Main Course
8665 recipes found
Basic Meatloaf
Five-Spice Duck Breast With Blackberries
Once you know the technique, cooking a large Muscovy duck breast is no more difficult than cooking a steak. Fragrant five-spice powder — a heady mix of Sichuan pepper, fennel, clove, star anise and cinnamon — is the perfect duck seasoning, and juicy blackberries make this a brilliant summertime dish. Muscovy duck is found at better butchers, from online sources or even at some farmers' markets. Grill the duck if you prefer, but make sure to keep dripping fat from igniting and scorching the meat. The breast meat is quite lean despite its fatty skin, so it is best cooked to a rosy medium rare or it will be dry. Serve it warm, at room temperature or cold.
Skillet Meatballs With Juicy Blackberries
In this one-skillet dish, fresh blackberries collapse into a sweet-tart sauce alongside juicy meatballs studded with crunchy whole spices and thyme. For the meatballs, use ground pork or lamb as their plentiful, flavorful fat fortifies the pan sauce. As for accompaniments, creamy Greek yogurt or labneh is the ideal backdrop for this sweet-and-savory combination, but grains, cauliflower rice, polenta, mashed potatoes, warmed pita, wilted greens, roasted mushrooms or chickpeas would be good, too.
Spaghetti and Chicken Meatball Soup
Tomato soup meets spaghetti and meatballs in this one-pot, 30-minute crowd-pleaser. To keep chicken meatballs juicy and light, skip the bread crumbs (which can create dense or bland meatballs) and the browning (which can cause precious juices to evaporate). Instead, plop them into the simmering soup to cook through. Any juices they do release will be captured in the tomato soup, which is creamy from olive oil and Parmesan. Feel free to adapt this recipe to suit your preferences: Add chopped onion, crushed fennel seeds, dried oregano or chopped parsley or basil to the meat or the sauce. The pasta will absorb the soup as it sits, so it’s a dish best eaten right when it’s made.
Roasted Golden Beet and Winter Squash Salad
Golden beets are more savory and earthy than their sugary ruby counterparts and fare better alongside the caramelized roasted winter squash in this many-textured salad. But red beets will work, too, if you don’t mind a slightly sweeter dish over all. If you can’t find delicata squash, other varieties, such as sweet dumpling (shown here), honey nut or acorn squash, make fine substitutes.
Salmon Steaks With Mustard and Dill
Ann Romney's Meatloaf Cakes
Ronald Reagan had his jelly beans, Poppy Bush had his pork rinds and Mitt Romney has his — meatloaf cakes? “Meatloaf cakes,” Mr. Romney affirmed from the back of his charter plane as it idled on the tarmac in Ohio in March 2012, explaining to the traveling press corps the special birthday meal his wife prepares for him every year. The traditional birthday meal, Mr. and Mrs. Romney added, includes mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and carrots.
Grilled Baby Back Ribs With Spicy Peanut Shake
Marinating, it’s said, not only adds flavor and moisture that will stay with the food through the rigors of the grilling process, but also tenderizes whatever you’re about to put over the coals. There’s only one problem with this comforting culinary scenario: It’s mostly not true. These ribs are grilled naked, save for some salt and pepper. Afterward, they are cut into individual ribs and tossed with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, orange juice and ginger and sprinkled with a spicy peanut shake. You get the ease of last-minute preparation and brighter, clearer, more direct flavors and you can show off a bit for your guest as you mix and toss at the last minute.
Sous-Vide Rib Steaks With Spicy Salsa Verde
When you invest in really good rib steaks, you don’t want to mess things up. Cooking them with a sous-vide machine until they are done to taste, then searing them on the grill until charred at the edges gives you the ultimate control.
Chicken Rice With Shallot Sauce
This rendition of chicken rice, where the chicken is delicately poached with aromatics then served at room temperature, is common throughout Southeast Asia and parts of China, but every family is likely to have a slightly different technique. This recipe is from 93-year-old Nancy Fam of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, who used to offer a whole poached chicken, with its head and feet still attached, as part of an elaborate altar ritual for deceased family members. After the spirits had been satiated, she’d carve up the chicken and serve it to the living, paired with a dipping sauce made with shallots, lime and ground bean sauce (a fermented soybean paste), a recipe she inherited from her late mother. A celebration of family both present and past, the chicken is served at room temperature, but eaten with a piping hot serving of jasmine rice.
Leg of Lamb With Moroccan Spices
There’s nothing like the combination of cinnamon, cumin and coriander to give your kitchen an inviting aroma — and the finished lamb will have a beautifully dark and redolent exterior. Don't know how to carve a lamb? Mark Bittman shows you how in this video.
Gumbo’s Daddy With Chicken, Shrimp and Turkey
This recipe, adapted from Gail Jennings of North Carolina, is what her family thinks of as the daddy of all gumbos, a thick mix of leftover roast turkey rounded out with plump shrimp, chicken wings and collard greens. Ms. Jennings spikes the soup with a mix of curry powder and King’s Pepper, a spice blend that she developed based on a West African recipe. But any chile powder, including cayenne, can be substituted. Add it to taste; Ms. Jennings and her family like it fiery hot, then served over rice to mitigate the burn.
Green Chile Cheeseburger Deluxe
In New Mexico, where many traditional dishes contain roasted green chiles, it’s only natural that hamburgers get the chile treatment, too. If you don’t have access to fresh New Mexican green chiles, try fresh Anaheim chiles. Lacking those, use roasted jalapeños that have been peeled and chopped; thinly sliced raw jalapeños; or pickled jalapeños — a compromise perhaps, but better than no chiles at all. As for cheese, any good melting kind of “queso amarillo” will do, but domestic Monterey Jack or Muenster may be even better.
Baby-Back-Rib Kebabs
Egg Noodles With Soy Broth
This is a tasty, fast, cheap, infinitely variable broth-and-noodle combination. Its preparation is slowed down only by waiting for the water to boil. A key ingredient is ketchup; if you can’t bear that thought, you can use tomato paste instead. There’s also Sriracha, soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil, all of which add character. The noodles I use are fresh egg pasta, but just about any kind of noodle can be used. Once you’ve made this once, you’ll probably want to take it to a showier place. Cook thinly sliced shallot, ginger or garlic in a little peanut oil before adding the water for the “broth,” or add sliced celery, bean sprouts, snow peas or sliced carrots to it. Switch to rice noodles, soba, ordinary dried pasta or mung bean threads if you like.
Siu Yuk (Crispy Pork Belly)
Known as siu yuk in Cantonese, this pork belly features two contrasting textures: a crunchy, crispy skin that crackles and pops and a tender slab of meat underneath. To achieve success with both components, a lot of care and time has to be put into the prep. The pork belly needs to be cooked low and slow to break down the tough sinewy bits, then the skin needs to be dried overnight until leathery and blasted under high heat until crisp. This recipe comes from Hong Kong resident Cherry Tang, who used to make siu yuk in the supper clubs she hosted back when she lived in London. Ms. Tang prefers to broil the meat under direct heat, which guarantees a crackling crust — but do keep an eye on the skin, so that it doesn’t char.
Sugar Snap Peas With Yogurt, Feta and Dill
Much of the appeal of sugar snap peas comes from their juicy, sweet crunch, which means you’ll want to take care when blanching them. They turn from perfectly crisp-tender to soft in seconds. The key is to have a bowl of salted ice water next to the stove and a slotted spoon at the ready. The salt in the ice water seasons the peas, and the ice stops them from overcooking. In this savory salad, they’re tossed with a garlicky dressing for brightness, and a creamy feta-yogurt sauce for richness. Serve them with crusty bread as a summery appetizer, or as a side dish for grilled fish or meats.
Beef Braised in Red Wine
Chris Schlesinger’s Pulled Pork
Mr. Schlesinger is the chef and an owner of the East Coast Grill in Cambridge, Mass., which he opened in 1985. He is also the author, with John Willoughby, of six cookbooks that relate somehow to the pleasures of fire. This is an adaptation of his recipe that calls for slowly cooking the pork over coals for almost 14 hours, but that's largely unattended, and your patience will be rewarded.
Barbecued Chopped Chicken
Chinese-Style BBQ Ribs
These are the best oven-roasted ribs ever, and they can also be finished on a grill for extra smoky flavor. Creating steam in the oven is the key to tender meat. The ingredients here are close to the ones used by traditional Cantonese barbecue masters to produce sticky-salty-sweet meat that has a reddish, caramelized crust — with ketchup standing in for Chinese red fermented tofu. (It can be left out if desired.) Although these ribs are presented as an appetizer in many American Chinese restaurants, barbecued meat is traditionally a main course, served with freshly cooked rice and a green side like smashed cucumber salad or stir-fried bok choy.
Mackerel With Olives, Almonds and Mint
Unlike other types of mackerel, which can have a strong flavor, Spanish mackerel is very mild and quite tender. It’s a bit like salmon in that it’s meaty and easy to cook. Here, the fish is roasted in the oven while a buttery, wine pan sauce speckled with olives and toasted sliced almonds is whisked together on top of the stove. Fresh mint adds color and brightness, but use any herbs you like. Basil and parsley are great substitutes.
Vegetable Risotto
Dried mushrooms are reconstituted in hot water. Lettuce and fennel are sweated down in some hot butter in a big, heavy-bottomed pot, then set aside. Onion takes their place, followed by short-grained arborio rice, followed by hot water. Then the cook stirs and stirs, performing the old dance of risotto. (I tried the dish using the stock left by the mushrooms but found it too muddy and dank.) The mushrooms, diced small, go into the pot along with some more water and stirring. Then, at the end, the lettuce and fennel, some Parmesan, a heavy dusting of nutmeg and whatever butter is left. The result is remarkable, particularly in the matter of the lettuce, a mineral thread of flavor above the soft forest floor of the rice.
