Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Back in 2011, in his New York Times Magazine column, Cooking With Dexter, Pete Wells asked his son about his favorite foods. “It was a tie,” Wells recounted Dexter saying, “between sushi and the fried chicken at Brooklyn Bowl.” The chicken was a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon, and this Cajun seasoning central to it. Adapted from “Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook,” by Bruce Bromberg, Eric Bromberg and Melissa Clark, this recipe is ready in no time, using ingredients straight from a well-stocked spice rack, but it changes whatever it’s sprinkled on. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Squat, glazed ceramic bean pots lurk in cabinets all over New England. They're traditional for Boston baked beans, but enameled cast iron is faster. Beans in cast iron can be brought to a boil over a burner before the dish goes into the oven; this saves about an hour. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe is featured in a four-part series about creating healthier eating habits. This hearty broccoli soup, adapted from Marcella Hazan’s recipe in “Marcella Cucina” (HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), comes from Friuli, a region in northeastern Italy where barley is a favorite grain. It is Ms. Hazan’s version of a recipe traditionally made with cauliflower, and it is good that way, too, or made with romanesco. The high fiber quotient of the vegetables, beans and grains make it filling enough to serve as a light meal on its own. Instead of pearl barley, you can use hulled barley, which is even higher in fiber but takes longer to cook. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This fried chicken is a specialty of Eric and Bruce Bromberg’s SoHo restaurant Blue Ribbon and many of its offspring, including Brooklyn Bowl, the bowling alley in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It is famous, and it is crunchy. And, as long as you are not afraid of having a three-inch-deep lake of hot oil in your kitchen, it is preposterously simple to make at home. No three-day buttermilk bath, or lard seasoned with bacon – just a quick crust of egg whites and matzo crumbs that the Bromberg brothers ought to patent. You sprinkle it with a sort-of-Cajun spice mix and send it to the table with pots of honey, if you are a restaurant, or, at home, with a bear-shaped squeeze bottle. The spice mix, all of which you will likely have in your pantry, comes together in two minutes.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Somewhere in “The Zuni Cafe Cookbook” is a recipe for a standing rib roast of pork with variations. I’m sure of that. I’m less sure, because I can’t find it online, that the book gives a variation that calls for rubbing the meat with fennel and coriander seeds, among other spices. I wanted to try some version of that on a chicken and came up with the idea of grafting those seasonings, as I remembered them, onto a classic Marcella Hazan recipe for chicken alla diavola. Hazan has you butterfly the chicken and rub it with cracked black pepper before grilling or broiling it. Just by faking and misremembering, I stumbled on a weeknight dinner that’s faster than roast chicken and fragrant with mysteriously harmonious spices. It may not be the devil’s chicken, but it could be the work of one of his minor demons.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

The author Bill Buford spent years in Lyon, France, researching French cuisine for his book “Dirt.” He picked up this recipe from a modern Lyonnaise bouchon, Le Bouchon des Filles. The simple, savory mixture of fromage blanc with shallots, garlic and other seasonings is a mainstay in Lyon, where it often appears with the cheese course. (Or it may be the cheese course.) The name means silk worker's brain, a mysterious reference to the days when silk weaving made Lyon rich. This version is set apart by its lavish use of fresh herbs. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe is featured in a four-part series about creating healthier eating habits. Paying attention is the essence of mindful eating, a practice of eating more deliberately and sensibly. In this recipe inspired by Thai yum yai, mindfulness starts with the preparation of the vegetables, each of which is treated differently. The techniques here are just suggestions: The radicchio could be torn by hand; the scallions could be sliced on the diagonal; the tomatoes sliced or left whole if small; the cucumber could be cut into half-moons or cubes. The aim is to produce a variety of colors and textures that become part of the pleasure of eating. Even the ingredients can be altered at will: Try shaved Napa cabbage or endive instead of the radicchio, Hakurei turnips or red radishes in place of watermelon radish, sweet white or red onions briefly soaked in cold water instead of, or in addition to, the scallions. Crisp wedges of Asian pear or just-ripe Fuyu persimmon would be nice, too.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times in 2010, part of a Pete Wells’s Cooking With Dexter column about Laura Ingalls Wilder. “She also described cooking and eating as attentively and movingly as any author I know,” he wrote of the "Little House on the Prairie" writer. Inspired, he bought a copy of "The Little House Cookbook,” by Barbara M. Walker, whose recipe for cracklings relies on just pork fat and an optional seasoning. He incorporates cracklings into this corn bread, but cooked bacon is also a worthy substitute for that porky flavor.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This classic recipe is adapted from “Tastes Like Cuba,” by Eduardo Machado and Michael Domitrovich. The secret is the homemade sofrito, but bottled will do in a pinch. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe is featured in a four-part series about creating healthier eating habits. Agua frescas are often strained, but they don’t have to be. The fiber-rich pulp from the cucumber and pineapple in this refreshing drink will slow down the absorption of its modest amount of sweetener. Be sure to give the agua fresca a stir before drinking.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This dish is downright addictive. Thinly-sliced strips of beef are marinated in a salty-sweet-spicy marinade then quickly seared on the grill. Then they're rolled up into ssam (Korean-style wraps) by folding a piece of steak or two, some rice, vegetables and herbs inside a crisp, cold lettuce leaf. Be sure to put the meat in the freezer for a bit before slicing the meat; it simplifies a potentially onerous task.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

The meat manipulators at the Meat Hook in Brooklyn have come up with a fresh L.A.-style chorizo the likes of which New York has never seen, vivid orange with guajillo chilies. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Joaquín Simó was a bartender at Death & Co in the East Village when he came up with the Maggie Smith, an elaboration on an old drink called Between the Sheets. Maggie Smith’s character in “Evil Under the Sun” offers a Between the Sheets to Hercule Poirot, who asks for cassis or crème de banane instead. He should have taken her up on it. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe is featured in a four-part series about creating healthier eating habits. Boiling sweet potatoes instead of roasting them slows the rate at which their sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream, as does serving them in their jackets, which contain even more fiber. (Maintaining steady blood sugar levels can help with a range of health issues, from poor sleep to weight management to liver disease.) The somewhat flat flavor of sweet potatoes really benefits from a fresh herb sauce such as chimichurri, Italian salsa verde, zhug or North African chermoula. The potatoes can be boiled in advance, then reheated in the microwave and seared at the last minute, making this a quick light dinner with a small salad of young arugula or crisp chicories.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This recipe, adapted from “Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners,” came to The Times in 2010 as part of a Pete Wells column on redefining the mise en place. Ms. Moulton uses downtime in the cooking process to an advantage: She instructs you to chop the onion and shuck the corn as the edamame cooks. The recipe comes together in about 40 minutes, making it a good one for a busy weeknight -- succotash without suffering. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This is more a stir-fry than a curry in spite of the name, which, like the recipe, comes from “Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking” by Julie Sahni (William Morrow, 1985). The potatoes get no sauce, just a coating of curry powder that adheres to their flesh as they crisp in the pan. Grinding your own curry powder is not strictly necessary, especially if you have a brand you like in your cupboard. But this is a very, very nice blend, unusually fragrant and nuanced. The quantities below will give you more than you need for the potatoes. Make half a batch if you wish, or make the whole amount and start thinking of things you’ll do with the rest. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

The author Bill Buford adapted this recipe, which he learned while working with the chef Mathieu Viannay at La Mère Brazier in Lyon, France. (Mr. Buford worked with the chef while researching his book “Dirt.”) If you just made a batch of chicken stock, there are few better things to do with it than poaching chicken breasts in it. You get two benefits: white meat that is about as moist and tender as possible, and stock that is stronger than when you started, particularly if you poach the entire bird and save the legs for another night. The goal is to keep the liquid well below boiling; it’s a stove-top approximation of the sous vide technique. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

This sherbet reminds me of long-ago Creamsicles and Orange Juliuses at the mall, but it has a bright juiciness I don’t remember from my childhood. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Patty melts have very few components: sliced bread, beef patties, caramelized onions and cheese. Vary them slightly and it’s possible the sandwich you end up with won’t be a patty melt anymore. Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, the chefs and owners of The Commerce Inn in New York City, put Dijon mayonnaise inside their patty melts, and it works. The mayo makes the sandwich juicier, the mustard helps cut through the fat, and the result is still, undeniably, a patty melt. Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Squeezing lemons and limes into watermelon juice and adding some seltzer produces a sparkling watermelon punch. It’s a cut above lemonade. Keep a pitcher of it on ice for summer afternoons.

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Pete Wells · NYT Cooking

Originally, a dry martini was one made with dry vermouth, but over time it came to mean one made with as little vermouth as possible. Its opposite was a wet martini, which brought to the foreground the softening, complicating aromatics of vermouth. Eel Bar in Manhattan blends two kinds of vermouth into its wet martini and stirs them with an equal proportion of London dry gin. Orange bitters stiffen its spine a bit, as does a mist of citrus oil from the peel of an orange. Like a dry martini, this cocktail should be served very, very cold. Pete Wells