Recipes By Melissa Clark
1478 recipes found
Pork Chops With Tamarind and Ginger
Seasoning pork chops with a paste of fresh ginger, chile, cumin and tamarind gives the brawny meat a deeply spicy, sour flavor that gets more intense the longer it marinates. Then the excess marinade is mixed into the drippings to make a heady sauce. If you can’t find tamarind concentrate (also sometimes called tamarind extract), lime juice will supply the sour notes, though without the same fruity complexity.
Pork Katsu With Pickled Cucumbers and Shiso
Thanks to a coating of fluffy, brittle panko instead of regular bread crumbs, tonkatsu (or pork katsu) is crunchier than most pork schnitzel, and the accompanying sauce gives it a jolt of tangy flavor. Pork katsu is easy to make at home, especially if you borrow some techniques from its schnitzel sibling.
Brussels Sprouts Caesar Salad
This mix of roasted, caramelized brussels sprouts and slawlike raw slices is topped with a lemony, garlicky dressing that’s a bit like Caesar, but lighter, brighter and anchovy-free (though you could add some if you like). Serve it as a satisfying side dish to a simple pasta or roast chicken, or as a light meal on its own.
Strawberry Shortcake With Lemon-Pepper Syrup
Here’s a take on the perfect summer birthday cake: a buttery, vanilla-scented spongecake doused with ripe strawberries and fresh whipped cream, gilded with a spicy-tart syrup to cut the sweetness. After the cake cools, you’ll cut it into two layers and put them back together with the sliced strawberries, which have been resting in some sugar and lemon zest, your whipped cream and the lemon-pepper syrup. Then top the whole thing with more whipped cream and serve it up. It’s a couple of hours of your time, resulting in a treat appropriate to welcome anyone’s next trip around the sun.
Creamy Cauliflower Soup With Harissa Tomatoes
Cauliflower is cooked twice for this plush vegan soup, which is both cozy and complex in flavor. First, it’s roasted so its flavor deepens, simmered in broth until thoroughly and completely soft. When puréed, it gives the soup a rich, velvety texture and a savory, caramelized character that’s zipped up with harissa-glazed roasted tomatoes. A note on harissa pastes: They vary a lot in their heat level. If yours is milder, use the full amount listed, but if you’re working with a more fiery harissa, use less. And if you don’t have harissa on hand, any other chile paste will work well.
Corn-Seafood Stew With Avocado and Chiles
The bright, tangy flavors of this colorful seafood dish, adapted from the chef Jose Salazar of Mita’s Restaurant in Cincinnati, are loosely based on Mexican pozole verde, a hominy stew usually made with pork or chicken, or both. But here, the starchy grains are replaced by juicy, fresh corn kernels, and seafood stands in for the meat. Perfect for summer, the stew is herbal and light, with a sweetness from the corn that’s balanced by lime juice and roasted tomatillos, while green chiles give the whole thing a kick. You can use any combination of seafood here, adjusting the cooking times as needed.
Crunchy Vietnamese Cabbage Salad With Pan-Seared Tofu
Cabbages are the quintessential storage vegetable. You can cut a cabbage in quarters or thirds and use one piece at a time. The other hunks will keep, wrapped well in the vegetable crisper, for at least two weeks, and potentially a lot longer if you mist them with water every once in a while. That means you can buy one large cabbage and use it several times for different recipes, experiencing the deceptively versatile vegetable many ways. Fried tofu turns this Vietnamese-inspired slaw into more of a meal.
Skillet Chicken Thighs With Brown Butter Corn
This weeknight-friendly recipe pairs sweet corn kernels with sautéed boneless chicken thighs. Easily made in one large skillet, the chicken is cooked first before the corn kernels are added to sauté in the drippings, seasoned with garlic, thyme and plenty of brown butter. Finished with torn basil, lime juice and scallions, it walks the line between rich and sweet, and tangy and fresh — all in under 30 minutes.
Malted Milk Fudge Ripple Ice Cream
If you love the flavor of malted milk, you’ll adore this ultra-creamy ice cream, which tastes like a chocolate malted in solid form. To achieve the most intense flavor, seek out the barley malt syrup (available in health food stores), which deepens the malted milk powder whisked into the ice cream base. Be gentle when folding in the fudge ripple; you want the fudge to stay in distinct pockets and not disappear into the ice cream base. Or skip the rippling altogether and serve the fudge as a sauce on top of the ice cream.
Smoky Sweet Potatoes With Eggs and Almonds
Slow-roasting sweet potatoes in coconut oil and spices gives them a rich flavor and delicately crisp texture on their exterior while they turn velvety within. Don’t be tempted to take them out of the oven early. As Steven D., a reader, wrote in the notes of the recipe upon which this one is based: “The potatoes are soft after a half hour or so, but then the crusts harden in the second half hour, giving them the delicious texture that makes the dish unique.” Adding fried eggs, a smoky yogurt sauce and crunchy almonds turns a sweet potato side dish into a satisfying, meatless meal. And if you don’t have coconut oil on hand, you can use olive or another cooking oil, though the potatoes won’t have the same texture.
Pork Chops With Brandied Cherries
Pork and fruit is a classic combination, and for good reason: The sweetness and tang of the fruit softens the gamy richness of the meat. Here, a pan sauce of ripe summer cherries seasoned with a little brandy and fresh thyme adds verve and complexity to seared pork chops, while garam masala and allspice add heady, aromatic notes. You can use either sour or sweet cherries, as long as you balance the flavors at the end. Sweet ones will need a touch of vinegar for acidity, while sour cherries may need a drizzle of honey. Do take the time to get a good, dark sear on the meat before making the sauce. Those browned bits on the bottom of the pan are the flavor backbone of the sauce. The darker the color, the deeper the sauce.
Focaccia Dough
This dough recipe makes enough for three focaccias, so bake one loaf tonight and freeze the remaining dough. This can be topped with sautéed ramps or roasted potatoes, or simply brushed with good salt and olive oil. Baking it in a cake pan will allow for a nice-looking, gently domed loaf. (The New York Times)
Dandelion Salad With Garlic Confit Dressing
Roasted Potatoes With Anchovies and Tuna
In this pantry-friendly recipe, golden, crackling-skinned potatoes move from side dish to main course after being tossed with tuna, capers and a pungent sauce of anchovies melted in brown butter. It’s extremely adaptable. If you don’t have (or like) tuna, use chickpeas or white beans instead. Just don’t skimp on the onion, which adds a crisp sweetness to the potatoes. With their slightly thicker skins, fingerlings work especially well here, but use whatever you’ve got.
Honey-Roasted Peanut Thumbprints
A peanut butter and jelly sandwich in cookie form, these nostalgic treats are just as appealing to grown-ups as they are to kids. Using a combination of honey-roasted and salted peanuts gives them a sweet-salty complexity, while a shot of citrus zest adds brightness. Feel free to substitute other jam flavors for Concord grape. But don’t use jelly: It’s too thin and will melt right out of the cookies as they bake.
Chocolate Ganache With Black Sesame and Miso
In this highly sophisticated confection, soft chocolate ganache and crumbly black sesame streusel sit on top of a salty-sweet black sesame and miso cream. Eaten together, the flavors veer toward the savory side — as perfect for people who don’t usually like sweets as it is for dessert lovers looking for nuance and depth. At NA/NA in Paris, the chef Nathaly Nicolas-Ianniello garnishes this differently depending on the season – using some combination of micro herbs, edible flowers, and/or tart berries, such as currants or wild blueberries. But it’s also wonderful served plain, with just the crunchy bits of near-black streusel dotting the top. You can make all the components days in advance, but don’t combine them until just before serving. The textural contrast of creamy, sandy and crisp is part of the charm.
Diana Dávila’s Chiles Rellenos
In her singular take on chiles rellenos, Diana Dávila crosses two classic Mexican preparations of the dish — chiles rellenos ahogados and chiles en nogada — to come up with her own remarkable variation. Roasted, peeled poblanos are stuffed with a ground meat picadillo spiked with apples, raisins, cider vinegar and brown sugar, then dunked in a feathery egg batter and fried until golden. Just before serving, those stuffed, fried chiles are bathed in a brothy tomato sauce lightened with carrot juice. It does take time to put all the elements together, but you won’t regret a minute of it when you taste what might be the best chiles rellenos you’ve ever had: complex, sweet and spicy, and deeply brawny. At Mi Tocaya Antojería, her restaurant in Chicago, Ms. Dávila uses a combination of chopped duck confit and ground pork for the picadillo. But using all ground pork works equally well.
Stir-Fried Green Beans With Pork and Chiles
In this fast, piquant weeknight meal, ground pork and green beans are stir-fried with plenty of ginger, garlic and chiles, and seasoned with soy sauce and coriander seeds. A big splash of rice-wine vinegar right at the end adds a hit of acidity, which balances the pork's richness. Serve this over rice or rice noodles to help absorb all the salty, spicy sauce. Slices of fresh tomato add a sweet juiciness that works well here. But if you don't have a ripe tomato, feel free to leave it out.
Fried Eggplant With Chickpeas and Mint Chutney
In this gently spiced vegetable dish, baby eggplant slices are first fried until golden, then braised with chickpeas, tomatoes and garam masala until soft, velvety and richly flavored. A quickly made fresh mint chutney adds a complex, herbal, spicy note thanks to the jalapeño in the mix. Serve this over rice or with flatbread as a main course, or on the side of grilled meats or fish.
Sous-Vide Peanut-Ginger Pork With Celery Slaw
Using a sous-vide machine to cook lean cuts like pork tenderloin produces silky, pink-centered meat that is juicy and tender. Here, the pork is cooked in a peanut-sesame sauce spiked with loads of ginger and garlic. As a crunchy, cool contrast, the pork is served with a slawlike mix of thinly sliced celery and fennel, and plenty of cilantro. Serve this with coconut rice or rice noodles, with more of the spicy sauce drizzled on top.
Pasta With Mussels, Tomatoes and Fried Capers
The best part of a big pot of mussels is arguably the broth, especially when it features plenty of garlic and wine. Here, the mussels and their broth — combined with ripe summer tomatoes — make a heady, rich sauce for pasta. A topping of toasted garlicky bread crumbs run through with fried capers gives the mixture texture and tang. This is just as good warm as it is hot, so feel free to make it up to an hour in advance, adding the herbs just before serving.
One-Pot Braised Chard With Gnocchi, Peas and Leeks
Adding a package of prepared potato gnocchi to a pot of braised greens turns a side dish into a vibrant one-pot meal fit for weeknights. The chard stems, leeks and peas are nubby and colorful next to the pillowy gnocchi, while a combination of butter and white wine makes the sauce rich and tangy. For extra creaminess, serve this with dollops of fresh ricotta stirred in at the last minute. Or skip the ricotta for a lighter meal.
Roasted Lemony Fish With Brown Butter, Capers and Nori
Drizzling a mild, white fish with a caper-spiked browned butter is classic for a reason. The butter adds richness to the lean fish, and the tanginess of capers and lemon perks up any mellowness. In this version, adapted from the chef Danielle Alvarez’s cookbook “Always Add Lemon” (Hardie Grant, 2020), nori oil adds another layer of umami flavor. It’s both bright and deep, with a silky texture that’s easy to achieve. Serve it with rice or bread to mop up all the saline, buttery juices.
The Most Adaptable One-Bowl Cornmeal Poundcake
Is it cake time yet? Cake is comforting in a way that a tart or cookies are not, and this is especially true of loaf cakes, which you can convince yourself is just like bread. Slices of it fit in the toaster, so really, what’s the difference? This citrus-scented cornmeal number is endlessly adaptable — use whatever fat you have on hand, dairy or light, bright flavoring you have on hand — and requires just one bowl. It’s wonderful in slices, but extra nice toasted and buttered for breakfast.