This recipe came to me by divine intervention. In a rush to make pork saltimbocca for dinner, I came to learn that my sage plant had been the victim of a terrible storm. Desperate to salvage supper, I had to use what little I had left in my kitchen (we’d just packed to move home) and all I could find was brandy, paprika and a little cream. I’m so grateful.
Who doesn’t love ham and pineapple pizza? Hawaiian is one of my favorite pizza flavors, and I can’t get enough of it, so a bacon and pineapple fried rice is the next best thing. The black pepper helps to add a bit of heat and spice to complement the smokiness of the bacon, and the sweetness of the pineapple. For those who are skeptical about pineapple in fried rice, it’s a staple dish, and hails from the Yunnan region in China.
All the dishes in this chapter are made with chicken thighs, because I unashamedly love them. They’re succulent—so much better than breasts, which can dry out, in fact it’s hard to overcook chicken thighs—they all cook at the same time (and quickly), and there’s no carving. If you like a mixture of thighs and drumsticks, the recipes will will work with those, too, just replace half the thighs in any dish with drumsticks.
These rice balls are inspired by my friends Lawrence and Noi Allen, who used to own one of the only Thai markets in Houston, Asia Market. I started going there to buy green papayas. But I never left with just papayas—each visit would start with me wandering the aisles, checking out all the different ingredients, until Lawrence would come over and strike up a conversation. He probably didn’t realize when he asked me if I needed help that I was going to bombard him with all kinds of questions about ingredients and Thai cooking, but he was always generous with his time and knowledge.
Every Mexican cook has his or her own cherished mole recipe. Usually it’s based on one of the familiar mole types, with their own special tweaks to the ingredients, quantities, or techniques. The idea of making mole can be daunting to many home cooks, but although a mole has a lot of ingredients, it is not particularly difficult. And it’s even better when made ahead of time, so the flavors can blend. Mole will keep at least a week in the refrigerator and freezes well.
If you make salmon on a regular basis, you know how quickly it can come together. But if you make it on a regular basis, like us, you also stop getting excited for salmon night. When I ask my husband what we should make for dinner and he says “salmon,” it almost sounds like a sigh and a shrug. Get excited, my friends, because this is the salmon recipe that will bring back the love. And if you don’t normally make salmon at home, this is a great recipe to get you started. It’s pretty foolproof.
There’s nothing new about marinating chicken with herbs and citrus, but the addition of fish sauce takes this tried-and-true technique to something seriously next level. The fish sauce works its way deep into the chicken to impart its funky, salty flavor all the way through. This recipe also shows off the special relationship between fish sauce and sugar (in this case, honey) and how they work together to create caramelization without tipping the scales of flavor into something too sweet. If you’d rather not mess with a whole chicken, feel free to swap in chicken thighs or breasts.
There’s nothing ordinary about this stunning herb-specked, grain-free tabouli. Raw cauliflower and pine nuts take center stage and combine to add an unexpected and essential nuttiness and color that elevate the dish. This recipe takes just minutes to whip up and seconds to devour. It’s crunchy, fresh, and the very definition of craveable clean food that makes you want more.
One of my all-time favorites, this sheet-pan supper has it all—spicy harissa-laced roasted chicken; sweet, browned leeks; crunchy potatoes; plus a cool garnish of salted yogurt and plenty of fresh bright herbs. It’s a little lighter than your average roasted chicken and potatoes dinner, and a lot more profoundly flavored.
Popsicles (known here as artikim) are a national obsession, delivering a refreshing blast chill when the temperatures spike from hot to hades. From the cheap, delicious, artificially flavored ices you can buy along the beach to Mexican-style paletas, which come in a million gourmet flavors, it’s easy to get a frozen/sweet fix on a stick. To show off the gorgeous fruit in season, I based these pops around thick, juicy slices of figs. I slide them into popsicle molds, then tip a tart, honey-sweetened yogurt mixture around them before freezing. If you can, try to arrange your pops so the figs remain visible (see instructions in recipe), but no matter how you build them, they’re delicious. The tahini magic shell really is two-ingredient heaven; dip once and you’ve got a semi-translucent sesame slick that hardens on contact with the pops; dip twice for a thicker layer. I make a generous amount of the magic shell because it makes dipping the pops easier; you can refrigerate any leftover shell, then gently rewarm it in the microwave. If you want to halve it, you’ll just have to tip and swirl the pops around to coat them.