Recipes By Melissa Clark
1468 recipes found
Vegan Mushroom Make-Ahead Gravy
This excellent vegan gravy features caramelized mushrooms and a little soy sauce for depth of flavor, making it good enough to serve to your meat-eating guests, too. Just be sure to use a good-quality vegetable stock, preferably one you’ve made yourself. You can simmer the gravy up to five days ahead and store it in the fridge. Reheat just before serving.
Beef Wellington
In this British classic, tender beef fillet is blanketed with browned mushrooms and shallots, then wrapped in layers of prosciutto and buttery puff pastry before being baked until golden and flaky on the outside, juicy and rare within. Worthy of the most elegant, blow-out meal, save this one for Christmas, New Year’s Eve or your next big birthday. One thing to note: You really do need a full pound of puff pastry here to cover all the meat, so if your package weighs less (some brands weigh 12 ounces), you’ll need to supplement with another package.
Mashed Potato Casserole
This casserole may upset some mashed potato purists, but take heart: one bite and they'll be won over. The genius of this recipe, besides its utter deliciousness, is that it can be made the day before, or even two. Cook the potatoes, assemble the casserole, wrap tightly and store it in the refrigerator. When dinnertime comes, dust it with the cheese, butter and bread crumbs and bake the whole thing off. (And for everything you need to know to make perfect potatoes, visit our potato guide.)
Porchetta Pork Chops
Here's a more manageable version of the traditional Italian recipe for whole roast pig seasoned with a garlic, rosemary and fennel. This one comes together so quickly, you can make it on a whim.
Peppermint Saltine Toffee Bark
A cross between a cookie and candy, classic saltine toffee is made by pouring a quickly made brown sugar caramel over a layer of salty crackers, baking it, then coating the whole thing with chocolate. This version uses a copious amount of bittersweet chocolate for the topping, which helps offset the sweetness of the toffee mixture. (Note that the higher the cacao percentage, the less sweet this treat will be.) The crushed candy cane topping makes this perfect for tucking into a holiday cookie box, but you can make it anytime of year. Toasted nuts, shredded coconut, dried fruit, colorful dragees and chopped candied ginger would all make excellent alternatives.
Feast of the Seven Fishes Pie
A velvety fish pie, filled with chunks of seafood in a delicate sauce, is classic cold-weather comfort food in the British Isles. This seafood pie is fancier than most. It’s got a buttery puff pastry topping that turns golden and crunchy as it bakes. And it’s brimming with seven varieties of fish, including scallops and shrimp, to make it festive enough to serve for a blowout Christmas Eve meal, like the Italian-American celebration Feast of the Seven Fishes. That said, if you’d rather keep things simpler, using just two or three kinds of fish still results in a stunning pie. Alaskan wild pollock, a mild, flaky fish that’s becoming more and more available in seafood markets, is a lovely and sustainable choice, as is Pacific cod.
Chocolate Shell Ice-Cream Topping
Here is a chocolate ice cream topping that has a texture nearly identical to that of the commercial product Magic Shell (which also contains coconut oil), but with a far richer, more fudgy flavor.
Turkey Barley Soup
This mellow, velvety soup filled with barley and vegetables is a perfect place for your leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Adapted from Cristiana N. de Carvalho of Massachusetts, it’s savory, herby and very warming on a cold winter evening. If you want to make your own stock from the turkey bones, the soup will be even richer. But store-bought stock works just as well and makes this straightforward recipe quick to put together. Brown rice makes an excellent barley substitute, though you may have to add a few minutes to the cooking time.
Strawberry Icebox Pie
If you adore creamy strawberry desserts, this deluxe icebox pie topped with glossy, springy homemade strawberry gelatin is a treat you won’t want to miss. The recipe, from Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream in New York, updates a classic strawberry icebox pie with two major tweaks. Instead of using frozen whipped topping and a box of strawberry gelatin, it calls for freshly whipped heavy cream and the juice drained from an entire pound of macerated berries. The recipe does take some time to put together, but results in the richest, silkiest and most deeply strawberry flavored pie imaginable. You’ll need to start this at least one day before you want to serve it, but it keeps well for up to three days in the fridge. The wafer cookies get softer and more cakelike as they sit.
Classic Trifle With Berries or Citrus
Trifles are as adaptable as desserts get. As long as you have layers of cake, custard, some kind of fruit or jam, and a fluffy cloud of whipped cream on top, they make festive desserts that you can vary as much as you like. While most trifles are boozy — the cake soaked with sherry or other spirits — orange juice makes a fine alternative, especially if you pair it with syrupy sugared orange segments. Or go more traditional, and use berries and sherry. This trifle is more about the interplay of soft vanilla-scented custard, whipped cream and fruit, with only one layer of cake at the bottom of the dish. If you’d like a higher cake-to-custard ratio, add more ladyfingers as directed in Step 9. And don’t neglect the garnish. Topping the trifle with sliced almonds or amaretti lends crunch and looks pretty, too.
Pasta With Fried Lemons and Chile Flakes
You probably already have a favorite pantry pasta dish that you habitually whip up when there’s nothing in the house for dinner. Next time, try this one instead. It has all the usual players – olive oil, Parmesan, flaky sea salt — along with fried lemons for brightness and chile flakes for heat. Don’t skip the step of blanching the lemon slices before frying. It may seem fussy, but it eliminates any bitterness in the lemon pith and takes only a few extra minutes. Then dry the lemon slices well before adding them to the hot oil; this helps them brown more deeply.
Rich and Buttery Corn Muffins
Made with plenty of melted butter and sour cream, these golden, lightly sweet corn muffins are moist, rich and delicately crumbly. If you can find coarsely ground cornmeal (as opposed the fine stuff that’s on most supermarket shelves), you’ll also get deep corn flavor and a pleasantly grainy texture. Serve these warm from the oven, slathered with even more butter, or halved and toasted under the broiler to crisp the surface. They’ll even keep for a few days if you store them in the fridge, and freeze perfectly for up to a month.
Aioli
In Provence, the garlic-infused mayonnaise called aioli is typically served with a platter of raw and boiled vegetables and sometimes fish. With its intense creamy texture and deep garlic flavor, it turns a humble meal into a spectacular one.
Chopped Salad
A good chopped salad is a buoyant mix of different textures (creamy, crisp, crunchy, juicy), a range of colors, and sweet, salty and tangy flavors. This one has it all, in just the right proportions. You can gather all the ingredients in advance, including cooking the bacon and the eggs. But don’t toss everything together until just before serving — and, preferably, do so at the table for maximum impact.
Brandied Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie made with canned pumpkin is all well and good, but pumpkin pie made with fresh butternut squash purée is even better. Thin-skinned and easy to cut, butternut squash turns soft and velvety if you roast it, and a quick whirl in the food processor or a blender quickly reduces to it to a luscious purée. Here we’ve kept the seasonings on the light side to best showcase the character of the squash. But feel free to amp up the cinnamon and ginger if you like a spicier slice. The brandy is optional, and if you’d rather not use it, you can leave it out or substitute another spirit; bourbon is excellent. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)
The Easiest Lemon Curd
Using a microwave to cook lemon curd streamlines the entire process, and eliminates the need to stand over the stove whisking constantly. The result is silky-smooth and as tart as you like. Use the smaller amount of sugar for a puckery curd, and more for something with greater balance. Once you get the technique down (and it may take some finessing since everyone’s microwave is a bit different), you can vary the citrus, substituting lime or grapefruit for lemon, and seasoning it with makrut lime leaves or Campari (see Tips). Curd will keep in the fridge for at least five days; serve it with cookies or fruit, fold it into whipped cream to make lemon mousse or spoon it into a tart shell for a glossy lemon tart.
Make-Ahead Fried Chicken
Fried chicken is one of the few fried foods that tastes just as good served at room temperature as it does when it's served hot enough to burn your fingers. This recipe has been specially engineered to be made in advance. It’s seasoned assertively, so the flavors won’t dull as it cools. But the real key is double-dipping the chicken in the flour mixture before you fry it, making for an extra-crunchy crust that holds up all afternoon. And it lets you serve fried chicken to your guests and still have enough time to clean the kitchen and take a shower before they arrive. Although the recipe calls for all drumsticks, which won’t dry out as they sit, feel free to substitute other chicken parts.
Charlie Bird’s Farro Salad
There are two essential steps to a stellar farro salad. The first is cooking the farro with enough salt and aromatics so that it delicious before you combine it with the rest of the ingredients. The second is to use very good olive oil in the dressing. This farro salad, from the restaurant Charlie Bird in SoHo, hits both these marks. The chef Ryan Hardy cooks the farro in apple cider seasoned with bay leaves and plenty of salt, which renders it good enough to eat on its own. But it’s even better after he adds loads of olive oil, plus pistachio nuts and Parmesan cheese to make it even richer. Then, before serving, he folds in fresh vegetables to brighten it up: juicy tomatoes, radishes, arugula and plenty of herbs. There are many farro salads of this ilk out there. This is one of the best.
Coconut Cream Cake With Peaches
In this trifle-like dessert, a tender coconut macaroon cake is layered with whipped cream and juicy ripe peaches. It’s allowed to rest in the refrigerator so the cake can absorb the cream and peach juices, and the whole thing turns into an almost puddinglike confection. If you’d rather serve it trifle-style from a large glass bowl, feel free. This is best after 24 to 48 hours in the fridge, when the cake has absorbed the maximum amount of cream. You can garnish the top with strawberries or more peach slices if you like, or leave it plain.
Thousand Island Dressing
Stirring a little chile paste into an otherwise classic Thousand Island dressing tones down its sweetness slightly, adding a very gentle bite. For something spicier — and for a noticeable pepper punch — substitute up to 2 tablespoons chile sauce for ketchup. Or, for something sweeter and more mellow, leave out the chile sauce entirely. Other great additions here include a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce or a spoonful of mustard.
Ham and Bean Soup With Collard Greens
If you happen to have a ham bone leftover from a roasted ham, cover it with water and simmer it with an onion and a bay leaf to make the stock for this rich, meaty soup. But if not, chicken stock works well, too.
Sugar Snap Pea Salad With Radishes, Mint and Ricotta Salata
There's a reason pea salad is usually slathered in mayonnaise. Just try to get those tiny rolling orbs to stay on your fork without it. That’s why when it comes to pea salads, choose sugar snaps. They have the same bright sweetness as shelled peas but, eaten pod and all (no shucking required), they’re easier to grab. Here, raw sugar snap peas are tossed with radishes, fresh mint, ricotta salata and a simple lemon-balsamic vinaigrette for a easy salad that's sweet, salty, creamy and fresh tasting.
Herbed White Bean and Sausage Stew
Here’s a meaty, cold-weather stew laden with white beans, sweet Italian sausage, rosemary, thyme, cumin and garlic. It is deeply flavored and complex, but quite easy to make. Pan-fry the sausages in a bit of olive oil, then sauté the vegetables with cumin and tomato paste in the drippings. Add plenty of water and the dried beans that, wait for it, you did not have to soak. Simmer until the house is fragrant and the windows fog up (about 2 hours).
Lunchbox Harvest Muffins
These diminutive muffins make the rotation at least twice a week in my daughter's lunchbox. Although they are filled with plenty of good-for-you ingredients (whole-wheat flour, olive oil, apple and grated vegetables), they are moist and just sweet enough to ensure that they don’t end up coming back home, which is the sad fate of many a salami sandwich.