Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

A traditional flavor combination (butter pecan) melds with a modern one (salted caramel) in this magnificently burnished golden cake. Brian Noyes opened Red Truck bakery in 2008 on the eastern edge of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where plentiful local produce was part of the draw. A dose of aged apple brandy (he uses a local product, Catoctin Creek) keeps the sweetness in check, but bourbon or any aged brandy will do the job. For a nonalcoholic version, simply omit the brandy from the sauce, and swap in apple juice or cider in the cake batter. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is a typical family dinner for Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, who is raising eight children, tending sheep and chickens, and making almost everything her family eats from scratch on her dairy farm in Utah. In many ways, she’s a traditional Mormon farm wife; untraditionally, she broadcasts her daily life to 22 million followers on social media. This recipe uses lean beef and yogurt, both of which are in constant supply on the farm. The tangy sauce is great with any kind of fresh or egg noodles; of course, Ms. Neeleman makes her own. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The Berbers use an unusual leavening method that gives a warm, earthy aroma to the loaves: a mix of semolina flour, water and garlic cloves that quickly ferments into a pungent starter. The recipe requires three kinds of flour and takes two days, but is richly rewarding in flavor. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

These hand-held pies are sold at breakfast time at Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Ga., but they are also a perfect summery dessert. Cheryl Day, an owner, said that she uses less sugar than many Southern bakers do, and likes to round out the flavor of sweet summer fruit with salt and lemon. The difference between a hand pie and a turnover is in the shape. (Hand pies are half moons, and turnovers are triangles.) You can make this recipe either way. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Every Ukrainian family has its own style of borsch. Olga Koutseridi, who grew up in Mariupol, is a historian and collector of Ukrainian recipes; she’s documented more than 70 recipes, including her mother’s “tomato-centric and cabbage-centric” borsch, as well as this version often eaten in Mariupol. Borsch with fish is traditional in southern Ukraine, where Black Sea ports like Mariupol and Odessa have relied on fishing since ancient times. Modern cooks often use canned versions of local species like anchovies, gobies and sprats. With bell peppers and carrots along with the usual beets and cabbage, this soup is hearty and chunky, but also very light. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is an adaptation of the tangy, rich Filipino meat stew kare-kare, which itself is adapted from the Indian-influenced massaman curries of Southeast Asia. The Indian American chef Floyd Cardoz brought it full circle when he recreated it for American home cooks in his 2016 book “Floyd Cardoz: Flavorwalla” (Artisan). It’s an excellent illustration of how a great stew can fuse flavors that might seem incompatible, like peanuts, cabbage and anchovies. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Here is a sensible prescription from Julia Child for cooking a whole ham, which was featured in a New York Times article by Julia Moskin that explored the quandary of how to make a flavorful Easter ham. Braise the meat in wine and water to finish the cooking, then roast it in a hot oven to crisp the surface. The end result is glazed with mustard and brown sugar and crusted with golden bread crumbs. One note: this is a recipe for a cured ham, not a fresh one. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ina Garten’s 12th cookbook, “Modern Comfort Food,” was published in October 2020. As always, she seemed to have her finger on the culinary zeitgeist: Comfort was the order of the day. These puffs, which she adapted from the Brooklyn chef Missy Robbins, combine the richness of classic gougères with the bite of black pepper and Parmesan. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The Piper Inn is one of the oldest, oddest and friendliest restaurants in Denver, loved by bikers and hipsters alike. It’s been owned by the Levin family since opening in 1968, but because so many different cooks have passed through the kitchen over fifty years, it has a Chinese-American-Mexican menu that is entirely unique. Carne asada fries, French fries topped with the fillings of a carne asada (steak) taco, are a California-Mexican classic. The Piper Inn adds a Midwestern-style beer cheese sauce to its popular version. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This dessert, named for Meghan’s daughter, Princess Lilibet, is based on a banana pudding recipe of Meghan’s grandmother. In the Southern classic, vanilla pudding is layered with cookies and sliced banana; Meghan’s version adds the sweet-tart sting of strawberries macerated with lemon. She happens to have a passion fruit vine in her garden, and its yellow seeds make a nice, juicy garnish. This layered pudding can be made in individual glasses for a party, or a big bowl for a family night in. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ina Garten was one of the people who made roasted whole carrots fashionable for home cooks, back when “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook” — her first — was published in 1999. Brightening up basic dishes with lemon, orange and vinegar became one of her signatures. She shared this recipe from her book “Modern Comfort Food” with The Times for Thanksgiving 2020. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Chebureki are the southern Ukrainian branch of the global family of empanadas, potstickers, pasties and salteñas — dough pockets filled with meat and deep-fried until golden and juicy. A blistered, chewy crust is the sign of a really good cheburek according to Olga Koutseridi, who grew up in Mariupol, Ukraine, and adapted this recipe for her home kitchen in Austin, Texas. The dough for this recipe is relatively stiff, which means it will take a bit of time to mix it by hand. You could also use a stand mixer, but your mixer may struggle. After the first few, these pies become much easier to assemble, and you can roll and fill the next one while one is frying. It is best to fry one or two at a time, which helps control the oil temperature and ensures the freshest chebureki. They should be eaten within just a few minutes of their emergence from the fryer. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Trust Ina Garten to take two big food trends — cauliflower and toast — and combine them into something completely fresh. This recipe, adapted from her 2018 cookbook, “Cook Like a Pro,” is a bit like an open-face grilled cheese sandwich with a nutty layer of roasted cauliflower, and spiked with nutmeg and paprika. We made it vegetarian by leaving out the prosciutto, and also lightened up on the cheese. It makes a vegetarian dinner with soup and salad, or a good snack with drinks. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This jiggly, layered mold holds a base of clear crimson (sweet cherry) and a topping of ivory white (tangy lemon mixed with sour cream). If you have extra time, you could make it into four layers, producing red and ivory stripes. Garnished with shiny green leaves like bay or holly, it looks especially festive, and is also quite delicious. Swapping out some of the water in the Jell-O formula for ingredients like sour cream and cherry juice gives this dessert its bright taste.

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Margot Henderson is the chef at Rochelle Canteen in Shoreditch, where London’s cool kids wait hours to score a garden table for lunch. Her food is mainly English classics, but this one-pot meal — more home cooking than hipster — has hints of Spanish and Portuguese flavor. Except for the sherry vinegar, the seasonings here (bay leaves, cloves, saffron) can be adjusted for your taste and the contents of your spice drawer. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe, which is adapted from “Julia and Jacques at Home” by Julia Child and Jacques Pépin and was featured in a New York Times article about roast chicken, makes delicious use of leftovers (it would be excellent with the Thanksgiving turkey remainders as well). It is rich, but packed with vegetables. You can substitute dried tarragon for fresh, but use less than a tablespoon, and season to taste. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This easy cake — no mixer required — is a popular staple at Bakesale Betty in Oakland, Calif. Pie, cake, cookies and a legendary fried chicken sandwich are the only things on the menu, but locals start lining up long before opening time. They’re that good. Betty herself, the baker Alison Barkat, adds a cinnamon-sugar topping and honey to the classic banana bread formula for a deeply caramelized, moist result. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The original dressing served in the 1950s at Hidden Valley Ranch, a guest ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., was made mostly from dry herbs and aromatics. To recreate that taste, this recipe, from the “Ranch” cookbook (Dovetail, 2018) by Abby Reisner, with recipes by Eleanore Park, is made with garlic powder instead of garlic, dried parsley instead of fresh, and so on. It makes enough seasoning mix for about 4 cups dressing; you can mix it, store it, then add dairy as needed. If you don’t like the zip of mustard, try hot sauce or Worcestershire sauce instead — or simply omit for a milder taste. To make a thick dip instead of a pourable dressing, reduce the amount of buttermilk to ¼ cup. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Cooking leafy greens in coconut milk makes them sweet, soft and rich. A spike of hot sauce and some rice or grits makes this a complete vegetarian meal; you can easily replace the butter with oil to make it vegan. The recipe comes from Von Diaz, a writer who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta. She combines ingredients and influences from both places in her home cooking. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Conchas, the faintly sweet buns that are made fresh every morning at bakeries in Mexico, are perfect with hot, milky coffee. Their name, meaning “shells,” comes from the pretty, sugary scalloped topping that covers each bun. The chef Gabriela Cámara, of Contramar in Mexico City, says that cooks in Mexico rarely bake conchas at home, but she developed a recipe out of necessity when cooking at Cala, her restaurant in San Francisco. At lunchtime, she splits leftover conchas to make sandwiches, which she says are especially good with spicy fillings. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Coq au vin blanc, a creamy, delicate French dish, is very different from the classic coq au vin made with red wine. Turning it into an easy skillet dinner of chicken meatballs in mushroom sauce is the kind of trick that has made Half Baked Harvest a wildly popular recipe site in the last decade. Tieghan Gerard, its creator, is a home cook from a big family who has sold millions of cookbooks. The meatballs are seasoned just with salt and pepper, making them superquick, but the sauce is spiked with enough herbs, white wine and Dijon mustard to give the dish depth. You can easily substitute ground turkey. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The original recipe for these buttery, basic toffee bars belongs to Maida Heatter, the great American dessert maven of the 20th century. It was adapted for a cast-iron skillet by Charlotte Druckman, who wrote a book on cast-iron baking in 2016. “You can caramelize a crust in cast iron in a way that would never happen in a sheet pan,” she said. Make sure to bake the bars until very well browned across the top; that is the sign that the desired level of crisp chewiness has been achieved. The recipe calls for adding either nuts or chocolate to dough; you can add both if you like, but in that case use a larger cast-iron skillet (or use a plain old 9-by-13-inch baking pan). Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe, inspired by the Greek horiatiki salad, illustrates the power of good, fresh olive oil to make a dish taste bright and rich — and never oily. It’s used here to toast the croutons, to infuse garlic into the dressing and to distribute the sweetness of ripe tomatoes throughout the salad. Finally, use it to pan-fry slices of halloumi and make this a vegetarian main course.

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The chef and gardener Deborah Madison has been writing almost entirely about vegetables for more than 25 years. This recipe comes from her book“Vegetable Literacy,” which breaks down the universe of vegetables into botanical families — the Carrots (carrot, celery, fennel, parsnips), the Sunflowers (sunchoke, cardoon, artichoke, endive, escarole, lettuce) and so on. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is a dream recipe for ranch-dressing superfans (you probably know one, or maybe you are one). Creamy, peppery ranch dressing became hugely popular in the 1990s, and now it often shows up on chicken wings, burgers, tacos, pizza and even mozzarella sticks. In this recipe — adapted from the “Ranch” cookbook (Dovetail, 2018) by Abby Reisner, with recipes by Eleanore Park — the bread-crumb coating is spiked with ranch seasoning, and then the crunchy nuggets of melted cheese get dipped into cooling ranch. Or you could go back to the classic dip for these: marinara sauce. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

For a truly classic egg cream, the chocolate syrup should be Fox’s U-Bet, and the fizz should be very strong, like the bubbles in seltzer from a siphon. But however you prepare it — and feel free to adjust the proportions to your liking — it makes for a sweet, quick refresher or even dessert on a summer day.

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Clam chowder is the New England classic everyone knows, but fish chowder is also popular — and a lot easier to make. This recipe comes from Eventide, in Portland, Maine, a combination of a seafood shack, an oyster bar and a modern farm-to-table restaurant with Japanese influences. Dashi, the Japanese fish stock, has an oceanic taste that is perfect here, and the instant kind is easy to buy online and keep on hand. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This easy, sturdy all-butter crust has one unorthodox ingredient in it: baking powder. Cheryl Day of Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Ga., learned to add a splash of apple cider vinegar to the dough from her grandmother; it helps the crust stay tender by preventing gluten from forming. But the baking powder gives it “a little lift,” she said, which helps the butter and flour form flaky layers — like a biscuit. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

An easy, superfragrant weeknight version of classic chicken under a brick, this recipe uses chicken thighs instead of a butterflied whole bird. Lavish quantities of lemon, garlic and fresh herbs season the flesh, and the skin gets shatteringly crisp and salty. This recipe makes great use of a cast-iron skillet (or two) and is a great dish to cook when seasoning a new pan because of the large amount of fat that melts into the pan. (You pour it off before serving.) If you have a pan that is large enough to fit all the thighs, you can cook them in one batch. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Orange and lemon zests make this recipe, from Bill Yosses, the former White House pastry chef, especially delicious, if you plan on eating your gingerbread house (and you can, even weeks after baking). But feel free to leave them out. We strongly recommend using a scale here. It will make it much easier to accurately measure the ingredients and to evenly divide the dough. This recipe, for the house's building blocks, is large, and it makes enough for the project featured in our How to Make a Gingerbread House guide. But as the instructions state, you'll want to make it in two batches, since it's too big for the average stand mixer. Note that you'll want to bake your gingerbread at least a few days before assembling the house, to give the slabs time to harden, and set aside a few hours for decoration and assembly. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Aglaia Kremezi, a historian of Greek food who eschewed sesame desserts as a child, is now an enthusiast. In her own kitchen, she has rethought the traditional tahini filling for a Lenten cinnamon roll called tahinopita, and developed a super-easy recipe for halvah semifreddo, a frozen emulsion of fresh whipped cream and crystalline halvah. It is a spectacular dessert to serve at a dinner party, and the sesame undertones will surprise and delight guests. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This easy recipe is basically a macaroni and cheese with vegetables. It is a jumble of cuisines: British, with the brussels sprouts; Italian, the pasta with potatoes; and lavish, with its gooey mixture of ricotta, butter and Parmesan. It is also child-friendly and easy to cook on a weeknight. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe from the eminent American food writer came to The Times through the chef Andrew Zimmern, who was a frequent guest at James Beard’s legendary Sunday and holiday open houses when he was a child. The savory combination of red peppers, onions, raisins, almonds and green olives was new and exciting to him in the 1970s, and still tastes fresh today. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Brisket is now a luxurious, festive dish for Hanukkah and Passover, but it was originally an inexpensive cut considered too tough for roasting. This brisket recipe came from Mimi Sheraton, the New York Times’s first restaurant critic and author of a memoir-cookbook, “From My Mother's Kitchen: Recipes and Reminiscences” (HarperCollins, 1979), about growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s. It demands minimal preparation and limited ingredients — little more than onions and garlic — but the low-and-slow cooking make it extraordinarily complex and delicious. Although the brisket (breast) is traditional, the same recipe works beautifully with any stew cut, such as chuck, oxtail or short ribs. Serve over mashed potatoes or egg noodles, or with boiled potatoes, sprinkled with parsley. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe is for a delicately sweet dessert whose elegance should not distract from its ease (it can be made while the rest of dinner is in the oven). Make sure you have fresh berries, and serve the result warm. We call for blueberries or blackberries here, but feel free to try it with whatever seasonal fruit catches your eye. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe from the second volume of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is nontraditional but very Julia Child, with her famous love of cocktail snacks. Caviar d'aubergines, fluffy eggplant caviar, is popular in the South of France, but this one contains raw ginger and hot sauce, two of the least-French ingredients imaginable. Feel free to tinker with the spices (cumin and coriander are also good) and the heat level. This dip ripens very well over a few days in the refrigerator. Taste and re-season before serving. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The allspice is really what makes this recipe, adapted from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child, which was featured in a New York Times article about readers’ favorite recipes from her cookbooks. It is a simple process: make a dry rub, cover a well-marbled pork loin with it for at least 6 hours, and then roast or grill the meat. A few minutes’ preparation before work yields a fine roast for a late supper, or the same time spent on a weekend brings a fine feast in for dinner. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Potatoes aren't usually associated with Provençal cooking, but every French region must have its gratin: sliced potatoes baked into a delicious mass that is the perfect side dish for roasts. The binder can be milk, broth, cream or, as in this case, the natural juices of vegetables like tomatoes and onions. With less liquid, this gratin is more foolproof than most. Anchovies give the dish a South of France funk, but you can leave them and the cheese out to make a vegan gratin. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is an under-the-radar basic from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” featured in a New York Times article about readers’ favorite Child recipes. It is a tomato sauce with onions, garlic and basil, raised high with a perfumed whiff of orange peel and coriander seed. Make it when the farmers’ market is overflowing with good tomatoes, freeze it in plastic bags, and use it until there is no more. It is a combination of two things Mrs. Child loved: good technique and fresh Provençal flavors. It is a great recipe. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

With bacon, eggs and hash browns in the baking dish, this sounds like breakfast — but it works just as well as lunch or dinner. This recipe from Joanna Gaines, the reigning queen of Southern home design, is a good example of how she works: Texas tradition but with some modern touches. You can use other kinds of frozen potatoes, like waffle fries, or add par-boiled fresh potatoes to the skillet with the kale and garlic. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The pastry chef Claudia Fleming is known for her work with fruit desserts, and this recipe, adapted from her cult-classic cookbook, “The Last Course,” is an easy version of the classic caramelized apple tart. If you have large apples (or like large desserts), make this in a jumbo muffin tin; you’ll need more puff pastry, but everything else remains the same. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Mexico has innumerable beef stews: puchero, birria, puntas al albañil — but the most universal, according to writer Pati Jinich, is mole de olla, a true one-pot dish, often made for family gatherings, with vegetables like corn, zucchini, cactus and chayote added at the last minute. If the name seems surprising, Ms. Jinich said, the word mole doesn’t refer just to the famous thickened sauces of Puebla and Oaxaca, but any kind of “saucy thing.” What makes mole de olla a stew and not a soup is the rich purée of roasted dried chiles that both thickens and seasons it. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Serve this butter with Berber skillet bread. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Nihari, a deeply spiced beef stew from the Indian Muslim tradition, is traditionally simmered overnight, enriched with bones, and served with marrow to make it an extra-filling breakfast. In her book, “Masala: Recipes From India, the Land of Spices” (Ten Speed Press, 2022), the chef Anita Jaisinghani, who grew up in Gujarat and opened Pondicheri in Houston in 2011, adapted the recipe for oxtail. She roasts it until caramelized, then braises it until tender in a mixture thickened by chickpea flour toasted in ghee. Tradition holds that the rich flavors of nihari come from saving a bit of each day’s stew and adding it to the next, like sourdough starter, in “an unbroken string of flavor over decades.” Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The taste of a good pad kee mao relies on fresh garlic, basil and chiles — and a lot of each. (“Kee mao” means, roughly, “drunk-style,” and dishes with that label are associated with late-night cravings and hangover prevention.) The finished dish should be fragrant, pungent and whatever means “hot” to you: Deploy your chiles accordingly. Hong Thaimee, a chef in New York who grew up in Bangkok, employs a heavy Dutch oven, instead of a wok. (She said she was surprised to find that it worked better than a wok for Thai stir-fries on her tiny apartment stovetop, as its wide, flat bottom has more contact with the flame and holds onto more heat.) Fresh lime leaves are a popular addition; they are easy to buy online, along with fragrant Thai basil and, sometimes, holy basil. But in a pinch, Ms. Thaimee said, Italian basil and a garnish of lime zest are fine. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Built around the satisfying umami of soy sauce, this is an easy Thai recipe to shop for and cook at home. The classic version is made with wide, fresh rice noodles, but Pailin Chongchitnant, a popular Canadian YouTube chef, said that restaurants in Bangkok proudly advertise using spaghetti; in southern Thailand, her family used egg noodles. (In other words, there’s flexibility.) The street-kitchen version of this popular dish — a close relative of Cantonese beef chow fun — will always have more of the seared edges that make the dish extra delicious, but cooking it in a wide, heavy pan that holds onto heat gives great results. If gai lan is not available, Ms. Chongchitnant says that broccolini, a hybrid of gai lan and broccoli, or steamed broccoli are good alternatives. (The crunch of the stems is what you’re after here.). Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Pad Thai is Thailand’s national dish, but not because it is traditional. The government codified it in the 1930s as a way of encouraging national pride in the unique ingredients of Thailand. It has been adopted and adapted all over the country, but one constant is that the dish is made almost entirely of long-lasting ingredients like rice noodles and tamarind, making it easy on the home cook. The savory, tart sauce is very simple to assemble, and it lasts well in the fridge. Watcharee Limanon, a cooking teacher in Yarmouth, Maine, who shared this recipe, said that although salty dried shrimp are used in the original recipe, many Thai cooks (and most of her students) now prefer fresh shrimp. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Joanna Gaines of Magnolia Table in Waco, Texas, developed this recipe for a layered treat that combines the best of a brownie, a candy bar and an ice cream sandwich. The fudgy texture of brownies makes a perfect base for peanut butter and a fluffy chocolate topping. You can use a different chocolate frosting or glaze for the top layer, depending on what ingredients you have on hand. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Preserving food cannot be considered new and trendy, no matter how vigorously it’s rubbed with organic rosemary sprigs. But the recent revival of attention to it fits neatly into the modern renaissance of handcrafted food, heirloom agriculture, and using food in its season. Like baking bread or making a slow-cooked tomato sauce, preserving offers primal satisfactions and practical results. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This easy, buttery pistachio cake, topped with crunchy caramelized almonds, was a staple at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., when the pastry chef and cookbook author David Lebovitz cooked there in the 1990s. It is not a mild-mannered tea cake, but packs a punch of flavor, texture and perfume, especially from the cardamom seeds that permeate the batter (see Tip). Its robust character makes the cake a great pedestal for an intense, fruity topping such as citrus, rhubarb or apricot compote (see Tip), but it is also great served solo. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is Paula Wolfert’s original recipe from her 1973 book “Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco,” but I leave out the warm spices like cinnamon and cardamom so that the flavors are adaptable. The brightness of this pickle has lately elbowed its way out of Morocco’s tagines. New York chefs add the minced peel to salads and garnish fried seafood with it; the cured-lemon flavor is particularly friendly to salmon, carrots, olives, parsley and potatoes. The lemony brine is great in a bloody mary. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

A classic Provençal beef daube, or slow-baked stew, is made with quantities of red wine, like the recipes that Julia Child often made in her house in Provence, La Pitchoune. Patricia Wells, a former New York Times food writer in Paris, also lives part-time in the South of France, and she has adapted the daube for white wine, which plays a more subtle part in flavoring the stew. The large amount of liquid makes a tender braise that can also be served as a sauce for pasta: penne, gnocchi and long noodles like tagliatelle are familiar in the region, which borders Italy on the east. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Tieghan Gerard, who runs the wildly popular Half Baked Harvest blog, posts a new recipe nearly every day, all year round, but her favorite season is (of course) fall, when she brings out the pumpkin-shaped pots, pumpkin-scented candles and toasted pumpkin seeds. Even if you don’t identify with the P.S.L. set, separating the pumpkin spice (cake) from the latte (frosting) makes this a delicious snack cake. Pumpkin purée makes it very moist, so test to be sure the batter is baked all the way through. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

These golden little muffins, despite being adapted from my daughter’s elementary-school cafeteria, are perfect for kids and parents alike. Most muffins you can buy are sugary cupcakes in disguise, not the best way to start the day. These are not too sweet, not too spiced, but fragrant and tender. Store them in an airtight container and the yogurt and pumpkin purée will keep them moist for at least two days after they’re baked. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Lemon isn’t a classic seasoning for mashed potatoes, but butter makes an excellent go-between. This variation on French pommes purée is just the kind of dish that Ina Garten, who shared this recipe from her book “Modern Comfort Food” with The Times, likes to perfect for home cooks. Cooking the potatoes in less water than usual and gradually mashing in bits of chilled butter are the details that make the recipe special. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Like chicken potpie and chicken noodle soup, this dish is all about the traditional flavors of home cooking, but concentrated to the nth degree. The chef Barbara Lynch based this easy one-pan dinner on a French dish called poulet en pain — chicken in bread — but she uses a buttery pie crust instead of bread dough. The crisp crust with juicy chicken and a fragrant vegetable stuffing is indescribably good and surprisingly easy to pull off. You can finish baking it up to two hours before serving — or even longer, as it’s also good at room temperature. Ms. Lynch recommends it as picnic fare. This stuffing is a familiar one, but any combination of sautéed vegetables and aromatics could be used, like mushrooms, winter squash or fennel; garlic, ginger or leeks; tarragon and parsley. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

When you’re making a turkey, making stock with the bones is the logical next step. This recipe, from the Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin, has the usual aromatics — carrots, celery, onions — plus a concentrated shot of white wine and a dried chile, which add a welcome breath of freshness. (Sometimes poultry stock can taste flat.) Roasting the bones and the vegetables in the same pan streamlines the process and adds depth of flavor. You can use this stock in virtually any recipe that calls for chicken stock (except for chicken soup). Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The Roscioli family has built its own culinary empire in Rome since the 1960s, including bread bakeries, a pastry shop, a wine bar and a salumeria that moonlights as a restaurant. It’s a straight-from-the-airport destination for many American chefs, who go to taste the best food and wine from all over Italy, plus perfected Roman classics like cacio e pepe. The Roscioli method involves making a “crema” of cheese, pepper and water in advance. (It can also be refrigerated for later use.) The cheese needs to be grated until fine and feathery, so that it will melt quickly, and the hot pasta water must be added slowly. Unlike many recipes, the pasta here should be fully cooked, not al dente; it won’t cook any further once it’s added to the cheese. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ryazhanka, a classic Ukrainian drink, is cool, tangy and lightly sweet, like yogurt with a touch of dulce de leche. This recipe comes from Olga Koutseridi, who spent her childhood summers in Mariupol, Ukraine, where vendors sold chilled ryazhanka that she’d guzzle after a day at the beach. The slight caramel flavor comes from slowly baking whole milk, which can be done in the oven or a slow cooker, before mixing it with a fermented starter like sour cream or kefir. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is Padma Lakshmi’s favorite sambar, a soupy lentil-vegetable stew that is a staple of the South Indian table and one of the recipes in her cookbook, “Padma’s All American” (Knopf, 2025). Each spoonful is full of contrasts: sourness from tamarind, richness from coconut, bitterness from daikon, sweetness from curry leaves and heat from both fresh green chiles and dried red ones. As Ms. Lakshmi writes, “There are certainly simpler ways to make sambar … but frying and grinding your own spices with fresh coconut imparts an unparalleled depth of flavor. You’ll see the difference is worth it.” Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Meat sauce is one of the recipes many American home cooks start with. It seems so easy; brown some hamburger, pour in a jar of marinara, and presto! Meat sauce. Not so fast, friends. Made that way, your sauce may be thin-tasting, sour, sweet, or — worst of all — dry and chewy. Meat sauce with deep flavor and succulent texture isn’t harder to make; it just needs more time and a low flame. This recipe from the New York chef Sara Jenkins, who grew up in Tuscany and has cooked all over Italy, shows how it’s done. Caramelization is involved; dried pasta and canned tomatoes are best practice; and pork, not beef, is the meat of choice. If your sausage meat seems timidly flavored, feel free to add chopped garlic, chile flakes, fennel seed and/or dried herbs like oregano and sage to the meat as it browns. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Isa Chandra Moskowitz runs a vegan restaurant in Omaha, Neb., so she knows how to make plant-based food that meat-eaters will also like. This one-pot noodle dish, loosely based on pad Thai, has lively textures (like shredded brussels sprouts and chewy rice noodles) and super-satisfying flavors. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Versions of seafood “coctel” are found around the Caribbean, usually with ketchup as a base for the sauce. In this recipe adapted from Von Diaz's “Coconuts and Collards” cookbook, the tomato and onion are part of the salad, and the dressing is based on citrus and olive oil, plus a bit of mustard to make it creamy. It’s a refreshing and satisfying dish for hot weather, perfect with a cold beer at the end of a long summer day. Diced avocado makes the dish more filling, but it is optional. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

A simple but lavish bath of olive oil and lemon juice is the Italian way of showing off superfresh seafood. The key, according to Marcella Hazan, is that the dish should never see the inside of a refrigerator, which changes the texture of the seafood and the flavor of the olive oil. She calls for shrimp in this recipe, but the formula also works with squid, clams and meaty fish fillets. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The popular “Magnolia Table” cookbooks by Joanna Gaines are full of Texas classics like king ranch, chicken spaghetti and this creamy version of chicken enchiladas. The combination of tart salsa verde (which has tomatillos and green chiles) with cream and melted cheese makes it special; don’t use red enchilada sauce here. The cream of chicken soup mixed with the chicken meat makes a super-rich filling, but you can absolutely use an additional 8 ounces of sour cream instead if you prefer. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

If you are the kind of cook who has more sourdough starter than you know what to do with, using it in fresh pasta produces a springy texture and deep flavor. Hannah Neeleman bakes bread most days for her family of 10 at Ballerina Farm, the name of both her 328-acre ranch in Utah and her wildly popular social media accounts. She makes this recipe to serve with stews like beef stroganoff. It can also be made without the herbs. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This golden cake makes a persuasive case for baking with olive oil; it is fragrant, peppery and not overly sweet, with an orange glaze that brings all the flavors together. The recipe is from Lior Lev Sercarz, a high-end spice vendor in New York City who says that oil is even better than butter, the favorite of American bakers, at amplifying flavors like citrus and spice. See Tip for his instructions on using whole spices. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This is a great weeknight one-dish dinner, and vegetarian (or vegan if you like) to boot. It is from the cook Adeena Sussman, who divides her time between New York and Tel Aviv, where pearl (or Israeli) couscous is called “p’titim,” meaning flakes. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ana Sortun, the chef at Oleana restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., finished culinary school in Paris in 1988. But the education of her palate wasn't complete, she said, until she apprenticed herself to the Tunisian chef Moncef Meddeb in Boston, then began traveling to Turkey and Greece in the 1990's. Now, Ms. Sortun's food at Oleana is defined by its generous use of seasonings used in balance. Her signature lamb stew has a juicy dose of pomegranate, but its intensity is smoothed out with a final squeeze of lemon juice and (that old cooking school favorite) cold butter. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

A perfectly quick spring or summer dinner, this recipe draws on Meghan’s kitchen garden in Montecito, Calif., and her fondness for meals filled with vegetables. “Use a healthy dose of garlic, mint and whatever fresh green vegetables you have on hand,” she said. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The London chef Fergus Henderson specializes in making British classics even more delicious at his popular restaurant St. John. Here’s his fragrant, richly flavored version of traditional baked beans with salt pork, a dish that evolved into an American staple. Using lots of fresh herbs and a little canned tomato is the key; pass crusty bread at the table to mop up the sauce. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Cabbage is rarely a side dish on its own, but it is in this recipe. It takes on some Indian flavor with caraway seeds and the garam masala, and it maintains its crunch with the quick heat of the stir fry. It is excellent with lamb. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

In his home-cooking book “Ad Hoc at Home,” the surgically precise chef Thomas Keller gives instructions for cooking onions ideally for hash: melted but not mush, sweet but not stringy. His meat of choice is bacon, a nice shortcut for home cooks who may not have a haunch of beef around. This is an adaptation of his recipe. True to Keller form, this is not a weekday breakfast dish (it will take you a good 20 minutes to cook down the onions, and you'll dirty a few pots), but it is well worth an hour or so of your Sunday morning. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Tacos al pastor, a Mexican street-food staple, are a perfect synthesis of local flavors (pineapple, chiles, annatto), Spanish influence (pork, adobo), and Middle Eastern technique (a spinning, shawarma-style vertical rotisserie). The synthesis comes from Mexico’s history, but perfection comes from the combination of sweet pineapple, spicy meat and fragrant corn. This recipe, from the chef Gabriela Cámara, provides an easy way to make it at home; try boneless chicken thighs if you don’t want pork. Either way, make sure to blot the meat until very dry before cooking it so you get a hard sear that mimics the char of a grill. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Here is a refreshing twist on a Creamsicle: a swirl of vanilla ice cream (either store-bought or homemade, your preference) doused in fresh tangerine juice and seltzer. Get an industrious child to help juice the tangerines. Their reward will be sprightly, sweet and satisfying. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ana Sortun of Oleana restaurant, in Cambridge, Mass., created a menu based on the traditional cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Turkey and Greece, with many influences of spice and seasoning from the Arab world. She has created surprising but successful dishes like parsnip hummus; this beet-spiked tzatziki (the Mediterranean's traditional cucumber-yogurt-garlic salad), radish salads and rhubarb compotes. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Ina Garten has been known as the Barefoot Contessa since she opened a gourmet store by that name in East Hampton, N.Y., in 1985. She shared this recipe from her book “Modern Comfort Food” with The Times for Thanksgiving in 2020, when many cooks were looking for alternatives to whole turkey. If you don’t like fennel seeds, leave them out: Garlic, sage and rosemary give this roast the flavors of Italian porchetta, and it will still be fragrant, juicy and delicious without them. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Traditional Yorkshire puddings, like popovers and soufflés, rely on eggs and dairy for their crowning puff and custardy center. Vegan cooks use neither, so this savory recipe is a particularly impressive workaround by Mary McCartney, who stopped eating meat in in the late 1970s when her parents, Sir Paul and Linda, became vegetarians and activists. The structure here comes from protein-rich chickpea flour and aquafaba, Italian for “chickpea water,” and the rise from baking powder and cider vinegar. The recipe needs to be followed closely for best results, particularly the oven temperature, the material and size of the muffin tin (metal and standard 3-ounce cups) and the amount of oil in each cup. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times in an article about Bill Yosse, the White House pastry chef under President Obama. "Mr. Yosses’ most recent mission is changing the White House tradition of the bottomless cookie plate. (Among White House journalists, President Clinton was known for going straight from a grueling run into the pastry kitchen. Only part of it is visible through a window, but reporters outside recognized him by his sneakers.) To edge out the cookies, Mr. Yosses decided to create a child-pleasing crunchy granola bar without nuts, chocolate or white sugar. “We went through many tastings on this one,” he said in his skinny galley kitchen, patting the final result, a mix of toasted oats, sesame seeds and chewy dried fruits into a sheet pan." Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

The Wright Flyer is an adaptation of the classic Paper Plane cocktail, with a nod to North Carolina from its creator. Drew Furlough, a restaurant manager in Asheville, set out to build a citrusy winter cocktail on a base of apple brandy, a traditional spirit that’s enjoying a comeback in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where apples have been a major crop since the 1700s. Julia Moskin

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

Here is a fried chicken recipe that is the best kind of weeknight cooking, with ingredients found quickly at most local grocery stores, whirled in a food processor and then left overnight to turn into something delicious the next evening. A yogurt marinade helps tenderize the boneless, skinless chicken thighs, infusing them with saffron and paprika, and a quick frying lends the meat a crispy, minty coating. You can marinate the chicken for 3 hours or overnight, but you set the timetable depending on whatever else is going on. This chicken will adapt. Make one night, finish the next. That’s living. Julia Moskin