Easter
563 recipes found
Torta Rustica With Ricotta and Spinach
Torta rustica (also called pizza rustica) is a rich, ricotta-stuffed pie that’s traditionally baked for Easter in Southern Italy. This version includes greens (either spinach or chard) for color and freshness. The ham is optional; feel free to leave it out, or substitute chopped olives or sundried tomatoes if you’re looking for a similar savory bite. The crust, adapted from Nancy Harmon Jenkins’s 2007 cookbook, “Cucina del Sole,” is sturdy and slightly sweet, which makes a nice contrast to the salty filling. (For more on producing a lattice-style crust, see our How to Make Pie Crust guide.)
Classic Carrot Salad
Maybe your family has made carrot salad forever, or maybe you’ve seen it at potlucks, but if you’re not familiar with this Southern classic, your inner voice might be screaming, “Raisins don’t belong in salad!” But relax: This just might be the only time they do. The soft, sweet raisins complement the crunchy carrots, which are finished with a tangy dressing. Soak the raisins in hot water to give them a different, more plump texture. If you aren’t a fan of mayonnaise or yogurt, use 2 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice, and add some chopped fresh parsley. Let the crunchy-sweet flavors roll over your tastebuds as you realize you’ve made a simple, and delicious, dish in less than 15 minutes.
Cacio e Pepe Cheese Puffs
Ina Garten’s 12th cookbook, “Modern Comfort Food,” was published in October 2020. As always, she seemed to have her finger on the culinary zeitgeist: Comfort was the order of the day. These puffs, which she adapted from the Brooklyn chef Missy Robbins, combine the richness of classic gougères with the bite of black pepper and Parmesan.
Raspberry Nutter Butter Bars
Reminiscent of a classic, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich minus the bread, these bars hit the spot with a little youthful nostalgia. A glass of cold milk is a great accompaniment. One 16-ounce package of Nutter Butter sandwich cookies pulsed in a food processor makes 4 cups of crumbs, which is exactly enough for one recipe.
Baked Beans
Proper Boston baked beans would have salt pork instead of the bacon. James Beard cooked them with ribs. The key is to use the little white pea beans known as navy beans, and to allow time to do most of the work. (Or to cheat: Canned white beans make fantastic baked beans in about an hour. If you use them, you'll need four 15-ounce cans. Drain and then follow the directions from step 2 on to the end. Please understand that you’ll need much less water and much less time to get them where you want them to be.) The combination of molasses and dry mustard is a taste as old as America itself, and takes well to both ham and soft brown bread.
Chocolate Church Cake
Layer cakes are formative for Southerners: They grace wedding tables, shiva gatherings, quinceañeras, baptisms and funerals. Because of this — and because layer cakes may be as close as some will ever get to a holy experience — they’re often called church cakes. This chocolate one is a perfectly moist and stacked rendition of a pudding cake, with just the right amount of richness from the frosting. This formula needs no alterations, but there’s no sense in breaking the tradition of Southern bakers, who personalize recipes as a point of pride. Add pulverized praline to the center, or cinnamon or instant-coffee granules to the batter. Don’t be afraid to make it your own. To make it a true church cake, serve it to those you hold in the highest regard, for celebrations or to simply indulge in the good glory of company.
Strawberry Muffins With Candied Almonds
Classic strawberry muffins get a few modern twists in this cheery take. First, egg yolks replace whole eggs, resulting in a richer, more flavorful crumb. The muffins get a double dose of strawberries: diced fresh berries in the batter and an optional dusting of freeze-dried strawberries on top. Finally, a reserved egg white is tossed with sugar and sliced almonds to make a crunchy topping for the muffins. As always, for the best flavor, pick the ripest, brightest strawberries of the bunch.
Fresh Ham With Maple-Balsamic Glaze
Think beyond pink. Here is a recipe for a fresh ham — uncured, unsmoked, straight from the butcher — roasted slowly in the oven beneath a shower of salt and pepper, glazed with maple syrup and balsamic vinegar, and finished with a mixture of toasted pecans and candied ginger. It makes for a holiday centerpiece of some distinction, and marvelous sandwiches afterward. Those with access to good pork, free-ranging and fed well, with lots of fat, do not have to brine the meat before cooking. But if you’re picking up a supermarket ham, it is a good bet to do so.
Honey-Cured, Hickory-Smoked Shoulder Ham
A true ham, weighing 15 to 20 pounds, comes from a hog’s hindquarters. It’s a formidable piece of meat, requiring several weeks of curing and 24 hours or more of smoking. A shoulder ham (sometimes called picnic ham) has a similarly magisterial appearance and profound umami flavors, but in a size that will fit in your refrigerator and can be cured and smoked inside a week. When possible, buy a heritage pork breed, like Berkshire or Duroc, preferably from a local farmer or butcher.
Glazed Ham
This is the ham that led directly to whatever childhood memory caused someone to combine ham and pineapple on a pizza. The sweet, slightly fiery and herbaceous crust on this salty haunch practically calls out for a garnish of caramelized pineapple, if not a spray of maraschino cherries. Others may reverse course and apply mustard. Either way, it is good to serve with a nutty wild rice or potatoes au grain, something with backbone.
Stuffed Ham, Southern Maryland Style
There are as many recipes for southern Maryland stuffed ham as there are families in St. Mary’s County. It shows up on Christmas and Easter tables, and at almost every community fund-raising supper. This recipe, compiled from cooks whose families have been making it for generations, uses raw stuffing and is spiced with plenty of black and red pepper. Because the ham boils for so long, the spiciness will mellow. The most challenging part is the finding the ham itself. Corned hams — which are simply fresh hams that have been cured in salt or brine — aren’t usually in the grocery meat case, and butchers will often require advance orders. Corning your own fresh ham is not hard, but it can take several days and turns this into even more of a project.
Croque-Monsieur Breakfast Casserole
This French classic needs little introduction, but if you haven’t had it in baked form, you’re in for a treat. Think upscale ham sandwiches drenched in egg custard and cheese, melted to a deep golden-brown. There are no tricks here, save for the addition of two extra yolks for maximum French-toast tenderness. Serve it warm, or at room temperature — a fitting breakfast feast that's welcome any time of the day.
Lemon-Raspberry Danish With Mascarpone
This braiding technique looks fancy, but it couldn’t be easier to achieve. The lemon-raspberry-mascarpone filling is pudding-like, which makes it important to weave the dough as tightly as possible to prevent too much leakage (though a little is to be expected). Let the pastry cool completely before glazing and serving. This allows the glaze and the filling to set properly; impatient slicers will be met with a sloppy filling rather than a creamy one.
Crustless Egg and Cheese Quiche
If you love quiche, get to know this crustless version, dotted with cheese, mushrooms and herbs (and no fussy pastry to chill or roll). Once you master the perfect dairy-to-egg ratio, you’ll find this recipe to be as much of an ally to the Friday fridge clean-out as it is to a brunch for friends. Pay close attention to the baking time: The center should be a touch wiggly when you remove the quiche from the oven. The end result is a quivering, spoonable custard that melts in your mouth, to be served with a bracing salad. Crisp greens with mustardy vinaigrette, or a citrus laced endive and radicchio number — anything in that vein will do.
Cheesecake Pudding
This easy stovetop pudding is smooth, rich and tangy, just like your favorite cheesecake — but it’s far faster (under an hour), far easier (no fussy water baths) and far less intimidating (the topping won’t crack). It’s considered a boiled custard, meaning the ingredients are heated slowly until the mixture forms large bubbles in the pot. Whisking the cornstarch and sugar together before adding them to the custard is a crucial step that helps the sugar granules break up the starch, which prevents lumps. This silky pudding is delicious served alone, enjoyed with just a spoon, but you can also gussy it up with fresh berries and crumbled graham crackers for a more cheesecake-like experience.
Cheesy Breakfast Egg and Polenta Casserole
If you’ve had the pleasure of a cheesy polenta dinner, topped with a creamy-yolked egg, you can imagine how good that combination is at breakfast. This quick casserole for a crowd is exactly that, made elegant and easy so you can have a perfectly cooked portion for each person with very little work. Layer your polenta with anything you desire, whether salami or ham — or keep it vegetable-centric with spinach or oven-roasted tomatoes. Make nests between your toppings and the polenta where the eggs will cook slowly, giving you a soft-cooked finish that’s loaded with flavor.
Dolester Miles’s Lemon Meringue Tart
The celebrated pastry chef Dolester Miles learned to bake in a small town called Bessemer, outside Birmingham, Ala. She took the tastes of desserts passed down from her mother and her aunt, and re-worked them with the techniques she has picked up in her more than 30 years at the Birmingham restaurants Highlands Bar & Grill, Chez Fonfon and Bottega. This lemon meringue tart, reminiscent of a Southern icebox cake but with a French feel, is a perfect example. She stirs in white chocolate to give the curd a luscious mouth feel, and finishes it with a drift of soft Swiss meringue toasted with a blowtorch. A few seconds under the broiler will work, too. She cautions cooks never to take their eyes off the tart during that final step. “It’ll get away from you fast,” she said.
Roman-Style Spring Lamb With Fresh Sugar Snap Pea Salad
The Romans make a classic dish in the spring with very young milk-fed lamb. Such meat is hard to find in American supermarkets, but the technique, which involves a short braise in vinegar and water with a boost of anchovy at the end, works fine with chunks of lamb cut from a leg or roast of any young lamb. This recipe is built on the precise technique for abbacchio alla cacciatora that Marcella Hazan offered in "The Classic Italian Cookbook," with some freshening up. The braised chunks of meat are topped with a crunchy sugar snap pea salad that carries the heat of Calabria peppers, a recipe from Whitney Otawka, who grew up in California and now cooks in Georgia. (The salad is a great stand-alone recipe, too, and one that would be terrific alongside a ham, if yours is an Easter ham family.)
Sugar Snap Pea Salad With Calabrian Pepper and Fennel
Whitney Otawka, whom you may remember from "Top Chef" or Hugh Acheson’s Five & Ten restaurant in Athens, Ga., cooks at the Greyfield Inn. It’s the only place to stay on Cumberland Island, the largest barrier island off Georgia’s coast. The farmers who live there grow sugar snap peas, which she welcomes as one of the early tastes of spring. She is also a fan of Calabrian peppers packed in oil, which she started eating at Antico Pizza in Atlanta. She uses them to make a dressing base that enlivens the peas. The fennel, which needs to be sliced very finely, adds crunch and depth. Buy baby fennel, if you can find it. This is a great salad on its own, or use it as a kind of relish on grilled meat or braised lamb. There will be extra chile dressing, which is a fine condiment for grilled chicken. It will also add character to a pasta dish or even a slice of takeout pizza.
Blistered Green Beans and Tomatoes With Honey, Harissa and Mint
It’s worth seeking out a well-seasoned cast-iron pan for this recipe as the heat will evenly distribute throughout the surface area helping to ensure beautifully charred, but tender vegetables. Smoky, earthy harissa is given a lift with the addition of honey and lime juice, which is tossed with the green beans and tomatoes and some butter to melt at the end of cooking. Serve with grilled sausages for a fast and flavorful summer meal.
Baked Eggs With Kale, Bacon and Cornbread Crumbs
This Southern riff on bacon and eggs comes together quickly and with just a few ingredients. Using a store-bought corn muffin to make the toasted cornbread crumbs is a quick shortcut that gives this dish its star power. (Try using these crumbs as croutons in a kale Caesar salad, too!) Curly kale, collard greens, Swiss chard or a combination may be used in place of the Tuscan kale. For a vegetarian-friendly version, this recipe can be made without the bacon: Just sauté the garlic, onion and greens in 3 tablespoons olive oil, and add an additional 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Blueberry, Almond and Lemon Cake
A slice of this berry-dotted cake is perfect late in the morning, for afternoon tea or after dinner, with coffee. It keeps for up to three days in a sealed container, but is at its absolute best on the day it's made.
Pizza Rustica (Easter Pie)
A deep-dish cousin to quiche that's packed with Italian deli meats and cheeses like prosciutto, pepperoni, soppressata, mozzarella and provolone, this rich pie, also called Easter pie, is traditionally made on Good Friday and served on the holiday to celebrate the end of Lent. This version came to The Times from Carlo's Bakery, in Hoboken, N.J., of “Cake Boss” fame, and it is the only savory item the bakery makes. It's typically eaten at room temperature, but the staff at Carlo's enjoys it warm right out of the oven.
Whipped Cream
Desserts are good. Desserts topped with a flourish of whipped cream are better. For the best results, start with cold heavy cream as well as a chilled bowl and whisk (or attachment if you're using an electric mixer). Play around with one or two of the optional flavorings, but don't go overboard: Whipped cream should enhance a dessert, not upstage it.