Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Somewhere between buttery mashed potatoes and pure melted cheese lies aligot, the comforting, cheese-enhanced mashed-potato dish from central France. The key to getting a smooth, airy texture is to rice the potatoes while they're still hot, then incorporate cold butter, hot milk and grated cheese over low heat. To build up the stringiness of that melting cheese, Ham El-Waylly, a chef at the Brooklyn restaurant Hail Mary, suggests whipping it with confidence, speed and vigor. This is what will create aligot's characteristic cheese strings: long and sheer, with some elasticity. "They should fight with you," Waylly says. While fresh tomme or Cantal is traditional, Gruyère or Comté work well, too. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

A little bowl of simply spiced half-mashed potatoes and onion, glistening with fat, is a standard side dish at bustling restaurants that serve dosas. It’s also one of the best vegetable dishes — inexpensive, quick and delicious — to add to your repertoire as a home cook. The key to these potatoes is water, not fat. Overcooking them just slightly ensures that they’re tender, and that they hold enough moisture so when you drop them into the hot pan, they break up and meld into the sautéed onion mix, becoming almost indistinguishable from it. Though aloo masala is great with a hot dosa, it’s a versatile dish that can also work as a side with other meals.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Punjabi-style rajma, or red beans, in a thick, spicy tomato gravy is comforting, quick and comes together with what you have in the pantry. This one-pan baked version is inspired by it, but deviates from tradition in several ways. First, it lets the oven do the work of reducing the sauce. When the dish comes out, scatter with cilantro, if you’ve got it, and some quick-pickled onion. The key is to take your time with the base, letting the onion mixture cook out properly, so the final sauce is mellow and deeply flavored. But you can try the same technique with different beans, from chickpeas to cannellini. Eating the dish with a side of yogurt or a glug of cream is common, but it’s also a treat with a little melted cheese, the edges browned in the pan. Use what you’ve got. Serve the rajma over rice, ideally, but if you’re in a pinch, a side of hot flour tortillas or even buttered toast will make it into a delicious meal.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

A simple dish of creamy, thin-skinned beans and broth on toast is easy to make, and a comfort to eat alone or feed a crowd. If you make the beans ahead of time, they can keep in the fridge for 3 days, but may need a splash of water added when you heat them up. The broth is a great way to make use of parmigiano rinds, if you happen to be saving those, but if you don’t have any lying around, you can still make it rich with umami: Whisk a heaped tablespoon of white miso with a little of the bean broth to make it smooth and lump-free, then add it back to the pot. It will add a similar, savory depth. The dish seems plain, but it won’t be if you season the broth well, and garnish each bowl generously with olive oil, grated cheese and herbs, just before you eat it.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe started as a wisp of an idea in The Veggie, our weekly newsletter about vegetarian home cooking, inspired by that iconic dish chicken Marbella, made famous in “The Silver Palate Cookbook.” Instead of chicken, a pot of thin-skinned, creamy beans and their rich cooking liquid form the base, which are then added to a pan of fried garlic and reduced red wine with plenty of olive oil, prunes and olives. They’re then topped with a simple roasted potato salad, dressed with vinegar-soaked shallots, capers and parsley. It’s not an exact replica of chicken Marbella, but it’s a beautiful and satisfying way to enjoy its familiar flavors — the tangy, briny sharpness of vinegar, capers and olives, set against the sweetness of prunes. You can serve the dish as is, but it’s even more luxurious with some thickly sliced and toasted bread, brushed with olive oil and garlic.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Birria took off in the United States as a soupy style made with beef and as birria tacos, popularized by birria vendors in Tijuana. The chef Josef Centeno, who grew up eating beef and goat birria in Texas, makes a delicious, thickly sauced version based on his grandma Alice’s recipe, mixing up the proteins by using oxtail, lamb on the bone and even tofu (you can, too). Preparing the adobo takes time, as does browning the meat, but it’s worth it for the deep flavors in the final dish. The best way to serve birria is immediately and simply, in a bowl, with some warm corn tortillas, which can be used to wrap the meat for tacos. But make sure to put any leftovers to work: Extra meat, pulled from the bones, can be shredded for crisp quesabirria tacos, fried in the birria fat for cheesy, lacy edges. And the leftover broth, or consomé, is ideal for a comforting bowl of birria ramen, with an egg and some fresh herbs on top. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

The leftover birria broth, or consomé, from a pot of birria is delicious and versatile, and can be repurposed in the kitchen in a number of ways. Use it like stock, to cook beans, and infuse them with all the flavors of the birria, or stretch it into another meal by dropping in some matzo balls to poach. If you’ve only got a little left, you can make a quick, comforting noodle dish, garnished with fresh herbs and a little onion. This recipe works well with instant ramen noodles, pulled from a package, though fresh noodles are great, too.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for chocolate mousse made in a blender comes via the pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz, who got it from a cook named Monica Stolbach, who in turn got it from her mother-in-law, who got it from a Junior League cookbook published in the 1980s. Straightforward, adaptable and extremely satisfying, it’s one of those recipes that you want to pass along to as many people as you can. Instead of separating the egg yolks and whites, this technique simply involves pouring hot sugar syrup into a blender with chocolate and whole eggs, then folding that mixture into softly whipped cream. The resulting texture is so creamy and rich, it doesn’t need anything at all, though you can top it with extra whipped cream, if you like. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

The Brazilian sweets known as brigadeiros are a classic treat at birthday parties and family get-togethers, where the fudgy, chocolate-milk caramels are often rolled in sprinkles. The chef Natalia Pereira of Woodspoon in Los Angeles also makes more grownup, bittersweet brigadeiros by rolling them in cocoa powder or shredded coconut. Try her recipe, which she learned from her mother in Minas Gerais, Brazil, using either canned condensed milk or a homemade version. Either way, the candies will be tender and delicious. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Bryant Terry, an Oakland, Calif., chef with two young daughters, developed this recipe to make eating broccoli a treat. It worked: Blanched and puréed with lemon, garlic and a little of what he calls “umami powder,” the broccoli transforms into a deeply flavorful vegan spread that’s also highly adaptable. Thin it with pasta water and toss it with hot noodles, as seen here, or scrape it into a bowl as a dip for crudités. Spread it onto a thick piece of toast and cover it with sliced radishes, dill and crunchy salt. Use some to drown a softly poached egg, drizzle with olive oil, and eat with a spoon, or to dress warm white beans, then shower them with black pepper and grated cheese. Whatever you do, don’t skip rinsing the broccoli with cold water after you blanch it; the step keeps the spread a vibrant green. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This version of bún kèn, a deeply delicious street food specialty of Kiên Giang Province in southern Vietnam, comes from the chef Diep Tran, who traveled to the region while researching “The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook,” written with Cuong Pham and Tien Nguyen. The dish is built by infusing fish stock with aromatics and coconut cream, then ladling this fish curry over rice noodles and topping the bowls with fresh herbs, vegetables and a drizzle of sweet and salty coconut nuoc chăm. While you can often find yellowtail collar at Japanese and Korean markets in the United States, Ms. Tran suggests using a snapper head or grouper head, or any small whole fish that isn’t too oily, if you can’t get your hands on collar. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Claudia Serrato’s work studying the history of indigenous Mexican foodways informs her annual holiday tamaladas, where family and friends in her community gather to fill tamales with cacao, vegetables, flowers or bison braised in red chile. The meat is first braised until very tender, then dressed in a purée of smoky chiles and garlic, before it’s stuffed into fresh masa. Ms. Serrato makes her own nixtamal with blue corn, soaking it with cal and grinding it in her outdoor kitchen, though you can buy fresh masa or hydrate freshly ground nixtamal if you prefer. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for a crisp, cheesy pan pizza was developed by Charlotte Rutledge, along with her team of test cooks at King Arthur Flour’s rigorous test kitchen in Vermont. It uses a number of simple techniques to achieve maximum texture and flavor. The dough is folded a few times before it goes in the fridge for a long rest, which develops its flavor and airiness. Cooking the pizza in cast iron gets the edges brown and crackling, and layering the cheese and sauce creates an extra cheesy top with no soggy layer. Make it once in its simplest form, then use the model to play around with the fermentation time and toppings. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for chiles rellenos comes from Andrea Serrato, who sells an exquisite version of the dish out of her home in East Los Angeles. Ms. Serrato learned to make it from her mother, Rose Serrato, who fills big chile poblanos simply with queso ranchero, fries them in a cloudlike batter and simmers them in a garlicky salsa roja. Be sure to take your time charring the chiles on the flame to make sure they get evenly tender. The dish is time-consuming and labor-intensive, but extremely worthwhile — delicious, comforting and beautiful, too. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Bryan Ford grew up in New Orleans, eating delicious, dense little pan de coco buns from the Honduran bodegas around town. But as a professional baker, he revisited the bread, using a sourdough starter to add dimension and texture, and even adding cocoa and chocolate chips to sweeten it up. In his cookbook, “New World Sourdough” (Quarry Books, 2020), he calls this version choco pan de coco. The key, according to Mr. Ford, is to bake with love and to celebrate the bread you make — not to compare your own bread to the one in the picture. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

The cioppino at Anchor Oyster Bar in San Francisco is a showstopper — a beautiful, long-simmered tomato sauce thinned with clam juice and packed with a mix of excellent seafood. Work with whatever seafood is best where you are, though Dungeness crab in the shell is nonnegotiable for the Anchor’s owner and chef, Roseann Grimm, the granddaughter of an Italian crab fisherman. Replicating her dish at home involves a lot of work, but the results are beyond delicious. To get ahead, you can make the marinara base and roasted garlic butter up to a couple days before. A half hour or so before you’re ready to sit down and eat, bake the garlic bread and cook the seafood. Don’t forget crab crackers — you’ll need them at the table to get to the crab meat — and plenty of napkins! Tejal Rao, Alexa Weibel

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Italian farinata are simple pancakes made from chickpea flour, which gives them a deep, nutty flavor and unexpectedly luxurious texture. Make sure to use an ovenproof pan so you can finish the pancake in a hot oven to give it golden, crisp edges. Top the farinata however you like — roasted vegetables, a dressed salad, a mix of fresh herbs — or even eat it plain, with a cold drink, just before dinner. But a mix of roasted mushrooms and radicchio seasoned simply with vinegar and olive oil is perfect in the fall.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Many diners in the United States know dosas as the crisp, oversize folds served at South Indian restaurants. But those dosas have a large extended family: dosas from Karnataka made with grated cucumber; dosas from Tamil Nadu made with pearl millet flour; and dosas from Kerala made with jaggery. There are lacy-edged dosas and cakelike dosas, delicate dosas that crumple like hankies, and fat, deeply pocked dosas that break where they’re creased. If you’ve never made dosas at home, a good place to start is this simple rice and urad dal batter. Traditionally, the batter relies on a wild fermentation that flourishes in warm kitchens, but many cooks hack this, reaching for packets of dosa mix or adding yeast to ensure that the fermentation kicks off properly. A powerful blender is crucial to getting a fine, smooth batter. You’ll know it’s ready when it’s very foamy and smells a little sour.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Eggs have long been an important source of nutrition across the country, and form the base of many classic regional dishes. In Andhra Pradesh, this spicy, tomato-rich egg curry would have firmer, more crumbly yolks (boiled for about 11 or 12 minutes), but I like to cook them a little softer (8 minutes, max).

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

There are countless variations of this style of salad from Karnataka, but my favorite is a simple version made with crunchy raw carrots, dressed with a little tempered fat, coconut, citrus and chopped herbs. If fresh coconut isn’t available, keep a bag of frozen grated coconut in the freezer. It’s easy to find at most Indian grocery stores and, when you have it on hand, you can bring this salad together in less than five minutes.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

While working on her new cookbook, “Usha’s Rasam Digest,” the author Usha Prabakaran gathered over 1,000 recipes for rasam, a thin, tangy broth from southern India with many names and infinite variations. This one comes together in minutes, from a base of gently sautéed garlic and a peppery spice mixture that is ground to make rasam powder. Ms. Prabakara suggests the soup for anyone feeling unwell. Don’t let the garlic color, or it’ll add a note of bitterness to the rasam. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for hot-water gingerbread — using an old but reliable technique for a moist, tender cake that starts with a base of molasses and boiled water — comes from the cookbook author and culinary historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris, who included it in “A Kwanzaa Keepsake and Cookbook” (Scribner), updated in 2024 after its first 1995 edition. Here, the dessert is part of a six-course menu celebrating Nia, or purpose, the fifth principle of the holiday, though Dr. Harris bakes the simple cake throughout the season. The gingerbread, as well as the barely sweetened cream you should dollop generously on top, are both simple to make, and rich with the smoky, complex flavor of molasses. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Japanese hoshigaki are a special, seasonal treat made with firm, astringent Hachiya persimmons that are dried for a few weeks until they become extremely tender and sweet. The prep is a little intensive — each fruit must be peeled, dunked in boiling water and suspended in such a way that it doesn’t touch anything, to discourage mold from forming. If the stems haven’t been cut so they’re easy to tie with string, they will require binder clips or another makeshift hanging solutions. But after the persimmons are set up, all they need is plenty of time, sunlight and air to transform into succulent hoshigaki. Slice the dried fruit and nibble it as is for dessert, pair it with good cheese, or toss it into a simple green salad.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for a simple jackfruit sabzi comes from the British chef Romy Gill, who adapted much of her Punjabi family’s vegetarian home cooking for her book “Zaika: Vegan Recipe from India.” In Burnpur, where Ms. Gill grew up, jackfruit grew wild on the trees around her home, and her mother worked with an oiled knife to take apart the heavy, unwieldy fruit. But in England, where she lives now, Ms. Gill reaches for canned jackfruit. Make sure to pick vegetal, unripe jackfruit in brine — rather than sweet, ripe jackfruit in syrup — then drain the pieces, breaking up any large ones until bite-size, and add them to the pan. Serve the sabzi with rice, roti, or, as Ms. Gill often does for her daughters, rolled up in a big, tender wrap. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for a vivid, vegetarian pasta sauce, made from blanched kale leaves and loaded with good olive oil and grated cheese, comes from Joshua McFadden, the chef at Ava Gene’s in Portland, Ore., and was inspired by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers of The River Café in London. The technique is absurdly simple and quick from start to finish, but the result is luxurious and near-creamy. Feel free to play with the pasta shape, but no matter what you choose, be sure to let the blender run for a while at a powerful setting: You want the kale to completely break down into a smooth, bright, airy green puree. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Though elite, upper-caste Hindus tend to be vegetarian, most Indians eat meat, and many millions of Muslim Indians eat beef. This saucy keema, which can be made with chicken, lamb, beef or a combination of meat, is simple, comforting home cooking — the meat stretched out and made luxurious in a reduction of spiced tomato. It can be dinner with a couple of soft, shiny bread rolls, or a chapati and a dollop of yogurt. A friend of mine even mixes it with spaghetti and a moderate squirt of ketchup. (Don’t judge!) The secret to this version is to take your time: Caramelize the onions properly for a strong foundation, and once you’ve added the beef, simmer it patiently until the sauce is dark and silky, and the fat has split away, risen to the top, and pooled in every nook.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

In India, you’re just as likely to have biryani as a lunchtime delivery at the office as you are to see it as a stunning centerpiece at a wedding feast. The dish is pervasive, with many modern interpretations and regional permutations rooted in Muslim communities of the subcontinent. Hyderabad is famous for its style of biryani, which traditionally involves a layer of raw meat and gravy that cooks the rice as it steams in a tightly sealed pot. This Sindhi-style biryani is the one I make for special Sunday lunches and parties. With multiple layers of parcooked rice, fresh herbs, caramelized onion, saffron-infused milk and braised lamb, it’s a project, but a rewarding one. Two tips: Meat on the bone isn’t a rule, but it’s consistently better than meat off the bone. Potatoes are welcome; add a pound of small boiled potatoes to the cooked meat if you want to stretch the pot and feed a few extra people.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

If you’re used to quick-cooked broccoli, barely blanched in boiling water, or crisp, raw florets, this old Alice Waters recipe from “Chez Panisse Vegetables” (HarperCollins, 1996) might seem a little off. A whole hour of simmering with the lid on? Yes! The result is an incredibly sweet, tender, juicy and delicious vegetable with almost no hands-on work. Finish the dish with plenty of cheese and lemon zest, and an extra drizzle of olive oil, and eat it just the way it is, or break it up into some hot, just-cooked pasta for a bigger meal. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Kachori started as street food in Rajasthan, where Marwari cooks sealed food in pastry and deep-fried it, making it ideal for the hungry traders doing business at outdoor markets. Kachori can be filled with potatoes, dal and vegetables, but when peas are in season, they make what I consider the pinnacle of the genre. The filling is fresh, green, bright, juicy and lightly seasoned with herbs and lemon, all tucked inside a thin, flaky crust. The dough behaves nothing like pie dough, but somehow achieves the same effect after it’s deep-fried. Though the snack was originally made to be portable and to keep for a long time, these kachori are best the day they’re made.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Sour with tamarind, full-bodied with coconut and smoldering with dry red chiles, this dish has roots in the coastal city of Mangalore. In India, a cook might reach for Byadagi chiles from Karnataka to stain the sauce a bright red color. In the United States, chiles de árbol are easier to find. A stone mortar and pestle is the best tool for grinding the curry paste; the finer you can get the coconut and chile, the smoother and richer the texture of the final sauce. From there, the recipe is very adaptable — replace the fillets with any fish you like, including nice oily ones like mackerel or sardines.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

James Beard took this recipe from his colleagues Irma and Bill Rhode over 60 years ago, but there’s something delicate, fresh and unfussy about the sandwich even now. There isn’t much to it, so each component really matters: Slice the onions thinly and evenly, season well, and be gentle so you don’t squish the bread as you press each sandwich shut. Rolling the edge of the sandwich in chopped parsley (or a mix of parsley and other fresh herbs), gives it a retro styling touch, but it’s crucial for flavor, too. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This dish of marinated, roasted paneer is inspired by the one served by the chef Chintan Pandya at Dhamaka in New York City, and is flavored intensely with ajwain, or carom seeds, and a paste of garlic and ginger. You could use the marinade on store-bought paneer, but fresh paneer is one of the simplest and most satisfying cheeses for a home cook to make, and doesn’t require any special ingredients. And unlike store-bought paneer, which is generally quite firm, a homemade version can be tender and delicate, and extremely creamy. Just be sure to stir the milk mixture very gently to keep the curds large and intact.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Pan con tomate, the Spanish dish of grated tomato on grilled or toasted bread, is summery and extremely satisfying. Grating a tomato somehow emphasizes everything delicious about it, heightening sweetness and acidity. Paneer con tomate is built on the same principle, but swaps the bread for pieces of crisp-edged, lightly fried cheese. Here, the tomato pulp is seasoned not with olive oil, but with a glug of coconut oil infused with mustard seeds and curry leaves. If you’ve got homemade paneer, which is looser and softer, then there’s no need to fry it. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This party-size vegetarian version of a sausage roll takes a bit of inspiration from potato- and pea-filled samosas: The filling is a coarse mash of peas and potato mixed with fresh ginger and green chiles, along with cumin, fennel and sesame seeds. Seasoned with lemon juice and garam masala, it has a tangy, gently spicy flavor that’s even more sumptuous when it’s wrapped in buttery store-bought puff pastry. Be sure to cut the roll almost all the way to the inner edge before sliding it into the oven, so that the baked pieces are easy to tear away. Serve with green chutney, tamarind chutney, a squirt of Maggi ketchup, or just as is, with a few wedges of lemon or lime on the side.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This simple, summery cake gets its rustic texture from polenta and ground almonds. Most of its sweetness comes from cut peaches that bubble in a light caramel at the bottom of the cake, then decorate the top when you flip it over. The recipe is from King, a small restaurant in Manhattan where the chefs Clare de Boer and Jess Shadbolt swap the stone fruit out to use whatever is sweet, juicy and in season. Try the cake with peaches, nectarines, plums or even a mix of all three, but make sure to give the cake the time it needs to turn golden brown and firm to the touch. At King, the chefs use the Italian brand Moretti's stone-ground polenta bramata. For a more rustic cake, with a little bite, use coarse polenta. For a more tender crumb, use finely ground polenta. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for a satisfying savory tart is adapted from the pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz, who makes endless variations on the dish, building it in up in thoughtful layers. You can play with the format, too, swapping out the ingredients based on what you have on hand. Start with a cold pâte brisée, then go from there: Spread a fine layer of cheese such as ricotta or mascarpone, then season it with lemon zest, salt and pepper. Now move onto a denser layer of cooked vegetables, such as cauliflower, potato, leek or squash, lightly seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper. Fill the gaps in the vegetables with pieces of cheese. When the tart comes out of the oven, consider a topping of herbs, lightly dressed salad leaves or even a couple of fried eggs. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

The little puddle of fat floating on top of a pot of birria is pure gold, stained red from chiles, and rich with all the concentrated flavors of the original stew. In other words: Don’t waste it! Instead, spoon the fat off the top of the broth and reserve it for crisping tortillas to make quesabirria tacos, pan-fried until crisp, with cheese smushing out of the edges and browning in the pan. You can enjoy the tacos with salsas or hot sauce, but the birria meat and cooking oil are so flavorful that a little cilantro and onion are all you really need.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Adeena Sussman developed this brilliant recipe for amba, the habit-forming, hot and sour salt-cured mango pickle that usually takes several days to prepare. Ms. Sussman, a cookbook author who lives in Tel Aviv, completes the process in just 40 minutes, and adds an unusual ingredient that mimics the flavors of a longer fermentation: fish sauce. Make the quick pickle in the dead of winter with green, unripe mangoes, then use it to brighten up anything from a simple piece of sautéed fish to a bowl of rice and vegetables. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Roti is a basic, everyday bread, but making it takes a lot of skill. The dough is kneaded with just enough water to bring it together and keep it soft and pliable. And though it’s not yeasted, a ball of well-mixed and -rested dough will be supple and almost spongy, as if it were. Cooks who are used to making roti at home can roll out thin, round disks that puff up as if by magic. But the real magic of roti is how a few of them can turn anything — a little kheema, or a few spoonfuls of aloo masala — into a satisfying meal.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Salsa macha is a rich chile oil from Veracruz, Mexico, made from variations of dried chiles, garlic, nuts and seeds fried in oil and finely chopped. As a condiment it’s easy to make, and stores well. It’s also incredibly versatile, adding texture and depth to everything it touches, from tacos and fried potatoes to poached eggs or a simple bowl of noodles with herbs. Once you’ve made it once, feel free to adjust the ingredients to suit your taste, playing with the chile varieties, or swapping in different seeds or nuts.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Salt-rising bread is an American technique with deep roots: Home bakers who developed the bread in Appalachia didn’t have access to yeast, but found a way to bake without it when they noticed that their milk starters bubbled up overnight. It’s much easier and far more consistent to get a good rise with yeast — even bakers who make salt-rising bread regularly have failures with the finicky technique. But those who continue the tradition are rewarded with light, tender, airy crumbed bread that makes a particularly delicious toast. Be sure to maintain the starter at an even temperature, as directed, or it won’t take.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This recipe for a simple dish of mala beef comes from Jason Wang of Xi’an Famous Foods in New York, but as Wang puts it, “You can mala anything.” Spicy chiles and tingly Sichuan peppercorns define mala, one of the many flavors of Sichuan cuisine, and though it can season beef, the same technique for a vivid, brilliant sauce can be applied to a big pile of sautéed mushrooms, or simmered tofu and sautéed greens. However you choose to make it, serve the dish over hot rice or simmered noodles and finish it with a little drizzle of Sichuan chile oil, if you’ve got it. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Tamales are often served with complementing salsas and soups, but Claudia Serrato serves her exquisite tamales de chile rojo — made with freshly ground nixtamalized blue corn and filled with tender, braised bison — plain, exactly as they are, with nothing else on the plate. The tamal is so deeply flavored, so perfumed with corn and chiles, that it doesn’t need a thing to hold your attention. Eat these the day you steam them, when they’re still piping with steam from the tamalera, and the next day, fry leftover unwrapped tamales in a hot pan for a perfect holiday breakfast. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

On special occasions, such as saints’ days, Alfonso Martinez prepares a special style of black bean tamal traditionally made by Zapotec communities in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. A simple, puréed bean filling is carefully folded in a round of masa that’s been squished with a tortilla press or flattened out by hand, and this process creates a delicate, layered package that’s as beautiful as it is delicious. Mr. Martinez reaches for heirloom Oaxacan beans, though any variety of dried black beans that ends up tender will work well. And even though avocado leaves are traditionally used to sandwich the tamal inside the banana leaf wrapper, he says hoja or yerba santa leaves can also be cut to size to impart their herbal flavor. (Watch Mr. Martinez prepare Oaxacan tamales de frijol.) Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Guadalupe Moreno’s tinga de pollo makes for a delicious filling in this tamales formula from Alicia Villanueva of Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas in Hayward, Calif. Ms. Villanueva shared her recipe with Leticia Landa and Caleb Zigas for their cookbook “We Are La Cocina.” Her tamales are made with corn masa flour that’s softened and flavored at the same time with both fat and broth. The recipe is a project, but once you’ve done the work of preparing the husks, filling and masa, the process of filling and wrapping the tamales goes quickly. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

The journalist and cookbook author Von Diaz cooked her way through the classic Puerto Rican cookbook, Cocina Criolla, about six years ago, eventually using the experience as a jumping off point for her own cookbook, "Coconuts and Collards." Her recipe for tembleque, the delicious coconut-milk pudding set with cornstarch and chilled in the fridge, is simple, but it does involve one laborious task: making coconut milk from scratch. As Diaz notes in her book, the effort is greatly rewarded — fresh coconut milk is infinitely more complex, floral and delicious than the kind that comes in a can. Mature coconuts, the ones ideal for making coconut milk, should be brown, hairy and very heavy. If you shake them around, you should be able to hear the water inside. (That said, you can absolutely use canned if you like; just cut the sugar back to a half cup.) Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Guadalupe Moreno runs Mi Morena, a tacos de guisado business in the Bay Area, where a number of saucy fillings and toppings are used to mix and match tacos to order. She shared her recipe for tinga de pollo with Leticia Landa and Caleb Zigas for their cookbook "We Are La Cocina." Ms. Moreno's tinga de pollo works perfectly in tacos and also on top of crisp tostadas with lettuce and salsa, inside quesadillas or as a tamal filling. It’s a great way to use up any leftover cooked chicken (just skip straight to step 2), whether pulled from a roast or poached bird, or grocery-store rotisserie. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Though mango and lime pickles are easy to find on the shelves of Indian grocery stores, home cooks in India pickle all varieties of fruits and vegetables, including tomato. India’s pickle queen, Usha Prabakaran, documented this tomato pickle, flavored with a generous amount of fennel seeds. It’s capable of adding flavor and heat to breakfast, lunch or dinner. Asafoetida has a pungent smell out of the jar, but mellows as it cooks and gives the pickle its personality — don’t skip it! Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Dal can be made with all kinds of lentils and cooking methods. These vary not just from region to region, but also from day to day, mood to mood. Some cooks like dal soupy, others chunky. There are dals for special occasions, seasoned with charcoal smoke and butter or padded out luxuriously with cream, as well as lighter, leaner dals that can restore you when you’re not feeling well.The flavor of this everyday, Gujarati-style dal comes from the pure nuttiness of split pigeon peas, boiled until tender and bolstered with spices bloomed in hot ghee. This fat-tempering technique, called vaghar in Gujarati, has many names and many uses across the country. In this case, the tempering is a great introduction to the resourcefulness and finesse of Indian home cooks: Just a few tablespoons of carefully seasoned fat, tipped in at the very last moment, transform an entire pot.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Naoko Takei Moore makes this comforting hot pot of ginger-spiked meatballs, mushrooms and tofu in a donabe, or Japanese clay pot. She sells them at Toiro, her Japanese cookware shop in Los Angeles, and has written a book on the topic, “Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking” (Ten Speed Press, 2015). The traditional cookware can be used to cook rice, steam foods and even set up to work like a small grill. It’s a wonderful, versatile piece of equipment, though if you don’t have one, you can use another heavy-bottomed pot with a lid, and still turn out a beautiful meal. Have this hot pot on its own, or with a side of warm rice. Tejal Rao

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Kofta curry — a saucy dish of gently spiced meatballs — is often made with meat. But this one, based on my grandfather’s, swaps in a mash of beans. Bound with bread crumbs and seasoned with ginger, garlic, green chile and herbs, it’s a variation full of flavor and texture. Have it with some flatbread and some sliced cucumber in yogurt, or spooned over a bowl of rice. It’s also delicious in a sandwich the next day. Note: To make it with lamb, as in his original version, substitute 1 ½ pounds ground lamb for the beans. Soak the bread crumbs in ½ cup whole milk first, then squeeze out any extra liquid before adding them to the mixing bowl.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

This is a take on vermicelli usli, also known as upma — an ideal South Indian breakfast, savory and satisfying, full of vegetables and delicate fried noodles, and seasoned with coconut and cashews. Though commonly made with carrots and peas, you can toss in whatever vegetables you have on hand. In summer, fresh corn adds plenty of crunch and sweetness, and the dish works for lunch and dinner, just as it is.

Tejal Rao · NYT Cooking

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s 1970 cookbook, “Vibration Cooking, or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl,” combined memoir and recipes in a new way, and introduced many readers to a brilliant new voice in American food culture. This onion-pie recipe is like many of her recipes, simple and deeply satisfying home cooking rooted in the South, but with a truly global point of view. If you want, you can toss a handful of cooked ham or grated cheese or fresh chopped herbs into the mix before putting it in the oven. It’s especially delicious chilled, the next day, when the flavors have mellowed and the custard has become creamy.