Recipes By Pete Wells
65 recipes found
Maggie Smith
Joaquín Simó was a bartender at Death & Co in the East Village when he came up with the Maggie Smith, an elaboration on an old drink called Between the Sheets. Maggie Smith’s character in “Evil Under the Sun” offers a Between the Sheets to Hercule Poirot, who asks for cassis or crème de banane instead. He should have taken her up on it.
Wet Martini
Originally, a dry martini was one made with dry vermouth, but over time it came to mean one made with as little vermouth as possible. Its opposite was a wet martini, which brought to the foreground the softening, complicating aromatics of vermouth. Eel Bar in Manhattan blends two kinds of vermouth into its wet martini and stirs them with an equal proportion of London dry gin. Orange bitters stiffen its spine a bit, as does a mist of citrus oil from the peel of an orange. Like a dry martini, this cocktail should be served very, very cold.
The Commerce Inn Patty Melt
Patty melts have very few components: sliced bread, beef patties, caramelized onions and cheese. Vary them slightly and it’s possible the sandwich you end up with won’t be a patty melt anymore. Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, the chefs and owners of The Commerce Inn in New York City, put Dijon mayonnaise inside their patty melts, and it works. The mayo makes the sandwich juicier, the mustard helps cut through the fat, and the result is still, undeniably, a patty melt.
Cajun Seasoning
Back in 2011, in his New York Times Magazine column, Cooking With Dexter, Pete Wells asked his son about his favorite foods. “It was a tie,” Wells recounted Dexter saying, “between sushi and the fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl.” The chicken was a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon, and this Cajun seasoning central to it. Adapted from “Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook,” by Bruce Bromberg, Eric Bromberg and Melissa Clark, this recipe is ready in no time, using ingredients straight from a well-stocked spice rack, but it changes whatever it’s sprinkled on.
Blue Ribbon Cajun Seasoning
Back in 2011, in his New York Times Magazine column, Cooking With Dexter, Pete Wells asked his son about his favorite foods. “It was a tie,” Wells recounted Dexter saying, “between sushi and the fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl.” The chicken was a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon, and this Cajun seasoning central to it. Adapted from “Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook,” by Bruce Bromberg, Eric Bromberg and Melissa Clark, this recipe is ready in no time, using ingredients straight from a well-stocked spice rack, but it changes whatever it’s sprinkled on.
Fish With Grilled Salsa Verde
Cuban Black Beans
This classic recipe is adapted from “Tastes Like Cuba,” by Eduardo Machado and Michael Domitrovich. The secret is the homemade sofrito, but bottled will do in a pinch.
Peperonata With Capers
Chicken-Liver Mousse
Blueberry Maple Caiprissimo
Chicken Meatballs With Chives and a Lime Raita
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
Vegans have made amazing discoveries in the field of eggless baking. This is a boon not just for folks who abstain from animal products, but also for those who have dairy allergies. This recipe, adapted from “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World,” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, makes cupcakes that are moist and sweet and dark with cocoa.
Tangerine Sherbet
This sherbet reminds me of long-ago Creamsicles and Orange Juliuses at the mall, but it has a bright juiciness I don’t remember from my childhood.
Horseradish Pomegranate Margarita
Traditionalists will scoff, but this unusual riff on the classic margarita has plenty of bite and a touch of sweetness, making it a perfect accompaniment to rich Mexican food. You'll need to plan ahead for this cocktail as you have to soak the horseradish root in tequila for at least 24 hours, but the results are without compare. Store leftover tequila-horseradish mixture in the refrigerator.
Watermelon Sugar
Baked Salmon With Coconut-Tomato Sauce
In 2008, The New York Times asked the chef Eric Ripert of the celebrated restaurant Le Bernardin to dream up a meal that leaned heavily on products from a Jack’s 99-Cent Store. Mr. Ripert tackled the assignment with ingenuity and aplomb, creating dishes like this baked salmon with creamy jasmine rice and a tomato sauce, which uses canned coconut milk in both the rice and sauce.
Butterflied Chicken With Cracked Spices
Somewhere in “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook” is a recipe for a standing rib roast of pork with variations. I’m sure of that. I’m less sure, because I can’t find it online, that the book gives a variation that calls for rubbing the meat with fennel and coriander seeds, among other spices. I wanted to try some version of that on a chicken and came up with the idea of grafting those seasonings, as I remembered them, onto a classic Marcella Hazan recipe for chicken alla diavola. Hazan has you butterfly the chicken and rub it with cracked black pepper before grilling or broiling it. Just by faking and misremembering, I stumbled on a weeknight dinner that’s faster than roast chicken and fragrant with mysteriously harmonious spices. It may not be the devil’s chicken, but it could be the work of one of his minor demons.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
There’s little more comforting on a weeknight — or any night — than spaghetti, tossed in marinara sauce and paired with savory meatballs. This hearty recipe features three kinds of meat — ground pork shoulder, veal and beef chuck, along with minced bacon — rolled into small balls, which are then browned in a sauté pan, and baked until cooked through. Serve the whole thing with a bowl of grated Parmesan, ready to be heaped on.
Boston Baked Beans
Squat, glazed ceramic bean pots lurk in cabinets all over New England. They're traditional for Boston baked beans, but enameled cast iron is faster. Beans in cast iron can be brought to a boil over a burner before the dish goes into the oven; this saves about an hour.
Fried Pear Pies
Top Notch Volcano
Cherry Crush
Peperonata
