Orange & Almond CakeOrange & Almond Cake

When you see that you have to boil oranges for 2 hours to make this recipe from Middle Eastern cookbook author Claudia...

Eggless Lemon Curd

The beauty of pastry chef Elizabeth Falkner’s lemon curd is that, by taking eggs out of the picture, the curd is...

Brown Butter Tart Crust

Sometimes it’s nice to take it easy with our pastry, skip a few of the more traditionally grueling steps, and still...

Caramelized White Chocolate

Past the pale, sweet exterior of white chocolate lie three ingredients with a lot of potential—sugar, milk, and...

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sure, you might want to start using whole grain flours in all your favorite baked goods—they’re a purer form of the...

Fresh Ginger Cake

Sometimes baked goods in the spiced genre can taste a bit like a candle shop, or a stale corner of the pantry....

Molasses Cookies

The Silver Palate’s molasses cookie is one that’s spiced and sweetened delicately so it doesn’t feel out of place...

Pumpkin Pie

When Judy Hesser (mom of Amanda) told me that her favorite pumpkin pie recipe, from Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia...

Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake

Cookbook author Dorie Greenspan built this recipe—an apple cake that’s more apples than cake—from the memory of one...

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

This is a good cake to keep lying around—for roaming family members who need to be kept happy between mealtimes,...

Purple Plum Torte

Marian Burros published this torte recipe in the New York Times in 1982, bringing it back by request every September...

Chocolate Mousse

Every chocolate book and pastry chef teaches us to never let water get near melting chocolate: It will seize and...

Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry Ice Cream

An eggy custard base has a nasty habit of muting other flavors in ice crea...

New Classic Coconut MacaroonsNew Classic Coconut Macaroons

What seems in part to define macaroons is what they usually lack: flour (which makes them perfect for Passover observers...

Fresh Blueberry Pie

A blueberry is just a sack of tart-sweet juice, barely contained by a thin, taut orb of skin. It’s nature’s tiniest...

Strawberry Shortcakes

As James Beard learned from his mother, the key to a better, more tender shortcake is egg yolks. This doesn’t sound...

Strawberry Lemon Sorbet

We’re taught to zest our lemons carefully, to shear off just the thin yellow top coat that holds the citrusy perfume—as...

Potato Dominoes

This technique from Argentine grilling master Francis Mallmann takes a very plain ingredient and glitzes it up, making...

Gratin of Zucchini, Rice & Onions with Cheese

While this gratin gives off the airs of a rich dish, it has no cream or butter and its luxurious base is largely...

Ratatouille

One school of ratatouille is Julia Child’...

Fried Asparagus with Miso Dressing

Next time you start taking asparagus for granted, make like Nobu Matsuhisa and fry i...

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette

Even if we’ve started to recover from mushy brussels sprout flashbacks, we can still take them further than roasting...

Balsamic Glazed Beets & Greens

I’m afraid we don’t understand beets as well as we could. We don’t get to interact with them when they’re roasting...

Garlic Green Beans

In their natural state, green beans can be severe and squeaky. Our goal is to break through that, but we’re going...

Broccoli Cooked Forever

Broccoli overcooked carelessly tastes stale and murky. But when you push beyond that disappointing just-too-done state...

Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Goat Cheese

Cauliflower takes well to roasting: All those starchy crevices get nutty and sweet and come into their own—catching...

Black Pepper Tofu

Tofu’s proponents have tried to get us to see all the ways to improve its texture—freezing or pressing or boiling...

Green Lentil Salad

At a glance, nothing seems special about this recipe. You’ve probably simmered lentils with aromatics before, and...

Ship’s Biscuit

You might not think there’d be ways to improve upon the egg sandwich—fry an egg, melt some cheese on toast, maybe get...

Kale Panini

When we think of a sandwich ransacked from the fridge, it’s usually eggs, or grilled cheese, or something salumi-based....

Pasta with Let-My-Eggplant-Go-Free! Puree

Eggplant can be a mystery. Will it brown handsomely or stick to the pan? Will its flesh relax, or stay stiff and chewy?...

Spiced Braised Lentils & Tomatoes with Toasted Coconut

The next time you’re looking at the sack of lentils in your pantry, don’t just start boiling them while you figure...

Ginger Fried Rice

Fried rice is meant to be a hallmark of kitchen efficiency, yet most recipes and tutorials call for day-old rice (the...

Grilled Pizza

To the frustration of home cooks with ambitions of restaurant-caliber pizza, the oven dial maxes out around 500°F...

Tomato Sauce with Butter & Onion

“Simple doesn’t mean easy,” Marcella Hazan wrote in 2004, a quote widely cited to explain her cooking style and i...

Polenta Facile

ADAPTED FROM CARLO MIDDIONE The polenta you can abandon is also the creamiest polenta—even when you add nothing but...

Mushroom Bourguignon

This version of boeuf bourguignon will do everything a bourguignon needs to do and will do it in time for dinner tonight....

Pasta with Yogurt & Caramelized Onions

When cookbook author Diane Kochilas began dressing pasta with yogurt, her intention was to adapt a classic Greek island...

Cauliflower Steaks

If you carve two thick planks from a cauliflower’s middle, the cross-sections hold together much better than you’d...

Perfect Pan-Seared Steaks

 You can cook a better (and more forgiving) steak—but you’ll have to toss out all the rules you’ve learned. Lucky...

Salt-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Grilled in Cloth (Lomo al Trapo)

This recipe from Steven Raichlen, the author of The Barbecue! Bible, has more in common with a crafting project than...

Meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs doesn’t have to be a meal that you simmer all day, nor does it need to put you into hibernation...

Brisket of Beef

 By some accounts, this is the most googled of all brisket recipes. There are unverified reports that it was even...

Grilled Pork Burgers

Chef Suzanne Goin’s perfect burger theory first looks inside the patty itself, instead of just stacking more layers...

Carnitas

Most traditional carnitas recipes call for simmering pork in lard (in Michoacán, this is done in a big copper pot),...

Sticky Balsamic Ribs

Usually when cooking ribs at home, we’re told to take it low and slow. ...

Onion Carbonara

Bacon (or guanciale), cheese, and egg make such a fine, creamy sauce together, we should be applying them to more...

Dry-Brined Turkey (a.k.a. The Judy Bird)

In 2006, the Los Angeles Times’s food section held a turkey taste test that changed the way we cook for Thanks...

Chicken Thighs with Lemon

“Short of turning chicken on a spit over live wood embers, I know of no better process for cooking chicken, nor...

Simplest Roast Chicken

The juiciest, speediest, most bewitchingly golden roast chicken also happens to be the one with the recipe you can remember...