Main Course
8665 recipes found
Twice-Cooked Pork
Fried Eggplant With Chickpeas and Mint Chutney
In this gently spiced vegetable dish, baby eggplant slices are first fried until golden, then braised with chickpeas, tomatoes and garam masala until soft, velvety and richly flavored. A quickly made fresh mint chutney adds a complex, herbal, spicy note thanks to the jalapeño in the mix. Serve this over rice or with flatbread as a main course, or on the side of grilled meats or fish.
Lobster Fra Diavolo
Fettuccine with Ham and Asparagus
Sous-Vide Peanut-Ginger Pork With Celery Slaw
Using a sous-vide machine to cook lean cuts like pork tenderloin produces silky, pink-centered meat that is juicy and tender. Here, the pork is cooked in a peanut-sesame sauce spiked with loads of ginger and garlic. As a crunchy, cool contrast, the pork is served with a slawlike mix of thinly sliced celery and fennel, and plenty of cilantro. Serve this with coconut rice or rice noodles, with more of the spicy sauce drizzled on top.
Fresh Tomato Sauce For Fettuccine
Mapo Ragù
This is my simple, everyday take on a dish developed at Momofuku Ssam Bar in Manhattan many years ago by the chefs David Chang and Tien Ho and their band of collaborators. It is almost literally a mashup: a meal that is kind of Korean, kind of Chinese, kind of Italian. If you don’t like spicy food, use miso instead of the gochujang and don’t use Sichuan peppercorns, which add a numbing, tingly pop to the fire. (If you like really spicy food, add dried chiles or hot pepper flakes to the recipe at the point you add the gochujang.) And if you want to make it even more luxe than it is already, follow the lead of Chang’s crew and stir 6 ounces of silken tofu into the sauce at the end.
Quesadilla With Mushroom Ragoût and Chipotles
Mushroom ragoût accepts chipotles willingly. I made a delicious and substantial quesadilla dinner with the ragoût, two tortillas and a bit of cheese in under three minutes.
Pasta With Mussels, Tomatoes and Fried Capers
The best part of a big pot of mussels is arguably the broth, especially when it features plenty of garlic and wine. Here, the mussels and their broth — combined with ripe summer tomatoes — make a heady, rich sauce for pasta. A topping of toasted garlicky bread crumbs run through with fried capers gives the mixture texture and tang. This is just as good warm as it is hot, so feel free to make it up to an hour in advance, adding the herbs just before serving.
Fettuccine With Broccoli-Pepper Cheese Sauce
Halibut Fillets With Leeks
There are countless ways to prepare halibut — in a white-wine sauce, for example, a bechamel sauce or with grapes. In this recipe, the halibut is poached in a mixture of dry white wine and finely chopped shallots. After the fish is cooked it's removed briefly from the cooking liquid, which is then reduced, and a little heavy cream is added to it. The fish is placed on a bed of leeks — a delicate counterpoint to the fish — and a small amount of the sauce was then spooned over all, though you could reserve a little to toss with linguine as a side.
Fettuccine With Curry and Sea Scallops
Peppered Loin of Lamb
One-Pot Braised Chard With Gnocchi, Peas and Leeks
Adding a package of prepared potato gnocchi to a pot of braised greens turns a side dish into a vibrant one-pot meal fit for weeknights. The chard stems, leeks and peas are nubby and colorful next to the pillowy gnocchi, while a combination of butter and white wine makes the sauce rich and tangy. For extra creaminess, serve this with dollops of fresh ricotta stirred in at the last minute. Or skip the ricotta for a lighter meal.
Potato ‘Salad’ and Tomatillo Tacos
The filling for these tacos can also stand alone as a potato salad, but it’s very nice and comforting inside a warm tortilla.
Fettuccine With Merguez and Mint Pesto
For a pasta dish with sausage that’s bold and rustic, easy to whip up for dinner but intriguing enough for entertaining (the recipe can be doubled), I opted for merguez, the North African lamb sausage. The trick is having a market that sells merguez, or order it in bulk online to keep a supply in the freezer. To the merguez, I added the flavors of Morocco: mint, garlic, lemon, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and a dusting of ground cumin. Thanks to some pasta water, these components all came together admirably to dress the pasta and suit the Bordeaux.
Roasted Lemony Fish With Brown Butter, Capers and Nori
Drizzling a mild, white fish with a caper-spiked browned butter is classic for a reason. The butter adds richness to the lean fish, and the tanginess of capers and lemon perks up any mellowness. In this version, adapted from the chef Danielle Alvarez’s cookbook “Always Add Lemon” (Hardie Grant, 2020), nori oil adds another layer of umami flavor. It’s both bright and deep, with a silky texture that’s easy to achieve. Serve it with rice or bread to mop up all the saline, buttery juices.
Braised Fish And Napa Cabbage With Chilies
Grilled Cured Salmon
Squid, Tomato And Roasted Poblano Stew
Pasta With Smoked Mussels And Tomatoes
Spaghetti With Parmesan Cheese
Turkish Red Lentil Soup
Shrimp Gumbo with Andouille Sausage
Most cooks agree that gumbos must have the vegetable trinity of chopped bell pepper, onion and celery, and that they should be highly seasoned. Some gumbos do contain sausage, shrimp and chicken, but there are humbler ones that are made with only salt pork, onions and greens. Finally, there is the filé powder camp. These cooks use copious amounts of the stuff, which is made from finely powdered sassafras leaves. Added at the last minute, it thickens the soup while imparting a flavor that’s earthy and herbal. I confess to using all three — a roux, okra and filé powder — in my own gumbo, which I hope is not sacrilegious. Not having grown up in gumbo territory, I based mine on a number of visits to New Orleans.