Cheese
2192 recipes found
Charred Tomato Soup With Coriander and Cilantro
A chilled tomato soup is most welcome on a sweltering summer day. Charring the tomatoes over coals or under the broiler adds a rustic smoky flavor to this one, while quartered and dressed cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of fresh ricotta or thick yogurt add substance and texture.
Risi e Bisi
The classic Venetian dish of rice and peas known as risi e bisi makes for a perfect springtime Sunday lunch. This version includes the addition of baby zucchini, which is an acknowledged departure from tradition but a mighty delicious one. The desired final consistency is loose, almost brothy, not tight and creamy like risotto nor drippy like a zuppa. The Venetians use the term “all’onda,” a reference to the swell of waves in the sea. Short-grain rice helps get that distinct starchy quality, but the rice can’t do the job by itself; there has to be stirring throughout. Pour yourself a glass of a good Soave while you stir. You can have a nap after lunch, which is totally traditional.
Fennel and Parmigiano
Savory Waffles
“One thing my kids really love,” says Chef Linton Hopkins, “is when it’s raining outside at lunchtime and we make a batch of savory waffles. Instead of sugar and syrup, we just fold in Parmesan and Gruyère, if I have some sitting in the refrigerator, and salt and pepper. We have a waffle iron that has shapes of animals and a barn, so I ask my kids, ‘Do you want to be the pig today? Or the chicken? Or have a cow?’?” Try adding herbs and other seasonal produce, like pumpkin puree, to the batter instead of cheese. In the springtime you can add sautéed and chopped asparagus to the batter.
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.
Pizza Margherita
This classic pizza — a small amount of mozzarella and a lot of fresh, sliced tomatoes — may inspire other pies in your kitchen. Sometimes I substitute goat cheese for the mozzarella, and sometimes I make this on a yeasted olive oil pastry. So it’s really not a pizza, more like a tart.
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.
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.
Melted-Pepper-Ricotta Toast
With the vegetal sweetness of caramelized peppers and onions as the base, a topping of fresh ricotta, flaky salt, and mint leaves is a simple way to make a terrific breakfast or lunch. It tastes fresh, deep, milky and rich, and the flavor of mint comes on like a surprise.
French Onion Panade
Panade is the French country cook's answer to stuffing — a satisfying and efficient way to use up stale bread. Because there are so few components, taking care to ensure that each one is just right will make all the difference in how the final dish tastes. Start with a stale, crusty loaf of sourdough bread. Cook the onions slowly, until they're a deep caramel color, and then season them properly with vinegar and wine. Buy good Gruyère and Parmesan, and grate it yourself. And finally, use either homemade chicken stock, or buy some from a butcher. The result will be triumph of upcycling: basically French onion soup without the soup — just bite after bite of cheesy, onion-and-stock-soaked bread. Serve it as a main course, with a light green salad and a dry white wine or an ice-cold beer.
Filipino Embutido
This recipe for embutido, a festive Filipino meatloaf featuring ingredients that appeared in the Philippines during the American occupation, is adapted from Emma Phojanakong. She often prepares it as a stuffing for chicken; inspired by that, this recipe features a simple citrus-and-soy-spiked chicken sauce to go alongside. Serve it with watercress and steamed white rice, but it also makes great next-day sandwiches.
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.
Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato and Olive Pizza Pockets
The traditional reason for wrapping ingredients in pastry — be it Cornish pasties, Jamaican meat patties or even pizza pockets and knishes — is to make an edible container that facilitates transport and obviates the need for niceties like forks and plates. These pizza pockets couldn't be easier to make, and they are delicious whether eaten with a knife and fork or your fingers.
Fennel Gratin
This rich, elegant gratin, adapted from the chef Naomi Pomeroy's book "Taste and Technique," brings together braised fennel, Gruyère sauce and crisp bread crumbs, with outrageously delicious results. As with many recipes in this highly instructive book, this gratin is more labor intensive than what you may expect — coarse bread crumbs are toasted and shattered just so — but every component is key to the final dish. A lot happens simultaneously, so breathe deep, and be sure to prep your ingredients before beginning, and carefully read through the recipe to the end (a good practice always). If you'd like to get a head start, the bread crumbs may be toasted and stored at room temperature; the fennel and cheese sauce can be made up to 1 day in advance and refrigerated, separately, until you are ready to assemble, bake and serve. It's ideal for entertaining.
Baked Risotto With Winter Squash
This is not a classic stirred risotto, in which broth is added little by little, requiring the cook to stir and stir. Instead, the rice is tossed with squash and cheese then baked under a layer of bread crumbs until fragrant and browned on top. Welcome as a hearty meatless main course, it may also be served alongside a roasted chicken. Use any kind of hard winter squash, such as butternut, kabocha or Hubbard. Here are more great risotto recipes.
Cheddar, Cucumber and Marmalade Sandwiches
Melissa Clark came up with this recipe in 2011, a sandwich for her daughter, against the one she made for herself with Branston pickle in place of the marmalade. (Branston pickle is a British pickled chutney, made with vegetables, that dates back to the early 20th century.) You can certainly make the grown-up version. But this sweet, salty, cool variety is close to perfect for lunch or a light dinner.
Grilled Bone-In Rib-Eye Steaks With Blue Cheese
The usual formula for cooking an amazing slab of steak is as simple as they come: salt plus pepper plus a short stint over a hot fire. But there are times when you want an extra shot of flavor. Some good crumbled blue cheese sprinkled on the hot steak so it melts over the top does just that, especially when you spike it with hot sauce and butter. I like to use a combination of direct and indirect heat when grilling a bone-in piece of meat; it allows a crust to form but not burn while keeping the meat juicy inside. But you know your grill best, so let your instinct guide you as to where to move the steaks and when you think they are done. And if blue cheese isn’t your thing, follow the grilling directions here but leave your meat bare except for the salt and pepper. If you start with good meat, you will never go wrong.
Roasted Asparagus and Scallion Quiche
I’ve made many a spring quiche filled with asparagus and herbs, yet I’d never thought about roasting the asparagus instead of steaming it. But lately I’ve been buying thick stalks of asparagus, and all I want to do is roast it; roasting intensifies the flavor and the stalks become incredibly succulent, more so than when the asparagus is steamed. This quality isn’t lost even when the sliced stalks are hidden inside a quiche.
Egg Noodles With Cheese
Beet and Danish Blue Cheese Salad
It's hard to imagine an easier salad than one of chopped cooked beets, vinegar-steeped onion and crumbled Danish blue cheese. It must surely become one of your summer stalwarts.
Rice Croquettes With Ragù and Fondue (Arancini)
Crispy Lemon Chicken Cutlets With Salmoriglio Sauce
Derived from the Italian word for brine, “salamoia,” salmoriglio is a lemon sauce from Sicily and Calabria that is used to marinate and dress grilled meats and fish. This pleasantly sharp, all-purpose dressing is equally suited to chicken breasts: It soaks into the crust and lends a citrus punch to the meat. Fresh parsley, oregano or a combination of fresh herbs can be used, based on preference. The breading is inspired by the store-bought bread crumbs that are often labeled as Italian seasoned and often used for what Italian Americans simply call chicken cutlets: coated chicken breasts that are shallow-fried in olive oil. The addition of this simple lemon sauce gives this easy weeknight meal a restaurant-quality finish.
Tomato Cobbler With Ricotta Biscuits
Nicole Rucker, the chef at Fiona in Los Angeles, makes biscuits with a particularly tender, cakelike crumb. Her secret: ricotta. Strain the cheese well to get rid of excess moisture, and don’t be afraid to dust the dough with flour as you work, to keep it from getting oversaturated and sticky. The biscuits, baked atop a mix of tomatoes seasoned with sugar and vinegar, rise tall, with soft insides and crunchy, golden crusts. The dish lies somewhere between a savory course and sweet one, and you can serve it either way.
Chicken and Orzo With Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Vinaigrette
A sun-dried tomato vinaigrette uses both the tomatoes and the aromatic oil in which they are stored for a deeply savory pasta meal. The vinaigrette serves double duty here as both a marinade for the tender chicken thigh morsels and a sauce for the orzo and feta. This dish tastes lovely warm, right off the heat, but it also makes for a wonderful cold lunch, like something you might find at an Italian American deli or salad bar.