American Recipes
2885 recipes found
Peanut Butter Balls
Depending on where you live, these chocolate and peanut-butter confections are known as either peanut butter balls or buckeyes. In the Midwest, they are known as buckeyes because they look like the nut of a buckeye tree, thanks to an exposed circle of peanut butter that's left after they're dipped in chocolate. Be sure to start with a good-quality peanut butter, and don’t skimp on the salt. Those small touches carry a lot of impact.
Tomato Cobbler With Ricotta Biscuits
Nicole Rucker, the chef at Fiona in Los Angeles, makes biscuits with a particularly tender, cakelike crumb. Her secret: ricotta. Strain the cheese well to get rid of excess moisture, and don’t be afraid to dust the dough with flour as you work, to keep it from getting oversaturated and sticky. The biscuits, baked atop a mix of tomatoes seasoned with sugar and vinegar, rise tall, with soft insides and crunchy, golden crusts. The dish lies somewhere between a savory course and sweet one, and you can serve it either way.
Bacon Cornbread With Cheddar and Scallions
This cornbread hits all the notes, but skews particularly salty and savory, thanks to sautéed scallions, extra-sharp Cheddar, and bacon, folded into the batter and crowning the top of the cornbread. You can use fancy, thick-cut bacon or flimsier thin-cut varieties. Each has its benefits: Thinner bacon slices form a light, crunchy layer on the crust, while thick-cut slices have more presence in the cornbread. This cornbread belongs at brunch, where it pairs well with eggs cooked in any style, sautéed vegetables and even breakfast sausages, but it would also be at home next to a bowl of chili. If preparing for a crowd, you can bake this off a day in advance and reheat it in the oven just before serving.
Baked Carrot Cake Doughnuts
Lightly spiced and crowned with a tangy cream cheese glaze, these doughnuts are, quite simply, carrot cake baked into doughnut-shaped molds for a cuter, handheld form. (The batter could also be baked in greased mini-muffin or standard muffin tins; adjust the cooking time accordingly and bake until golden.) The floral sweetness of the golden raisins works well with the earthy carrots, but feel free to swap in your favorite chopped nuts instead. These come together in minutes without a mixer, and can be on your table within an hour. Like most doughnuts, they’re best enjoyed the day they’re made.
Cold Tomato Soup
The most beautiful tomatoes may not always be the best ones. Often, it’s the gnarly, misshapen, split-topped tomatoes that are the sweetest. You can also seek out the nearly overripe must-sell-today tomatoes, which can sometimes be found discounted at farmers markets. Those are perfect for this kind of chilled soup, a no-cook delight that is best made at the end of summer when tomatoes are at their best. Add toast and avocado for a more substantial meal.
Stock-and-Cider-Brined Chicken Over Stuffing
This one-pan dinner is ugly — rustic, if we’re being kind — but good. Or as the Italians say, “brutta ma buona.” Truly, though, it’s everything you could ask for in a rich, comforting meal. As it cooks, the chicken, brined in stock and cider, drips its flavorful juices onto the bread. The bread absorbs every drop, turning into a chewy, savory nest cradling the tender, perfectly browned chicken. Each bit of stuffing offers a different surprise — sometimes the sweet-and-sour zing of a prune, other times the faint rumor of Thanksgiving whispered by celery and thyme. It’s as satisfying as you could ever hope, even if it isn’t particularly attractive.
Tian
The tian is both a vessel and the name of what’s cooked in it: summer vegetables, sliced quite thin, arranged in careful layers, drenched in quality olive oil and then cooked in a slow oven until each individual vegetable surrenders to the others, becoming one. The true and complete melding of earthy zucchini, sweet onion, waxy potato, juicy and acidic tomatoes is the great achievement of a well-made tian, and resting the finished dish after cooking is no small part of that success. By using a cast-iron pan and starting on the stovetop during the build, covering with a lid along the way, you speed up the cooking significantly. Season every layer and generously drizzle each with olive oil to bring out tremendous flavor and aroma. The Sungold tomatoes are beautiful and bright and quite acidic — perfect against the other flavors — but I find the skins unpleasantly leathery-papery when they are cooked, so simply peel them first. Dropping the tomatoes for 30 seconds into seasoned boiling water splits their skins readily and they slip off effortlessly. I would even say it’s kind of fun.
Butternut Squash Pasta With Bacon and Parmesan
In this cozy weeknight meal, roasted butternut squash and Parmesan are combined for a dish that’s flavorful but not too heavy. A bit of thick-cut bacon adds crunch and smokiness. If you don’t have thick-cut on hand, you can certainly use thin-cut, but keep an eye on it, as it will cook through faster. Be prepared to pluck it from the oven once crisp and allow the vegetables to finish cooking at their own pace. A handful of chopped fresh herbs added just before serving gives this comforting dish a bit of brightness.
Cauliflower, Potato and Quinoa Patties
Cauliflower is a great vegetable to use in a burger, because it breaks down nicely so that it can be mashed along with potatoes to form a burger that stays together. I have always loved seasoning this vegetable with Indian spices, which is what I do here, with Aleppo pepper thrown into the mix. Black quinoa contributes texture, color and protein. Sriracha sauce is the perfect “ketchup” for this burger.
Quick-Braised Greens and Beans With Bacon
These stewed greens develop deep flavor thanks to a quick onion-garlic broth and bacon, used two ways. Sliced bacon is cooked until tender, blending in but imparting its smoky, porky essence, while crisp bacon morsels are sprinkled on top for a salty, crunchy hit. This 30-minute dish is great spooned over rice or polenta, or alongside buttery cornbread for a hearty weeknight meal, but you could also top it with an egg to bring it into brunch territory.
Whole-Roasted Stuffed Delicata Squash
Here is a vegetarian dinner course of impressive size and heft, to rival any stuffed chicken, turkey or loin of pork. The interior is a riff on a kale salad run through with croutons, dried cranberries, blue cheese and a spray of maple-scented pecans that complement the sweet flesh of the squash. You could use small sugar pumpkins for the main event, or really any sweet-fleshed winter squash, but delicata squash is our favorite option for reasons of taste and beauty. Unless you are serving it as a side dish, avoid the temptation to cut the squash vertically, to create boats for the stuffing. Boats are for side dishes. They are halves of a whole. For a main course, serve a squash per person, standing tall on each plate.
Blue Cheese Dressing
Oliver's Chicken Wings
St. Anselm’s Iceberg Wedge Salad
This wedge salad, adorned with blue cheese and warm bacon vinaigrette, is served at the restaurant St. Anselm in Brooklyn. The revelatory vinaigrette is actually a roux made with bacon fat, then thinned with cider vinegar and water, a hit of sugar and another of Dijon mustard. It is superb, and it would not be out of place drizzled over grilled asparagus, accompanied by chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Tomato Ketchup
The quality of your ingredients counts for a lot here. Don’t bother making ketchup until you can get luscious, ripe tomatoes. Grape tomatoes work, but feel free to use plum tomatoes instead. You want a meaty tomato for this, so save delicate heirlooms for salads. Many ketchup recipes call for loads of spices, but this one is kept simple with just a little black pepper and Worcestershire sauce for complexity — a close approximation to that inimitable flavor of classic Heinz, without the high-fructose corn syrup.
Sautéed Brussels Sprouts and Apple With Prosciutto
At the elegant restaurant Piora in the West Village, the chef Chris Cipollone separates each brussels sprout into individual leaves to make this autumnal dish. Thinly slicing the sprouts is faster, though less refined. The slivered sprouts are then sautéed with cubes of sweet apples, and garnished with an icy, porky snow made from frozen prosciutto grated on a microplane. Grated pecorino cheese can be used instead for a meatless version.
Tomato Aspic With Blue Cheese Dressing
Fannie Farmer’s Parker House Rolls
In 1896, Fannie Farmer, then principal of the Boston Cooking School, wrote and published a cookbook that revolutionized the way home cooks thought about cooking and housekeeping (she introduced the concept of using measuring cups and spoons, among other things). The book, originally titled “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book,” was a smash hit in the United States and became known simply as “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.” It is still in print. This classic recipe is an adaptation of one found in a revised edition by Marion Cunningham. It takes time but very little effort, and you will be rewarded with soft, pillowy, butter-rich rolls worthy of your best breadbasket.
Grainy Mustard
Homemade mustard is better than its supermarket counterpart, and it’s stupendously easy to make. Here, the combination of yellow and brown seeds makes for a medium-aggressive kick, but you could use all of one variety if you prefer. Use cold water to soak the seeds, and after puréeing, taste your mustard. You can smooth it out with a little honey, or up the zip with horseradish or chiles. Either way, your mustard will mellow out after a few days in the fridge.
Lard Pie Crust
This delicate, puffy crust uses a combination of lard and butter for the richest flavor and the largest flakes. You can substitute more lard for the butter, but you will lose some of the complexity. Make sure to seek out rendered leaf lard from a good butcher or specialty market, or try your local farmers’ market. It’s the purest and best quality pig fat to use in a crust. Avoid processed lard from the supermarket at all costs; it's been hydrogenated to increase shelf life and can sometimes have an off or mildly rancid flavor, not to mention the dangers of hydrogenated fat to your arterial health. You can freeze this crust for up to 3 months. Defrost for 8 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
Ground Beef Chili With Chocolate and Peanut Butter
Making use of a well-stocked pantry, this weeknight chili takes inspiration from the flavor profile of mole negro, an Oaxacan sauce made with chiles and chocolate that traditionally takes a full day to make, but results in a pot full of depth and nuance in less than an hour. It relies upon ground beef or turkey, and uses canned chiles in adobo, paprika and ancho chili powder for heat, plus a mix of warm spices, chocolate in two forms, and a little bit of peanut butter to round it out. In essence, this recipe is another variation of the combination of sweet and heat.
Cacio e Pepe Crackers
These quick, easy crackers are a crispy twist on the classic pasta dish, and an excellent cocktail hour snack. Rolling the freshly made dough between sheets of parchment expedites chilling, then cutting crackers with a pastry wheel (or pizza cutter) reduces waste. Do grate your own cheese for this instead of using store-bought, pre-grated cheese, as it plays an integral role in making the dough moist. These cheesy crackers can be kept simple, allowing cheese and pepper to dominate, or gussied up with any combination of onion powder, ground mustard or garlic powder, depending on your preference. This recipe makes a large batch, but the crackers will keep for up to one month, depending on your snack habits.
Spicy Lemon-Ginger Bread Stuffing