Appetizer
3523 recipes found
Libyan Aharaimi (Fish in Tomato Sauce)
Traditionally this Libyan Jewish dish is made with tomato paste, water and fish steaks, and served on holidays like Rosh Hashana. This twist on the classic uses the last of the summer tomatoes, reducing their purée into a thick, concentrated gravy. A few added spices make for a tangy sauce in which to poach sea bass or other fish fillets. Be careful to cook the fish just until slightly firm and flaky to ensure it stays tender. Serve it as an appetizer, as Libyans do, or as a main course. A simple bulgur pilaf makes a nice accompaniment.
Fried Saltines With Cheddar and Onion
McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York City is a perpetually crowded bar with sawdust-covered floors that has been in continuous operation since the 1800s. Besides its ale — dark and light — the bar sells a modest, quirky, perfectly unpretentious cheese plate: Cheddar, raw white onions and saltine crackers with a side of spicy brown mustard. Here, with the minor update of frying the crackers, is a major improvement to an old offering. The plain dry crackers become nutty and extra crisp and salty, warm and rich. It’s like the difference between raw cookie dough and a baked dark-edged batch fresh from the oven. With a sharp tang from Cheddar, the bite of raw onion and that final hit of vinegary mustard heat, this stacked fried saltine makes a lively bite with drinks in any era.
Shrimp Alla Marinara
This recipe quickly turns a batch of homemade marinara sauce into dinner. You can serve it right out of the pan, with crusty bread and a green vegetable. Or, remove the shrimp and toss the sauce with a pound of steaming-hot spaghetti or another long, thin pasta, then put them back together in serving bowls, placing the shrimp on top. Don't attempt to toss the sauce, shrimp, and pasta together -- the lively action needed to coat the pasta will break down the shrimp. You want them to be crisp and savory.
White Borscht
This white borscht, a nod to the tradition of sour soups in Ukrainian cooking, is simply a perfect meal: rich and satisfying, yet bright and delicate and clean all at once. It’s given its distinct tang up front, by soaking a hunk of sourdough bread in the simmering broth, and also at the end, by whisking in a little crème fraîche before serving. At the center is the delicious, subtle, complex broth. The better the kielbasa, the better the broth, obviously, and it’s worth using the whole garland for that complex smoky seasoning it imparts. There’ll be extra for snacking. The chopped dill keeps it all bright and fresh and lively in the mouth. A year-round classic to have in your repertoire, it’s especially beloved in colder months. When weather forecasters announce a dismal spell of sleeting days in a row, you’ll think, oh, good! White borscht weather!
Roasted Delicata Squash with Peanut, Sesame and Squash Seed Dukkah
Steven Satterfield, an Atlanta chef with a deep love for green peanut oil, developed this recipe for a coming book on goobers from Short Stack Editions. Green peanuts are nothing more than raw peanuts. They have a fresh, vegetal flavor, and retain their greenness when cold-pressed into oil. Mr. Satterfield's spin on the Egyptian condiment called dukkah centers on peanuts and benne seeds (the preferred term in the South for sesame seeds), two regulars in many Southern kitchens. The spice and nut mixture brings life to delicata squash, whose tender skin doesn’t need peeling. You can substitute olive oil for the green oil when roasting the squash, and the dukkah will keep in an airtight container in the pantry for a month. Pull it out to sprinkle over greens, meat, fish or grilled bread.
Tuscan Onion Soup (Carabaccia)
Pickled Green Tomato and Mirliton Chowchow
Chowchow is a bright, aromatic Southern salad of pickled green tomatoes (you could use tomatillos in a pinch), cabbage, cauliflower and that most traditional Southern vegetable, mirliton (chayote squash). You could pair it with steamed or boiled shrimp, or pile it on a sandwich. Either way, we wager you'll do it again. (Sam Sifton)
Hilib Sambuus (Fried Beef Dumplings)
Sambuus are a Somali relative of Indian samosas; the two fried dumplings are separated by sea and likely related by trade. While hilib generally means meat in Somali, hilib sambuus are often filled with spiced ground beef. But chicken, tuna and more seafood variations exist; salmon sambuus are beloved by the Somali diaspora of the Pacific Northwest. If you have time, making sambuus pastry from scratch is ideal, but you can buy premade wraps at the grocery store, or utilize tortillas, as this recipe does, for an even quicker process. Store-bought tortillas are cheaper, faster and preferred by many working-class diaspora families for getting sambuus made quickly, which is ideal during Ramadan, when they are widely popular. While they are delicious on their own, you can pair them with Somali-style hot sauce, if you’d like some optional heat.
Curried Fish Soup With Cream and Tomatoes
Lamb Chops
When you think of finger foods, thoughts generally gravitate toward something small and wrapped in bacon. For a more elegant approach, roasted meat is the way to go. Roasting this rack of lamb whole makes it easier to cook it to your liking; using a meat thermometer is essential. Once cooked, slice into individual chops for an appetizer for up to 8 people (or cut into double chops to serve 4 as a main). If you can get small lamb chops (teeny-tiny but not fussy), cover the bones in scallion ''sleeves” for a whimsical look and a practical touch. If your guests don’t mind, they’ll have a built-in utensil — something like a lamb lollipop.
Lentil Soup With Pounded Walnuts and Cream
Chicories With Pears, Blue Cheese and Secret Anchovy Dressing
Gently bitter, yet fresh and crunchy, chicories are the perfect canvas on which to create a Thanksgiving salad. With a single anchovy fillet, mustard, vinegar and lemon juice at its base, this light, vibrant dressing is surprisingly refreshing and flavored with a faint rumor of umami that will make you reach — over the stuffing — for seconds. If you don’t have, or don’t like, pears, substitute Fuyu persimmons or a crisp, tart apple variety such as Fuji or Honeycrisp. If you don’t like pecans, use walnuts. If you can’t find Roquefort, use another sheep’s milk blue, such as Oregon Blue or Ewe’s Blue, both of which are American-made in the Roquefort-style.
Gérard’s Mustard Tart
Be sure to use strong mustard from Dijon. Dorie's friend Gérard Jeannin uses Dijon’s two most popular mustards in his tart: smooth, known around the world as Dijon, and grainy or old-fashioned, known in France as “à l’ancienne.” You can use either one or the other, or you can adjust the proportions to match your taste, but whatever you do, make sure your mustard is fresh, bright colored, and powerfully fragrant. Do what Gérard would do: smell it first. If it just about brings tears to your eyes, it’s fresh enough for this tart.
Cheese Crackers
Cheddar crackers. Cheese wafers. Coins, biscuits, straws and crisps. Known by many names and claimed by many grandmothers, they are all the same, delicious thing: a savory, addictive, shortbread cookie. The key to any short dough — that distinctive tender sandy crumbly texture — is the high fat-to-flour ratio, and this version not only relies on butter but also counts on the delicious fats that come from sesame seeds, block Cheddar and even the oil from the pecans. For a remarkable distinction among the many, many versions of these to be found, toast them until just passing golden into brown, and see how that in itself sets these apart.
Corviches
Many cuisines have some version of a starchy vegetable stuffed, then fried, but the corviches of Ecuador speak to tropical and African influences in a delicious way; the plantains give them great crunch and a mild sweetness, while the peanuts offer an intriguing toasted, buttery taste. Stuffed here with quickly stewed tuna, they're great as appetizers or as a light meal when paired with a salad.
Spaghettini With Zucchini
Beef Carpaccio
Beef tenderloin is called for here as it will unfailingly yield the tenderest carpaccio. It is a long, slender, tapered muscle that runs under the ribs and close to the back bone, and as such is, in a way, shielded from being worked very hard, unlike cuts lower on the animal. As for all of us, the closer to the ground the muscle lives, the tougher becomes the work. Some chefs have a real affinity for the harder-working muscles. Top round, for example, is also often called for in carpaccio recipes and is cut from a muscle that has to work harder, and therefore, is thought to have more character, and more flavor. I would gently warn that harder-working muscles come with a little more “chew.” Try it here, as written, with sure success, then explore other cuts if you're interested.
Minestrone with Shell Beans and Almond Pistou
Cornbread Madeleines With Jalapeño
The inspiration for these madeleines came from a jalapeño-studded cornbread served at Gloria restaurant in New York. While the restaurant serves them in four-inch disks, that is too large for a holiday gathering. So I made them in madeleine pans (a corn-stick mold would work equally well, though it will make only about 15). In place of the jalapeños, you could add bits of Cheddar, ham, or minced olives or sun-dried tomatoes. The madeleines freeze beautifully. (Reheat them on a baking sheet covered in foil at 275 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes.)
Risotto With Duck Confit
Simple Chickpea Soup
This recipe came to The Times in 2013, when the food writers Michael Pollan and Michael Moss were prompted to make “a tasty, reasonably healthy lunch” using ingredients available at most grocery stores. “No farmers’ market produce, no grass-fed beef or artisanal anything,” the prompt stated. They came up with a few simple dishes: pizza, a salad of sliced avocados and oranges, and this simple but flavorful soup, which Mr. Pollan regularly made for his family and relies on canned garbanzos.
Steamed Artichokes
Serve the artichokes hot, warm, at room temperature or cold.
Cold Celery Soup With Pink Radishes