Main Course
8665 recipes found
Cider-Roasted Pork Loin With Pickled Apples and Chiles
Roasting a pork loin on a bed of apples, onions and cinnamon moistened with cider gives the meat a caramelized sweetness and spicy perfume. The roast browns on top while the apples and onions collapse into a meltingly tender, golden heap beneath it. Then, to offset all the soft richness, bright and tangy pickled apples and chiles are served alongside. It’s a dish that’s both company worthy and cozy, as perfect for a Sunday supper, spooned over mashed potatoes or polenta, as it is served to guests alongside an elegant gratin. Keep some extra apple cider on hand to add to the pan if it dries out and starts to burn. Just a splash or two should do it.
Roasted Fish With Leeks and Olive Salsa Verde
Leeks show their gentle side in this speedy weeknight fish recipe. A lemony olive salsa verde adds brightness to the dish, while red-pepper flakes bring some heat. Serve this with rice, polenta or crusty bread to soak up the tangy-sweet juices. For a richer, more full-flavored variation, try salmon or tuna fillets instead of milder white fish.
Rustic Duck Stew With Macaroni
Beef Tenderloin With Red Wine, Anchovies, Garlic and Thyme
“How To Eat” by Nigella Lawson is a cookbook, but one of its great joys is its narrative form: Very few of the recipes are written in standard recipe format. This recipe, from the Dinner chapter, is an exception. “This, to me, is the perfect dinner,” Ms. Lawson writes, “simple, impeccable, beautiful.” She suggests serving it with a pea and avocado salad, and adding arugula leaves not only for decorative reasons but also because “its pepperiness perfectly offsets the salty pungency of the anchovy-red-wine sauce.”
Frittata With Red Peppers and Peas
This is one of the best destinations I can think of for frozen peas, and reason enough to have a bag on hand in your freezer at all times. Red peppers keep very well in the refrigerator, and you can also use jarred red peppers for this if you don’t have a fresh one on hand. The frittata looks beautiful on a buffet.
Stuffed Sweet Peppers With Tuna, Bulgur and Herbs
Small, sweet bell peppers (also called mini peppers) in shades of red, orange and green make attractive vessels for stuffing. In this recipe, adapted from the home cook Meline Toumani, they’re roasted until caramelized, then filled with a mixture of bulgur, tuna, herbs and capers for brightness. Offer these to nibble with cocktails when you’re feeding a crowd, or serve them with a salad and some warm pita bread for a light but highly flavorful supper for a smaller group. Be sure to use the best-quality tuna you can get here; tuna packed in olive oil (rather than water or other types of oil) is generally richer and better tasting.
Lemony Pasta With Kelp, Chile and Anchovies
Kelp, a hardy seaweed sold fresh, frozen or dried, gives this lemony pasta dish a salty depth that’s also extremely nutrient-dense. A little like pesto, the garlicky sauce coats the rigatoni in a bright green purée, flecked with darker bits of chopped parsley. Don’t skimp on the anchovies; they underscore the ocean flavor of the kelp, adding an appealing umami richness.
Grilled Tuna With Herbs and Olives
Here, grilled tuna is smothered with a mixture of flavorful herbs, made more potent by the addition of chopped olives and a little raw garlic. A mix of parsley, basil, chives, chervil and marjoram, for example, would be splendid, as would one of cilantro, mint and basil. (I would rule out only thyme, tarragon and rosemary, unless you use them in minuscule quantities.) If you don't have a grill, many readers have baked it at 425 and been happy with the results.
Baked Cheesy Pasta With Wild Mushrooms
A more sophisticated take on mac and cheese, this golden-topped casserole has roasted wild mushrooms for a deep, earthy character, and melted fontina for the gooey factor. You can use any kind of mushrooms here. If you can’t get wild ones (also called exotic, and most of them are actually farmed), use whatever is available. The key is to roast them until they are well browned and crisp at the edges so the flavor intensifies. Serve this as a vegetarian main course or as a rich side dish to roast chicken or meats. You can assemble the casserole the day before. Just add a few minutes onto the baking time if it’s cold from the fridge when you pop it into the oven.
Broccoli Rabe and Sausage With Orecchiette
Skillet Chicken and Rice With Anchovies and Olives
This one-pan meal is inspired by the flavors of pasta con le sarde, a classic Sicilian dish made with sardines and fennel. Anchovies take the place of sardines here, for a more assertive, punchy flavor. The brininess of the anchovies and olives is rounded out by the sweetness of the sautéed fennel, orange juice and golden raisins, which plump up beautifully as they cook. Serve with a Sicilian white wine and simply dressed arugula.
Shortcut Banh Mi With Pickled Carrots and Daikon
Authenticity is not the goal of this banh mi. Nor is coming up with a newfangled variation. This is a sandwich that, with quick work, maintains the porky-pickled-fiery essence of a classic banh mi with easy-to-find ingredients.
Grilled Halloumi and Minted Zucchini Sandwiches
Halloumi, a Greek cheese, has a squeaky texture and high melting point and maintains its bounce even if you grill it or sauté it to a golden crust — which is exactly what you’ll do for this riff on a simple cheese sandwich. Fresh baguette, grilled zucchini and onion, the soft-crisp cheese? It is a sandwich rich and savory enough for dinner.
Veal, Tuna and Caper Sandwich
Moira Hodgson's Vitello Tonnato
Duckling With Cabbage
Lamb Stew With Apricots
Roast Chicken With Crunchy Seaweed and Potatoes
Two types of seaweed add flavor and crunch to this otherwise classic golden, roast chicken. A lemon-scented compound butter seasoned with dried red dulse (a mild type of seaweed) adds richness and a mineral, saline character to the bird, which is roasted with kelp and potatoes. As the chicken fat renders, it coats the vegetables, bronzing the potatoes and making the kelp as crisp as seaweed snacks. You do need to plan ahead to source the seaweed and marinate the chicken, but the reward is a robust, one-pan chicken dinner that hits all the right savory notes.
Marinated Bay Scallops With Seaweed
Orecchiette With Grated Squash, Walnuts and Ricotta Salata
I don’t know why it had never occurred to me to grate hard winter squash until I started envisioning this pasta. If you have a food processor with a grater blade, this will be the easiest way you’ve ever prepared winter squash, short of sticking it in the oven skin and all. The cooked grated squash lodges in the indentations of the ear-shaped orecchiette, a perfect pairing.
Lamb Tagine With Apricots, Olives and Buttered Almonds
A warming one-pot meal, this Melissa Clark recipe, recalls the finest of Moroccan tagines. It pulls the best from various tagine recipes — cinnamon sticks and green olives, lemon and saffron, and dried apricots. Done in two hours, it might not be a dish for a busy weeknight, but a leisurely one, requiring a good amount of comfort.
Garlic Chicken Soup
Seared Tuna, White Bean and Fennel Salad
Rich tuna and creamy white beans are the foundations of a favorite warm-weather Mediterranean salad, often accented with tomatoes and onion. Here, well-seasoned tuna fillet is instead seared rare in a cast-iron skillet, though it could also be grilled over hot coals. But feel free to use best-quality canned tuna, and skip the cooking altogether. The crisp, thinly sliced fennel adds freshness and mirrors the fennel seed in the seasoning.
Roasted Asparagus and Scallion Salad
In this hearty, many-textured salad, soft, roasted asparagus is tossed with chewy whole grains and crisp, sweet caramelized scallions. You can use freekeh or farro here for the grains. Both are whole-wheat kernels, but the freekeh has a slightly smoky note from being toasted, while the farro is nuttier-tasting. You can prepare the freekeh or farro ahead and let it marinate in the dressing for up to six hours, but it’s best to roast the asparagus and scallions within an hour of serving. Don’t use pecorino Romano here, it’s too sharp. If you can’t find a young pecorino, use a young manchego or even a nice Cheddar, and serve this as a light main course or a salad course to a more substantial meal.