Appetizer
3523 recipes found
Orecchiette With Raw and Cooked Tomatoes
Here’s a great destination for the last of your summer tomatoes. The sauce is a great blend of concentrated, sweet cooked tomatoes and vibrant fresh tomatoes with garlic.
Broiled Leeks Vinaigrette
A classic French first course, cooked leeks dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette can be wonderful or dull, depending on the size of the leeks. Don’t use giant ones; choose medium to small leeks for tender results. A few minutes under the broiler adds flavor to this version, which is served warm.
Mâche and Radicchio Salad With Beets and Walnut Vinaigrette
Of all the greens I worked with this week, mâche has the sweetest, mildest flavor. It goes nicely with the bitter radicchio, sweet beets and the nutty vinaigrette. Mâche is so delicate that it takes very little dressing.
Chard Stalk, Chickpea, Tahini and Yogurt Dip
When you’ve bought a bunch of Swiss chard and used the leaves for another dish, like an oven-baked frittata with yogurt, Swiss chard and green garlic, save the stems. Then you can make this dip, which is a cross between hummus and classic Middle Eastern dip called silqbiltahina, made with chard stalks and tahini. I’ve added lots of yogurt to the mix. I love to use some red chard stalks because they give the dip a beautiful pale pink hue. This will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. It will become more pungent as it sits.
Savory Cheddar Biscotti
An hour and six ingredients are all you need for this recipe from Mark Bittman, who urges cooks to step outside the biscotti safety zone of chocolate and hazelnut by substituting cheese, herbs and spices in this twice-baked Italian treat. Shape the dough into a log and bake until firm before cooling, cutting into slices and baking until crisp. A cup of coffee is still the best pairing.
Tapa of Mushrooms in Garlic Sauce
You find these mushrooms served in little ceramic casseroles at tapas bars all over Spain. It’s a simple hors d’oeuvre that can be made ahead and reheated. In Spain, it would be made with about four times as much olive oil and served in small ceramic cazuelas. You also can serve the mushrooms with toothpicks.
Red Lentil Kofta With Spinach
These bite-size bulgur and lentil balls can be part of a mezze spread — an assortment of appetizers — or they can be served as a side dish.
Butter-Braised Cardoons With Mushrooms and Bread Crumbs
Cardoons are related to artichokes but look like celery — or celery gone wild, anyway. They take a little time and trouble to find (try a specialty grocery store or an Italian market) and to trim and string, but they are worth the effort.
Pasta With Zucchini and Mint
This minty Roman-style zucchini is wonderful with pasta or served on its own.
Leek, Mushroom and Goat Cheese Tart
This savory tart is built upon a layer of store-bought puff pastry and topped with goat cheese, fennel, mushrooms and leeks. It makes an impressive (and easy) party appetizer or weeknight dinner for two.
Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart
The tomato tarts and quiches I’ve been eating in Provence are delightful. Spreading mustard on the crust before you top it with tomatoes is a new idea that makes perfect sense to me, as mustard is such a perfect condiment for tomatoes.
Tomato Éclairs With Creamy Ricotta and Basil Filling
Leek-Vegetable Fritters With Lemon Cream
Beet, Potato, Carrot, Pickle and Apple Salad
This recipe was brought to The Times by Joan Nathan and was featured in her cookbook "Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France." It's a hearty root vegetable salad enriched with hard-boiled eggs and tossed with a lively Dijon vinaigrette.
Sweet Whole Wheat Focaccia with Pears and Walnuts
This slightly sweet focaccia (three tablespoons sugar in the dough and another sprinkled over the top) is quite beautiful and makes a perfect fall or winter bread. It’s great on its own, and also great with cheese. I like to pair it with blue cheese in particular. There are sweet, nutty and savory flavors at play here, with the rosemary-scented olive oil and pears, and the walnuts tucked into the bread’s dimples.
Focaccia With Sweet Onion and Caper Topping
This is much like pissaladière, the Provençal onion tart. It’s a perfect time of year to make it, with sweet spring onions in abundance in the markets.
Shrimp Risotto With Peas
Shrimp shells are used here to make a subtle shellfish broth for the risotto. Make sure you don’t overcook the shrimp; they will take only four to five minutes to cook, and the contrast of their succulent texture against the chewy rice will be lost if the shrimp become rubbery.
Sweet Focaccia with Figs, Plums, and Hazelnuts
This is only slightly sweet, with three tablespoons of sugar in the dough and another tablespoon of cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top. What I find irresistible about the topping is the flavor of the rosemary-scented oil against the subtle figs and sweet-tart plums, and the nutty crunch of the hazelnuts. I use a small amount of cornmeal in my sweet focaccia dough; look for fine cornmeal, which is sometimes called corn flour.
Whole Wheat Focaccia with Tomatoes and Fontina
Focaccia, a little crisp on the bottom but soft on the top and inside, can take on many toppings besides tomatoes. Focaccia is a dimpled flatbread that can take a number of toppings, like a pizza but breadier. I used Community Grains whole wheat flour for this half-whole-wheat version, and I’m loving the results so much that I’m ready to start on a week’s worth of focaccia recipes with different toppings very soon. The bread is fragrant with olive oil, a little crisp on the bottom but soft on the top and the inside. It’s a great vehicle for summer tomatoes.
Stuffed Artichokes With Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic
Tomato Cumin Bread
Black Bean Pâté
I prefer to cook my own black beans for this pâté. With white and red beans, the difference between canned and home-cooked isn’t significant enough to matter in the pâté. It does matter with the black beans, though. This tastes like a very light version of refried beans.
Veracruzana Vinegar-Bathed Shrimp
Tunisian Winter Squash Puree
This is one of many North African spicy cooked vegetable purees typically served as a starter. The authentic dish is seasoned with harissa, the spicy hot pepper paste used widely in Tunisia and Algeria. If you can get hold of harissa easily, substitute 1 teaspoon or more to taste for the cayenne. You can serve this as an hors d’oeuvre, side dish or salad.