Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

You can use the leftover ground macaroons in this recipe for the tortoni. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Much like a quiche without a crust, this dish is equally good as an appetizer, or as the late main course for brunch, lunch or a late dinner. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This dish came to The Times in a 2003 article about Jamie Oliver: "What I found quite interesting with this dish, being English," Mr. Oliver said, "is that when you eat this, it's quite delicately flavored. It's perfumed with the wine and the rosemary. You get this kind of meaty kind of saltiness from the olives, and what's really interesting is if an English housewife got hold of the recipe, she'd probably stone the olives and have quite a lot of them. But in Italy, literally for eight people they put that much and they leave the pits in." In his hand, he cradled about two dozen olives. Mr. Oliver continued: "When you cook olives whole like this, it's almost like an anchovy. The salt comes out of the olives, and the olive becomes more like a vegetable. And the salt from the olive flavors the chicken really wonderfully." This is an adaptation of his recipe. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times in 2003 from Suzanne Goin, the Los Angeles restaurateur whose braised vegetables are a hallmark of her cuisine. It is a marvelously flavorful dish, rich with garlic and salty pancetta. It is one to keep. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

You will need two pint-size wide-mouth Ball or Kerr jars with bands and new lids, available at many hardware stores or at freundcontainer.com. Avoid table-ripe fruit. Ripe or very ripe fruit may produce a mushy result. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Any food historian will tell you that trying to track down the origin of a recipe is like chasing tadpoles. There are so many and they all look alike. One thing is clear, though: a good recipe has a thousand fathers, but a bad one is an orphan. And on the Internet, fathers are created effortlessly. Since chicken Canzanese is assured of immortality online, it seemed time that we gave it a whole new start here. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Like many cooks, I keep a file of recipes I want to try. When I looked through it recently, there were a preponderance of lemon recipes, including one for roasted chicken with lemons and Coca-Cola from Frédérick Grasser-Hermé. Again, the savory and sweet. A food writer who has worked with chefs like Alain Ducasse, Grasser-Hermé is also the wife of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé. It humored me that a French cook would deign to baste her chicken with Coke. But it makes perfect sense: like many drinks – wheat beer, iced tea, sangria, Vietnamese sugar-cane juice – Coca-Cola is always improved by a wedge of lemon. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Chocolate-rum mousse, which ran in The Times in 1966, was a remarkably efficient recipe in two distinct ways. First, it invoked nearly every food trend of its moment: chocolate desserts were an exotic new fix; any respectable grown-up dessert contained rum; mousse suggested that you understood French cooking, or at least pretended to; two cups of cream was de rigueur; and the recipe assumed you owned one of the kitchen’s latest appliances, the home blender. Second, the newfangled blender actually did make the recipe a wonder of efficiency: all you had to do was layer the ingredients and blend, and a dinner-party mousse was yours. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe appeared in an article in The Times by Craig Claiborne. The sauce is timeless, but you may want to update the selection of vegetables.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times from Meg Ray and Caitlin Williams, the owners of Miette Cakes, a bakery in San Francisco. They reimagined a classic booze pie as ice-cream sandwiches, literally a children’s dessert for adults. They replaced the graham-cracker crust with homemade graham crackers, turned the mousse into ice cream and elevated it with a relatively abstemious dose of Cognac. On the surface, it’s a tasty trifle, but there is subtlety too, with a little cinnamon here, some salt there. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

These corncakes are tasty little gems — crisp and pebbly with bits of corn and lacy around the edges. The crème fraîche and caviar are charming if you have them, but don’t let a lack of caviar prevent you from making the cakes. You’ll be just as happy eating them plain or with dollops of crème fraîche and chives. The cakes’ success hinges on their crispness. Keep your pan hot and steady; don’t let the cakes steam or they’ll turn floppy. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

While French restaurant and country cooking have been thoroughly examined by American home cooks, somewhere between the two styles lies a branch of cuisine that has been almost entirely missed: France's bar and cafe food. This is the realm of snacks like tartines and rillettes, salads and savory tarts, and one of most delicious of all: the croque-monsieur (literally translated as "crunch sir.") Good croque-monsieurs have a few things in common: a single layer of French ham and Gruyere pressed between two thin slices of bread. Some are filled and topped with béchamel. The bread is brushed with butter, and the sandwich is cooked on a griddle or toasted under a broiler so that the cheese almost liquefies and the bits of ham and cheese hanging out the side fall limp and caramelize. It should be rich, substantial and salty, so you will reach for a glass of wine or beer between bites.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe is an adaptation of one that ran in The Times in 1879 and came from a publication called Young Ladies’ Magazine. And although it takes two days to make the actual work involved is brief. The recipe instructs you to serve it with peas, although I’ve seen other versions insisting on asparagus; both are great choices. I made two small changes to the Times recipe. Rather than frying the cutlets in lard (feel free to do so if you like), I used a combination of butter and olive oil. And I included lemon wedges for squeezing over the cutlets at the table, an Italian touch. After making epigram of lamb, Eric Korsh, the chef at Restaurant Eloise in Sebastopol, Calif., called it a “perfect simple recipe.” The braising makes for tender, fragrant cutlets, and there’s something in the sautéing that makes the fat in the lamb seem extra succulent. “It’s like lamb Wiener schnitzel, but beautiful,” Korsh said. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Just as there will always be a place in the world for an understated but luxurious black dress, there will always be a place for flourless chocolate cake. This recipe from 1969 was one of the first published, long before the cake became fashionable. Today it may be a cliché, but it’s a swanky one. This cake is dense, but not the solid block of sweet that can make you wonder if you’re just eating chocolate ganache in cake form. Of course, since the recipe has so few ingredients, it is imperative to use truly delicious chocolate. The proportion of cacao, in case you’re wondering, should fall between 60 and 70 percent.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

David Lebovitz's headily spiced cake, which Amanda Hesser wrote about in The Times in 1999, calls for a quarter-pound of fresh ginger. Mr. Lebovitz, who was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., has since had a long career as a cookbook author and blogger. But this recipe, from his cookbook “Room for Dessert,” is from relatively early in his writing career. Boldly flavored with just cinnamon, cloves, black pepper and, yes, a lot of fresh ginger, it is simplicity exemplified, coming together quickly and without a mixer. The cake — much like the recipe itself — ages well, its flavors melding and deepening over time. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe first came to The Times in 1941, published under the rather humdrum title “Grapefruit Dessert,” only to be revived in 2010, as part of Amanda Hesser’s Recipe Redux column. Adapted from Maurice Gonneau, the executive chef at the Park Lane and the Chatham in New York City, this recipe is whipped up with just a few items you may already have on hand: egg whites, sugar, grapefruits, and a bit of brandy. The end result is, Hesser wrote, “the love child of broiled grapefruit and baked Alaska,” a dish “as joyful as it is unexpected.” A photo accompanying the column bears an enticement, and a mild warning: “This dessert is best served to good friends with an appreciation for weird and delicious treats.” Find those friends, and you have a dish worth sharing. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe appeared in The Times in an article by Joanna Pruess. The recipe came from Bridge Creek Restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. A few tips: Don’t cook the pancakes all the way through. You want the center to be a pocket of cream. The pancakes are so fragile that it may take a few tries to flip them. I used the thinnest, most flexible spatula I own, wedged it halfway under the pancake, letting the other half hang, then turned my wrist and gently laid it down on the other side. I recommend this over more aggressive flipping, which will tear the pancakes.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe from “The First Ladies Cook Book” appeared in The Times in an article by Craig Claiborne. The original recipe said that the torte could be served warm or chilled.I like it best warm and cut into squares. The torte has so much sticky sugar in it that when it’s cold you have to do battle to cut it. Either way, I suggest adding little or no sugar to the accompanying whipped cream.In fact, I’d fold in some crème fraîche.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

The trick to good baked beans is cooking them very slowly with indirect heat. This recipe calls for baking them in a tightly sealed casserole in an oven barely hot enough to toast bread. As the hours pass, the beans drink up a broth flavored with brown sugar (or molasses), mustard and pepper. The gentle cooking prevents the beans from breaking up and becoming mushy. By the time they're done, the pork is falling off its bones and the beans are the classic rusty brown. Be sure to season them amply with salt so the sweetness has a sturdy counterpart. Beard's recipe calls for dark brown sugar. The alternative is to use molasses, which will render a final flavor and color more familiar to canned-bean devotees. The recipe itself requires no great cooking skills — if you can peel an onion and boil water, you're all set — but it will easily take up an afternoon. Plan it for a day when you're at home. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This wonderful recipe from Jamie Oliver is hearty and uncomplicated with a surprising pop of flavor thanks to the addition of rosemary and orange zest. Mr. Oliver prepares his in a pressure cooker, but if you don't have one, it can be cooked in a covered Dutch oven on the stove over low heat, or in a 275 degree oven, for about 3 hours. Stir occasionally. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

If you can get your hands on ras el hanout, you can use it instead of making the spice mixture. And no worries if you don’t have a tagine — a covered Dutch oven will work just fine. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

I see you rolling your eyes at the thought of spaghetti primavera. The dish, rarely seen now, became an absurdity of 1980s so-called seasonal cooking. Meant to be an expression of spring, the mad jumble of vegetables over pasta was mostly an expression of the death match between French and Italian cuisine (cream versus olive oil, sauce versus pasta). But in the late 1970s, when New York’s Le Cirque popularized spaghetti primavera, Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey called it “by far, the most talked-about dish in Manhattan.” I encourage you to make Le Cirque’s version, all 10 pain-in-the-neck steps of it, because despite its tempestuous origins, it’s wonderful. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

For me, a dinner party is a chance to try all those recipes that serve as bedside reading. For dessert, I dug around my cookbook collection and decided on a Moroccan rice pudding (or roz bil hleeb) from Paula Wolfert, made with almond milk and orange flower water. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe, originally featured in a 1991 column by Barbara Kafka, was rehashed in a piece by Amanda Hesser in 2009. The idea is simple: Aromatic spices are toasted in a small saucepan, paired with tomatoes, and served chilled. The end result is a refreshing soup, full of flavor. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This unusual recipe came to The Times in 2000 from Zarela Martinez, the owner of Zarela, a landmark Mexican restaurant in New York that closed in 2011. The base here is a peanut ice milk, which is covered with torito, a rich, creamy peanut sauce made with cachaça, and individual sesame-peanut candies. The candies and ice milk can be made ahead of time. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

The popover is a culinary marvel, a loose batter that, with the aid of a hot oven, expands like a golden cumulus cloud, producing a crisp, hollow pastry with a soft, eggy interior. While the mixture is very similar to crepe batter, when you confine it to deep, narrow, muffinlike molds, the surface of the batter sets and the air is trapped, so that the pastry has nowhere to go but up and out, creating a gravity-defying bubble. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe appeared in The Times in an article titled “Women Here and There — Their Frills and Fancies” in 1900. It's not meant for salads, but for summer drinks like shrubs. You may halve or quarter the recipe. Use any kind of vinegar you like, and feel free to switch up the berries. If cloudberries are all you have, so be it. You’re also supposed to macerate the berries and vinegar for three days. If you do it for just a day, it will still taste delicious.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This dish, called muhammara, is a beautiful coarse purée of roasted red peppers, chilies, walnuts, garlic and pomegranate molasses. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

The cookbook author Rozanne Gold does more with three ingredients than most cooks can do with 10 or 12. Here she combines elephant garlic, cream and eggs into a flan of remarkable simplicity and depth of flavor. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

In “America Cooks,” by the 1940s food writers Cora, Rose and Bob Brown, the trio declared: “A century ago, when Saratoga Springs was in its heyday as a fashionable resort, specialties from there swept the country, and one of them, Saratoga Chips, will endure as long as there are spuds left to slice.” They were partly right. The recipe has endured, all right, but Saratoga vanished from the name. We now call them potato chips.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This appeared in a Times article called “Bouillabaisse and Chowders: An Eel-Soup Digression — Who Now Get the Best Vegetables and Fruits — A Dear Fish Market.” The author is unknown. You may halve the amount of oil if you find it alarming.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

As enjoyable as pounding the lights out of an innocent garlic clove or olive may be, probably the most satisfying flat food to prepare are these smashed and fried potatoes from Susan Spungen, which draw in part from a technique used to make tostones. You steam baby potatoes until they’re just tender, let them cool enough to be handled, then press them between your palms until they flatten a bit and you hear their skins begin to snap. Next, you heat up some oil in a skillet and fry the potatoes until they’re nice and brown on their flat sides. Each potato is then crisp and caramelized but still moist inside. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe, adapted from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," takes dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, and pairs them with a sauce built on the robust, aromatic flavors of grated ginger, ground coriander, cumin and cardamom. It's an easy, Middle Eastern-tinged weeknight meal. As the chickpeas cook, prepare the sauce, and top with diced tomato, onion, jalapeño for added bite. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Dehydrated strawberries can be found at health-food stores and at specialty-food stores like Trader Joe's. They add a concentrated sweetness and acidity to the crumble, but if you can't find them, no one will know they're missing. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This is a recipe that the chef Bobby Flay created for Thanksgiving in response to a request from The Times back in 2003. The sweetness of the potatoes is amplified by maple syrup, then taken in a completely different direction by the addition of fiery chipotle sauce. Sour cream knits the dish together perfectly. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

This recipe, by Sarah Magid, a Brooklyn baker, is a new take on an old recipe, the Huguenot torte. This elegant cookie calls for apples and pecans, but you could also use pears, hazelnuts or even black walnuts. It’s very sweet, so consider folding ¼ cup crème fraîche into the whipped cream for added tang. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Tortoni, a frozen mousse speckled with crushed macaroons, became the rage in Paris in the early 19th century, wended its way to America, where it found a ravenous following, and then evaporated from our culinary memory.

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Lotti Morris from Bennington, Vt., wrote: “I’m still using the original copy from the paper, now deep yellow with age, fragile, held together with Scotch tape. We were married 13 years when I first found it and tried it. It has been 50 years now, and this favorite dinner, I think, has contributed to the longevity of our marriage. It’s so easy, so quick. I couldn’t do without it.” Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

The chef Sean Brock came up with this first course after making Craig Claiborne’s Bagna Cauda. Instead of bathing the garlic and anchovy in the oil, Mr. Brock has you bathe a whole head of cauliflower in it. You use a ring mold to hold up the cauliflower in a sauté pan, then brown it by spooning over bubbling oil and butter — a process that’s fun and a little hairy — and finish it in the oven. In place of garlic, you use fermented black garlic (which is soft and woodsy in flavor) and milk powder to make a “crumble.” You slice the cauliflower into large slabs, like cross-sections of a tree, and top them with an anchovy butter and the crumble. Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser

Amanda Hesser · NYT Cooking

Amanda Hesser