Mediterranean Recipes
262 recipes found
Braised Chicken With Lemon and Olives
A good cook needs an assortment of chicken dishes to fall back on. Aside from roasting or frying (and in addition to grilling), braising chicken is a simple technique to master. Chicken thighs make the best braises; use skin-on bone-in thighs for the best flavor. Though it could be done on the stovetop, this dish is oven-braised. Here are more recipes using chicken thighs.
Yogurt-Marinated Fried Chicken With Saffron and Paprika
Here is a fried chicken recipe that is the best kind of weeknight cooking, with ingredients found quickly at most local grocery stores, whirled in a food processor and then left overnight to turn into something delicious the next evening. A yogurt marinade helps tenderize the boneless, skinless chicken thighs, infusing them with saffron and paprika, and a quick frying lends the meat a crispy, minty coating. You can marinate the chicken for 3 hours or overnight, but you set the timetable depending on whatever else is going on. This chicken will adapt. Make one night, finish the next. That’s living.
Roasted Tomato Soup
Roasting intensifies the flavor of tomatoes, especially when your summer harvest is sweet and delicious to begin with. This rich-tasting bread-thickened soup will please vegetarians and vegans, and meat eaters too!
Israeli Couscous, Bean and Tomato Salad
Finely chopped tomatoes seasoned with garlic, balsamic vinegar and basil serve as both dressing and vegetable in this main dish salad. I’ve been making tomato concassée all summer and using it as a sauce for pasta and fish. I decided to use it as a stand-in for salad dressing in this hearty salad, a simple combination of cooked Israeli couscous and beans. I used canned pinto beans, and they were just fine. Chickpeas would also work. Use lots of basil in the mix. The red onion contributes some crunch. You can add a little celery if you want more texture. Make sure to use sweet, ripe, juicy tomatoes. I love the finishing touch of the feta, but it is optional.
Mediterranean Cucumber and Yogurt Salad With Red or Black Quinoa
The idea of embellishing a yogurt soup or salad with quinoa comes from Deborah Madison, who uses black quinoa in a brilliant recipe for a soup in her book “Vegetable Literacy.” I used red quinoa to add texture, color and substance to this typical Mediterranean combination – finely diced cucumber, garlic, and thick plain yogurt. Use mint or dill, or a combination, and make sure to dice the cucumber very small.
Rainbow Quinoa Salad
Dr. David Eisenberg of the Harvard School of Public Health demonstrated along with his daughter, Naomi, a whole- wheat couscous salad that is the inspiration for this one at the “Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives” medical education conference in Napa Valley this year. You can use a variety of dried fruits and nuts, as well as a mix of herbs. Chop the larger dried fruits small so that the pieces are uniform.
Marinated Cauliflower and Carrots With Mint
This is an elaboration of one of my favorite carrot dishes. That dish couldn’t be simpler – steamed carrots tossed with sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt and fresh mint. It is good at room temperature or warm, as a starter or a side dish. I added steamed cauliflower to the mix but made no other changes to the formula. The cauliflower, which always loves a vinegar marinade, is a wonderful addition, very compatible with the carrots and pretty, too. The dish is great for a buffet as it only gets better as it sits. The dish is particularly beautiful if you use different colored carrots.
Sweet-and-Sour Cauliflower With Golden Raisins
It’s important to season this cauliflower dish attentively: You want a balance of sweet, tangy and salty flavors. Onion, lemon and pine nuts pull it all together. The cauliflower may be served hot or at room temperature.
Cauliflower and Tomato Frittata With Feta
Cauliflower, tomatoes and feta are always a good combination. This being a winter frittata, I used canned tomatoes for the sauce, but in summer the same dish can be made with fresh tomatoes. Make sure to cook the sauce down until it is quite pasty. If it is too watery it will dilute the eggs and the texture of the frittata will be a bit watery. Even better, make the tomato sauce a day ahead and keep uncovered in the refrigerator.
Grilled Sardines
What to do about seafood? Nutritionists say we should eat more, that many types of fish are nutritious and contain fats that seem to protect the heart. I know from experience that many of them can make for fine meals. If you’ve only had sardines from a can, you may turn up your nose at them. Fresh ones will change your mind. Brush them with olive oil, toss a few sprigs of rosemary onto a hot grill, and grill them. Sardines take two to three minutes to grill and about that long to eat. They’re a rare treat and a great nutritional package, containing omega-3 fats, selenium, vitamin B12, calcium, niacin and phosphorus.
Cod Fillets With Cilantro Yogurt Sauce
This cooling herbed yogurt sauce is adapted from the chef Yotam Ottolenghi in London, who serves it with leek fritters. But it’s wonderful with mild fish like cod. The fish, while delicious, is utterly simple: fillets baked in a 300-degree oven until opaque, 10 to 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the pieces. It is the sauce that is the star, and that comes together quickly in a food processor. Combine roughly chopped cilantro and parsley, garlic that has been mashed to a paste, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and yogurt. (Whole-milk yogurt would be best for body and flavor, while low-fat is O.K., and nonfat untenable.) Process until the mixture is smooth and green. There will be sauce left over, which you can use on yet more fish, or as a dip for vegetables or fritters, anything that would thrive when dunked in the refreshing, herb-graced sauce.
Tuna, Cauliflower and White Bean Salad
Cauliflower is very happy in a pungent marinade, so I added it to one of my favorite stand-bys, tuna and bean salad. I liked this salad even more with the cauliflower added, as the tuna flavor infuses the cauliflower along with the vinegar and olive oil. You can use canned white beans, or cook up some delicious giant white beans and some of their broth in the dressing. The salad tastes even better if it has a few hours or a day to sit, and it keeps well.
Spiced Tomato Ketchup
This sauce is a tomato jam that tastes more like a richly spiced ketchup. A long simmer is important. This is inspired by a recipe for a delicious tomato jam in the chef Matthew Kenney’s cookbook, “Matthew Kenney’s Mediterranean Cooking.” My version is not as sweet as his; I decided to call it ketchup rather than jam because to me, it tastes like a richly spiced ketchup, with sweet and sour flavors and a little kick from the cayenne. A long simmer is important for cooking the sauce to the right consistency and for concentrating the flavors. After that, I put the ketchup through a food mill to achieve smoother texture, but that step is optional. I salt toward the end of cooking because the mix will reduce quite a lot and it’s too easy to oversalt if you salt before that happens. However, be sure to use enough salt to balance out the sweetness and bring out the spice.
Steamed Clams in Spicy Tomato Sauce
Include mollusks in your seafood week. Clams are high in Omega 3 fatty acids, low in calories, and very high in iron.
Shirred Farm Eggs with Roasted Small Heirloom Tomatoes
Sausages With Tomato and Spinach Sauce
Romano Tamani's Beans And Sausage
Potato and Sorrel Gratin
When a friend offered me sorrel from her garden I accepted gladly. I love the tangy flavor of this green leafy vegetable and will always buy it if I see it in my farmers’ market. You don’t need much to contribute lots of lemony flavor and vitamins C, A, iron, calcium and magnesium. The gratin is not a typical creamy sliced potato gratin; it’s more like a potato pie. I cook the potatoes first, then slice or dice and toss with the wilted sorrel, eggs, milk and cheese.
Eggplant Torte
This is a dramatic dish, like a molded eggplant parmesan inside a double crust. It makes a great vegetarian dinner party main dish.
Kale Tabbouleh
Here’s the thing about tabbouleh salad: Most of the ones I’ve had invert my preferred proportion of bulgur to parsley. What you usually get is a bowl of tabbouleh studded with bits of parsley. I like a salad that is mostly parsley, studded with grains of tabbouleh. I pictured a generous ratio of green to tan, but with kale standing in for parsley. It has a hint of parsley’s pleasing bitterness, but is far milder, which means that this tabbouleh salad didn’t have to be just a side dish, one best eaten in small portions. Instead, I could eat a whole bowl of it — a dream for a raw kale devotee.
Peppers Stuffed with Farro and Smoked Cheese
This dish combines smoky-flavored cheese and paprika with the crunch of the farro and walnuts. Simmer the farro or spelt until it splays. I was inspired to make this filling by a delicious stuffed tomato dish I ate recently at Oliveto in Oakland, Calif., in which the tomatoes were stuffed with a smoky barley filling. I used a Dutch smoked gouda-like cheese that was labeled, simply “smoked cheese.” I added paprika to the mix, which contributes to the smoky flavor, and walnuts, because I love the crunchiness with the grains. The cooked farro or spelt should be soft, so make sure to simmer until the grains splay.
Braised Lamb Shanks With Fresh Herbs
Bone-in lamb shanks are perfect for braising. The marrow in the bones releases into the sauce, deepening its flavor, while the tough meat softens into perfect tenderness during the long, slow cooking. In this recipe (very loosely based on a Georgian stew called chakapuli) the shanks are cooked with a prodigious amount of fresh herbs, adding fragrance and body. You can braise this several days in advance, then reheat it on the stove. The flavors get even better after having a chance to meld. Just don’t add the final herbal garnish until right before serving. A little bread, polenta or rice would be just the thing to soak up the heady sauce, though a spoon works, too.
Steamed Parsleyed Cucumbers
