Lunch
2800 recipes found
English Pea and Onion Salad
Jonathon Sawyer is no snob. Although he runs the kitchens in a slew of acclaimed restaurants in the Cleveland area, including The Greenhouse Tavern, the chef decided to honor Thanksgiving and his home state, Ohio, by sending along a personal recipe that calls to mind the processed-food delights that, for decades, characterized the cooking of the Midwest. “Think of this salad as a little slice of nostalgia from the canned-and-frozen households of the mid-20th century,” he wrote in an email. Mr. Sawyer recommends frozen peas (“I think frozen peas are magical,” he said) and organic eggs, but over the years he has seen the dish made with Miracle Whip, cubes of cheese from the deli, powdered Ranch dressing, French’s fried onions. “The real goal of having a salad like this on the holiday table is it’s a tart, sweet and delicious break from the overindulgence of roasted birds, velvety gravy and buttery potatoes,” he said. And hey, that break from the overindulgence happens to have bacon in it.
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.
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.
Kidney Bean and Cracked Wheat Soup With Prosciutto
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.
Pasta With Mussels in Tomato Sauce
Semolina linguine is a traditional and wonderful pasta to use. But you can make the dish with whole-wheat or gluten-free pasta; both are getting better and better. Look for a flat noodle like tagliatelle, fettuccine or linguine. If you use whole-wheat or gluten-free pasta, make sure not to overcook it. My rule of thumb is to check for doneness a minute before the suggested cooking time on the package; noodles should be cooked al dente.
Grilled Watermelon and Tomato Salad
Onion Pie
Chicken Breasts With Black Beans and Smoked Bacon Stew
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.
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.
Bangladeshi Chicken Korma
Homestyle Bangladeshi chicken korma is likely more aromatic, flavorful, and deeply chicken-flavored than the heavy, creamy versions served in Indian restaurants. This recipe, adapted from Shama Mubdi, is also incredibly easy to make: You just stir everything together in a pot and turn on the heat. A last-minute addition of butter-fried onions adds sweet complexity. Serve with basmati rice and salad or South Asian pickles.
Tomato Crostata With Honey-Thyme Glaze
Ghanaian Spinach Stew With Sweet Plantains
This recipe is an adaptation of the smoky spinach stew served at Papaye, Samuel Obeng's restaurant in the Bronx. Built on a base of onions and ginger sauteed in palm oil, made fiery with habanero, and thickened with ground pumpkin seeds and tomatoes, the stew calls for African smoked, dried shrimp powder; its flavor is amazing. (Asian versions are typically unsmoked and chewier.) But smoked paprika and fish sauce make a serviceable substitute.
Sabut Raan (Roast Leg of Lamb)
This recipe for a whole roasted leg of lamb comes from the cookbook author Sameen Rushdie, who wrote "Indian Cookery," the classic published in Great Britain in 1988. On Sundays, after a matinee at the Metro Cub Club in Bombay, the Rushdie family often sat down to a special lunch of roast lamb. In this version, the yogurt marinade turns into a rich sauce as it mixes with the braising liquid in the oven. Ms. Rushdie still turns to the dish as the centerpiece of a dinner party, because it can be set up ahead of time and cooked in the oven. The leg is trimmed of all fat, so it’s important to keep it moist: For the first couple of hours of cooking, keep it covered, with some water in the pan, then uncover and let the surface brown a little at the end.
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!
Tomato Salad on a Roll
This sandwich, a delight of summer, is a cross between the pan bagnat from Nice and the Catalan tomato bread with anchovy. And it's dead simple. Tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, capers, anchovy and basil. A splash of red wine vinegar. This sandwich comes together quickly, but the ingredients need to stay inside the loaf for at least an hour. That way, the juicy tomatoes and all the tasty aromatics permeate the bread in a soggy, heavenly way. Eat it outside.
Fresh Tomato Sauce
This is a quick, simple marinara sauce that will only be good if your tomatoes are ripe. If you have a food mill, you don’t have to peel and seed the tomatoes; you can just quarter them and put the sauce through the mill.
Crispy Spiced Cauliflower Steaks
This recipe, developed by 19-year-old Ella Heckert and her mother, the chef Kelsie Kerr, yields crisp cauliflower steaks with a golden crust so tender that they shatter upon first bite. Made with brown rice and tapioca flour, the incidentally gluten-free batter is delicate but unfussy. This version is spiked with fresh turmeric and garam masala spices, but consider it a blank slate and feel free to experiment with other spice combinations, too. At Kerr’s Berkeley restaurant, Standard Fare, the batter is used throughout the year to coat all sorts of other ingredients, including winter squash, eggplant and even housemade paneer, which is a perennial favorite. Try the dish with cauliflower, then make it your own — you’ll be surprised how long the crust remains crisp!
Char Kway Teow
This stir-fry noodle dish, char kway teow, was inspired by one served at a crab restaurant in Kuala Lumpur frequented by the chef Zakary Pelaccio.
Smoky Pork Shoulder With Chile Paste
A well-seasoned, chile-paste-slathered pork shoulder is already going to win, no matter what you do to it. Which seems to me like the ideal reason to try a new technique: slow roasting, off-flame, with ambient heat, using your outdoor grill as a coal-fired oven in the off-season of dead winter. Even if your live coals snuff out, or smoke too heavily, or you get bored of the snow-muffled silence or feel lonely in the winter solitude of your backyard, even if you miscalculate sunset and find yourself in the dark with a cellphone flashlight trying to read the internal temperature of the meat to discover it’s still raw in the center — all you have to do is close up shop out back, come inside and shove the thing in your conventional oven and then read the newspaper until dinner.
Brown Soda Bread With Oats
For years I’ve been trying to make a moist soda bread loaf like the kind I love to eat when I’m in Ireland. Finally I’ve achieved it with this recipe, which is adapted from Bon Appétit’s recipe for Fallon & Byrne Soda Bread (Fallon & Byrne is a restaurant in Dublin). The bread is a whole-wheat loaf with both rolled and steel-cut (pinhead) oats, and does not have the hard crust that round soda breads can have. One reason is that the moist dough is baked at a lower temperature than free-form soda bread.
Chicken in a Pot
Serve this as a stew, with everything in the bowl, or as a plain broth, followed by the chicken and vegetables on a platter. Canned stock is a decent option here, as is water, because the cooking liquid gains flavor from the chicken and vegetables during simmering. Of course, real stock is the best option.