot” (Clarkson Potter, 2017). Melissa Clark’s “Dinner in an Instant” is available everywhere books are sold. Order your copy today.
Pressure Cooker Classic Beef Chili
Chili in the electric pressure cooker is super fast and extremely convenient. This version is on the gently spiced side, so if you're looking for more heat, feel free to increase the chili powder or add a big pinch of cayenne – or throw a couple of extra jalapeños into the pot. Keep in mind that the leaner the beef, the less flavorful the chili. Eighty percent is a good bet here. You can also substitute ground pork or dark meat turkey. Leftover chili freezes like a dream.
Pressure Cooker Chocolate Pudding
Dense, creamy and fudgy, this pudding is meant to be made in a 6- to 8-quart electric pressure cooker like an Instant Pot. You can bake this recipe as one larger pudding or as individual servings. It can be made in a stovetop pressure cooker, by trimming a few minutes off the cooking time, or you can also bake the individual servings in a water bath in the oven. To do so, heat the oven to 300 degrees. Set the filled, uncovered custard cups in a large roasting pan positioned on the oven's center rack. Add hot tap water to the pan, halfway up the sides of cups. Cover the entire pan with foil, and use a fork to prick holes in foil. Bake until edges are lightly set (lifting the foil to check) but the centers are still jiggly – they will set as they cool – 30 to 35 minutes.
Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes With Sour Cream and Chives
This recipe gives you everything you want in a dish of mashed potatoes: supreme creaminess from both butter and sour cream, a deep potato flavor, a little Parmesan for a salty tang, and chives for color and freshness. That said, if you want to bring the fat content down, you can use less butter (as little as 2 tablespoons will still work). But don’t skimp on the sour cream, which is necessary for both flavor and texture. This is one of 10 recipes from Melissa Clark’s “Dinner in an Instant: 75 Modern Recipes for Your Pressure Cooker, Multicooker, and Instant Pot” (Clarkson Potter, 2017). Melissa Clark’s “Dinner in an Instant” is available everywhere books are sold. Order your copy today.
Shrimp Salad
Using plenty of lemon — both the zest and juice — is the secret to this tangy, creamy shrimp salad. If you’re using this to make sandwiches, chop the shrimp into pieces before adding them to the dressing. You can also leave the shrimp whole for an elegant salad, served with lettuce, avocado, and other vegetables if you like. If you’re starting with precooked shrimp, you can skip the first step entirely. The salad can be made and refrigerated for up to 6 hours before serving.
Classic Shrimp Scampi
Scampi are tiny, lobster-like crustaceans with pale pink shells (also called langoustines). Italian cooks in the United States swapped shrimp for scampi, but kept both names. Thus the dish was born, along with inevitable variations. This classic recipe makes a simple garlic, white wine and butter sauce that goes well with a pile of pasta or with a hunk of crusty bread. However you make the dish, once the shrimp are added to the pan, the trick is to cook them just long enough that they turn pink all over, but not until their bodies curl into rounds with the texture of tires. (Watch the video of Melissa Clark making classic shrimp scampi here.)
Buttery Breakfast Casserole
The word “buttery” in the title refers to croissants, which make an especially rich foundation for this golden-topped baked breakfast classic. Toasting the croissants before building the casserole adds caramelized notes that can stand up to the bits of browned sausage, sage and melted Gruyère strewn throughout. Make this the night before a special breakfast or brunch, then pop it in the oven an hour before you plan to serve it.
Baked French Toast With Oat Crumble Topping
The beauty of a baked French toast casserole is that you can prepare it entirely in advance, usually the night before you want to serve it, then pop it into the oven about 45 minutes before you’re ready to eat. This version combines toasted challah with a nutmeg-flavored custard, which is then topped with a crunchy oat crumble. Pears add a ripe and juicy note to the dish, but if you’d rather go fruitless, you can leave them out. The finished dish is sublime served with vanilla-honey syrup drizzled on top, but it is also excellent with maple syrup.
Upside-Down Caramel-Apple Muffins
I’ve never been much of a muffin maker. If I’m going to bake, I’d prefer to make a whole cake. But there is one kind of muffin that I heartily embrace — an upside-down fruit muffin. Its small, individual size encourages the fruit to condense and caramelize as it bakes. Then, when you unmold the muffin, the fruit transforms into a glistening crown of an irresistible sticky topping.
Potato-Kale Casserole and Eggs
Inspired by a classic colcannon (potatoes mashed with kale or cabbage), this recipe turns those elements into a heartier meatless meal by cracking eggs into the mixture and baking it until the yolks are as runny or jammy as you like. Cheddar adds nuttiness and richness, and browned shallots round out the flavors and offer sweetness. You can make the potato-kale mixture a few hours — or even a day — before serving. Reheat it in the skillet on the stove until piping hot before adding in the eggs as directed in Step 7. This makes a substantial brunch or light dinner, maybe accompanied by a salad.
Indian-Spiced Tomato and Egg Casserole
This dish, inspired by a traditional recipe from the Parsis (a group of Zoroastrians from Persia who settled in India sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries), is possibly one of the most fragrant and vivid casseroles you’ll ever see. It starts with a highly spiced tomato sauce flavored with mint, green chiles and ginger. The sauce is then poured over a layer of sliced cooked fingerling potatoes and baked. At the end of the cooking time, wells are made in the sauce and eggs cracked into them to finish baking. The result is a tomato-rich casserole with runny yolk over each pungent bite. Serve it for dinner or for brunch.
Whole Grain Granola
This recipe for a not-too-sweet, olive-oil and honey-enriched granola can be used as a template. Vary the types and amounts of puffed and rolled (also called flaked) grains, coconut and nuts to suit your taste, as long as you use eight cups altogether. And feel free to add chopped dried fruit at the end, stirring it into the granola mix while it’s still warm. If you want to add spices, stir a mix of ground cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom into the honey mixture before baking. It’s easy to make this recipe your own.