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408 recipes found
Tapenade
Tapenade, arguably the best known Provençal spread (and cousin to olivade, garlicky anchoïade and peppery poivronade, among others) is made by pounding together olives, garlic, anchovies, capers and olive oil in a large mortar. But, this version, from “Le Sud: Recipes From Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur,” can be made in a food processor as well, with green or black olives. Set it out for apéro with crunchy vegetables or crusty bread, or store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for whenever the mood strikes. It will keep up to a week.
Strawberry Layer Cake
Summer is a soft, or strong, hue of pink in the South, depending on who is making the strawberry cake. When strawberries come alive, anywhere from early March down in Louisiana to as late as June as far up as East Tennessee, Southerners take to their strawberry cakes for as many celebrations as they can. Often referred to as church cakes in the South, layer cakes reign supreme. And strawberry layer cakes take the cake as the most sought-after style for many bakers. This recipe, with a soft and moist but sturdy crumb, uses store-bought preserves, but if you can roast your own high season strawberries, it is recommended you do so. The frosting is light and ethereal. And the color? That is all up to you and how heavy you pour the red food coloring. No matter the shade of pink you aspire to, you’ll get a regal and splendid cake worthy of any high celebration or common weekday luncheon.
Clams Casino
The word “casino” in Italian translates to “mess.” In the world of baked stuffed clam dishes, this makes sense, as clams casino has a bit more going on than, say, the more understated clams oreganata. That bit, in fact, is mostly made up of bacon, cooked bell peppers and onions. They are joined by Parmesan, fresh parsley, dried oregano, garlic and plenty of butter. With so many delicious flavors involved, this mess of a dish is hardly a gamble.
Roasted Eggplant Pasta Salad With Dates
Nature’s candy, plump and lush medjool dates add sweetness to this creamy and tangy pasta salad. Eggplant is roasted with cumin, oregano and crushed red pepper, then tossed with the dates on the hot sheet pan, using the residual heat to warm them so the flavors blend together. Mixed with cooked pasta, feta and bright mint, it’s a hearty yet light dish, perfect for summer nights. To streamline this dish for weeknights, use the eggplant-cooking time to prep the finishing touches (the dates, cheese and mint). Bring any leftovers to room temperature, then refresh them with a drizzle of oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Roasted Eggplant Pasta With Dates and Feta
Nature’s candy, plump and lush medjool dates add sweetness to this creamy and tangy weeknight pasta. Eggplant is roasted with cumin, oregano and crushed red pepper on a hot sheet pan, then tossed with the dates, using the residual heat to warm them so the flavors blend together. Mixed with cooked pasta, feta and bright mint, it’s a hearty yet light dish, perfect for summer nights. To streamline this dish, use the eggplant-cooking time to prep the finishing touches (the dates, cheese and mint). Bring any leftovers to room temperature, then refresh them with a drizzle of oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Glazed Lamb Meatballs With Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts
Inspired by Sicilian meatballs, this dinner party-worthy dish is made with ground lamb rather than beef or pork and studded with nutty pine nuts and plump golden raisins. The pine nuts and raisins add texture, richness and pops of sweetness that pair nicely with the earthy lamb. A ricotta and bread crumb panade keeps the meatballs extra-tender. They’re browned until golden, then pan-roasted in broth to keep them moist. The broth picks up all of the lovely lamb juices for a rich pan sauce swirled with butter, bright tangy capers and basil.
Sweet Tea-Brined Roast Chicken
Sweet tea has a long history in the South and happens to be the perfect brine for chicken. It tenderizes the meat, helps crisp the skin and lends a deep golden-brown hue when baked. This dish – a simple and stunning party centerpiece or a dinner for a hungry crowd – is sure to become your next go-to recipe.
Mushroom Queso Fundido
Sizzling and gooey, queso fundido topped with chorizo is a staple on Mexican restaurant menus across the country. But the dish likely stems from home cooks along North Mexico and South Texas. Depending on where you go, different cheeses like Monterey Jack, Chihuahua or Oaxaca cheeses are used. Bricia Lopez, an author of “Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling (Abrams, 2023)” and “Oaxaca: Home Cooking From the Heart of Mexico” (Abrams Books, 2019), and an owner at Guelaguetza, in Los Angeles, was inspired by the salsa de queso and quesillo she grew up eating at her family’s restaurant to create her version of queso fundido, which uses the Oaxaca cheese to create a great cheese pull. She also tops it with mushrooms and epazote (see Tip), a fresh herb she grew up eating with cheese.
Quick Smoked Salmon Tart
Reminiscent of a classic bagel with lox, this quick and convenient tart is made with buttery, flaky store-bought puff pastry for a no-rolling-necessary appetizer or light yet satisfying meal. A schmear of sour cream is added after the pastry is baked, followed by smoked salmon and toppings boasting of nothing but freshness: crisp cucumbers, pickled onion, briny capers and fragrant dill. Altogether, this smoky, creamy tart is a surefire hit for any gathering.
Crab Bisque
The creamy base of this elegant and flavorful soup is accented with chunks of crab meat, so each bite has velvety bisque and sweet, satisfying crab. This recipe uses a Creole-centric method — a blonde roux imparts a subtle nutty flavor while also doing the work of thickening the soup. Make sure the roux does not darken too much, since you want the seafood flavor to shine and to not be overpowered by a dark, rich roux that’s more typical of gumbo. Using roux to thicken the bisque allows for a more streamlined preparation than the traditional version, since the blended soup does not need to be strained or filtered. A homemade seafood or fish stock is well worth the effort for this otherwise relatively simple soup, but you can replace homemade seafood stock with store bought in a pinch.
Asparagus and Golden Beet Salad
The season’s first asparagus pairs with tender butter lettuce and sweet golden beets in this springy salad, which comes together quickly, with a little bit of prep. Red beets are a bit wintry for this particular dish, but fortunately, golden beets are relatively easy to find at most supermarkets and simple to cook (see Tip). Just do so a day in advance, to save yourself some time. Similarly, you can prepare the eggs a day in advance, peeling and quartering them just before serving. A little bit of savvy planning goes a long way here.
Spring Chicken With Mushroom and Lemon
For a main course, chicken-noodle anything is always an attractive option, and here, boneless, skinless chicken thighs come together with button mushrooms and a sauce of chicken broth, white wine and crème fraîche for a bright, filling stew. To make it sparkle, it’s all finished with a generous handful of tender sweet herbs and lots — lots! — of lemon zest. Egg noodles, or fresh pasta, such as pappardelle, are a good choice.
Citrus and Coconut Ambrosia
Many know the kind of ambrosia with marshmallows and whipped topping, called ambrosia salad. This, on the other hand, is an elegant, simplified (and perhaps closer to the 19th-century original) version of dessert-style ambrosia. It can and should be prepared up to several hours before serving. The main thing is to let the citrus fruit sit in its juices for a while. It’s worth the wait.
Chew Bread
For many families growing up in North Carolina, chew bread was commonly served as dessert or a snack, especially after a Sunday church service. This recipe is from Doretha Mitchell, the mother of Ed Mitchell and grandmother of Ryan Mitchell, longtime pitmasters in Wilson, N.C., who now help run True Made Foods, a food company making barbecue sauce and other condiments. She sold the chew bread, along with other desserts, in the 1980s at a supermarket she owned with her husband. Adapted from “Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque” by Ed Mitchell and Ryan Mitchell (Ecco, 2023), this recipe is significantly chewier, denser and less sweet than a blondie. The snack likely originated from sharecroppers who made it with leftovers they received from white families. It also has different names throughout the South, like cornbread cake, or chewies in South Carolina.
Taverna Salad
This colorful, meal-of-a-salad from Lidey Heuck’s cookbook, “Cooking in Real Life” (S&S/Simon Element, 2024), is inspired by two dishes: classic Greek salad (also known as horiatiki) and fattoush, the Lebanese salad of vegetables and pieces of fried pita. The ingredient list may look long at first, but each ingredient contributes to the harmony of the salad: bell pepper and cucumbers for crunch; shallot, olives and capers for a bit of tang; chopped tomatoes for sweetness. Pan-fried halloumi adds richness and heft, but you can skip the searing process and instead opt for a 6-ounce block of feta, if desired. To save even more time, you can add a large handful of crumbled pita chips instead of making your own.
Shawarma-Spiced Grilled Chicken With Tahini-Yogurt Sauce
This beginner-friendly chicken recipe from Lidey Heuck’s cookbook, “Cooking in Real Life” (S&S/Simon Element, 2024), is inspired by spices often used in shawarma, and uses several easy tricks to ensure juicy meat with a nice char. The chicken breasts are pounded slightly, just until they are an even thickness throughout, so they cook quickly and uniformly. (You can skip this step if you’re using thighs.) The yogurt in the marinade does double duty: It tenderizes the chicken and adds a layer of protection between the chicken and the hot grill. The chicken is served with a sprinkle of fresh herbs, a squeeze of lemon juice and a quick, creamy tahini-yogurt sauce that pairs nicely with the warm spices. Should you have any leftover chicken, it would be delicious packed into a wrap with cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and extra tahini-yogurt sauce.
Littleneck Clams With Cherry Tomatoes and Pearl Couscous
In this one-pot dish from Lidey Heuck’s cookbook, “Cooking in Real Life” (S&S/Simon Element, 2024), fresh clams cook together with garlic, white wine, shallots and tomatoes to form a deliciously fragrant sauce that’s perfect for mopping up with a piece of bread. As the clams open, they release their briny liquor, which gives the broth a salty, savory complexity. While this dish is particularly well-suited to a summer evening, you can make it any time of year; the tomatoes will sweeten and burst as they cook. The fregola or couscous gives this recipe enough heft to be a main course, but it can easily be stretched to serve 6 as a part of a larger spread.
Chocolate Doughnut Muffins
These supersoft, pillowy chocolate muffins are reminiscent of your favorite chocolate doughnut, but with no fussy frying necessary. Packed with sour cream and just a drop of oil, they stay moist and delicious for days. They come together quickly in one bowl, so you can mix them up for a morning treat or afternoon snack without much effort. The cinnamon-sugar coating gives them a crunchy and lightly spiced exterior, which is a pleasing contrast to their soft centers, but they are just as tasty with a heavy dusting of confectioners’ sugar instead.
Chicken Perloo
The supremely comforting one-pot rice dish, perloo (pronounced every which way, including PER-low, PER-la and per-LOO), is a Lowcountry staple with roots in West Africa. This Charleston version from “Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ” by Rodney Scott and Lolis Eric Elie (Clarkson Potter, 2021) calls for two key ingredients: Charleston Gold rice, an heirloom grain, and leftover smoked chicken. Feel free to use arborio rice or another short-grain variety if you can’t get Charleston Gold; and you can buy the smoked chicken from your local smoke shop or BBQ restaurant, or in a pinch, use grocery store rotisserie chicken. You’ll just want to compensate for the absence of smokiness by adding a pinch of smoked paprika, a whisper of fire.
One-Bowl Chocolate Cake
Fluffy and tender, this chocolate cake comes together quickly in one bowl. It’s a friendly little birthday cake with its dead simple frosting (or a really great snack without). A blend of oil and buttermilk or yogurt keeps the crumb moist, as does a nice pour of hot tea. Oolong gives the cake a floral aroma, while using coffee instead highlights the cocoa’s bittersweetness. Plain hot water gives this an old-fashioned chocolate cake flavor. The two-ingredient frosting – essentially cream and chocolate melted together, then cooled until thick enough to swoop and swirl – can be made in the same bowl used for the cake batter. You can sprinkle flaky salt, chopped toasted nuts or sprinkles on top too. But, frosted or not, this cake welcomes coffee, tea or ice cream.
Chunky Chocolate Cookies
Crisp at the edges and soft in the center, this chocolate cookie is lumpy with hooks of broken pretzels and melty chocolate chips. Built on a foundation of beating an egg with sugar until pale and full of tiny bubbles, it combines all the satisfying richness of a brownie with an almost airy lightness. Baking soda also helps lift the dense, dark dough in the oven. Once out, the craggy rounds deliver the irresistible pair of salty crunch and creamy sweetness in the tender, chocolaty cookie. You can switch-up the mix-ins with whatever you like: chocolate chunks, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, nuts or a combination. Just use a cup total for this amount of dough. And do consider keeping the pretzels no matter what else you throw in. Those little hits of salt turn perfectly good cookies into great ones.
Jocón (Chicken and Tomatillo Stew)
Jocón — whose name comes from jok’, meaning to grind or mash in Mayan K’iche’ — is a fresh chicken and tomatillo stew that is popular throughout Guatemala. The stew stems from Maya culture but some of its ingredients today, like sesame seeds and chicken, were likely introduced by Spanish colonizers. Some Maya groups also made theirs more spicy, or with red tomatoes rather than tomatillos, depending on in which part of the country they lived. This bright recipe is from Jorge Cárdenas, an owner of Ix Restaurant in Brooklyn, who was taught by his Maya grandmother to make it. This soup base is blended until creamy, but there can be some variety in texture, depending on how someone grinds the seed mixture and purées the soup itself. Though the tomatillos, peppers, onions and jalapeño are typically scorched on a comal or pan, this recipe makes the process easier by broiling them in a sheet pan.
Four-Layer Surprise
Is there anything more evocative of childhood than chocolate pudding? When dressed up with a salty pecan crust and a fluffy cream cheese layer, that nostalgic lunchbox treat becomes the kind of dessert that is an absolute pleasure to eat and to share. It is great for a crowd, it is fun and easy in its presentation and it is absolutely delicious. Originally made with store-bought whipped cream and chocolate pudding mix, this dessert (sometimes called delight or four-layer delight) deserves to be resurrected from scratch, using freshly whipped cream, rich dark chocolate and toasty nuts, for a new generation to enjoy.
Walnut Sponge Cake
This tender walnut sponge cake is gluten-free, risen with egg whites and containing no wheat flour. You can substitute other nuts, like almond or hazelnut, with no problem. Served with soft whipped cream and seasonal fruit — it never fails to please.