Main Course
8665 recipes found
Salt-and-Pepper Beef Ribs
These beef ribs are an adaptation of the ones the chef Kenny Callaghan used to serve at the restaurant Blue Smoke, in Manhattan. For best results, order the ribs ahead of time from a butcher. (Pre-packaged ribs are generally too well-trimmed of meat for good barbecue purpose.) Ask for two back-rib racks trimmed from the prime rib, keeping as much meat on the ribs as possible, each rack approximately 6 ribs wide. That will do you brilliantly. Cook for a while in a bath of hickory smoke, then finish in the oven. Beef, salt, pepper, smoke, fat. You'll need napkins.
Mushroom Ragù Pasta
Rich and earthy, this creamy pasta feels appropriate for date night, but comes together quickly enough for a weeknight. The process is simple, but the details do matter here: Use a thin pasta, like spaghettini or angel hair, so that it cooks in the same amount of time it takes the stock and cream to reduce to a sauce. Also pay close attention during the last few minutes of cooking the pasta to ensure you’re stirring enough and adding enough water to create a silky sauce. Porcini mushroom powder, which is optional, adds depth, and can be made at home by pulverizing store-bought dried mushrooms in a spice grinder (see Tip). Offset the richness of the dish with a classic green salad, shaved fennel, or some mustardy bitter greens.
Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken With Fried Basil
This spiced fried chicken is a staple in the night markets of Taiwan. You can order the chicken in cutlet form or small bites like these, which are served in paper bags with wooden skewers. This recipe uses a few spices that cannot be skipped: five-spice powder and white pepper. The Sichuan peppercorns are a bonus, adding a little numbing tingle. If you can’t find Sichuan peppercorns, use black peppercorns instead. You won’t get the same tingly feeling, but the chicken will be just as good. This fried chicken recipe happens to be gluten-free thanks to the tapioca flour, which imparts the dish’s signature crunch.
Six-Foot Meatless Italian Hero
This sandwich serves many dainty folks or fewer rugged types. Preorder the bread from an Italian bakery or deli counter, and build first, season last. Success here is in achieving a perfect filling-to-bread ratio, a generousness with the seasonings, and the ability to close the sandwich around the filling without finding it woefully over- or under-stuffed when it’s time to slice. It’s a huge help to have on hand 8-inch wooden skewers, disposable gloves, a good serrated knife and an egg-slicer gadget. The assembly instructions here are meant to be helpful but not prescriptive, as I trust that everybody knows how to build a sandwich to their own liking.
Spiced Lamb Meatballs With Yogurt and Herbs
These spice-loaded meatballs have a Turkish inflection. The warm yogurt sauce adds tang and richness, along with a sprinkling of tart sumac powder and chopped mint. American "Greek-style" yogurt is not always tart enough, but it can be thinned with a bit of buttermilk or even lemon juice. Whisking it with cornstarch and egg produces a silky sauce. Though the ingredient list looks long, this is a simple and impressive dish to make.
Hot Dogs With Pico de Gallo
Tanya Sichynsky, a New York Times Cooking editor, tops salty, snappy grilled hot dogs with bright pico de gallo. Combining those two elements of fully loaded Mexican hot dogs makes these easy to cook for a crowd and tote to a cookout. You can prepare the pico de gallo early in the day and keep it in an airtight container until ready to pile onto the hot dogs, split to cradle the fresh filling. Be sure to keep the grill heat moderate. Too hot, and the hot dogs — and buns — will burn and dry out. Too cool, and they won’t take on a smoky char.
Cajun Shrimp Boil
In New Orleans, a seafood boil, the Southern tradition of gathering around a newspaper-lined table to eat large amounts of boiled shellfish with your bare hands, is all about salt and spice. In the words of Jared Austin, a Mississippi riverboat pilot and seafood-boil master, ‘‘Nothing about any of this is subtle — people standing around the pot should sneeze and cough.’’ The key to a successful shrimp boil is layering ingredients into the pot so that everything is done cooking at once: First add the potatoes and sausage, then the shrimp, then the frozen corn to bring the temperature down and prevent overcooking. Let it all soak to absorb the salt and spice, then dump it out onto the table and eat with copious amounts of rémoulade. While this recipe can easily be halved, it’s a simple — and extraordinarily fun — way to feed a crowd. Just remember to heed Austin’s advice: ‘‘Don’t be afraid of cayenne. Don’t be afraid to let your nose run.’’
Indiana Fried Chicken
This superb style of fried chicken, found in southeastern Indiana, relies on a heavy use of black pepper. Wagner’s Village Inn, a bar and restaurant in Oldenburg, stays true to the old-school method of skillet-frying in lard, and makes some of the best fried chicken in the area. The use of lard results in a very rich flavor, but canola oil is an acceptable substitute. At Wagner’s, the cooks add two tablespoons of water to the skillet just before removing the fried chicken, believing it “seals in the flavor.” Maybe, maybe not, but it’s a festive finish to this exquisitely simple dish.
Pasta With Sausage and Parm
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. I like cooking the sausages twice for this pasta dish: first as links, to firm them up; then as coins, which get good and crisp in a melting knob of butter, releasing fat that, with a few leaves of sage and a splash of the water in which you cooked the pasta, makes for a terrific sauce for the pound of orecchiette in your pasta pot. Start by putting some neutral oil in a hot pan and searing the links, pricking them with a fork if they threaten to split. Boil your pasta water, salted as always. Retrieve the sausages from the pan when the skins are golden and crisp, let cool slightly, then cut into coins. While the pasta cooks, wipe out the pan and add some butter to it and the sausage coins; cook over medium heat. Scatter sage leaves over the whole, drain the pasta, and add a little of the pasta water to the pan with the sausage to make a velvety sauce. Combine with the pasta, grate a lot of Parmesan over the top, and let me know how it goes. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Rotisserie Chicken Panzanella
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Grab a super-tanned rotisserie chicken on the way home. Tear the meat into strips, then cut a few smallish supermarket tomatoes (or better, if you’ve got them) into wedges and marinate them in oil, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar. Pay a few bills or fold some laundry, then turn the whole thing into panzanella by mixing together the chicken, the tomatoes, some fresh watercress and some chunks of stale or toasted bread, then showering the salad with freshly ground black pepper and a spray of kosher salt. This, too, is cooking. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Mexican Hot Dogs
If you’ve ever walked through the streets of Los Angeles late at night, you may have been lucky enough to happen upon a street vendor selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs piled high with caramelized onions, sautéed peppers, pico de gallo, avocado, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. This version of Mexican hot dogs, also known as street dogs or Los Angeles hot dogs, is believed to be a riff on a similar recipe that originated in Sonora, Mexico. In Los Angeles, they’re sometimes fried on a mobile D.I.Y. griddle made with a wheeled cart, a large sheet pan and a heat source underneath, but we don’t recommend trying that at home. For this recipe, a standard sheet pan and an oven will do.
New Mexican Hot Dish
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. I’ve been cooking enchiladas con carne ever since Robb Walsh taught me how to make them in the kitchen of his El Real Tex-Mex Cafe in Houston. But I can’t say I make them the way he taught me any longer. First, sauté a pound or so of ground beef in a splash of oil, with a little flour and a pinch of salt, then set it aside. Use the same pan to cook chopped onion, garlic and jalapeño. Return the meat to the pan, and hit it with chile powder, ground cumin and oregano, to taste. Add chopped tomatoes and a little water to loosen everything up. Let it reduce a little. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 425, and grab a casserole dish. You’ll need corn tortillas as well, and grated cheese — I like a mixture of Cheddar and American. Sue me. Enchiladas can be a drag to assemble. So do as the New Mexicans do, and stack rather than roll. I put a little chili in the bottom of the casserole, warm my tortillas in a dry skillet and lay them across the chili as if building the first layer of a lasagna. Then I do that again and again, and finish with the remaining chili and cheese. Bake in the oven until everything’s bubbling. Serve with chopped raw onions, sour cream and salsa on the side. Enchilada casserole, hon. New Mexican hot dish. I’m telling you, you could make it tonight. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Kale Salad With Cranberries, Pecans and Blue Cheese
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. How about a kale salad? (Stick with me, please.) Just make a mustardy vinaigrette that’ll stand up to the greens — mustard, olive oil, a splash of lemon juice, salt and pepper — then drizzle it over clean, chopped kale with a host of big-flavored mix-ins that wink at whatever season you’re in without being dorky about it: dried cranberries or currants, say; pecans toasted with maple syrup and a pinch of cayenne; some crumbled blue cheese; a spray of croutons. Sweet, salty, spicy, sour. That and a chilled glass of red wine? Why don’t we eat salads for dinner more often? Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Corn Salad With Tomatoes, Feta and Mint
Fresh raw corn shucked from the cob is ideal here. The juice from the tomatoes delivers just the right amount of acidity, so there’s no need for vinegar. Eat this as is, by the bowl, or toss it with cooked rice or beans for a more filling meal — you’ll want to add oil and vinegar accordingly. In midsummer, with peak-season produce, there is nothing better.
Party Board
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. You don’t need a recipe for a party board, which is a fine dinner for a Wednesday night. You don’t even need a no-recipe recipe. You need only what cheese is in the refrigerator, sliced or wedged or cubed, along with cured meats — I like rolled mortadella, spread inside with a little mayonnaise and dotted with pickled jalapeño — and a little bread or pile of crackers. Maybe add to the board some cherry tomatoes, halved and tossed in olive oil and good vinegar with salt and pepper? You could stuff them with mozzarella, if you have the time. Or celery, cut into batons? Carrots, likewise? Raw or roasted peppers, sliced? The chef Gabrielle Hamilton calls the assemblage a snack tray. In the name of romance, she once stacked Pringles on one, with a ramekin of Castelvetrano olives. Her swain, now her wife, Ashley Merriman, responded with “pepperoni cut as thin as fish scales and shingled just as neatly.” You could go with Jarlsberg, Triscuits and vodka sodas. Or smoked salmon, shaved asparagus, some crème fraîche with chives, dill and tarragon. A party board is what you make of it. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Italian Broccoli Salad
This adaptable make-ahead salad is a great instant lunch or side dish. It starts with raw broccoli florets and stems, thinly sliced into irregular shapes to create many textures. As the broccoli sits with salt and vinegar, it softens and becomes slaw. Its mellow flavor is contrasted by the loud ingredients typically found in an Italian sub or chopped salad, like shallots, pickled peppers, olives and provolone. Feel free to add more protein in the form of cured meats, chickpeas, lentils or mozzarella; vegetables like sweet tomatoes or iceberg lettuce; or basil.
Rice and Beans With Extras
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Maybe tonight is calling for simple rice and beans, with limes to squeeze over the plate, warm tortillas to scoop up the food? First, rinse a cup or two of rice and cook as you usually do. As it steams away, dice an onion and sweat it in a saucepan with a drizzle or two of olive oil set over medium-high heat. When the onion begins to go translucent, add a few cloves of garlic and, if you’d like, some crumbled sausage, ground beef or lamb, then cook until it has started to crisp and the onion has started to caramelize. Add a healthy dusting of cumin, some salt and pepper to taste, and allow it all to go muddy and fragrant. Splash the mixture with the orange juice, maybe half a cup, and allow it to cook down, almost to syrup. Then add a big can of black beans (drained, please) and stir to combine, turning down the heat and allowing the flavors to come together, perhaps using a spoon to mash some of the beans as they cook. Serve it all on top of the finished rice, adorned with wedges of lime and accompanied by warmed tortillas or buttered toast. I like some pickled jalapeños, cilantro and hot sauce on there, too. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Empanadas de Chipilín
These empanadas are very common in the food stalls of the mercados and tianguis (open-air market) in the southern state of Chiapas. A plant native to Mexico, chipilín lends its leaves to stews and salsas, and is mixed into corn masa to make tortillas, tamales and empanadas in the country’s center and south. Adding chipilín to masa lends a subtle herbaceousness that complements the earthiness of the corn. If you can’t find it, spinach, chard or kale makes a great substitute.
Roast Chicken
With an ingredient list just four items long (chicken, olive oil, salt, pepper), the genius of this bare-bones roast chicken is in its technique. To make it, thoroughly preheat a cast-iron skillet before sliding into it a seasoned bird, breast side up. In under an hour you’ll get a stunner of a chicken, with moist, tender white meat, crisp, salty chicken skin, and juicy dark meat all done to a turn. If you don’t already have a cast-iron skillet large enough to hold a whole chicken, this recipe is a good enough reason to invest in one.
Pan-Roasted Chicken With Chiles de Árbol
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Here is a riff on a recipe from the Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin, whose book “Sunday Suppers at Lucques” is an exacting and delicious guide to restaurant cooking at home. Simply brown some chicken thighs in olive oil and butter over medium heat in an oven-safe skillet, adding lots of fresh thyme leaves and a couple of crumbled chiles de árbol. Then apply a thin smear of mustard to each thigh, shower with buttered bread crumbs and transfer the pan to the broiler to crisp the chicken into succulence. Serve alongside or on top of a pile of baby greens lightly dressed in lemon juice and olive oil, with some bread to mop up the juices. That’s fine. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Seared Lamb Chops With Lemon and Butter-Braised Potatoes
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Cut some yellow potatoes into chunks and put them in a deep skillet set over medium-high heat, along with some chopped onions and a few tablespoons of butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for around 10 minutes, stirring often, then add enough chicken stock, water or wine so that the potatoes are almost covered. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, massage as many lamb chops as you need with minced garlic, salt, pepper and a little oil, then sear them in a hot cast-iron pan, finishing them in a 425-degree oven with rosemary and some thinly sliced lemons until the lamb is just pink inside, about 10 minutes, maybe fewer. Garnish with thyme or rosemary if you have it and serve alongside the potatoes. A fine midweek meal! Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Speedy Fish Chowder
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. This one calls for something in the neighborhood of a quarter- to half-pound of fish fillets per person and works as well in the heat of South Florida as it does on the frozen Northern Plains. Dice a strip or two of bacon if you’re a meat eater, or grab some butter if you are not (or use both if you are reckless). Add it to a Dutch oven set over medium-high heat and sauté with a few handfuls of diced onions, carrots and potatoes until the onions have gone translucent. Hit the mixture with some salt and pepper and a flash of smoked paprika if you have it. If you can find good corn on the cob, that would be a fine addition. So would a cup of frozen corn. Do you have any fish stock? No? White wine? Surely you have water. Add enough liquid (of any combination of the above) so that the potatoes are almost swimming, then add a bay leaf and reduce the heat to a simmer. Allow the chowder to bubble along until the liquid has reduced by a third and the potatoes are tender. Add a splash or two of milk or cream and allow it to heat and thicken slightly. Now cut the fillets into chunks and stir them in gently. Five minutes later: chowder. Serve with crusty bread. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Rock-Shrimp Roll
Rock shrimp are meaty and firm, like lobster tail, and have a mild, bland flavor that can really use the help of seasoning at several stages. So we salt them before cooking and during cooking. Once the shrimp are mixed with onion and celery and mayonnaise, taste the shrimp salad as a whole to decide if it could stand even another pinch of salt or grind of pepper. But use unsalted butter on the bun when griddling, to get the perfect play between the sweet and the saline.
Vegetable Noodle Salad With Sesame Vinaigrette
This pasta salad is bursting with more than two pounds of sweet summer vegetables and brightened by a rich, tangy sesame-ginger vinaigrette. The angel hair pasta is broken into pieces for easy scooping, making it perfect for picnics and potlucks. It’s a great make-ahead meal that travels well — and develops even more flavor as it sits. You can prepare it a few hours ahead and keep it at room temperature.