Recipes By Melissa Clark
1476 recipes found
Grilled Lamb Chops With Lettuce and Ranch Dressing
Cooking lamb chops hot and fast keeps them juicy and perfectly pink inside. Here, they’re first marinated in an herby garlic paste, then grilled or broiled and served with crisp lettuce hearts and a tangy ranch dressing (made from more of that same herb garlic paste). Quick and easy enough for a weeknight, these chops are also always an impressive meal to serve to guests. You’ll probably have some ranch dressing left over. It will keep for a week in the fridge and is also excellent as a sauce for grilled chicken, or as a dip for vegetables and crackers.
Spiced Ground Meat Skewers
These oniony, deeply spiced skewers, made with just about any kind of ground meat, are based on Adana kebabs, which are named for the Turkish city from where they’re said to have originated. Adana kebabs are traditionally made from hand-minced lamb that’s been larded with lamb tail fat, but the flavors of cumin, red chile flakes and sumac are just as delicious with regular ground lamb, or even ground beef or turkey. The trick to getting a pleasing, springy texture is to knead the meat and seasonings until the mixture feels sticky. Keep everything cold, and then wet your hands when you form the meat around the skewers. Cooking the kebabs over charcoal adds a compelling smokiness, but using the highest heat on your gas grill will also work well.
Peach Raspberry Pie
The character of fresh raspberries can be fleeting when cooked, especially when the berries are mixed with other fruit like ripe, juicy peaches. To deepen the berry flavor in this summer pie, a little raspberry jam is mixed into the filling in place of some of the sugar. Instant (minute) tapioca serves as a clear, flavorless thickener here, with the tiny tapioca pearls echoing the texture of raspberry seeds. For a runny, syrupy pie that leaks when you cut into it, mix in the minimum amount of tapioca. Using all 3 tablespoons yields a pie with a thick, jammy filling. As for the stone fruit, peel the peaches or don't, to taste. Or substitute ripe nectarines, whose peels are less pronounced.
Fruit Galette
This basic galette recipe can be tailored to fit whatever fruit you have on hand. The key is to scale the amount of sugar and cornstarch. Generally speaking, tart stone fruits (apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, sour cherries) need a greater amount of both sugar and cornstarch while figs, grapes, berries and Bing cherries tend to need less. If you’re unsure, add the sugar gradually, tasting as you go. Spreading a thin layer of jam over the rolled out dough before adding the filling bumps up the fruit flavor. You can match the jam flavors to your fruit or mix it up for a contrast. And if you don’t want to add lemon zest to the fruit, consider the seeds from a vanilla bean, ground spices, or some minced candied ginger instead. You can make the dough up to three days ahead, but this galette is at its best served the same day it was baked.
Grilled Whole Fish With Lemongrass, Chiles and Coconut
Spicy, herbal and a little sweet from the coconut milk, these grilled whole fish are perfumed with lemongrass and spiked with tiny, potent Thai chiles. I like dorade here, but you can use any small whole fish (1 pound or so). Have your fishmonger clean them but leave in the bones. They help keep the fish moist on the grill and add great flavor. You can also roast the fish instead of grilling; place them on a rimmed baking sheet and roast at 425 degrees until the fish is cooked through, usually 10 to 15 minutes.
Brown Sugar Shortcake with Warm Bourbon Peaches
The juicier the peaches, the better this luscious summer dessert will be. Handle the dough lightly and make sure not to overbake it. Assemble the whole thing just before serving, and watch it disappear.
Double Strawberry Cheesecake
This creamy pink dessert breaks out of the usual strawberry cheesecake mold. Instead of two distinct layers (creamy cheesecake on the bottom, bright red berries on top), the berries and cream cheese mixture are puréed together until smooth, silky and deeply flavored. A little red wine adds complexity and intensifies the rosy color, but feel free to use water or orange juice instead. Just don’t skip the goat cheese, which tamps down the sweetness and adds a mild and pleasant earthiness to the cake without being an obvious ingredient. You can make this three days ahead; store it in the refrigerator until just before serving. It’s at its best served cold.
Grilled Garlicky Lamb Shoulder Chops with Sherry Vinegar and Radicchio
Raspberry Pavlova With Peaches and Cream
This Pavlova’s meringue foundation has freeze-dried raspberry powder shot through it, tinting it pink and giving it a fruity, candy-like flavor. But if you can’t get the freeze-dried berries, just leave them out. The meringue will still bake up with a shatteringly crisp shell and a marshmallow-like interior that makes an edible bowl for the whipped cream and fruit. If it’s not humid out, the meringue shell can be baked up to a day ahead. Otherwise, it’s best made the day you plan to serve it.
Green Garlic and Chive Soufflé
This puffy soufflé is filled with chopped green garlic, chives and plenty of Gruyère cheese.
Orange Marmalade Cake
This beautiful, tender, citrus-scented loaf cake filled with bits of candied orange peel is everything you want with your afternoon tea. The key is finding the right marmalade; it needs to be the thick-cut (also known as coarse-cut) marmalade made with bitter oranges, which will be laden with big pieces of peel. Look for the British brands in the international section of your supermarket if the jam aisle lets you down. (And not give up and use the neon orange marmalade that's more like jelly.) Your reward is a fine-grained, not-too-sweet cake that will last for days well-wrapped and stored at room temperature (if you can manage not to eat it up all at once).
Rum and Chile Roasted Chicken Thighs With Pineapple
This dish, inspired by jerk chicken, uses amber rum to moisten the rub. The resulting dish is complex, mouth tingling but not searing, and softened by the golden cubes of succulent roasted pineapple. It's not quite recognizable as a jerk, but it is no less pleasing.
Milk and Honey Cake
The flavor of this ultrabuttery layer cake, adapted from Odette Williams’s “Simple Cake” (Ten Speed Press, 2019), can be as mild or pronounced as you like, depending on the variety of honey you use. Clover honey will give you something gentle and mellow, while more assertive buckwheat or chestnut honey have more depth. You can serve the cake plain, with dollops of the whipped cream on the side, for a casual gathering, or frost and fill it, adding berries or other fruit, for a more celebratory affair. It makes an excellent birthday cake.
No-Bake Lemon Custards With Strawberries
Ultracreamy but still ethereally light, these individual custards are set with lemon juice rather than eggs, cornstarch or gelatin. They are thick and velvety, but not overly rich, with a bright, clean citrus flavor. Based on a British dessert called a posset, the key is to simmer the cream and sugar before adding the fresh lemon juice, giving the cream a chance to thicken slightly. In this summery version, the custards are served with a topping of syrupy, sugared strawberries and a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper, which adds a gentle spicy note without overwhelming the fruit.
Crème Fraîche Cheesecake With Sour Cherries
This light cheesecake bridges the gap between those who love their cheesecakes tall and dense, straight out of Lindy’s, and others who prefer a daintier cake, made airy with farmer’s cheese or ricotta. Here, you’ll use cream cheese, goat cheese and crème fraîche to concoct a light, fluffy cheesecake that isn’t too sweet, making it the perfect platform to show off a bunch of summer cherries, simmered in sugar. Or you could skip the cherries and eat it plain, or drizzle over some honey and toasted nuts.
Roasted Chicken Thighs With Winter Squash
Roasted chicken thighs can be the juicy, meaty center of many weeknight meals. Add delicata squash, quickly tossed in a maple syrup-butter glaze, along with slices of lemon and sage, and you have a something more unusual, an interplay of flavors that don’t generally meet on the same sheet pan. This recipe is a little too fussy to count as a fast weeknight dish, but there is nothing difficult about any of the steps. And it’s a fine introduction to delicata squash, if you haven’t cooked with them yet. Unlike many other winter squash varieties, they have a thin skin and don’t need to be peeled (just cut them in half and remove the seeds), making them as easy to prepare as they are sweet.
Skillet Mustard Chicken With Spinach and Carrots
In this one-skillet meal, mustard-coated chicken thighs are nestled on a bed of butter-sautéed scallions and carrots before the whole pan is popped into the oven to roast until golden. Just before serving, baby spinach and loads of fresh dill are tossed with the pan drippings, wilting slightly and absorbing all of the rich flavors. Serve this over rice or polenta, or with bread for mopping up the drippings. That’s all you’ll need to make it a satisfying meal.
Creamy Strawberry Moscato Torte
This dish is sort of a summery tiramisù. The creamy mascarpone and ladyfinger layers in tiramisù are a natural with strawberries. But the espresso is too overbearing to match well with the sweet fruit. What to do? Swap out the liquid. Moscato d’Asti, a lightly sweet and fizzy wine, works here. Drizzle more of the wine on just before serving. It adds just the right brightness and verve.
Haitian Pork Griot
Pork griot (pronounced gree-oh) is one of Haiti’s most loved dishes, and it’s easy to see why. Big chunks of pork shoulder are marinated in citrus and Scotch bonnet chiles, then simmered until very tender before being fried crisp and brown. This recipe departs from the traditional in that instead of frying the meat, it’s broiled. The pork still gets charred edges and bronzed surface, but broiling is easier and less messy to do. However feel free to fry if the skillet calls out to you. And do make the traditional cabbage, carrot and chile pepper pickle called pikliz (pick-lees) for serving, which gives the rich meat just the right spicy-vinegar punch.
Brisket With Horseradish Gremolata
This tender, deeply flavored brisket gets its character from two distinct sources. Searing the meat until dark brown gives the sauce a caramelized, intensely brawny taste, while a bracing garnish of fresh horseradish gremolata spiked with parsley and lemon zest adds brightness and a sinus-clearing bite. Make the meat a few days ahead, it only gets better as it rests. But to get the most out of the gremolata, don’t grate the horseradish until an hour or two before serving. If you can’t find fresh horseradish, use 4 cloves minced garlic instead.
Homemade Merguez
Ginger Chicken With Sesame-Peanut Sauce
In this crisp-skinned chicken dish, full of bold, zesty flavors, chicken legs are flavored with toasted sesame oil, garlic and ginger, then roasted until golden brown. They’re served with a creamy peanut-sesame sauce that’s spiked with even more ginger and garlic, which can be quickly whisked together while the chicken legs cook. Be sure to save any extra sauce; it will keep for a week in the fridge and is terrific with cut-up vegetables as a snack, or spooned onto roasted or fried tofu.
Roasted Chicken Thighs With Garlicky Cucumber Yogurt
In this simple, homey weeknight dinner, boneless chicken thighs are tossed with garlic, herbs and red-pepper flakes, then roasted along with lemon wedges in the pan. As the lemons brown, their acids mellow, becoming softer and sweeter. When squeezed over the chicken for serving, they offer a rounded tang that’s complemented by dollops of cucumber-flecked yogurt and chopped fresh mint. The combination of cucumbers and yogurt is a classic across many cultures, from Indian raita to Persian mast-o khiar to Greek tzatziki and beyond. For this recipe, be sure to use thick Greek-style or other strained yogurt (such as labneh) or substitute sour cream. Thinner yogurt will make the sauce runny. Serve this over rice or with flatbread to catch the juices and the cucumber yogurt.
Vermouth-Braised Short Ribs
When it comes to short ribs, you have choices. Boneless short ribs are easier to serve to a crowd and can be substituted pound for pound in your grandmother’s time-honored brisket recipe. Bone-in short ribs require a very large pot and are somewhat more awkward to plate. The upside is that they have even more flavor because the marrow that seeps out of the bones seasons the sauce. You can buy them either cut across the bone, called flanken, or along the bones, often called English style — the way it is done in fancy restaurants. You’ll need about three-quarters of a pound of bone-in short ribs per person. If you cook the beef the day before and chill it overnight, you’ll be able to lift off much of the fat that hardens on top of the sauce.