American Recipes
2885 recipes found
Smoky Eggplant Croquettes
By placing whole, unwashed, plain and naked globe eggplants directly onto the stovetop burner grate and letting them burn until charred, hissing and collapsed, you bring a haunting smokiness and profound silkiness to the interior flesh that will have you hooked for the rest of your life. This way of cooking eggplant is a revelation in itself — easy, yet exciting and engaging — and requires nothing more of the home cook than a little seasoning at the end to be enjoyed, as is. But biting into a warm, crisp, golden fried croquette with that smoky, silken purée at its center is what restaurant-level complexity and satisfaction is all about. One key ingredient, but 11 steps to prepare it — that about sums up the difference between home cooking and restaurant excitement.
Boiled Whole Artichokes With Mayonnaise
This method for preparing artichokes is so simple and so effective because it does one important thing: It accepts the bitter, thorny truth of the artichoke and doesn’t try to fight against it. Instead of wrestling with the thing in order to prepare it for cooking, by trying to trim those tightly closed petals that stab your fingertips and leave them coated in a wretchedly bitter film, just leave the artichoke alone. Slice off the domed top, then drop the artichoke, stems and all, right into the boiling salted water and cook until tender. Once done and cool enough to handle, the artichoke is effortless to peel, revealing sweet flesh at the base of each leaf, and her large tender heart is yours for the taking.
Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir
Some of the best wine on the planet comes from Oregon, and with this recipe Jenn Louis, the chef behind Lincoln Restaurant and Sunshine Tavern in Portland, has found a way to weave it into the Thanksgiving feast: as a boon companion to cranberries. “Many deep red wines, or port, can overwhelm the punchy berry,” said Ms. Louis. “Instead, Oregon pinot noir keeps the cranberry sauce bright and clean.” The recipe here doesn’t hold back; it is shot through with allspice, cloves, peppercorns, rosemary, cinnamon, vanilla and honey, in a mix that calls to mind the rusticity and abundance of the Pacific Northwest.
Ice-Cold Martinez
Not nearly as hefty as a Negroni or as lean as a martini, this little beauty is a perfect welterweight cocktail for the early fall.
Orecchiette With Brussels Sprouts and Bratwurst
This zesty pasta is a playful riff on choucroute garnie, the classic Alsatian dish. The usual suspects (pork and cabbage) show up in the form of bratwurst, brussels sprouts and sauerkraut. Instead of potatoes, pasta joins the party and everything comes together in a tangy sauce of Parmesan, sour cream and fresh dill. Buy sauerkraut that looks fresh and crunchy for best flavor and texture. For a more kid-friendly meal, swap in shell pasta. If you happen to find yourself with leftovers, they make a tasty cold pasta salad.
Eliza Larmour's Gingersnaps
Pulled Turkey With Jus
This stripped-down, built-for-flavor recipe, adapted from “Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling” by Meathead Goldwyn, is for people who don’t brine, forgot to brine or didn’t leave enough time to salt a bird and leave it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. It keeps the white meat moist and boosts its flavor with a rich, simple jus of stock fortified with soy sauce and deglazed pan drippings. The idea comes from Southern barbecue pit masters who shred or chop the meat from a pork shoulder and wet it with vinegar, black pepper and maybe a little tomato. The turkey is roasted slowly to keep the meat fibers from seizing up, and the breast meat is shredded or sliced so thin it falls apart. The meat is then dunked in the jus and served in a dish deep enough to hold both meat and liquid. The thigh meat and legs can be served alongside on a separate platter. The next day, the jus-soaked meat and a little cup of extra jus make for a perfect turkey French dip.
Crab Toast
Like the very best crab cakes on earth, which have as little dulling, distracting or deadening filler as possible, these crab toasts take that ethos to the extreme. There is no call for bell pepper or bread crumbs or diced celery; just the best fresh, sweet, saline crab meat you can buy, gently seasoned with a little lemon juice, bound with a tiny amount of tangy crème fraîche, then piled onto a slab of good toast, still warm. The toast is made ever so luxurious with a slathering of nutty brown butter mayonnaise. These two simple components — crab and brown butter toast — act in concert, and a glass of cold rosé to wash them down makes for the most exhilarating, satisfying spring supper imaginable.
Whole Roast Suckling Pig
A whole roast suckling pig is quite special. No other feast food of the holiday season cooks so easily, and presents so majestically. With its mahogany, crisp skin and its sticky-tender meat, people thrill to be at the party where this is on the buffet. Measure your oven, and be firm with your butcher about the pig’s size, so you can be sure it will fit — most home ovens can easily accommodate a 20-pounder. Then, just give the pig the time it needs in a low and slow oven for its meat to reach its signature tender, succulent perfection, while you clean the house or do whatever it is you do before a special party. For the last 30 minutes, ramp the heat of the oven all the way up to get that insanely delicious crackling skin.
Vanilla Butter
This sweet butter is meant to be served with chocolate bread, but we think it would be an awesome addition to the weekend breakfast table. Slather it on waffles, muffins or scones.
Lowcountry Okra Soup
Representing ingredients from at least four continents and five spiritual traditions, this okra soup is a true amalgamation of global culinary influences, from West Africa to Peru, all of which intersect in the Lowcountry kitchen. This version belongs to Amethyst Ganaway, a chef and writer of Gullah Geechee ancestry, a direct descendant of people once enslaved on the lower Atlantic Coast. Ms. Ganaway’s okra soup is not your Louisiana-style gumbo, thick with roux and rich with sausage and shrimp. It’s a simple, wholesome dish that, like the best Gullah Geechee cooking, emphasizes the freshness of its ingredients. As Ms. Ganaway advised, “The okra will naturally thicken the broth, and the fresher it is, the better it’ll do the job.’’ Since the vegetable is cooked for just 10 minutes, it grows tender but not slimy, while the pod’s caviar-like seeds add a textural pop with every bite.
Wild Rice, Almond and Mushroom Stuffing
Wild rice can be the base of a satisfying and refined Thanksgiving stuffing, particularly when it is combined with mushrooms, almonds, sherry and herbs, as it is here. Use this savory mixture to stuff a turkey to serve to the omnivores at your table, or bake it separately and serve it as a side dish, one that is especially good for vegetarians and vegans.
Salt-Baked New Potatoes With Pink-Peppercorn Butter
This way of cooking recently harvested new potatoes, by burying them in a plaster of damp salt and baking them, is a triple pleasure: effortless, tasty and very fun. The salt crust seasons the potatoes perfectly, just as it would if you’d boiled or steamed them in salted water, but the airtight seal concentrates their special flavor and texture. They come out dense, waxy and almost creamy. Bring the pan of cooked potatoes to the table right from the oven as is, so everyone can puzzle over the curious-looking white crust, and then delight over the discovery of the piping hot little beauties revealed inside once the surface is cracked. Dig them out and swoop through the butter before popping into your mouth, their skins so paper-thin they snap when you bite into them. Their appeal is irresistible.
Rosemary and Citrus Turkey for a Crowd
This recipe makes things easier on you if you’re feeding a crowd at Thanksgiving. Instead of roasting two birds, or a giant, hard-to-maneuver 22-pounder, borrow a trick that caterers use at large weddings. There’s the official wedding cake for show, while in the kitchen there are sheet pans full of the same cake recipe, baked into flat, easily sliceable pieces. Using the same logic, here you’ll find a recipe for one whole turkey roasted for that Norman Rockwell moment. Then, pans of easy-to-carve turkey parts are cooked in the same oven at the same time. Monitor everything carefully: The whole bird takes the longest to roast, while the parts roast in about half the time, the white meat often finishing before the dark. You will need a large roasting pan with a rack, and two 9-by-13-inch baking pans.
Chicken Soup With Flanken
Hana says: Take the flanken and chicken out of the soup when it's nearly done, and serve them separately. Leave the shinbone in so the meat is falling off the bone.
Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato and Olive Pizza Pockets
The traditional reason for wrapping ingredients in pastry — be it Cornish pasties, Jamaican meat patties or even pizza pockets and knishes — is to make an edible container that facilitates transport and obviates the need for niceties like forks and plates. These pizza pockets couldn't be easier to make, and they are delicious whether eaten with a knife and fork or your fingers.
Tater Tots
There's no need to peel the new potatoes for these otherwise labor-intensive tots, which are little short of a revelation. Serve with ketchup, of course.
Brine-Cured Pork Chops
Coleslaw With Lobster
Montpelier Butter
"One of my favorite recipes in the whole book ('Jeremiah Tower Cooks') is for Montpelier butter -- it's the best version I've ever tried and incredibly versatile. In 'New American Classics,' Tower wrote that this classic compound butter 'transforms hot cauliflower' and that 'on top of mashed potatoes it is so good that it should be arrested.' Here he says he hasn't changed his mind and further recommends it with hot grilled fish or steaks and, at room temperature, with cold poached salmon. With typical passion, he adds that when it is spooned between slices of leftover roast pork or veal 'the slices reassembled, left for a day, and then eaten at cool room temperature, it creates a lifelong memory.'"
Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich
This sandwich does not necessarily need a recipe, given its simplicity. But it’s an unlikely pairing, is peanut butter and pickle, and sometimes that is what a recipe is for -- to prod you in a direction that you never considered. Dwight Garner, a book critic for The Times, makes a strong case for this, his favorite sandwich, calling it “a thrifty and unacknowledged American classic.” The vinegary snap of the pickles tempers the unctuousness of the peanut butter, and it’s an unusual pantry sandwich for when luncheon meats leave you cold.
Classic Banana Split
The key to a great banana split is a combination of textures and temperatures. There’s the velvety cold ice cream, the pleasingly sticky hot fudge and the crunchy wet walnuts (here, made with maple syrup and honey), all nestled in a sliced ripe banana and topped with whipped cream. You can use any ice cream flavors you like: classics like chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, or get creative with your favorite varieties — maybe even a scoop or two of fruity sorbet. Naturally, banana splits are meant to be split between two (or three) people, so find some friends to share the sweetness.
Caviar Sandwich
I now prefer the caviar sandwich to all other more classic presentations at the holidays. All that caviar crammed into a sandwich makes me feel giddy and extravagant and very lucky to be alive the second I set eyes on it. Context is everything; what I could reasonably splurge for would feel forlorn if showcased on a proper silver trolley atop a mound of shaved ice with a mother-of-pearl spoon at the ready on its nearby velvet pillow, but here, by contrast, in the context of a lowly sandwich, it feels as decadent as if I were eating caviar straight out of the tin, like a midnight pint of ice cream. Buy the caviar you most prefer from a retailer you trust the most—the most expensive may by no means necessarily be your favorite-- and see if this luscious sandwich doesn’t make you feel pretty giddy, too.
Black Rock Chiller
Sother Teague, a bartender at Amor y Amargo in the East Village, was asked by some journalists journeying to the Burning Man gathering in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to come up with a cocktail that would travel and didn’t need chilling. This was his response. The big, sweet menthol hit of the amaro Branca Menta — while marrying wonderfully with the herbal tequila and bitter Suze — also provides the illusion of coolness in a drink that has none.