This is the best chicken dish I’ve ever made. You will want to lick the skillet clean, the sauce is so damn good! I upped the recipe so there’s enough to dunk plenty of bread in or to serve over rice. While this dish is a big wow, the ingredients are far from fancy. The baby bella mushrooms (aka creminis) have a lighter flavor than portobellos and a richer flavor than white buttons (don’t stress—white shrooms play nicely). Congrats! You’ve just mastered a restaurant pan sauce, which you can flex on pork chops, steak, or fish fillets. Go ahead, lick the skillet—just promise me you’ll let the pan cool down first!
I first had this one-pot dish in Tel Aviv, but its flavor notes—a medley of savory, sweet, and sour—are similar to other dishes you’ll see throughout the Middle East. Pistachios browned in butter, sweet nuggets of Medjool dates, and piquant lemon juice bring out the best in lamb and rice seasoned with fragrant cinnamon, nutmeg, and cumin. For the most robust flavor, use a high-quality purchased chicken stock, or, even better, homemade stock.
I smashed sweet, ripe blackberries and a spicy homemade ginger syrup with lemon juice and topped it off with bourbon and sparkling water, as you see here. If you prefer less kick and more floral aroma, swap St-Germain elderflower liqueur for the ginger syrup and exchange the sparkling water with ginger beer. Float a half teaspoon of beautifully purple Empress gin over the top to make this drink a bright beauty.
I’ll never get tired of eating this salad for lunch— lemony lentils and crisp veggies doused in a creamy green dressing. But I don’t make it the exact same way every time. Instead, I play around with the herbs in the dressing. I might use parsley instead of cilantro or experiment with adding tarragon, dill, or chives. I love that it’s a little bit different each time I eat it!
One of my favorite things to do with a batch of Sunday Focaccia is to dunk it into this simple Mediterranean-inspired soup. It features a combination of fennel and dill, which evokes the food I grew up with in a Greek American home. The best thing about the soup is that it’s quick to make (it’ll only need 20 minutes to simmer), and like most soups, it tastes even better after a day or two.
LOUISIAN A BARBECUE D SHRIMP is that sort of magical dish that’s intensely flavorful, quick to cook, and perfect for sharing—all you need to do is spend a few minutes revving at the spice drawer first. Despite the name, the recipe isn’t cooked on a barbecue but simmered straight in a spicy-bright pan sauce. As Toni Tipton-Martin explains in her book Jubilee, drawn from her collection of nearly 400 African American cookbooks, “‘Barbecue shrimp’ is just the name Louisiana Creole cooks assigned to shrimp braised in wine, beer, or a garlic butter sauce.” This one is Toni’s favorite version, based on one from the late model/chef/restaurateur B. Smith.
Sometimes, Toni doesn’t even wait to get the shrimp out of the pan, serving it in the kitchen as an appetizer, right in the skillet it’s cooked in, with lots of hot crusty bread to get every bit of sauce. No more than 10 minutes have passed.
This recipe is specific in calling for a certain variety of olive, shallots instead of onion, and a particular hue of vinegar. But know that it is LGD's equation that makes it heroic, not its details. To make your own variant of LGD, you need fresh, fragrant herbs; something onion-esque; the combined brine power of olives, capers, and anchovy; the juxtaposed acid of both vinegar and citrus; and the fruity fat of a good-quality olive oil. Don't get hung up on the variety of vinegar you don't have or the fact that you’ve got onion and no shallot. Just follow the equation and taste what happens.
A fruit galette is the workhorse of the sweet kitchen. Freeing yourself from the confines of a pie plate is so liberating. Somehow, no matter how a galette slumps, breaks, or browns, it’s always beautiful. Glory lies in irregularity. Unlike a deep fruit pie, which tends to harbor too much liquid, galettes always leak a little bit. Rest easy. That’s a good thing! It seems to me that exactly the right amount of liquid creeps out so that what’s left inside is a nicely thickened fruit filling with sweet, concentrated flavor, and a crisp bottom crust. The secret is to remove it from the parchment paper while it’s still warm and the leaked juices haven’t solidified. A bonus is that galettes cool much faster than pies. You are closer to dessert bliss than you think.
Could I write a book without featuring crispy gnocchi? Of course not. So I give you my proudest barbecue creation. Forget about threading just plain old vegetables on a stick —here, you intersperse veggies of your choice (I’ve done bell peppers here, but see the note below) on skewers with just-blanched gnocchi. The result is crisp perfection like you wouldn’t believe.
The French seem able to turn just about anything into a delectable spread, and this is the easiest one I know. Smoked salmon could be used instead of the trout, as could minced cooked shrimp or other shellfish. Serve this spread with toasts or crackers, or add a small spoonful to Belgian endive leaves as a special appetizer.