Recipes By Melissa Clark
1479 recipes found
Vietnamese Grilled Duck Salad With Cucumber, Radishes and Peanuts
This zesty, cool and satisfying dish is worth making on any steamy summer night. The duck (you could use flank steak in a pinch, or for value) is marinated in a Vietnamese-inspired combination of soy sauce, lime, ginger, garlic, rice wine vinegar and fish sauce. The meat is grilled over indirect heat, and the result is meat beautifully infused with the flavors of the marinade. A crunchy slaw of cucumbers, radishes and carrots strewn with herbs and roasted peanuts finishes off the dish.
Melissa Clark’s Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream
Toasted Irish Oatmeal With Apple Cider
Pasta With Roasted Cauliflower and Blue Cheese
When creamy Gorgonzola dolce hits a pot full of hot pasta, it melts into a rich and complex sauce without your having to do much more than stir. Here, the pasta and sauce are tossed with roasted cauliflower and caramelized, browned leeks. It’s comfort food, but with a blue-cheese bite.
Splayed Turkey With Herbs
This unorthodox method for roasting a turkey gives you a delicious, evenly cooked bird — fast. Before roasting, the bird’s legs are splayed so they lie flat on the bottom of the roasting pan, where they are seared. That jump-starts the cooking of the dark meat (which always needs more time than the white meat). Then, after searing, the bird is surrounded by onions and wine before going into the oven; this essentially braises the dark meat while the breast meat roasts. The result is tender dark meat and juicy white meat, all ready in under 2 hours in the oven. An added bonus: You’ll get a pan full of rich oniony drippings that can enrich your gravy, or take its place entirely. To get the deepest flavor, this recipe calls for dry-brining your bird at least a day or two ahead. But you can reduce the brining time to 2 hours if you’re pressed for time. Also, if you're trying this with a bird that weighs more than 13 pounds, you will need an extra-large roast pan, and to roast it for a bit longer.
Shaved Butternut Squash With Dates
Shaved slivers of raw butternut squash make for a surprisingly refreshing and crisp salad. Here, it is served with a dressing of tangy buttermilk, sweet dates and crunchy pumpkinseeds. Look for a small, fresh butternut squash, preferably one with a long neck, which makes it easy to shave.
Vietnamese-Style Crispy Shrimp Cakes
These crispy shrimp cakes were inspired by chao tom, Vietnamese shrimp on sugar cane, a delectable appetizer you'll find at restaurants in which shrimp is whirled into a paste in the food processor, then patted on pieces of sugar cane and steamed before grilling or frying. This version leaves out the sugar cane, which can be hard for some home cooks to find, but keeps the essence of the dish: golden-edged, pan-fried cakes that are served with nuoc cham, a piquant sauce. Although traditional recipes keep the shrimp seasonings to a minimum, making up for it later with the sauce, this one spices up the paste, adding lemon grass to the shrimp along with green chiles and scallions. (If you don't often cook with lemon grass, this video will show you how to prepare it.) You can serve the cakes as an appetizer wrapped in lettuce leaves or herbs (large basil leaves are wonderful in summer). Or fry them up for dinner, heaping them on rice noodles and dousing it all with nuoc cham.
Crunchy Scotch Eggs With Horseradish and Pickles
Spiced Pumpkin Oatmeal
Good oatmeal can be a revelation, with grains that are tender and plump but that retain their toothsomeness and shape. And of course, it is good for you, being high in calcium, iron, protein and fiber and low in salt and calories. This version is a homey, not-too-sweet nod to the pumpkin spice trend.
Roasted Fish With Blood Orange and Fennel
Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
There are cakes that can be made without turning on (or having to clean) the food processor or electric mixer. This is one of them. The recipe, inspired by Dorie Greenspan’s extra-virgin olive oil cake, uses blood oranges, which leave the cut loaf dappled with ruby dots. It’s a lovely presentation, but regular oranges could be used, too.
Tangerine, Ginger and Chocolate Tart
This elegant tart has a tangy citrus curd nestled in a ginger shortbread crust coated with bittersweet chocolate. The chocolate not only adds flavor, it also helps the pastry stay crisp by creating a barrier between the liquid curd and the pre-baked crust. This tart is best served the day it’s made, but can be stored for 24 hours in the refrigerator; after that, it starts to wilt. If you want to turn the leftover dough scraps into buttery cookies, see the note.
Tomato-Watermelon Gazpacho With Avocado
After several days of sitting out on the counter feeding the fruit flies, even the firmest tomatoes start to slacken. That’s when you know it’s gazpacho time.This time I added watermelon, because I had it and because I wanted a slightly sweeter soup than usual. For color and voluptuous texture, I floated buttery avocado cubes on top. It was pretty enough to serve to company, and expandable enough to use up all the soft tomatoes on the oozing brink.
Cabbage and Onion Torta
The easiest way to get everyone to love cabbage is to encase it in flaky pastry and bake until golden. This torta, filled with browned onions, silky cabbage, and plenty of creamy fontina cheese, might just be the best way you've ever eaten what is arguably a challenging vegetable. It's at its most appealing served warm, with the cheese still a little gooey. But when fully cooled it becomes picnic or lunchbox fare, sturdy enough to slice up and carry with you. The smoked ham is purely optional, but is does add a pleasing porky flavor to the mix. And if you can't find fontina, try Gruyere, Swiss or muenster instead.
Creamy Mussel Stew With Peas, Fennel and Lemon
This complexly flavored, multitextured, slightly sweet dish of mussels is an elegant meal that can easily be doubled for a dinner party.
Pan-Seared Mackerel With Sweet Peppers and Thyme
Mackerel escabèche is one of those dishes I have always preferred to admire from afar. It’s traditionally prepared by pickling the fillets in vinegar, but I’ve never quite cottoned to its biting flavor. To me, it overwhelms the delicacy of a good fresh piece of fish. At home, I sprinkled the fish fillets with salt, pepper and some sweet paprika. Then I let them sit while I slowly stewed the leeks, carrots and peppers with some garlic and thyme. I seared the fish until lightly browned but still very moist inside. When people say they don’t like mackerel because it’s too strong and dry, it’s usually because the fish has been overcooked. But when cooked right, until just flaky in the center, the flesh is mild and almost buttery.
Spicy Coconut Mussels With Lemongrass
Mussels are cheap, delicious and relatively fun to eat: saline, mild and plump little bites. They are also extremely easy to cook, especially if they’ve been farmed (most mussels you find in markets have been). Just give them a good rinse, and they are ready to go. Here the treatment heads in the general direction of Thailand, offering a sauce of coconut milk, lemongrass, garlic and chiles that perfectly frames the sweetness of the meat.
Hummus With Crisp Maitake Mushrooms
Cornmeal Waffles With Banana Bourbon Syrup
Cornmeal adds crunch and sweetness to these fluffy waffles, which are lightened with beaten egg whites. If you’d prefer a little more fiber, you can substitute a third of the all-purpose flour with whole-wheat or rye flour. The banana bourbon syrup, studded with pecans, makes these waffles sweet enough for dessert. If you do go that route, a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream would not be amiss. Or serve the waffles with some butter, sliced bananas and a drizzle of plain maple syrup for a simple but satisfying breakfast.
Easy-as-Pie Apple Cake
The name of this cake is somewhat deceiving, since most apple cakes are easier than pie (which is actually never that easy if you’re making it from scratch). In any case, it’s a simple, excellent cake with a tender crumb, subtle spicing and soft pockets of fruit. Serve it plain, or with a dollop of ice cream, whipped cream or crème fraîche.
Three-Herb Iced Tea
This nonalcoholic iced tea is made with fresh mint, basil and a simple syrup infused with chamomile flowers. It is as cool and refreshing as an air-conditioned subway car after a long wait on the steamy platform.
Parmesan Crackers
These are dainty little cheese crackers with a pungent, meaty, Parmesan edge. It is that extra step of browning the crackers in a hot oven that lends them so much character. It caramelizes the cheese, giving it an earthy, almost porcinilike intensity. That and using good Parmigiano-Reggiano are the secrets to success. The technique, no rolling pin necessary, is child's play. The result is resolutely adult -- especially when you serve them with wine.
Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Matzo Brei
This recipe is adapted from the restaurant Jane in downtown New York. There, the chef Glenn Harris offers a matzo brei two ways, but not, he will quickly tell you, because he likes it both ways. He only makes the savory kind, with deliciously glossy, nearly black, fried onions, as a concession to his partner in the restaurant, Jeff Lefcourt. Needless to say, Mr. Lefcourt's grandmother made hers savory.
Cacio e Pepe with Peas and Favas
Peeling fava beans is a fiddly task that includes removing the beans from their pods, blanching them and then peeling off the skins. But for a light dish of pasta, peas, cracked black pepper and cheese, it’s well worth the effort. Favas can be found in farmers markets in the spring and summer. This dish is one of their highest uses.