Appetizer
3523 recipes found
Miso Squash Soup
Soup is an easy first course for a seasonal gathering, especially when it can be prepared — even frozen — in advance. This one calls for Kabocha squash, a variety that’s not too sweet, and is dense and rich, though delicata, honeynut, the ubiquitous butternut or an everyday orange pumpkin all work well. Seasoned primarily with miso, this calls for only a pinch of cinnamon to hint at the inevitable pumpkin spice. And instead of presenting this vegan soup as a plated first course in china or pottery bowls or even in hollowed-out mini-pumpkins, you might consider spooning it into small cups or glasses for guests to sip as an hors d’oeuvre before dinner.
Stuffed Rond de Nice Squash Poached in Olive Oil
Muhammara (Red Pepper and Walnut Spread)
Freeze vegetables at the height of the season, when they are at their Technicolor best, and you'll be rich with cooking options for months to come. For example, this muhammara, the Middle Eastern red pepper and walnut spread, can be made with either fresh red bell peppers or ones that you have chopped and frozen. The version made with frozen peppers is a little looser and lighter in color than the version starting with fresh peppers, but otherwise you sacrifice nothing having started with frozen produce — the two final spreads are similar in taste.
Fried Oysters With Tartar Sauce
Getting fried oysters from your summer seafood shack is fun, but making them yourself yields something crispy, light and, most significantly, tender. Shuck carefully, bread delicately and fry to golden perfection, then serve with this bright, lively tartar sauce, which gets its spark from cornichons, capers and lemon juice. Eat while hot — whether you’re wearing flip flops or polished oxfords, that’s up to you.
Mushrooms with Herbs and Stout
Melon Salsa
Creamy Tomato Gazpacho With Crunchy Pecorino
At lunchtime on a steamy day, I got the unlikely idea to cross a smoothie with gazpacho. Given my languid state, I had wanted something icy and filling, but not too taxing to prepare. That’s when the idea to merge a gazpacho and a smoothie crept into my head. I’d swap tomatoes for the usual berries; add garlic, oil, vinegar and salt to punch up the flavor; and keep the yogurt for heft. As the blender whirled, my stomach growled, and I nibbled on pieces of crunchy cheese cracker I had left over from a recent salad. Instead of croutons, I like to fry grated cheese until crisp, then crumble it over greens. For this batch, I had used pecorino, which seemed like a natural complement to the sheep’s-milk yogurt. So I saved some for garnish.
Winter Squash and Sage Blini
Pancakes are a great vehicle for many vegetables. These are simple buttermilk/buckwheat blini with puréed butternut squash and sage whisked into the batter. I make them small and serve them as hors d’oeuvres. For vegetarian blini I top them with drained yogurt and a small spoonful of the sautéed winter squash with anchovies, capers and olives in this week’s recipes. You can also go the more traditional blini route and top with smoked salmon.
Lamb With Red Wine And Dried Cherries
Beet and Tomato Gazpacho
The color alone is reason enough to make this gorgeous gazpacho. This is inspired by a gazpacho by Dani Garcia in Ana von Bremzen’s “The New Spanish Table.” Mr. Garcia’s soup also includes cherries, which I don’t miss in this rendition. One roasted beet transforms a classic into a beautiful original.
Tomato Frittata With Fresh Marjoram or Thyme
One of my summer favorites, this frittata makes a perfect and substantial meal served cold or at room temperature.
Pomegranate Salad
This colorful salad of red pomegranate seeds, Romaine lettuce and roasted sesame seeds, dressed with a fresh pomegranate juice and honey dressing, sets a festive tone for any holiday table. Sadhna Sheli, a reader from Los Angeles, sent us this recipe which is popular with both adults and kids. “Kids will like it because it has that sweet element to it,” said Ms. Sheli.
Mediterranean Citrus Chicken Skewers With Tahini Sauce
Kimchijeon (Kimchi Pancake)
At Pyeong Chang Tofu House in Oakland, Calif., Young S. Kim’s golden kimchijeon are a revelation. Tart with pungent kimchi, the pancakes are both satisfyingly chewy and shatteringly crisp. At the Tofu House, where Mrs. Kim turns 1,400 pounds of Napa cabbage into kimchi each month, her homemade kimchi is the secret to her kimchijeon’s unsurpassed flavor. Use the most flavorful traditionally prepared kimchi you can find — it’ll make all the difference in this simple recipe. This version, adapted from Mrs. Kim’s original recipe, comes together quickly: Just combine kimchi and its juice with a few dry ingredients into a simple batter, then fry it in a cast-iron skillet into a mouth-watering pancake. Serve it to a crowd as an appetizer, or eat it on its own as a filling meal.
Bay Scallop Aguachile
Adapted from John Martinez, Super Linda, Manhattan
Goat Cheese and Fig Quick Bread
Here’s a recipe from France, where savory loaf cakes are often served with drinks before dinner. This one started with bits of goat cheese and snips of dried figs, and then moved closer and closer to the Mediterranean. It’s got fruity olive oil, a handful of parsley (for brightness), a little rosemary and thyme (to set the mood and further establish the locale), some honey (always good with goat cheese) and scrapings of clementine zest (for surprise). You can use a neutral oil, if you’d like, olive or dried tomatoes instead of figs, basil instead of parsley, lemon instead of orange, or experiment with other cheeses. The loaf’s pleasantly crumbly, and best enjoyed cut into thick slices.
Savory Tomato Sorbet
This homemade savory tomato sorbet evokes the flavors of gazpacho. It makes a spectacular first course with a salad of cherry tomatoes spooned right over it, along with a few basil leaves.
Kidney Bean and Cracked Wheat Soup With Prosciutto
Fresh Tomato Soup With Basil and Farro
You overbought fresh tomatoes at the farmers' market and now you're left with a pile of overly-soft, rapidly-ripening fruit. What to do? Make a hearty, vegetable-based soup with those mushy tomatoes puréed into satiny sweetness. To mimic the creaminess of many tomato soup recipes, I often blend softly stewed tomatoes with a grain, in this case, farro. It adds an earthy flavor, and body, to make a tomato soup with bona fide stick-to-your ribs inclinations.
Onion Pie
Crab Toast
Like the very best crab cakes on earth, which have as little dulling, distracting or deadening filler as possible, these crab toasts take that ethos to the extreme. There is no call for bell pepper or bread crumbs or diced celery; just the best fresh, sweet, saline crab meat you can buy, gently seasoned with a little lemon juice, bound with a tiny amount of tangy crème fraîche, then piled onto a slab of good toast, still warm. The toast is made ever so luxurious with a slathering of nutty brown butter mayonnaise. These two simple components — crab and brown butter toast — act in concert, and a glass of cold rosé to wash them down makes for the most exhilarating, satisfying spring supper imaginable.
Roasted Cauliflower Soup
The color of sunflowers, this gently spiced soup comes from Yasmin Khan’s “Zaitoun: Recipes From the Palestinian Kitchen,” in which Ms. Khan explains that cauliflower is elemental in Palestinian cooking. Here, cauliflower florets and leaves are roasted in the oven with cumin and coriander until browned, the vegetable’s deep, nutty flavors coaxed out by the heat. Reserve some roasted florets and leaves for garnish, then simmer the remaining cauliflower mixture with turmeric and potato, which adds creamy texture to this thick, velvety soup. Sprinkle the soup with any remaining cauliflower, crunchy toasted almonds and as much fresh parsley as you’d like.
Tomates Farcies (Stuffed Tomatoes)
A simple mixture of bread crumbs and herbs is all you need to make these Provençal baked stuffed tomatoes. Serve them with nearly any summer meal, even for breakfast alongside fried eggs.
Tomato-Rice Soup
Many vegan dishes (like fruit salad and peanut butter and jelly) are already beloved, but the problem faced by many of us is in imagining less-traditional dishes that are interesting and not challenging. Here are some more creative options to try.