Recipes By Melissa Clark
1478 recipes found
Date-Stuffed Parathas With Yogurt Dip
This recipe plays fast and loose with the buttery, layered Indian flatbreads called parathas. Traditionally, a flour-and-water yeastless dough is brushed with clarified butter or oil, then folded over onto itself so that the breads puff in the pan when fried. If you’ve ever seen them stuffed, it’s generally with something savory — potatoes, onions or ground meat and the like, which give them heft and depth. In this version, sugary sliced dates are folded into the layers, then the breads are grilled rather than fried. (But they can be fried if you prefer.) They are sweeter and smokier than the usual parathas, but just as good for scooping up dips of all kinds. Here, they’re paired with a variation on raita, an Indian yogurt, cucumber and mint mixture that’s been garnished with crushed walnuts for crunch.
Garlicky Beet Spread with Yogurt, Dill and Horseradish
This recipe for an easy appetizer borrows from the Ashkenazi tradition, making it a perfect Hanukkah offering. Roasted beets, dill, walnuts and horseradish are whirred in a blender with yogurt, garlic and olive oil, coming together into a pungent magenta purée. It is thick enough to serve on latkes, and creamy enough to go it alone as a dip with vegetables. (The New York Times)
Spatchcocked Chicken With Herb Butter
Spatchcocking (also called butterflying) a chicken helps it to roast more evenly and much more quickly, giving you perfectly tender, juicy meat with golden skin. This one is slathered with herb butter, making it extra fragrant. (If you have any herb butter left over, freeze it, then use it on steaks or fish or roasted potatoes.) Pulling out a well-flavored compound butter is one of those cheffy moves that makes almost everything taste better.
Gingerbread Rum Balls
This is the perfect recipe to make if you’ve got crumbs leftover after building a gingerbread house. Or you can use a package of gingersnaps ground up in the food processor or blender. The flavor of rum balls improves after they sit for a couple of days, so plan ahead if you’re considering these for a holiday bash. They will last for two weeks or even longer if you store them airtight at room temperature. Rolling rum balls in confectioners’ sugar gives you a soft, moist confection while using granulated sugar results in a crunchier texture. And if you’d rather skip the alcohol, you can substitute orange or apple juice for the rum. Just reduce the confectioners’ sugar by a tablespoon or two, to taste.
Chestnut-Apple Soup With Calvados Cream
Green Tomato Soup With Bacon and Brioche Croutons
Carrot-Tahini Soup With Coriander, Turmeric and Lemon
Here's a simple carrot soup with loads of garlic and lemon for punch, with some tahini puréed in at the end. It is tangy, nutty, very creamy and intensely flavored, like liquid hummus with a gentle sweetness.
Buttered Corn Soup Amuse-Bouche
Potato, Salmon and Spinach Patties With Garlicky Dill Cream
These patties were inspired by a trip to a Southern diner with a memorable salmon patty on the menu. The secret to their soft and creamy texture? Mashed potatoes, of course. So here is a graceful dish that gives you a way to use leftover mashed potatoes by combining them with salmon and spinach and giving them a bread-crumb coating. They end up golden and crunchy and absolutely bursting with salmon.
Toasted Almond Snowballs
Browning almond flour for these cookies adds a deep layer of toasty flavor, intensifying their overall nuttiness. Feel free to substitute other nuts: Pistachios, walnuts and pecans work particularly well. Snowballs keep, stored airtight at room temperature, for about a week.
One-Pot French Onion Soup With Garlic-Gruyère Croutons
I don’t make onion soup at home partly because I lack the flameproof bowls that chefs run under the broiler to melt the cheese. And what’s the point of making onion soup without the elastic cap of gooey Gruyère? The more I pondered this, the more I wondered if I could skip those individual bowls, layer the croutons and cheese directly into the soup pot, and just broil the whole thing.
Rice Flour Poundcake
Rice flour makes this poundcake melt-in-your-mouth tender, and gives it a mild and delicate flavor that’s spiced with a touch of black pepper. It keeps well, so feel free to bake it a day or two ahead of serving, or eat any leftovers for breakfast. This recipe was created by Zachary Golper of Bien Cuit bakery in Brooklyn, who prefers Japanese rice flour for its consistently fine particle size, but any white rice flour will work. (Note: If you don't have an 8-inch loaf pan, you can use a 9-inch pan but the baking time will be about 5 to 10 minutes shorter, and the loaf will be flatter in appearance.)
Pistachio Linzer Cookies With Orange Marmalade
These are linzer cookies — with a twist. Pistachios replace almonds, and orange blossom water accentuates the flavor of the pistachios and orange marmalade. They're much tangier and a bit less sweet than the traditional ones, but just as buttery, rich and compelling.
Kringle
A classic pastry that originated in Racine, Wis., the American kringle has a flaky, buttery crust and a sweet, tender filling. This one, which is adapted from “Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland” by Shauna Sever, is rich with almond paste. While kringles are best served within a day or two of baking, they can also be frozen. Just wait to ice them after defrosting, otherwise the icing gets a little sticky.
Black Pepper and Bourbon Caramel Chews
Soft caramels are not inherently elegant, but these are thanks to a gentle sprinkle of black pepper and a dash of bourbon. The recipe does require a candy thermometer.
Crown Roast of Pork with Fennel and Lemon
Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake
Take advantage of rhubarb season with this easy dessert. Baked and unmolded, this cake resembles a pale pink mosaic atop velvet-crumbed and vanilla-infused cake. The rhubarb, which you’ll add in raw, is tangy and tender, firm enough to give you something to chew over. It’s an easy half-hour of prep and another hour and change in the oven, ample time for a light supper, anticipation of dessert hanging in the spring air.
Crisp Roast Duck
A golden-skinned roasted duck is a festive main course for any special meal. In this recipe, the bird is doused with boiling water before being scored all over. The boiling water helps pull the skin taut, making it easier to score in a crosshatch pattern. That, in turn, allows the fat to render out as everything roasts. The result is a perfectly cooked duck with pink, juicy meat and burnished, crunchy skin. Serve the bird as is, or with some kind of sauce — either sweet or pungent — such as cranberry sauce, salsa verde or a spicy soy dipping sauce. And save the duck fat at the bottom of the pan. It will keep for at least three months in the refrigerator and is excellent on roasted vegetables, especially potatoes.
Almond Spritz Cookies
A holiday classic found in nearly every cookie box, these almond-flavored treats are buttery, crisp and all too easy to eat by the handful (fear not, this recipe makes a lot). Spritz cookies also keep well, for up to two weeks stored in an airtight container at room temperature. If you don’t have a spritz gun, you can use a pastry bag to form them. Or, for more rustic versions, skip the pressing altogether. Chill the dough for an hour, then roll out 1-inch balls, placing them 1 ½ inches apart on the baking sheets, then use a fork to flatten them. A sprinkle of colored sugar makes everything pretty.
Brown-Butter Chocolate Oatmeal
Adding a few tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder to your morning oatmeal turns a quotidian breakfast into something unexpectedly complex and bittersweet, while browning the butter adds a nutty richness. You can adapt this recipe to work in your slow cooker or pressure cooker, if that’s your preference. Just brown the butter and oats first, then whisk the cocoa into the boiling water until no lumps remain, and proceed as you usually do. For something a little mellower, substitute whole milk, nut milk or coconut milk for up to half of the water.
Pear Snacking Cake With Brown Butter Glaze
This moist and tender cake has a similar texture to pumpkin or banana bread, with a delicate pear flavor scented with nutmeg and a touch of clove. But the real star is the brown butter glaze, which is nutty and rich, tasting a little like butterscotch, with a strong vanilla sweetness. The cake keeps well when stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, though the glaze will lose its snap from the chill. Or, bake the cake ahead, then glaze it a few hours before serving for the best texture. You can freeze the unglazed cake as well, up to a month ahead.
Spiced Holiday Pralines
Living in the South, Elizabeth Choinski has seen plenty of pralines in her time, flavored with the likes of chocolate and coffee. But she had never come upon pralines imbued with the classic spice flavors of the holidays. So she made her own, mixing cloves and cinnamon into the pot. The resulting pralines are superb: aromatic, creamy as they melt in your mouth, then crunchy from the nuts.
Cultured Butter Cookies
These cookies are crumblier, crisper and more buttery in flavor than the typical cookie made with high-fat sweet cream butter. Which is exactly why you should make them.
Standing Rib Roast
Like many Nebraskans, the poet Erin Belieu’s family members use any large gathering as a pretext for serving prime rib. Thanksgiving is no exception. When Ms. Belieu, a fourth-generation Nebraskan, was growing up in Omaha, her family served prime rib alongside the turkey — until they realized no one really liked the bird and dispensed with it altogether. Her grandfather was a cowboy, and the whole family was steeped in the state’s ranching culture, even when they eventually moved to the city. In her house, the beef was minimally seasoned and roasted in a hot oven until the exterior was crackling and browned, the inside juicy and red. A little horseradish sauce might be served on the side, but her father always disapproved. Good beef doesn’t need it. “He thought sauce was for drugstore cowboys,” she said.