Recipes By Melissa Clark
1468 recipes found
Porchetta Pork Roast
This rich, crackling-coated pork roast has all the intense garlic, lemon and herb flavors of a classic Italian porchetta, but is much simpler to make (case in point: you don’t need to de-bone a whole pig). The only potentially tricky part is scoring the skin. If you are buying the meat from your butcher you can have them do it for you. Or, use your sharpest knife or a razor blade. It’s worth the effort for the amber-colored cracklings it produces. The recipe feeds a crowd, so make it for a large gathering. Or plan on leftovers, which make excellent sandwiches for lunch the next day.
Matzo Lasagna
In this browned baked dish, matzo crackers replace the usual pasta for a rich, ricotta-filled lasagna that’s Passover-friendly and relatively easy. In this version, the ricotta is flecked with basil, and the marinara sauce gently spiced with garlic and a touch of red-pepper flakes. Feel free to use the recipe as a template to create your own combinations — adding vegetables, other herbs and other cheeses as you like. The heady tomato sauce and bubbling, golden mozzarella on top can frame whatever other ingredients you’d like to add. You can assemble the matzo lasagna the day before you bake it (store it in the fridge); just add a few minutes onto the baking time. If you are using handmade shmurah matzo, soak the sheets for 5 minutes in water before layering them. Supermarket matzo, which is lighter and more airy, does not need to be soaked.
Skillet Greens With Runny Eggs, Peas and Pancetta
Whether you serve it for brunch or supper, this dish of skillet-baked eggs, greens and crunchy bits of pancetta is a light but deeply savory meal. In spring, ramps give the chard a particularly pungent kick, but milder scallions work just as well and are a lot easier to find all year round. If you want to make this vegetarian-friendly, skip the pancetta and add a dusting of cheese right at the end. Serve this with a side of toasted country bread or scoop it out onto a bed of buttery polenta.
Sautéed Greens With Smoked Paprika for Two
Soft slivers of garlic and shallots and a dash of smoked paprika give this verdant side dish its complexity and charm. You can make it with any greens you have on hand. Softer spinach and chard make for a silkier dish, while sturdy kale and collard greens give it more heft. Just adjust the cooking time as needed to make sure your greens are thoroughly tender.
Fresh Egg Pasta
This adaptable pasta recipe will work with whatever flour you’ve got in the pantry. Using the “00” gives the silkiest, softest pasta while bread flour will give you more of a satisfying chew, and all-purpose lands you squarely in the middle. Because flour absorbs liquid differently depending on its age and the humidity in the air, consider these amounts as a guide and not as the law. Use your judgment. If the dough seems too wet and sticky to work with, add a bit more flour; if it seems too dry to come together into a smooth, satiny ball, add a bit more oil. The pasta is wonderful cooked right away, but you could dry it for future use instead. Let it hang in strands over the backs of your kitchen chairs or on a washing line if you have one. Or you can curl handfuls of pasta into loose nests and let them dry out on the sheet trays, uncovered.
Sweet Baking Spice
This fragrant baking blend splits the difference between pumpkin pie spice and apple pie spice, adding a bit of white pepper for some gentle heat, and cardamom for its deep, bright perfume. You can use a teaspoon or two in pies (apple, pumpkin and beyond), fruit and nut cakes and tortes, and all manner of cookies (especially shortbread). Or knead some into sweet breads like challah and brioche. Smaller amounts are wonderful sprinkled onto hot chocolate and rice pudding, and the blend will add depth to homemade ice cream when steeped in the custard before freezing.
Buttery Lemon Pasta With Almonds and Arugula
Brown butter, crunchy almonds and tangy lemon make a rich but balanced sauce for this pantry-friendly pasta. The arugula lends freshness and rounds out the pasta, turning this into a quick one-pot meal. If you want to increase the vegetables, you can double the arugula. (Just add a little more lemon juice.) And if you don’t have baby (or wild) arugula on hand, spinach or baby kale are fine, though slightly milder, substitutes. Don’t stint on the red-pepper flakes; their spiciness helps bring together the flavors.
Baharat Blend
In Arabic, the term “baharat” simply means “spices” and can refer to any number of different blends, each tailored to a specific dish or ingredients. This all-purpose blend, adapted from Freda Nokaly and Doaa Elkady of Spice Tree Organics, reflects the women’s Egyptian ancestry, highlighting a combination of musky cumin and floral, citrusy coriander that’s been sweetened with an aromatic mix of cinnamon, cardamom and clove, and spiked with black pepper and bay leaf. Unlike some other baharat blends, this version doesn’t call for first toasting the spices, giving it a subtle but distinct brightness. Use it in meatballs and pilafs, in marinade and sauces for grilled meats and fish, and in rice dishes.
Chocolate-Butterscotch Icebox Cake
With homemade chocolate wafer cookies and a maple-laced butterscotch whipped cream, this recipe takes icebox cake to a more sophisticated level without sacrificing any of its lusciousness. You can build the cookies and cream into any shape you like — a round, a rectangle or a heart, which is what we do here. If you have cookies and cream left over, you can sandwich them together, whoopee-pie style. The wafers can be made up to a week ahead of when you’d like to assemble the cake. Store them airtight and try not to eat them all before you make the rest of the cake.
Flourless Chocolate Cake With Halvah Honey Sauce
Egg whites give this intensely rich cake its leavening and delicate texture, while a halvah honey sauce elevates it to something entirely new. It is an easy cake to make, and works beautifully even without the sauce, making it perfect for Passover. And it takes almost no time at all.
Flourless Cocoa Cookies
Glossy and near black in color, these intense, easy-to-make chocolate cookies are like a cross between fudge and the deepest of brownies -- and gluten-free to boot. We discovered them in "The Fearless Baker" by Erin Jeanne McDowell. A little cinnamon gives them a spicy complexity, but you can leave it out for a more purely chocolate flavor. Be sure to use bittersweet rather than semisweet chocolate, or they could end up cloying rather than balanced.
Cumin Lamb Stir-Fry
Fragrant, intense and full of fiery chile, this lamb stir-fry isn’t for the timid eater. For the most authentic flavor, it’s worth your while to seek out Sichuan peppercorns, which have a woodsy, tongue-numbing, camphor quality. (They are available at specialty spice markets, in Chinatown, or online.) You can substitute regular black peppercorns, but you won’t get the same punch. If you’re not a lamb-lover, you can also try this with lean beef. Serve this over white or brown rice to cut the heat, with a side of sliced cucumbers dressed with sesame oil and salt for freshness.
Lemony Pasta With Chickpeas and Parsley
You can used either canned or home-cooked chickpeas in this take on the classic Italian dish pasta con ceci, which is an excellent, nutritious, quick-cooking dinner. But even more appealing is the way the soft earthiness of the chickpeas plays off the al dente pasta, coating it like a rich sauce but without a lot of fat. The whole dish is zipped up with some lemon, garlic and red pepper flakes.
Vegetable Pajeon (Korean Scallion Pancakes With Vegetables)
Crisp at the edges, soft at the center and filled with scallions and other vegetables, these irresistible, comforting pancakes (adapted from Sohui Kim of Insa and the Good Fork restaurants in Brooklyn) make for a quick dinner that you can throw together on any given weeknight. It’s extremely forgiving, so feel free to use whatever vegetables you have on hand. Ms. Kim recommends finely shredded raw vegetables, or even leftover cooked vegetables. And if you don’t have the bandwidth to make a dipping sauce, a drizzle of soy sauce and squirt of Sriracha adds verve without any work. Serve pajeon by itself or topped with a fried egg or two, if you want to add protein.
Pepperoni Pasta With Lemon and Garlic
Bits of chopped pepperoni crisp up almost like bacon when fried, with curled, browned edges and a savory, spicy bite. Here, they’re the foundation of a hearty pasta sauce that’s supremely satisfying and fast enough for a weeknight. Lemon, garlic and fennel seeds round out the flavors, and fresh herbs lend brightness. Taste the pepperoni before adding the optional red-pepper flakes. Depending on the brand of sausage, you might not need the extra kick. And if you don't have pepperoni on hand, any kind of salami will work.
Garlicky Chicken With Lemon-Anchovy Sauce
There’s nothing wrong with a dinner of pan-seared chicken seasoned with salt and pepper. But there’s everything right about the same chicken when you add anchovies, capers, garlic and plenty of lemon to the pan. What was once timid and a little dull turns vibrant, tangy and impossible to stop eating. And the only real extra work is chopping the garlic and a little parsley for garnish. In this dish, the cut of chicken is less important than the pungent pan sauce. Most people will probably want to use the workhorse of all poultry dinners, the boneless, skinless breasts. But the thighs cook nearly as quickly, and have a greater margin of error in terms of doneness. Overcook your breasts by even a minute, and you’ll get dry, tough meat. Thighs are more forgiving. However, if your family insists on white meat, you can substitute breasts and subtract about 3 minutes from the cooking time. There is no need to mention the anchovies until after people have complimented you on the meal.
Spicy, Garlicky Cashew Chicken
A savory, fast weeknight meal, these drumsticks will roll off the broiler pan or grill juicy and burnished, and the cashew sauce is even more marvelous than most peanut satays. It has a salty, buttery richness that tames the heat from the chili, and a touch of sweetness from a dash of brown sugar.
Banana Chocolate Chip Cake
This tender cake is different from all the banana breads out there — possibly because Jim Lahey brings his celebrated skills as a bread baker to the recipe, which we adapted from “The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook.” The spices, molasses and dark brown sugar combine for an intense, fragrant and almost caramel-like richness, while the mix of butter and olive oil make the crumb melt in the mouth. Be sure to use very ripe bananas for the best flavor; they should be spotted with brown and soft.
Chocolate Caramel Macarons
There are American macaroons, usually generously sized, coconut-based confections. And then there are French macarons, diminutive and almond imbued. This recipe skews French, but with a twist. Instead of the typical buttercream or ganache filling, there’s a crunchy caramel candy layer in between the cocoa layers. These are fudgy little confections more like candy than cookies. They also happen to be both gluten-free and can be kosher for Passover, if you use kosher-for-Passover confectioners' sugar. You can make the macarons five days ahead, but don’t fill them more than a day ahead. Or serve them without the caramel for something slightly less sweet, but just as intense.
Olive Oil Lemon Curd
This dairy-free version of lemon curd is lighter than more traditional, butter-enriched versions, but is just as tart and creamy. The olive oil gives it a complex flavor that can range from herbal and grassy to earthy and mellow, depending on the brand. Mound this lemon curd into a tart, use it as a cake filling, pile it onto a Pavlova, or serve it as is, topped with berries or other fruit. It keeps for at least a week in the fridge and freezes well for up to 1 month. And you can even make it in the microwave (see Tip).
One-Pan Feta Pasta With Cherry Tomatoes
In 2018, the Finnish blogger Jenni Hayrinen posted a recipe for baked feta pasta. The dish became a full-on TikTok sensation, popular to the point that supermarkets were selling out of feta. This version streamlines her recipe. Instead of cooking the pasta separately, it’s added to the casserole dish with the baked feta and tomatoes, turning it into a cozy one-pan meal. (Also note that you’ll need an electric kettle to boil the water. So maybe it’s more like a one-and-a-half-pan meal.) Don’t think of this as a pasta dish in an Italian, al-dente sense. It’s more like a creamy casserole along the lines of mac and cheese. In any case, it’s comforting and supremely easy.
Pistachio Baklava
This Turkish-style baklava tastes deeply and richly of pistachio nuts and butter, without the spices, honey or aromatics found in other versions. It has a purity of flavor that, while still quite sweet, is never cloying. This very traditional recipe is from one of the most celebrated baklava shops in Istanbul. Feel free to substitute other nuts for the pistachios, particularly walnuts and hazelnuts. Or use a combination of nuts. Once baked, this baklava will last for several days, but it is at its absolute best within 24 hours of baking.
Lemony Carrot and Cauliflower Soup
The beauty of a soup like this — other than its bone-warming properties — is that you don’t need a recipe. You can pretty much simmer together any combination of vegetables with a little water or broth, purée it, top it with good olive oil and salt, and end up with something good to eat. The addition of miso paste and crushed coriander to the broth, and fresh lemon and cilantro at the end, zips things up without negating the comfort factor.
Coconut Macaroon and Mango Bombe
This is a cheater's version of those fancy iced bombes from the ’80s, with two or three layers of bright-hued whipped frozen mousse packed into a decorative mold. Here, a layer of mango ice cream swirled with fresh mango sits beneath a layer of macaroon-studded coconut ice cream. It's a stunning dessert, perfect for a dinner party, and quicker to put together than the time you'll spend locating the macaroons at the supermarket.