American Recipes
2884 recipes found
Cacio e Pepe Cheese Puffs
Ina Garten’s 12th cookbook, “Modern Comfort Food,” was published in October 2020. As always, she seemed to have her finger on the culinary zeitgeist: Comfort was the order of the day. These puffs, which she adapted from the Brooklyn chef Missy Robbins, combine the richness of classic gougères with the bite of black pepper and Parmesan.
Blueberry-Rhubarb Slab Pie
This slab pie is perfect for a party because it’s easy to transport, and it serves a crowd. Convenience aside, the true draw of this sheet-pan pie is the flaky, buttery crust and its rhubarb, blueberry and crystallized ginger filling. Cooking the fruit ahead of time results in a filling that is juicy but not soupy — and prevents the crust from absorbing too much liquid. Preparing the pie dough in the food processor is effortless and helps keep the butter cold, which leads to a flakier crust, but be careful not to over-process: Stop when the mixture is moist but still crumbly.
Corn Salad With Tomatoes, Basil and Cilantro
High summer produce comes together in this simple mix, tangy with lime juice and full of fresh herbs. Even in the height of the season, corn gets a touch sweeter when heated, and the easiest way to do it is in the microwave. It takes just a few minutes to zap the corn cobs in their husks, which makes them easy to shuck. The silks will slip right off the sweeter and still-crisp corn. Picking basil and cilantro leaves by hand then tearing them right over the salad keeps their delicate fragrance intact. Serve this with anything off the grill or alongside tacos or sandwiches.
Rock-Shrimp Roll
Rock shrimp are meaty and firm, like lobster tail, and have a mild, bland flavor that can really use the help of seasoning at several stages. So we salt them before cooking and during cooking. Once the shrimp are mixed with onion and celery and mayonnaise, taste the shrimp salad as a whole to decide if it could stand even another pinch of salt or grind of pepper. But use unsalted butter on the bun when griddling, to get the perfect play between the sweet and the saline.
Peach and Blueberry Cobbler With Hazelnut Biscuits
Cobbler is an irresistible summer treat, with its combination of bubbling fruit and golden biscuits. This version uses sweet, nutty hazelnut flour in the biscuits, which bake up crunchy on the outside and tender in the middle. To swap whole hazelnuts for the meal, start with 1/2 cup (64 grams) hazelnuts, toasted and with skins rubbed off. Grind the cooled nuts in a food processor or coffee grinder with the 1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated sugar until finely ground, and proceed with recipe as written. Tart wild blueberries are best here; use fresh if you can find them, but frozen are widely available and can go straight into the mix, no thawing necessary. Conventional supermarket blueberries work, too, but shouldn’t be the first choice; they are watery and have a weaker flavor.
Pork Chops With Onion Gravy
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredient list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Start with the pork chops, as many as you need, on the bone if possible. Dredge them in flour that you’ve mixed with chile powder, salt, black pepper, smoked paprika and red-pepper flakes, or with Lawry’s seasoned salt or Old Bay seasoning or any spice you like, really. (Save what’s left of the flour; you’ll use it later.) Then sear the chops, in batches if you have to, in an oil-slicked Dutch oven or heavy cast-iron pan, over fairly high heat. You want a big, flavorful crust on the meat before you braise it with the onions, to enhance the taste of the sauce and provide a little texture. Set the seared chops on a platter. Throw away what oil is left in the pot, and wipe out the pot. Return it to the stove, and set over medium heat. Add some butter, and when it melts and foams, use it to sauté an enormous number of sliced onions, allowing them to wilt and soften and almost start to go brown. Sprinkle a scant handful of the leftover dredging flour over the onions, then keep stirring for a few minutes to dampen the rawness of the flour. Add about half an inch of chicken stock (or water) to the pot, along with a bay leaf, perhaps, then stir to thicken. If the sauce is too thick for your liking, add a little more liquid. Nestle the pork chops into the sauce, remove from heat, cover the pot and put it into a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour. While the pork cooks, make the mashed potatoes, with hot milk, melted butter, plenty of salt and enough lemon zest to give them a real brightness. So: pork, gravy, potatoes. I like some hearty sautéed greens moistened with chicken stock. Maybe a drizzle of red-wine vinegar too? You’ll know what to do when you get there. This is not a recipe. It’s your dinner. Make it however you like. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Coconut Layer Cake
This impressive and wonderfully moist layer cake is less sweet than the usual coconut affair, thanks to a tangy cream cheese frosting on top and dose of orange juice in the batter. This is a great dessert to make in advance. You can bake the cake layers up to 3 days ahead and store them, well-wrapped in plastic, in the refrigerator. The frosted cake will keep for 2 days in the fridge as well, either under a cake dome or overturned bowl, or loosely tented with foil. Just make sure to bring the cake to room temperature before serving. Here are more layer cake recipes.
Juicy Lucy Burger
This Minneapolis staple is smart and simple: Sealing a slice of cheese inside two thin burger patties allows the burger to develop a serious char while the inside stays moist thanks to its molten core. There’s debate over whether the burger originated at 5-8 Club or Matt’s Bar; both have drawn locals and tourists alike since the 1950s. The Juicy Lucy method takes some practice — you’ll need to make sure the edges of the stacked patties are properly sealed so that the melted cheese gushes out with every bite instead of making a mess in the skillet — but the results far outweigh the challenge. Because the ingredient list is short (an unassuming bun, a smattering of pickles and a pile of caramelized onions), you’ll need to season with abandon. You may be tempted to use an expensive craft cheese, but sliced American cheese is the only way to go for tradition and meltability.
Charred Scallion Dip With Lemon and Herbs
This creamy scallion dip could be the cooler cousin of ranch dressing or sour cream and onion dip. Grilled scallions add smokiness, while fresh chives and raw scallions lend brightness to the tangy, herb-flecked dip. If you don’t have a grill or grill pan, you can broil the scallions in your oven. Once assembled, the dip benefits from chilling to round out the flavors. At least an hour works, but it's better after a day. It needs nothing more than potato chips alongside, but it’s also great with crudités, crackers, grilled vegetables, fried chicken or slathered on sandwiches.
Grilled Turkey Burgers
There are a couple steps to ensure a crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside and all around delicious grilled turkey burger. Grated onion and barbecue sauce give the patties savoriness and provide additional moisture, so they don’t dry out from the high heat of the grill. Coating the patties in a mixture of barbecue sauce and mayonnaise guarantees a seared and glazed exterior. If you’d like to turn these into cheeseburgers, simply drape sliced cheese — preferably Cheddar or pepper Jack — over the patties in the last two minutes of grilling and cover the grill.
Puritan Pudding
A mass of cornmeal, milk and molasses, baked for hours, this dessert was born of the Puritans’ nostalgia for British hasty pudding and their adaptation to the ground-corn porridges of their Native American neighbors. (Early settlers called it Indian pudding.) Originally served as a first course, it grew sweeter (but not too sweet; Puritanism runs deep) and migrated to the end of supper. For a proper historical re-enactment of the dish, you need meal stone-ground from Rhode Island whitecap flint corn, a hard, tough-to-crack corn, less sweet but more buttery than hybrid strains. One of the oldest incarnations of the plant, it was cultivated by the local Narragansett and saved from extinction by a few equally flinty Rhode Island farmers. This recipe comes from George Crowther, owner and chef of the Yankee diner Commons Lunch, which has stood on the town square of Little Compton, R.I., since 1966.
French Onion Grilled Cheese
Grilled cheese is a near-perfect food on its own, but adding bacon, kimchi or, in this case, heaps of caramelized onions really makes it special. Caramelizing onions takes a good half-hour, so save this recipe for when you have a little extra time and company (this recipe serves two). If time permits, you could even prep them ahead in a slow cooker. Rather than layer the grated Gruyère and the warm caramelized onions in the sandwich, you should stir them together before assembling, which guarantees that the cheese will melt evenly throughout and that each bite will contain the perfect ratio of fragrant cheese to jammy onions. A splash of sherry, red-wine or white-wine vinegar added to the onions balances out the buttery flavors, but a side salad dressed with a tangy mustard vinaigrette would do the trick, too. (Watch the video of Ali Slagle making French onion grilled cheese here.)
Du Jour Doughnuts
This classic yeast doughnut is a specialty of T. J. and Vera Obias, the husband-and-wife team of pastry chefs at Du Jour Bakery, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The dough is light and airy, and the sugar crystals add crunch. After cutting out the doughnuts, test whether they have risen enough by touching them with a fingertip; if they spring back slowly, they are sufficiently proofed. Springing back fast means they need more time, and not springing back means they are overproofed.
Ranch Dressing With Fresh Herbs
Although the original ranch dressing was made with ingredients like garlic powder and dried dill, fresh herbs and real garlic give this dressing a much brighter taste — and a pretty pale green color. This dressing is adapted from the restaurant Emily in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of the first pizzerias in New York City to serve ranch dressing. It's still a controversial combination in Brooklyn, but the chef Matt Hyland's dressing is uncontroversially delicious.
Chicago Thin-Crust (Tavern-Style) Pizza With Sausage and Giardiniera
Tavern-style pizza is not particularly difficult compared with other styles, but it does take a good amount of time from start to finish — several days in fact — but it’s largely hands-off. And, on the actual day of baking, you don’t have to deal with stretching or tossing dough, making it perfect for parties or for topping with kids. This recipe is part of our complete recipe for a Chicago thin-crust pizza. View the recipes for the dough, Chicago-style Italian sausage and accompanying sauce.
Grilled Oysters With Lemony Garlic-Herb Butter
Garlic, lemon, herbs and butter form a classic European pairing that is perfectly at home spooned into a hot grilled oyster, but if that’s not your style, try out these recipes for Buttery Soy-Sake Glaze or Harissa-Parmesan Butter — or, better yet, make all three. Any leftover flavored butter and sauces are excellent melted over grilled vegetables, such as asparagus or zucchini, or over grilled chicken, fish or even steak, and they can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks or in the freezer for several months. When shopping for oysters, look for specimens with deeply cupped bottom shells in order to help retain their natural liquor and provide ample space for the flavored butter.
Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich
The sandwich you make with all the prized leftovers the day after Thanksgiving might be even better than the main event. Assembling this leftover Thanksgiving sandwich is easy, but the details matter. The white and dark turkey meat each get special love and attention: The breast is warmed in butter, while the dark meat is shredded, then warmed in gravy. This club ditches the usual third slice of bread for a slab of crisp, fried stuffing instead. When heating the stuffing, make sure your pan is good and hot so the stuffing fries up fast without falling apart in the skillet. A generous swipe of cranberry mayo brings the whole thing together.
Election Cake
Made from rich, spiced yeasted dough, election cake traces its history back to pre-Revolutionary Hartford, Conn. Marion Burros wrote about the cake in 1988, explaining how it was traditionally made in preparation for Election Day and filled with dried fruit soaked in brandy to ensure that it would last for a couple of days and improve in flavor over time. This version uses raisins and cranberries, but currants, dates, dried apricots, prunes or even dried pears all work great. Nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and clove infuse the cake with warmth and their scent wafts through the kitchen as the cake bakes. Brushing a coat of glaze onto the cake while it’s still warm softens the crust and soaks it with a lemony brightness.
Pizza Sauce for Chicago Thin-Crust Pizza
In Chicago, pizza sauce tends to have an intensely savory flavor that comes from cooking down canned tomatoes heavily seasoned with dried herbs, like marjoram and oregano, and garlic. (This version uses a combination of fresh garlic and garlic powder.) There is debate over how sweet, how tart and how cooked the sauce should be. The sauce cooks pretty thoroughly on the pizza, so cooking it in advance changes it only incrementally. Sweetness and tartness can always be adjusted with extra salt or vinegar. This recipe is part of our complete recipe for a Chicago thin-crust pizza. View the recipe for the finished pizza, as well as recipes for the dough and Chicago-style Italian sausage.
Low-Knead Bread
This recipe produces a loaf of bread with significantly improved hole structure and flavor compared with this no-knead version (inspired by Jim Lahey’s original no-knead bread recipe), and requires not much extra work. Increasing the water content produces bread with a more custardy crumb and a more open, holey structure. Adding a few turns during the initial fermentation stage gives this wetter dough strength, letting it better retain its hole structure as it’s shaped. The low, slow fermentation in the fridge allows for lots of flexibility, as the dough can rest there for up to three days before you decide to shape and bake it. Dough flavor and texture will improve with time, though after three days the flour may start oxidizing, producing unattractive gray spots. (If you're looking to make sandwiches, we also have a recipe for low-knead sandwich bread.)
Chicago-Style Italian Sausage
Chicago-style Italian sausage is a true regional specialty, but thankfully it’s simple to make at home. This version, meant for topping a Chicago thin-crust pizza, uses whole fennel seeds toasted in a skillet, then roughly cracked with a mortar and pestle — a spice grinder, food processor, blender or the bottom of a heavy pan will work. It gets mixed into fatty ground pork seasoned with salt, black pepper, fresh and granulated garlic, a bit of dried herbs, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. The key is to knead the mixture (whether by hand or in a stand mixture fitted with a paddle) until the proteins begin to unravel and cross-link, giving it a tacky texture that turns springy and juicy as the sausage cooks, releasing its flavorful fat to mingle with the sauce and cheese as the pizza bakes. This recipe is part of our complete recipe for a Chicago thin-crust pizza. View the recipe for the finished pizza, as well as recipes for the dough and accompanying sauce.
Thin but Juicy Chargrilled Burgers
The key to cooking a thin, modestly sized burger on the grill is to use the highest heat possible, and to cook the meat most of the way through on one side before flipping it and briefly cooking the second side. This technique allows you to get a nice dark crust on that first side without the risk of overcooking. To form thin patties that hold together on the grill, massage the ground beef briefly — which is a cardinal sin with many other styles of burgers, but a necessity here for cohesion. This allows you to flatten the patty out extra-thin and wide to account for shrinking as the meat cooks.
Chicken and Cabbage Salad With Miso-Sesame Vinaigrette
This simple salad calls for a specific set of ingredients, but it can also be considered a loose guideline. Thinly sliced leftover steak, shredded salmon or sliced dense tofu could easily take the place of the chicken — and that chicken can be left over from the night before, whether it's been poached, grilled, pan-seared or cooked on a rotisserie. Any crisp, crunchy lettuce will do. You could opt for shredded carrots and diced jicama instead of cucumber and radish, or add a handful of split cherry tomatoes and raw snap peas cut on a bias. As long as the basic balance of protein, dressing, greens, vegetables and herbs is maintained, the rest is up to you and your vegetable drawer.
Stuffing Dumpling Soup
Smash it up with eggs and flour, and leftover stuffing transforms into a tender dumpling dough. A simple bone broth made from your turkey carcass creates a savory base, which you then load up with kale and sweet potatoes for a hearty, healthy post-Thanksgiving meal. If you prefer to roll your dumplings into visually perfect balls, leave out the 1/3 cup turkey stock for a sturdier dough, but if you don’t mind a rustic look, that additional moisture ensures a lighter dumpling.