What's not to love when with an effortless twist a dish becomes something brand-new? Puree the Cantaloupe Thai Chile Basil Salad with an adjustment or two, and you will have a soup that is heaven in a bowl at the end of a steamy summer commute home.
Good old salmon in a white wine sauce gets a major makeover when shaved garlic and torn fresh basil go into the pan. Skip making a side dish by bedding down the salmon on a pile of greens and sugar snaps. The garlic basil pan sauce doubles as a salad dressing. Use this trick with anything from meat to vegetables to tempeh.
Garlic and pine nuts, currants and onion take the ubiquitous tomato-mozzarella salad into new territory.
The yams are best at room temperature and improve with several days in the refrigerator.
My first bowl was in Paris 30 years ago. It brought instant devotion. Hot steaming broth with wafts of ginger, anise and clove, slick rice noodles, slices of rare beef, and flanking the bowl was a plate of what is called "table salad" (sa lach dia in Vietnamese), a heaping platter of additions, like fresh herbs, bean sprouts, greens, lime and chiles—this is the essence of North Vietnam's Pho (pronounced "fuh") soup. Entire restaurants are built on this one dish and all its variations.
Slices of crisp fall apples and fresh basil leaves lend a whiff of the season to this classic sandwich.
The smaller fennel bulbs at our farmers markets tend to have a more pronounced licorice flavor that pairs nicely with the tang of good tomatoes.
Ingredients
Note: Have everything cut and ready, but mix just before serving.
This big, dramatic, open-face fruit tart looks like it just came off the set of an Italian country magazine shoot. Better yet, it’s nearly no work. Bake the crust ahead when summer temperatures are cool. Whenever you feel like serving the dessert, slather it with the ricotta-mascarpone cream (done ahead as well) and top it with the fruit and herbs. Any single fruit or combo works, but ripe melons and stone fruits with berries are a favorite.