American Recipes
2885 recipes found
Mission Burrito
To find the best burritos in San Francisco, you have to go to the Mission District, a historic Latin American neighborhood known for its vibrant culture and food. There are many places there to get a good burrito, but La Taqueria, which won a James Beard Award in 2017, is a favorite. Miguel Jara, who emigrated to the United States from Mexico, opened the restaurant in 1973 because he missed the cuisine of his home country. Mission burritos are known for their giant size (about eight inches long), and are packed with a hearty serving of meat, beans, salsa verde, pico de gallo, cheese, avocado and sour cream. Most Mission burritos include rice as well, but Mr. Jara believes it takes away from the flavors of the meat. No garnish is necessary, but the aluminum foil wrapper is required: No real Mission burrito is served without it.
BBQ Bacon Brisket Flat
Packer brisket is what you order at a barbecue restaurant. The brisket flat (the leaner, flatter of the two muscles that comprise a whole brisket) is what you’re more likely to find at the supermarket. Lacking the generous marbling of a packer, the flat tends to toughen and dry out during a long slow cook on your grill or smoker. But two simple techniques deliver a moist, tender brisket flat every time. The first is to cook the flat in a foil pan to shield the lean meat from the heat. The second is to drape the brisket flat with a layer of bacon, which renders its fat during cooking, basting the meat and keeping it moist. Then there’s the bonus: You get to eat barbecued bacon along with your brisket.
Garlic-Parsley Potato Cakes
These crisp and savory cakes, a longtime specialty of the Manhattan restaurant called Home, are best described as homemade Tater Tots in patty form. They are a nice change from mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving or Christmas (or any) dinner, make ideal carriers for fried or poached eggs at brunch, and can even double as latkes for Hanukkah. The power of the garlic is tamed in one easy step — by boiling it in the same water as the potatoes.
The Real Burger
Here's one way to know you're using great meat in your burger: Grind it yourself, using chuck roast or well-marbled sirloin steaks. “Grinding” may sound ominous, conjuring visions of a big old hand-cranked piece of steel clamped to the kitchen counter, but in fact it’s not that difficult if you use a food processor, which gets the job done in a couple of minutes or less. The flavor difference between this burger and one made with pre-packaged supermarket ground beef is astonishing, and might change your burger-cooking forever.
Cherry Pepper Poppers
Lacking the cult status of ripe summer tomatoes or the esoteric cachet of watermelon radishes and purslane, peppers may be one of the season’s least celebrated vegetables. Though their charms are many, my favorite is their stuffable shape. The heat of the cherry pepper varies from fiery to mellow, though the riper red ones tend to be sweeter and none are as spicy as the jalapeño. Arrange them on a platter for the cocktail hour. They are supple and jewel-like, and incredibly easy to make.
Simple Pinto Beans
Pinto beans are emblematic of the Old West — good cheap hearty fare. These plain ones are good with just about anything or as a meal in a tin plate, cowboy-style, with a chunk of cornbread. For the best tasting beans, cook at a bare simmer, and keep the liquid level just 1 inch above the beans’ surface as they cook.
Parmesan Broth
Parmesan broth boosts the flavor of everything it touches. More robust than meat- or vegetable-based stocks, this kitchen staple summons the complex essence of aged cheese to serve as a liquid foundation for simmered beans, brothy soups and braised vegetables. This recipe relies on leftover Parmesan rinds, which can be collected over time and stored in the freezer, or bought at some supermarket cheese counters and most specialty cheese shops. If refrigerating the broth for later use, break up the solidified fats with the back of a spoon, or warm to redistribute before using.
Grilled Sausages, Onions and Peppers
There is no more reliable guest at a cookout than sausage, roasted over the open fire. But before you grill the meat, get some peppers and onions soft and dark and fragrant in the heat, and use these as a bed on which to serve the links. Italian sausage works beautifully here, as do hot links and bratwurst. If cooking brats, think about simmering them first in beer and onions, then finishing them on the fire.
Pizza With Sweet and Hot Peppers
This pizza is in the light-handed California style, with no tomato sauce. If you prepare the dough in advance (it takes only 20 minutes or so, and can be refrigerated for several days), putting a pizza or two together for dinner is actually a breeze, arguably easier than making a pasta. Omit the sausage for a vegetarian version.
‘Fancy’ Egg Salad
This recipe dresses up basic egg salad with parsley, capers, shallots and bacon. The writer, David Latt, cooks his eggs on a low, gentle boil for 30 minutes and finds they come out perfectly done, with the yolk flaky, but feel free to use whatever method you like, as long as the eggs are hard-boiled. (We give instructions for boiling and steaming in our guide to cooking eggs.) You can also add other spices: mustard, ground mustard seed, cumin or rosemary. The parsley can be replaced with cilantro, and the mayonnaise can be flavored.
Classic Hot Fudge Sundae
There is a reason a hot fudge sundae is such an enduring classic: That combination of warm, rich chocolate fudge mixing with frozen ice cream and melting it slightly is absolutely irresistible. Of course, if you have homemade fudge sauce and homemade ice cream, it gets even better. Vanilla ice cream is the standard here, but feel free to use your favorite flavor, or a combination of flavors. And if you like nuts, by all means use them here. The added crunch is marvelous against all the rich creaminess.
Pasta With Sausage, Caramelized Cabbage and Goat Cheese
Pasta with cabbage is a common combination across much of Central and Eastern Europe. In this quick weeknight meal, an entire head of cabbage is cooked in the fat left behind by sweet Italian sausage. Goat cheese adds tang and helps create a cream sauce that ties everything together. Feel free to use this recipe as a guideline to come up with your own variation: Try it with your favorite shape of pasta, swap out the thyme for dill, parsley or another herb, or substitute the goat cheese for Parmesan.
Jim Kelley's Roasted-Garlic-and-Pepper Soup
Pork With Peppers and Chickpeas
Spicy Oven-Fried Rice With Gochujang and Fried Eggs
This crunchy, tasty, not-really-fried rice gets a big umami punch from gochujang, the fermented Korean red-pepper paste that’s worth keeping in your fridge to perk up all sorts of dishes. As with any fried rice, you can add raw or cooked vegetables according to what you have on hand (though you’ll want to add cooked vegetables a little later in the cooking process). If you don’t have brussels sprouts, you could use any type of cabbage. Broccoli or cauliflower would be great substitutes for broccolini, and butternut squash can replace the carrots. The fried egg on top makes it feel like a more substantial meal, but you can leave it out for a lighter dinner. If you are a vegetarian, leave out the sausage, or add some smoked tofu. The dish is endlessly customizable.
Tex-Mex Meatballs With Spaghetti
Dried Mushroom Puree
Green Chile Chicken Stew
Many agree the best green chiles are grown in the Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico, so it’s great to make this delicious chicken stew in early fall when they’re are available. (Get a friend to send you some, or order them online.) But you can also make it throughout the year using frozen or canned green chiles. Though pork, beef or lamb are more traditional for green chile stew, this chicken version is a bit lighter, quicker to cook and still packs a punch. It’s not a dish for the faint of heart.
Chicken and Dumplings
Heartier than chicken soup, this classic comfort dish is decidedly more stewlike, thanks to a golden-brown roux, a densely flavored chicken broth, and, of course, the dumplings. Think of them as a biscuit meeting a matzo ball: fluffy little clouds made from a quick mixture of flour, baking powder, buttermilk, butter and an egg for springiness. They’re cooked right on top of the chicken stew, partly poaching and partly steaming.
Beet Red Velvet Cake
Pamela Moxley, the pastry chef at Miller Union in Atlanta, developed this cake as part of a book project for Steven Satterfield, the co-owner and chef. She uses dutched, nonacidic cocoa powder so she punched up the acid with extra lemon juice, which helps with the bright red color. She adds goat cheese to her cream cheese frosting, to play against the subtle beet flavor. The chef liked it so much that he added it to the restaurant menu.
Stewed Chicken and Rice
This dish is rich and clean, but still lively and interesting — all things to all tastes — in one single pot. We brown and then braise the chicken, toast and grind the rice before steaming, “chicharron” the skin, parbake the meatballs, julienne the lemon peel, thinly slice the shallots and, at the very end, soften tender spinach in the hot broth. It’s deeply satisfying, the workhorse of family meals.
Beef Barley Soup With Lemon
With a higher ratio of broth to barley than one usually sees, and the addition of plenty of fresh baby spinach, this beef barley soup is a little lighter than most of its kind. However, it’s still a substantial, satisfying meal that gets a heady aroma from spices (coriander, cumin and paprika) and a brightness from lemon. If you like your meals with a kick, top this with thinly sliced jalapeño, which will wilt slightly from the heat of the soup. Leftovers freeze perfectly for at least three months, though if using the jalapeño, don’t add it until serving time.
Orange Creamsicle Ice Cream Cake
Refreshing and citrusy yet creamy and sweet, this stunning dessert is just like a Creamsicle, but in grown-up cake form. It’s also incredibly easy: Simply stack spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet into a springform pan and smoosh them down as you go. As for the crust, use whole vanilla wafers; They're less work, and crunchier than if you used crumbs. There are many ways to riff on this cake. You could try a different sherbet flavor, use frozen yogurt instead of vanilla ice cream, or trade the vanilla wafers for gingersnaps, shortbread or any other crumbly cookie. You could also add salted caramel, jam, nuts or pomegranate molasses in between the layers of ice cream.
Salt-Baked Pears
The salt crust encasing these pears — a method most often used with whole fish and some poultry — does what salt always does: It amplifies. In this instance, the sweet, juicy peary-ness of the pear. Ideally, these should be slipped into the oven after pulling out another dish in order to minimize time in the kitchen. As a dinner party dessert, it’s a perfect punctuation mark.