Main Course
8665 recipes found
Crisp Roast Duck
A golden-skinned roasted duck is a festive main course for any special meal. In this recipe, the bird is doused with boiling water before being scored all over. The boiling water helps pull the skin taut, making it easier to score in a crosshatch pattern. That, in turn, allows the fat to render out as everything roasts. The result is a perfectly cooked duck with pink, juicy meat and burnished, crunchy skin. Serve the bird as is, or with some kind of sauce — either sweet or pungent — such as cranberry sauce, salsa verde or a spicy soy dipping sauce. And save the duck fat at the bottom of the pan. It will keep for at least three months in the refrigerator and is excellent on roasted vegetables, especially potatoes.
Spiced Lamb Chops With Fennel and Cucumber
One of the quickest-cooking cuts out there, lamb loin chops are leaner than a rib chop, with a very mild lamb flavor. Seasoning them simply with salt and pepper would be enough, but a good sprinkle of crushed fennel seed and plenty of black pepper adds excellent crispy, crunchy bits to the seared meat. Serve squeezed with lemon and scattered with herbs alongside a cucumber salad, or with an herby bowl of rice or other grains.
Shrimp and Brown Rice Soup
This irresistible soup is inspired by a Southeast Asian dish traditionally made with Thai jasmine rice. The recipe is adapted from one in “Hot Sour Salty Sweet,” by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford.
Stir-Fried Turkey and Brussels Sprouts
A stir-fry is always a great way to use a little bit of leftover meat with a lot of vegetables. This one is quickly accomplished because the turkey is already cooked and it’s thrown into the colorful, gingery mix at the last minute. Once you add the turkey it’s important to stir-fry only long enough to heat the turkey through or it will be dry and stringy. If you are making this just after Thanksgiving and you happen to have leftover Brussels sprouts too, then you can reduce the cooking time even more, adding them along with the turkey after you’ve stir-fried the red peppers, and just stir-frying to heat through.
Stir-Fried Pork and Pineapple
This recipe, an adaptation from “The Hakka Cookbook” by Linda Lau Anusasananan, came to The Times by way of Mark Bittman in 2013. The Hakka people are sometimes thought of as the Jews of China, because they’re dispersed all over the place. But the Hakkas cannot even point to an original homeland: you can find them everywhere. “Some people call us dandelions, because we thrive in poor soil,” says Ms. Anusasananan, who was born in California. Hakka dishes like this one, chow mein and pretty much anything in bean sauce, have defined Chinese-restaurant cooking for nearly everyone. This lively stir-fry comes together in about a half-hour and is easily doubled or tripled for a crowd. To make it more family- and weeknight-friendly, substitute sliced bell peppers for the fungus and canned pineapple for the fresh, and leave out (or greatly reduce) the chile peppers.
Classic Prime Rib for a Small Crowd
This scaled-down version of the traditional holiday roast is incredibly easy to prepare. In addition to the beef, you need only red wine or stock, garlic, salt and pepper. Serve it for Sunday dinner alongside a pile of fluffy mashed potatoes and something green. If you're feeling ambitious, use the beef drippings to make Yorkshire pudding.
Roast Duck with Orange and Ginger
For a festive occasion, a burnished whole duck makes quite an impression — fancier than chicken and more elegant than turkey. Roasting the duck is not so difficult to do, but it can be smoky; to be on the safe side, dismantle your smoke alarm and turn on a good exhaust fan. (If your oven has a convection fan, don’t use it; that way you avoid unnecessarily sputtering fat blowing about.). Seasoning the duck ahead and leaving it in the fridge overnight helps to deepen the flavor and keeps work to a minimum the following day. This one is seasoned with orange zest, along with fair amount of ginger and five-spice powder, which gives it a marvelous perfume; serve it with mashed butternut squash.
Standing Rib Roast
Like many Nebraskans, the poet Erin Belieu’s family members use any large gathering as a pretext for serving prime rib. Thanksgiving is no exception. When Ms. Belieu, a fourth-generation Nebraskan, was growing up in Omaha, her family served prime rib alongside the turkey — until they realized no one really liked the bird and dispensed with it altogether. Her grandfather was a cowboy, and the whole family was steeped in the state’s ranching culture, even when they eventually moved to the city. In her house, the beef was minimally seasoned and roasted in a hot oven until the exterior was crackling and browned, the inside juicy and red. A little horseradish sauce might be served on the side, but her father always disapproved. Good beef doesn’t need it. “He thought sauce was for drugstore cowboys,” she said.
Ricotta Gnocchi With Parsley Pesto
Gnocchi are little savory Italian dumplings, most often served as a pasta course. They are often made from a dough of potato, egg and flour, but there are many kinds. Some are made with cooked semolina, such as gnocchi alla romana, which are baked with cream and cheese. Fresh ricotta is the secret for these exceedingly light, airy dumplings. Bound with eggs and only a handful of flour, they can be served in broth, with a light tomato sauce, tossed with butter and sage leaves, or with a simple green pesto. Look for the best fresh ricotta: The low-fat commercial type doesn’t qualify. Drain it well before using, or the dough will be too wet. Put it in a fine mesh sieve set over a bowl and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Use the drained liquid whey in soups or smoothies.
Crown Roast of Pork
Craig Claiborne declared this dish to be wholly American back in 1976, saying that if there were a European antecedent for a crown roast, ‘‘we have yet to discover it.’’ It is a stunning centerpiece for a holiday meal, the rare roast you will want to carve at the table and not in the kitchen. You can serve a dressing inside the finished roast, but cook it separately. As with stuffing a turkey, the process only slows and complicates the cooking process.
Creole Crab-Meat Soup
Cuban-Style Arroz Congrí
The combination of white rice and black beans is a Cuban staple. Black beans served on top of or next to white rice is most commonly called Moros y Cristianos, a reference to the medieval battle between Islamic Moors and Christian Spaniards on the Iberian Peninsula. When rice and beans are mixed with sautéed aromatic vegetables and sometimes bits of pork, the result is called congrí. (In some Cuban households, it is also called Moros y Cristianos.) As a rule, congrí is a fluffier and drier dish than Moros y Cristianos. Yolanda Horruitiner, who has lived in Cuba for all of her 70 years, makes this simple version of congrí without pork or cumin, which is a staple in some versions. Feel free to add either to the sofrito base. This recipe uses a stovetop to cook both the rice and beans, although the dish can be assembled more quickly using a pressure cooker and rice cooker and making the sofrito in a separate sauté pan, then mixing it into the rice before it’s all cooked.
Chicken With Mixed Mushrooms and Cream
This succulent chicken recipe came to The Times from Amanda Hesser in 2003, but it’s as timeless as they come. Here, riesling lifts a rich cream sauce, while mushrooms add a distinct earthiness. Make it on a weeknight when you have a little more time to spend in the kitchen, and want something special on the table. Your loved ones will thank you.
Spanish Tortilla with Mushrooms and Kale
This is my take on a traditional Spanish tortilla, a filled omelet often served in wedges as a tapa. Flawlessly executing the tortilla, seeing that nothing sticks and flipping it over, can be tricky. A nonstick pan will improve the chance for success.
Beef Roast With Melted Tomatoes and Onions
“I would rather be the kosher Rachael Ray than the kosher Martha Stewart,” Susie Fishbein told our colleague Julia Moskin in 2008, after the release of one of Mrs. Fishbein’s popular “Kosher by Design” cookbooks. “My books speak to harried everyday cooks like me.” This fabulous roast of beef with melted tomatoes and onions serves as an excellent example of her appeal – and the leftovers make incredible sandwiches the next day.
Pineapple Curry
Thanksgiving Sandwich
Like many restaurant workers toiling in Las Vegas, Eric Klein, the executive chef at Spago, spends Thanksgiving Day on the line, dishing out turkey and trimmings to vacationing high rollers. Time with family and friends comes after the holiday. While the rest of the city combs shopping arcades for Black Friday deals, he’s making magic with the leftovers. One of his favorites is this play on a French dip sandwich. Shredded turkey stands in for the usual beef, while gravy, thinned out to make it brothlike, replaces the jus for dipping. To this he adds the requisite leftover stuffing, and he folds the cranberry sauce into a fragrant and creamy aioli. He likes to crumble mild blue cheese over the top of his sandwich for extra pizazz, but feel free to leave it out if you’re feeling more traditional.
Upperline’s Duck and Andouille Gumbo
Chefs dating back to Upperline restaurant’s opening in New Orleans, in 1982, have contributed to the development of its famous duck-andouille gumbo. Miguel Gabriel, a longtime Upperline “soup chef,” has been responsible for the dark-roux brew since 2010. The recipe also works if you substitute chicken stock for duck stock — and buy the roast duck from your local Chinese restaurant.
Turkey and Noodles
This comforting family recipe belongs to Whitney Reynolds, a New Yorker with roots in Tennessee. The Reynolds family traditionally serves the dish of thickened turkey broth and noodle-shaped dumplings as a side at Thanksgiving dinner, next to the roasted bird and mashed potatoes. The yolk-rich noodles, rolled and cut with a knife, are dried out for some hours at room temperature. That way, they become strong enough to withstand a long boil during which they soak up the flavors of the roasted turkey stock, going tender and sticky-edged. The stock reduces, until it's somewhere between soup and a thick, shining gravy. Noodle purists would never put turkey meat in the dish, but the day after Thanksgiving, when there's often a little left over, it's hard to imagine a better place for it to end up. Consider it optional.
Coffee-Roasted Fillet of Beef
Just when I think all my recipe snipping and gluing and saving has been for naught, something turns me around. Take this coffee-roasted beef with mushrooms and pasilla chili broth. I couldn’t imagine why I had ever cut it out — so busy, so restauranty. But I tried it, soaking chilies in one corner, shiitakes in another, coating the beef with ground coffee and roasting it. Stacking was involved in the plating. I brought the admittedly gorgeous dishes to the table with a cynically arched brow. It was heavenly. And my faith was restored.
Barbecued Veal
Thai Style Crab Cakes
This is a formidable crab cake in a style that mimics tod mun, the Thai fish cake that, when made right, packs astonishing flavor. These cakes require shrimp purée as a binder; scallops will also work in place of the shrimp. Just stick a few in a small food processor and whiz for a few seconds, or chop and mash by hand.
Sautéed Broccoli With Toasted Garlic, Orange and Sesame
Broccoli was kicked around for years before anyone decided to have fun with it. For a while broccoli lay spent and lifeless, then went irritably crisp. This recipe advances at high speed with admirable results. I toasted garlic slivers in olive oil until sweet and nutty, added oyster sauce to round the edges, then a rustle of sesame seeds and a wisp of orange to pull the whole thing into focus.
Seared Lamb With a Smoky Slather
Leg of lamb on the grill is a quintessential summer dish, but you don’t have to forsake it in colder weather. Simply sear and roast the lamb instead, massaging it with smoky Lapsang souchong tea, funky cumin, garlic and thyme. This recipe calls for a half-leg, which should fit in your skillet. It’s good, though not necessary, to let the seasoned meat marinate for up to three hours before cooking it. The oven timing is for medium-rare meat, including a temperature rise while the meat rests. But since the meat’s thickness is uneven, some parts may be slightly more well-done. That’s just fine, as there will be a piece for every diner’s taste.