Recipes By Melissa Clark
1476 recipes found
Eggplant Salad With Peppers, Mint and Caper-Feta Vinaigrette
Tuna With Capers, Olives and Lemon
This is not your mother's mayonnaise-laden tuna salad, but it's just as easy to prepare. Here's what you do: stir together some canned tuna, garlic, lemon juice, red onion, black olives, capers and fresh parsley, then spread it on buttered toast. Top it off with a round of ripe tomato or slivers of avocado and another slice of toast. That's it. If you want to make it into a dip, toss the mixture into a food processor with a few tablespoons of softened butter and a bit more olive oil. Purée until smooth and creamy and serve with carrots, fennel, bell pepper and seeded crackers. If you have a tin of sardines taunting you from inside your cabinet, we bet this recipe would work equally well with those.
Lemony Egg Soup With Escarole
This lemon-scented soup, based on a Greek avgolemono, is a warming meal in the depths of winter. Made with good chicken broth, it’s familiar and comforting. But fresh lemon adds a sunny brightness while the egg and rice thicken things up, making the broth richer and heartier. To add vegetable matter, I stir some escarole into the soup, letting it wilt until silky and soft. If you like you can substitute spinach or baby kale for the escarole, adding an extra few minutes to the cooking time if using the kale.
Ande ki Kari (Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce)
In this classic Indian dish, adapted from the cookbook author Julie Sahni, hard-cooked eggs are swathed in a spicy tomato gravy fragrant with cardamom, cumin and cinnamon. Since garam masala spice blends vary in their chile content, sample yours before adding it to the sauce, then stir it in to taste. You can make the sauce and hard-cook the eggs a day ahead (store them in the refrigerator), but the eggs are best introduced to the pot just before serving; simply reheat them in the simmering sauce. You can serve the eggs over rice, or with flatbread on the side.
Baked Steel-Cut Oats With Nut Butter
For a simple, filling breakfast, baked steel-cut oatmeal, enriched with almond butter and cinnamon, is a go-to recipe. This version is particularly adaptable: Use peanut butter or almond butter, steel-cut or cracked oats, or any number of warming spices that might be in your cupboard. Then, garnish as you wish.
Mini Oatmeal-Cranberry Whoopie Pies
These whoopie pies may be small, but they are packed with flavor. Chewy oatmeal cookies are spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, and studded with dried cranberries. After baking, they’re sandwiched around a tangy, fluffy cream cheese and cranberry filling. Make them up to three days ahead and store them in the refrigerator, stacked between pieces of parchment paper in an airtight container, or freeze them for up to 1 month. Feel free to add chopped pecans or walnuts for crunch, and substitute other dried fruit (raisins, chopped apricots, diced apple) for the cranberries. These are as adaptable as they are adorable.
White Bean and Roasted Potato Salad With Rosemary
Freshly cooked white beans hold their shape better than canned ones, so unless you’re really pinched for time, cook the beans yourself for this hearty, lively winter salad. Serve it as a side dish for roasted meats or chicken. If you omit the anchovies in the dressing (use capers instead), it would be an excellent meatless main course. If you have time, it's best to give the beans a proper soak (4 to 12 hours); if not, just tack 30 to 60 minutes onto the cooking time, adding more water as needed to keep them entirely covered.
Green Curry Salmon With Coconut Rice
Sweet coconut milk tempers the fiery pungency of Thai green curry paste in this easy one-pot salmon and rice meal. Fresh scallions and cilantro add herbal freshness, while chopped baby spinach makes the whole thing even greener. Note that different brands of rice absorb different amounts of water, so don’t be afraid to add more water as needed.
Moroccan Carrot-Blood Orange Salad
Here, blood orange segments are tossed into a salad of roasted carrots, salty olives and freshly ground spices – a refreshing, satisfying and stunning dish with sunset colors.
Pan-Seared Tilefish With Garlic, Herbs and Lemon
All cooks needs a basic sautéed fish fillet recipe in their repertory, and this one could not be much simpler. It does require a step that may intimidate on first glance: you baste the fish with the fat you’re cooking it in. Don’t worry. Just use a good amount of fat in the pan, about a tablespoon per person (you could get away with a little less if you insist, or use half white wine and half fat). Basting helps cook the fish evenly and keeps it and moist. In this recipe, the fat is butter. As the fish cooks, the butter browns, taking on a nutty scent that is classic with seafood. Tilefish is specified but any firm fillet will do, from sea bass to grouper.
Smoky Red Devil Eggs
Standard deviled eggs are undeniably good, but adding a touch of tomato paste and a generous pinch of smoked paprika makes them a bit more sophisticated. The flavor is gently sweet, forcefully spicy and perfectly smoky.
Smoky Fish Chowder
This chowder is a more complex and smoky interpretation of a classic New England fish chowder. Made with hot smoked paprika and a little Vermouth or white wine, it’s got more spunk than a simpler, more authentic recipe, without losing the spirit of the sea. If you can’t find fish stock, you can substitute bottled clam juice, or even a good, flavorful vegetable stock. Either way, you’ll end up with perfectly balanced bowl of soup that needs nothing more than perhaps a few crackers on the side to make it shine.
Crab Pasta With Snap Peas and Mint
Sweet crab meat and even sweeter sugar snap peas are a lovely match in this green-flecked springtime pasta. Don’t overlook the final garnish of olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper and flaky sea salt – it really brings out the saline flavor of the crab. Try replacing the mint with basil or chives, or even with tender pea shoots, which will increase the pea quotient in a delightful way.
Pasta With Mint, Basil and Fresh Mozzarella
In this green pasta dish, basil, mint, Parmesan and garlic are blended into a smooth pesto-like sauce, then tossed with pasta, creamy mozzarella and crunchy pine nuts just before serving. Marinating the mozzarella in some of the sauce as the pasta cooks imbues the mild cheese with flavor, and allows it to start softening so it melts in contact with the pasta. Serve this hot or warm, when the cheese is supple and a little runny.
Hearty Beef Stew With Red Onions and Ale
In this cozy beef stew, tender chunks of meat in a silky, savory, ale-tinged sauce share the pot with wedges of red onion and sweet nuggets of carrot. A little coriander and allspice add fragrance and depth to the mix, while a spoonful of tomato paste deepens and rounds out the flavors. Like all stews, it tastes even better a day or two later, and can be frozen for up to two months. Serve it over something soft and buttery to soak up the sauce: a mound of mashed potatoes, noodles or polenta.
Mackerel With Lemon Olive Oil and Tomatoes
Mackerel is a sustainable, velvety, sweet-tasting fish that deserves more attention than it usually gets. Here, the pale fillets are roasted on a bed of fragrant basil leaves with a lemon zest-infused olive oil, chopped olives and juicy cherry tomatoes. If you have a bottle of cold-pressed lemon olive oil on hand, you can use it here in place of making your own. If infusing your own oil, feel free to use either a regular lemon or a Meyer lemon. Leftover lemon oil is great on salads, tossed with vegetables, or drizzled over avocado toast.
Whole-Grain Pancakes
Using a combination of different grains, these hearty pancakes have a deeper, more interesting flavor, along with more fiber and nutrients, than those made from only white flour. If you want to add fruit, like blueberries or sliced peaches, or chocolate chips, sprinkle them on top of the pancakes just before flipping. Serve these straight out of the pan; pancakes don’t like to wait.
Grilled Corn With Jalapeño-Feta Butter
This dish puts a spicy, cheesy spin on the classic buttered corn-on-the-cob. The ears are charred on the grill, then rubbed with a feta and jalapeño-flecked butter that melts all over the sweet, blackened kernels. The compound butter is perfectly adaptable. You can substitute other cheeses for the feta, and play around with different kinds of chiles and herbs. Be sure to save any leftover compound butter in the freezer. It’s also terrific sliced on top of grilled or roasted chicken, fish or meats.
Soft Scrambled Eggs With Pesto and Fresh Ricotta
Whole Roasted Fish With Wild Mushrooms
A very large whole roasted fish brought to the table with head and tail intact is a visually dramatic and incredibly tasty dinner party main course. Even better is that it's both a breeze to cook (season it up, throw it in the oven and wait), and to serve (big fish have big bones, which makes it easy to scoop the flesh off the skeleton). Do not forget to call your fishmonger ahead to order a large fish. This recipe, with lemons, herbs and crisp wild mushrooms, will work with any 4- to 6-pounder, from delicate black sea bass to salmon-colored arctic char. The variety of fish here is less important than the size. Generally speaking, you'll need about a pound of fish per person, though three-quarters of a pound will do if you're serving it in the context of a multi-course meal. Also, if you can't find one very large fish, you can use two smaller ones, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 pounds each. In that case, feel free to squeeze them into one roasting pan.
Baked Fish and Chips
Baking fish and chips is not only easier and less messy than frying, but it also has the distinct advantage of allowing you to cook both fish and potatoes at the same time in your oven. The key to getting the crunchiest fries is to cut them thin (leave the skin on for extra flavor) and spread them out in one layer onto a preheated sheet pan to jump-start the crisping. (If you want to save a few minutes, start the potatoes in the oven while you prepare the fish.) We’ve paired this dish with a piquant horseradish tartar sauce, but ketchup works well, too, particularly for the grade-school set.
Spiced Irish Oatmeal With Cream and Crunchy Sugar
A shower of heavy cream and plenty of caramelized Demerara sugar may make these Irish oats seem more like dessert than something you’d serve first thing in the morning, but that’s all the more reason to bake them up for a special occasion breakfast or brunch. Cardamom and cinnamon give them an especially earthy, perfumed aroma, and toasting the oats in butter before baking them lends nuttiness and depth. They’re also extremely easy, and you can assemble the dish the night before, then bake them in the morning. Just add about 10 minutes to the baking time if you’re starting them cold from the fridge.
Fish Skewers With Herbs and Lime
In this simple, speedy recipe, meaty cubes of fish are marinated with fish sauce and red-pepper flakes, then lined up on skewers and grilled until seared at their corners, but still juicy and tender inside. Topped with herbs and lime juice, it’s a minimalist take that lets the flavors of good, fresh fish shine through. If you have a fish basket and would rather line up the cubes inside that, go right ahead. Just watch it carefully and adjust the cooking time if needed. If you’re looking to add a sauce, this is lovely served with some garlic-spiked yogurt on the side.
Green Strata With Goat Cheese and Herbs
This herb-infused savory bread pudding makes an excellent brunch dish or a light dinner. It gets its hue from a copious amount of braising greens pureed into the custard — baby kale, mustard greens, chard. Use all of one or a combination. The bread cubes can soak for up to 24 hours before baking, so plan on assembling this in advance. But don’t bake it until just before serving. You want the eggs on top to still have their bright yellow, runny yolks. If you’re not a goat cheese fan, substitute dollops of fresh ricotta instead.