Entrees
Salmon Cakes
If you live on the East Coast and your electricity has been out for more than 48 hours, do take a look at the “From the Pantry” chapter of Sara’s Weeknight Meals. In most recipes, you don’t need anything from your refrigerator. If frozen ingredients are called for, you can…
Tomato Pie
Make this pie during the high tomato season and you just can’t lose; those big ripe local tomatoes will do all the work for you. After you slice and salt the tomatoes and roll out the dough, the rest is simple. (If you want to cheat, use a store bought…
Spicy Shrimp and Avocado Salad with Cashews
Haven’t you often wondered how they make the delicious citrus dressing that glorifies the Iceberg salads often served at sushi restaurants? The orange dressing in this recipe is my attempt at duplicating it, and I think I’ve come pretty close. With the dressing in hand, I wondered just which ingredients—other…
The Ultimate Spinach Salad
I just love salad. When I’m in the city, I eat salad every day for lunch. When I’m on the road for business, I often order salad from room service for dinner. Of course, I understand that not everyone shares this leafy passion (take my husband, please), so when I…
Turkey Burgers with Tomato Corn Salsa
Hamburgers are so central to American culture that messing with them can seem almost sacrilegious. And it’s kind of perilous to boot. Replace the beef with low-fat turkey, as in this recipe, and you risk creating a drier, less flavorful burger, a burger unworthy of the name. Here I’ve countered…
Seared Hanger Steak with Mustard Basil Butter
Known as onglet in French, hanger steak is sometimes called butcher’s tenderloin in English because there is only one of these delicious cuts per animal and butchers tend to hog it for themselves. In other words, it is not something that is regularly stocked in the supermarket meat case, so…
Serrano Ham and Manchego Cheese Roulade
An egg roulade is sort of like an enormous spongy omelet. It is a big rolled-up container for just about any tasty ingredients. From an entertaining point of view, the beauty of an egg roulade is that you can make it the day ahead, chill it overnight, and then fill…
Crispy Soft-shell Crabs with Country Ham Butter
The first time I ate soft-shell crabs was at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Looking back, I can’t imagine where I found the nerve to try them. I didn’t even like fish. But try them I did, and I was knocked out by the sweet crabmeat and that…
Asparagus and Goat Cheese Souffléed Omelet
Perfect for a springtime brunch or a quick dinner, this is a cross between an omelet and a soufflé and doesn’t take too much work as long as you have electric beaters. Make sure you beat your egg whites just to soft peaks; otherwise they won’t fold properly into the…
Red-Wine Braised Beef Brisket with Aunt Rifka's Flying Discs
My husband Bill has been telling me about his aunt Rifka and her asbestos hands for as long as we’ve known each other. He claims there was no pot so hot she couldn’t pick it up barehanded. (This amazing ability seems just slightly less amazing to me since I went…
Red-Wine Braised Beef Brisket with Aunt Rifka’s Flying Discs
My husband Bill has been telling me about his aunt Rifka and her asbestos hands for as long as we’ve known each other. He claims there was no pot so hot she couldn’t pick it up barehanded. (This amazing ability seems just slightly less amazing to me since I went…
Mushroom Enchiladas
Funny thing about mushrooms: although they’re about 80% water to begin with, they have the spongelike ability to soak up a bunch more liquid besides. In this meatless recipe, the mushrooms start by absorbing a very flavorful lime-and-cumin marinade. Then they’re charred under the broiler along with tomatoes, onion, and…
Red Beans and Rice Soup
Red beans and rice is one of the signature dishes of New Orleans, a city rich with the influences of Latin America and the Caribbean. Indeed, that’s why Louis Armstrong, New Orleans’s pioneering cultural ambassador to the world, used to sign off his letters, “Red beans and ricely yours….” Now…
Reuben Pizza
When I was just getting started on this book, I asked Jennifer Day, my chef de cuisine at Gourmet, to put on her thinking cap and pass along her best recipe ideas. She and her husband, Matt, cook dinner at home almost every night, and they’re always experimenting with new…
Creamy Baked Polenta
I have recently been getting a lot of requests for this recipe from Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals. The cornmeal mush known as polenta, one of the national dishes of Italy, emerged in its original form as the field ration of the Roman soldier. Although pulmentum was made of millet…
Thanksgiving Hens
Rock Cornish Game Hens, a cross between a White Rock Hen and a Cornish Hen, are underrated. Maybe it is because ounce for ounce they are a little more expensive than chicken or perhaps it is because they are a little scary for people who are used to chicken in…
Jean Anderson's Oven-Fried Chicken
This easy recipe from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home is ideal for entertaining. You can put it into the oven and it minds itself while you do other things. When I told my mentor and good buddy Jean Anderson that this book needed her chicken recipe — it’s become one…
Jean Anderson’s Oven-Fried Chicken
This easy recipe from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home is ideal for entertaining. You can put it into the oven and it minds itself while you do other things. When I told my mentor and good buddy Jean Anderson that this book needed her chicken recipe — it’s become one…
Portobello Burgers with Red Pepper and Gorgonzola
I enjoy cooking and serving vegetable main dishes all year long. I love to let the vegetables shine in the center of the plate. You’ll find a whole chapter of meatless recipes in all three of my cookbooks. My Portobello Burgers are absolutely wonderful meatless sandwiches. In the center is…
Japanese Beef Fondue
This recipe is based on a Japanese dish called shabu-shabu, but I left out the kombu (dried kelp) and the tofu, then poked it here and pinched it there, so I can’t pretend that my version is even remotely authentic. But both recipes are built around poached beef. I’d almost…
“Fried” Catfish BLTs
The Husband tends to scorn the BLT as an “air sandwich.” Of course, it’s delicious—how can it not be as long as bacon is involved—but it’s hardly what you’d call filling. That’s why I’ve bulked up the traditional BLT with some “fried” fish. I’ve also tricked up the standard-issue mayo…
Pasta Pizza
I first learned about “pasta pizza” from Leslie Glover, one of Gourmet’s test cooks, who developed it for “In Short Order.” It is ridiculously simple and so tasty. Anytime you make angel hair pasta, just cook double the amount you need. The leftover pasta, recast as the star of this…
Two Melon, Prosciutto, and Feta Salad
This dish, from Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals, is perfect for those warm summer nights when you don’t even want to switch on the stove. Melon and prosciutto is such a refreshing summertime appetizer that I wondered if there was a way to make it entrée-hearty without ruining its essential…