These Japanese burgers, known as hamba¯gu in Japanese, are such a comforting, nostalgic meal for me. My mother would make them with a red wine and ketchup sauce that was especially delicious, as it soaked into the short-grain rice. Because my kitchen has no ventilation—it’s awkwardly placed in the middle of the apartment, the farthest point from all the windows—I particularly appreciate making patties in the oven on a sheet pan. I can make a big quantity (ten!) without setting off the fire alarm. The ketchup sauce is the best part and gets made right on the hot sheet pan as you scrape up bits and pieces and mix everything together. If you’re not in the mood for cabbage, you can also serve the burgers and rice with a different vegetable, such as blanched broccoli, our Simplest Arugula Salad (page 274), or even some sliced cucumbers sprinkled with a little salt and vinegar.
Choose as many varieties of beets as you can find for a truly spectacular, colorful salad. We typically use a mixture of red beets and golden beets, but when we can also find pretty Chioggia (striped) beets, we throw them in as well. Make sure you roast the golden or striped beets separately from the red beets, which will color them red. (Red beets make a great natural Easter egg dye!)
I had yet to eat a turkey burger that didn’t taste dry—until I made these. Not only are they not dry thanks to the dark turkey meat and fat from both the oil and the feta, but they are crave-worthy, with puddles of feta, garlic, and greens throughout. And don’t worry about biting into a piece of raw kale—we cook it down with garlic and olive oil so it practically melts right in. These burgers are an easy and tasty dinner all year round, served on burger buns or over rice, or simply paired with salad or veggies.
I started making this rye focaccia while leading the Pastry and Bread program at Rossoblu in Los Angeles. I wanted the bread program to reflect the whole--grain heritage of Italy, and I loved making seasonal variations with fruit. Focaccia is also known as a salt cake, and I love cake with fruit. Here, we are celebrating a classic autumn variation of apples and onions, with some lemons to brighten the whole affair. Feel free to change out the toppings as the seasons change! This dough is extremely forgiving and a great place to build shaping confidence. Focaccia is great served warm alongside dinner or enjoyed cold as the ultimate sandwich bread stuffed with your choice of fillings. I also love it sliced thick and grilled with olive oil. Keeps for a week at room temperature, wrapped in a tea towel. Replace the honey with molasses to make the recipe vegan.
One of my favorite ways to cook fish on a weeknight is on the stove. I save this dish for those especially busy days because it comes together in under 30 minutes. I like to use a firm fish, such as branzino or red snapper, which is less likely to fall apart than cod or other flaky fish. The method here is incredibly simple, just make sure to use a well-seasoned pan or a nonstick skillet and begin cooking the fish with its skin pressed down on the skillet. The scallion-lemon oil pairs well with anything, so you can also serve it with other dishes, such as roasted chicken. To keep the meal light but satisfying, accompany the pan-seared fish with a salad, such as Green Salad with Umeboshi Dressing, Cucumber and Fennel Sunomono, Potato Salad, or Loaded Vegetable Miso Soup in the winter.
“If you keep a jar of concia in the refrigerator during the summer, you will always have something delicious for making sandwiches and pasta,” said Daniela Gean, a restaurateur in Rome’s Monteverde neighborhood. She’s right. This dish of fried zucchini marinated in vinegar, garlic, and fresh herbs is ubiquitous in Roman Jewish homes because it is equal parts tasty and useful. What’s not ubiquitous, however, is the way home cooks choose to slice their zucchini. Some insist it must be cut into long planks, while others argue that thin coins are the only option. (Call me a peacemaker, but I like both methods!)
Whether shopping in your own garden or your neighbor’s, or at a farmers’ market, look for small vegetables for this. You want baby eggplant, either long Asian-style or smaller Italian globes, picked when the skin is still shiny and the interior seeds are still small. Skinny Italian frying peppers. Sweet garden onions with the green tops still attached. Thin-skinned cherry tomatoes and zucchini picked well before they explode. I’d avoid those tiny, bland “baby zucchini”; in my experience, zucchini doesn’t develop any personality until adolescence.
When we decided to write this book, our first thought was, “You know what the world needs right now? Another take on vitello tonnato!” Just kidding—nobody needs another version of this classic Piedmontese dish. But because tomato season is so special and because Ryan’s and Steph’s moms really loved this version, in which savory beefsteak tomatoes play the part of thinly sliced veal, we just had to include it in here.
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!
Char siu, the strips of barbecued roast pork with their signature crimson exterior, is a treasured Cantonese meat, and the most popular siu mei dish. Siu mei is a term that refers to the roasted meats popular in Hong Kong, but also commonly found in Chinatown windows around the world. Most city-dwelling Cantonese kids grew up eating siu mei—during my carnivorous youth, as my mother arrived home from the store, I would sidle up with my best good-daughter-face and charm a few slices of warm, juicy char siu and crispy pork crackling before dinnertime. In this recipe, eggplant is marinated, char siu style, in a fragrant, fruity barbecue sauce. Eggplant, a renowned carrier of flavor, greedily absorbs the sauce before it is roasted at high heat, emerging sweet and silky, imbued with lots of dark, caramelized notes. A note for gluten intolerant cooks: make sure your hoisin sauce is gluten-free or use the homemade version on page 151. This marinade is incredibly versatile and can be used to marinate and roast firm tofu and other vegetables in the exact same way. This is best eaten with rice, of course, but it’s also good stuffed into a crusty roll with cilantro, mint and salad greens, or used to make eggplant char siu bao (there’s a bao recipe in To Asia, With Love).