Recipes By Melissa Clark
1478 recipes found
Bullinada (Catalan Fish Stew With Aioli)
Bullinada is a creamy Catalonian seafood stew infused with saffron and garlicky mayonnaise, and brimming with potatoes. This version, made entirely from fish fillets rather than a combination of fish and seafood, is adapted from the cookbook “Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean.” Ms. Roden writes that “it has a mysterious, delicate flavor and beautiful warm color,” and that you can make it mostly in advance. Just add the fish a few minutes before serving so you can be sure it won’t overcook.
Sautéed Brussels Sprouts and Apple With Prosciutto
At the elegant restaurant Piora in the West Village, the chef Chris Cipollone separates each brussels sprout into individual leaves to make this autumnal dish. Thinly slicing the sprouts is faster, though less refined. The slivered sprouts are then sautéed with cubes of sweet apples, and garnished with an icy, porky snow made from frozen prosciutto grated on a microplane. Grated pecorino cheese can be used instead for a meatless version.
Schmaltz and Gribenes
Schmaltz is rendered poultry fat, in this case made from chicken, while gribenes are its crispy, crackling-like byproduct that comes from bits of chicken skin. The key to this recipe is to go low and slow: You want the fat to cook gently and thoroughly so it renders completely without burning. Some would argue that the onion is mandatory and not optional, but if you plan to use the schmaltz for very delicate recipes, or sweet recipes (chilled schmaltz works wonderfully as the fat in pastry dough), feel free to leave it out. Your schmaltz won’t have as deep a flavor, but it will be more versatile. Schmaltz will last for at least a week in the refrigerator and up to six months in the freezer. If your butcher won’t sell it to you, the best way to obtain chicken skin and fat is to collect trimmings in the freezer every time you buy a whole bird. Or you can strip the skin and fat from chicken thighs and save the skinless meat to use in other recipes.
Pan-Seared Hake and Asparagus With Aioli
In this light, flavorful weeknight meal, mild hake fillets are pan-fried in butter with plenty of sweet scallions, and served with crisp green asparagus cooked in the same pan. Then, everything is drizzled with a thin, garlicky aioli, which acts as a pungent sauce. If you can get green garlic (often in season at the same time as asparagus), use it in the aioli. It gives a more rounded, gentle flavor, but regular garlic works nicely, too, packing more of a punch. If you can’t get hake, this dish will work with cod, flounder, black fish and the like. Just be sure to adjust the cooking time, adding or subtracting a minute or two if the fillets are thicker or thinner.
Savory Babka With Ricotta and Herbs
This cheese-filled bread has the same soft, rich dough of a traditional babka, but instead of being filled with cinnamon or chocolate, it has an herb-speckled, garlic-scented ricotta swirled throughout. Some optional chopped ham or olives give the bread an even saltier tang, but you can leave it out for something milder. Leftover babka makes excellent toast or — if you want to take it to another level of gooeyness — grilled cheese sandwiches.
Scallion-Cheddar Cornbread Stuffing
This stuffing — or, you can call it a dressing — is baked outside the turkey so that it develops a crisp topping. You’ll want to make sure your cornbread is stale here: If working with fresh cornbread, dry it out in your oven. Crumble the pieces, then spread them on a rimmed sheet pan and bake at 300 degrees until firm and dry, but not hard. Timing will depend on how moist the cornbread was to start, so be sure to keep an eye on it.
Worcestershire Butter
This easy compound butter brings the brawny flavors of Worcestershire sauce, thyme and garlic to just about anything. Use it on steak, chicken, grilled corn on the cob or French bread — whatever you think would benefit from its intensity. Make sure to let it soften a bit before serving. Once it’s soft and spreadable, you may just want to slather it on with abandon.
Grainy Mustard
Homemade mustard is better than its supermarket counterpart, and it’s stupendously easy to make. Here, the combination of yellow and brown seeds makes for a medium-aggressive kick, but you could use all of one variety if you prefer. Use cold water to soak the seeds, and after puréeing, taste your mustard. You can smooth it out with a little honey, or up the zip with horseradish or chiles. Either way, your mustard will mellow out after a few days in the fridge.
Turkey Cubano
Two heated baking pans topped by a cast-iron skillet stand in for a sandwich press in this easy Cubano recipe. It also substitutes sliced turkey for the usual roast pork, but retains the melted cheese, sliced ham and slivers of pickle that makes the traditional sandwich so incredibly compelling. Deli ham is the go-to choice here, but prosciutto gives a deeper, saltier flavor; use whichever you like.
Lard Pie Crust
This delicate, puffy crust uses a combination of lard and butter for the richest flavor and the largest flakes. You can substitute more lard for the butter, but you will lose some of the complexity. Make sure to seek out rendered leaf lard from a good butcher or specialty market, or try your local farmers’ market. It’s the purest and best quality pig fat to use in a crust. Avoid processed lard from the supermarket at all costs; it's been hydrogenated to increase shelf life and can sometimes have an off or mildly rancid flavor, not to mention the dangers of hydrogenated fat to your arterial health. You can freeze this crust for up to 3 months. Defrost for 8 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
Bay Leaf Chicken With Orange Parsley Salad
In this quick-cooking dinner, boneless chicken thighs are marinated with bay leaves, mustard seeds, orange zest and Worcestershire sauce, and roasted at high heat until golden-edged and juicy. Then, just before serving, it all gets topped with an herb salad flecked with sweet oranges. It’s light, fresh and very savory. You can substitute boneless chicken breasts instead, just halve them crosswise before marinating, and start checking them after 12 minutes of roasting.
Red Wine Pinto Beans With Smoky Bacon
Beans can be made ahead and get better after sitting a few days. The red wine, cooked down to syrup, adds intensity, complexity and that certain company-worthy fanciness to the whole thing. Whether you’re vegetarian, meat eater, soup slurper, wine lover or none of the above, the only thing you need to enjoy this dish is a fondness for beans. That part is nonnegotiable.
Omelet Mousseline
This omelet is fluffier and lighter than the classic. It uses Auguste Escoffier’s technique: whipping the egg whites and then gently folding in the yolks. A small amount of heavy cream enriches the omelet, making it a good candidate for a final sprinkle of powdered sugar – or a jam filling. Served sweet or savory, it’s an ethereal dish that truly melts in the mouth. This recipe is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, a guide to definitive dishes every modern cook should master.
Brisket Barley Soup with Crispy Kale
Making soup out of brisket has a major advantage over the usual braising: Because you are cooking the meat submerged in broth, it stays juicy. As it simmers, the brisket cubes soften enough so you can cut them with your spoon. The chewiest thing in the soup will be the barley, but in a good way. Some slabs of brisket comes more thoroughly trimmed than others, so you may have to do some knife work when you get it home. But fear not, if your broth ends up a little greasy, just chill it and then spoon the fat off the top when it’s cold.
Grits Cakes With Country Ham and Bourbon Mayonnaise
As my friend Karen always says, “You know it’s going to be a good party if the host is deep-frying something when you arrive.” If you agree, consider serving these crisp-edged, golden grits cakes topped with bourbon mayonnaise and country ham at your next holiday shindig. These golden cubes, from the chef Kyle Knall at Maysville restaurant, can be prepared ahead of time, except for the frying part, which should be done within 20 minutes of serving. Southern country ham is worth seeking out, but if you can’t find it and didn’t have time to mail-order it ahead, you can substitute a good Serrano ham or prosciutto. Either way, it’s party food at its best.
Gingerbread Bûche de Noël
In this festive recipe, Dorie Greenspan reinterprets the classic French bûche de Noël, a Christmas cake fashioned to look like a Yule log. Instead of the usual chocolate cake filled with ganache, she bakes a fragrant lightly spiced sponge cake and fills it with pecan cream cheese filling, while billowing marshmallow frosting evokes a snowdrift. It’s a project to make and can take the better part of a day. Or split it up and make the components over a few days. Either way it’s time well spent. There’s no holiday dessert more spectacular than this.
Grilled Leg of Lamb With Spicy Lime Yogurt Sauce
Leg of lamb is elegant, and one leg can feed a crowd. Marinate it with a garlicky herb paste, the longer the better. Overnight in the refrigerator is ideal, but even a few hours at room temperature will help. Just make sure to always pat your lamb dry after marinating; this helps eliminate flare-ups. Butterflied legs of lamb tend to be unevenly cut, giving you thicker and thinner parts. This is good if some of your guests like their lamb more well done than you do, but problematic if everyone likes it rare. If you want rare all around (or well done for that matter), consider cutting the lamb into pieces according to thickness so you can take the thinner ones off the grill first.
Cherry Pepper Poppers
Lacking the cult status of ripe summer tomatoes or the esoteric cachet of watermelon radishes and purslane, peppers may be one of the season’s least celebrated vegetables. Though their charms are many, my favorite is their stuffable shape. The heat of the cherry pepper varies from fiery to mellow, though the riper red ones tend to be sweeter and none are as spicy as the jalapeño. Arrange them on a platter for the cocktail hour. They are supple and jewel-like, and incredibly easy to make.
Vietnamese-Style Rice-Noodle and Steak Salad
Fish sauce and chilies play up the beefy nuances while peanuts add texture and a warm, toasted flavor to this Vietnamese-inspired cold steak and rice noodle salad. Use thin rice sticks to keep things as speedy as possible. They complement the flavors of the sauce and can be soaked instead of boiled.
Citrusy Brisket With Spring Lettuces
This is a bright, zesty take on braised brisket, in which the meat is cooked with lemon and orange juice, along with plenty of onions and dry white wine. It makes for a lighter-tasting sauce than the standard rich, brown gravy, with a tangy, citrus flavor. For serving, the tender slices of meat are topped with a crisp herb salad, adding even more freshness to the plate. Serve it with mashed or roasted potatoes to soak up all the caramelized, oniony juices.
Grilled Sausages and Radicchio
For at least one meal at your summer rental, serve sausages. They come seasoned and self-contained, with no need for condiments or sauces. After a long trip, you just throw them on the grill or under a broiler, and serve with a salad on the side. Or, even better, toss them into your salad (in this case, a lightly grilled radicchio salad), letting their fat flavor the leaves along with the lemon juice and good olive oil you also packed.
Braised Brisket With Plums, Star Anise and Port
For this recipe, I added plums to the onions in the sauce for brightness, and port for sweetness. Star anise and bay leaf add depth, but you could leave them out without anyone missing them, or substitute a cinnamon stick and orange zest. And if you don’t want to use port, regular red wine spiked with a few tablespoons of honey or brown sugar is a nice substitute. If you can, track down a second cut, or deckle, brisket for this dish. For lovers of fatty meat, this is brisket nirvana. It’s juicy, it’s succulent, it falls apart under the fork with barely a nudge. It’s also as tasty as short ribs but less expensive, which is what you want when you’re cooking for a large family dinner. You can’t find the second cut in many supermarkets, but butchers have it if you ask.
Creamy White Bean and Seaweed Stew With Parmesan
Cooking dried beans with seaweed is a traditional method of adding flavor that’s also thought to mitigate some of the gas-inducing enzymes present in the legumes. Here, white beans are simmered with briny dried kombu to add depth, then mixed with slivered kelp for freshness and a slight crunch. It’s a play on white beans with escarole, but with the flavor of the sea.
Baked Flounder and Eggs
Fish is a breakfast staple all over the world, from the grilled fish and rice of Japan, to kippers and eggs in England, to bagels-and-lox brunches. But here, fresh flounder for breakfast is exotic and unexpected. This recipe puts the fish and the eggs in one pan and adds a pungent green garnish.