John Willoughby

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

You'll need a medium-hot charcoal fire for this recipe. So either start cooking when the main dish comes off the fire or, if making this dish separately, light a charcoal fire in your grill, putting all the coals on one side, and wait until it has died down to medium. Serve this smoky chutney alongside pork or beef.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This recipe is a project that can be time- and labor-intensive. You need to dig a hole in your yard and build a fire in that hole to cook the beans. An important note: Failing to dig the hole, and using your oven instead, will result in beans that lack bona fides but are 98 percent as good as the ones that guy cooked in a hole in his yard. This recipe will take about 3 hours plus soaking time for the oven method.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

If you’re looking to boost flavor, spices are a natural. There are perhaps no cuisines that use spices more deftly than those of India. Borrowing a technique commonly used there, I sweat a trio of aromatic spices before adding the liquid to a braised chicken-thigh dish. The final flavor of the dish, earthy but somehow still delicate, is wholly satisfying.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Country-style ribs have enough rich porkiness to stand up to the strong flavors of Latin America, so, here, they are coated with an aromatic spice rub that gets some smoky heat from chipotle peppers, then braised in a combination of citrus juices and beer. To avoid burning the spices, the ribs are coated with spice rub only on the side that doesn't get browned. Though the pomegranate seeds are not essential, they do add a nice hit of tartness and texture.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

It's important to use smaller chicken thighs; if all you can get are the larger ones, it's best to cut them in half. If you don't have Maras pepper, it's worth buying, since its distinctive flavor will add depth and a sly heat to all kinds of dishes.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

These intensely flavorful slices are the perfect garnish for a clementine cake and any other dessert that calls for a sweet dash of citrus. Though cooking down the fruit takes hours, you can start the simmer and leave it, checking in only occasionally. The sugar syrup left after the clementines are removed is worth saving for cocktails or even pouring over pancakes.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This dessert, loosely based on a Sephardic orange cake, uses whole clementines, peels and all, for a flavor rich in citrus. The cooking time may seem long, but much of it doesn’t require much attention from the baker. And the first step, reducing the fruit, may be done ahead of time. John Willoughby

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

You can substitute linguica, or even Spanish chorizo, for the Portuguese chouriço here. If any of the clams don't open, it's safest to toss them. Eat the lemon quarters as is (the rinds soften and sweeten under the flame) or squeeze the juice over the fish, as you wish.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Use large sea scallops, which are often labeled “u/10” or “u/12,” which stands for under 10 or 12 to a pound. And try to get dry scallops as opposed to wet ones, which have been treated with chemicals to extend their shelf life and add moisture. Dry scallops exude much less liquid when cooked and have better texture and flavor. These untreated scallops often tend to be less bright white, but your fishmonger should be able to tell you for sure what you’re buying.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Marinating, it’s said, not only adds flavor and moisture that will stay with the food through the rigors of the grilling process, but also tenderizes whatever you’re about to put over the coals. There’s only one problem with this comforting culinary scenario: It’s mostly not true. These ribs are grilled naked, save for some salt and pepper. Afterward, they are cut into individual ribs and tossed with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, orange juice and ginger and sprinkled with a spicy peanut shake. You get the ease of last-minute preparation and brighter, clearer, more direct flavors and you can show off a bit for your guest as you mix and toss at the last minute.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

A bright favorite of summer, cherry tomatoes get an unorthodox treatment here. Instead of being served plain or as part of a salad, they are tossed with salt and pepper and skewered and grilled until slightly soft and a bit blistered. The tomatoes are then dressed in cool yogurt with mint and golden raisins and spiced with curry powder.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Budget-friendly boneless, skinless chicken thighs are paired here with a version of pesto that is closer to salad than paste. For grilling, the thighs are tossed with olive oil and salt and pepper and threaded onto skewers. But they are not jammed together, so they cook fairly quickly. Simply toss with the pesto ingredients — fresh basil, olive oil, parmesan, pine nuts and garlic — and serve.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Taking a cue from the hot-weather regions of the world, John Willoughby and Chris Schlesinger go heavy with the seasoning here, but the key is when that happens. Instead of a marinade, or a spice rub, they grill the lamb and season it after with garlic, basil, vinegar and Tabasco sauce. It’s a great way to add big flavor without spending all day in the kitchen.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

The first principle of Indian spice cookery (and of spices in general) is that spices are best when bought whole and ground fresh, as happens in this recipe. Toasting and then grinding the spices — peppercorns, coriander, mustard seeds and cardamom pods — used for the spice rub helps to even out their flavors so that they blend with the mild flavor of the shrimp. Serve them over fresh ripe peaches and tender spinach wilted by a hot mixture of ginger, vinegar, orange juice and curry powder.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This crusty, succulent steak is flavored with a powerful mixture of coriander, cumin, mustard seed, chile powder and cinnamon. Take care not to overcook the meat; rare to medium rare guarantees tender beef. For even more flavor, serve the steak with a smoky eggplant chutney, which comes together quickly.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

The chef Patrick Jamon applies French cooking techniques to tropical ingredients grown, caught or gathered near his restaurant, Villa Deevena in Los Pargos, Costa Rica. He is particularly fond of grouper, which is often caught by his son Dean and served at the restaurant, but you could substitute red snapper, cod or mahi-mahi. When reducing the coconut milk, be sure to keep it at a simmer rather than a boil, so it doesn’t curdle. Red curry paste can vary in its intensity by brand, so you'll want to adjust the amount to taste. John Willoughby

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Smoked paprika is the secret weapon in this simple barbecue sauce, which goes beautifully with pork and chicken. If you’re painting the sauce onto cooking meat, thin it out with water to about a one-to-one ratio, which will keep the sugars from burning too quickly over the fire. Serve the full-strength stuff alongside the finished meat.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Make sure you pick over the crab meat well to remove any shells for these delicious hush puppies, which come together in a snap. The bacon must be cooked before they are assembled, but that’s the only other bit of prep work. Keep them warm before serving, and make sure to offer plenty of good butter to gild them.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Steamed crabs are great. But this recipe takes them a step further, into the luxurious, spicy territory of Malaysia, where the cooked crabs are sautéed fiercely with an enormous amount of chopped ginger and chiles, garlic and curry powder before you serve them under a spray of sliced scallions. Eat with your hands. All but the most fastidious eaters should consider wearing a bib.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Unlike many cooks, John Willoughby loves what he describes as the fresh, cool and slightly bitter taste of green peppers. This dish uses the liquor from the roasted peppers in addition to pepper purée.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Frying fish at home can be intimidating, not least because it’s messy and can leave the house smelling like a grease pit. Here, though, is a recipe that takes the cooking outside, to a large pan set over a propane hob or, as subsequent testing has borne out, to a large roasting pan filled with oil set over a gas grill. Simply heat the oil until it is very hot but not yet smoking, and add to it very fresh strips of fish dipped in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper and Old Bay, then into egg, and finally into panko, and fry until golden brown on each side, super-crisp, with a moist, tender and perfectly cooked interior. Buy a lot of fish. This is one of those recipes where people tend to want seconds and thirds. Serve with slaw and, if you like, tartar sauce.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Chicken thighs are cooked in two stages in this recipe, which was designed to be made outdoors on a propane burner. First, you fry the chicken to render the fat from the skin and get it beautifully browned. Then you put it in a low oven to finish cooking it all the way through. Not only does this result in more-tender chicken, but but it also makes for a much more relaxed and low-key approach.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times from the chef Chris Schlesinger, who participates in a sort of paella contest on Cape Cod every year. His secret weapon, a deeply flavored slurry of sherry, saffron and other spices, is included here, and don’t leave it out. Like all paellas, this dish takes some preparation and time, but is wildly impressive once it reaches the table.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Green peppers are featured in many traditional Basque dishes. This piperade can be served as a main dish, usually with the addition of ham; a side dish, or a condiment.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Like other commonplace ingredients, beans too often fail to get their culinary due. Prepared with a little care, they can be as good in their own way as caviar, with subtly distinct, satisfyingly earthy flavors and a texture perfectly pitched between tenderness and chew. This recipe provides a classy twist on the typical view of pork and beans and even includes the use of that ubiquitous green, kale.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

It's nice knowing that pears, which we think of almost exclusively for desserts in this country, are often used in savory ways in Eastern European cuisines. In this stew, caraway seeds, allspice and fennel reinforce that heritage, while sweet potatoes add rich, round flavors. Although bone-in ribs seem a bit more flavorful, boneless are also fine here. You can even use a combination of both if that’s what turns out to be in the package you buy at the store. Because the pears can turn mushy overnight, this is the rare stew that’s actually best served the day that it’s made.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

In days gone by, Italian dressing might have been a go-to marinade for lamb. After you soak, say, some lamb skewers in this dressing for a while and then grill them, what you get is grilled lamb with a kind of vague mix of vinegar, oil and faded herb taste. Contrast this with grilling the lamb, then putting it in a bowl and adding an acidic flavor, like lemon juice or vinegar, the oil and whatever herbs you choose. You’ll get the smoothness of the oil, the sharp hit of the acid (in this case, lemon juice), the aroma of the herbs (in this case marjoram) and the sweet meatiness of the lamb, each distinct flavor complementing and reinforcing others.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Clean and simple. Eight ingredients — apple cider, cider vinegar, cabbage, mustard seeds, celery seeds, sugar, salt and pepper to taste — combine into what ought to be a staple of your repertoire. You’ll need to cook the cider down by half before using it, but everything else goes in raw, and the combination matures over the course of a few hours into a side dish that can accompany just about anything grilled or roasted, pulled or hacked.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

You'll need a medium-hot charcoal fire to make this Argentine sauce. Either start cooking when your main grilled item comes off the fire or, if making this sauce separately, light a charcoal fire in your grill, putting all the coals on one side, and wait until it has died down to medium. Remove some or all of the pith and seeds from the jalapeños if you prefer a milder sauce. This relish is particularly good with beef.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This spicy dipping sauce is particularly good with fish, shrimp or chicken. You'll need a medium-hot charcoal fire to make it. Either start cooking when the main dish comes off the fire or, if making this sauce separately, light a charcoal fire in your grill, putting all the coals on one side, and wait until it has died down to medium. Remove some or all of the pith and seeds from the jalapeños if you prefer a milder sauce.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Chicken thighs meet with a mellow mix of Indian spices and are grilled into weekend dinner excellence. In Indian cooking, most spices are toasted before they’re used, a process that brings up their aromatics and mellows and rounds their flavors. Here they’re then rubbed onto chicken thighs and grilled, which gives them an additional smokiness that pairs beautifully with the tomato-and-cucumber relish.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

This recipe came to The Times in a 2012 article about cooking in a bean hole, a classic method of outdoor cooking popular in Maine. Here’s how it works: Dig a hole big enough for the pot you’re planning to cook in, then build a fire of hardwood logs in it. Drop a dozen or so rocks into the fire once it’s started. When the wood has burned down to embers, remove the rocks using barbecue gloves, put your pot of presoaked beans into the embers, drop the rocks around and on top of the pot, cover everything with dirt and walk away. Come back in about eight hours, and your beans should be ready. Not in the mood to dig a hole in your backyard? No worries. These spicy New Orleans-style red beans with chicken and andouille sausage can just as easily be made in your oven. The slightly sweet creaminess of the beans and the richness of the chicken temper the sharp heat of the andouille sausage and red pepper flakes. Serve over a pile of snowy white rice alongside an ice-cold beer.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

The hobo pack, a self-contained, foil-wrapped meal cooked in hot coals, is an easy option for outdoor cooking. Though this recipe includes a lot of fall flavors, it is great for summer cookouts, a change from the usual suspects. The key to success is to be sure the foil packet is tightly sealed so no juices leak out. Be aware that the intense heat of the coals will deeply char some of the food that’s right up against the foil, but to us that’s the best-tasting part.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Southern-style sweet potato salad with pecans makes an excellent companion for fried chicken.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Traveling in Morocco 30-some years ago, I had eaten tagines — stews distinguished by being cooked in the pot of the same name — that I did not recall as involving any browning. This method is described as “starting the tagine cold.” It involves heating the lamb gently along with spices and other aromatics, allowing the flavors to fully penetrate the meat. At that point it is covered and cooked until tender. When I tried the “cold start” approach, substituting a low heating of the lamb with aromatics and a little butter for the usual hard sear in olive oil, it worked like (well, kind of like) magic. The overall flavor of the dish was less robust than one that began with browning, but it was equally flavorful, in a gentler way.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

Pork ribs are often found under layers and layers of sauce and seasoning. In this recipe, stripped down to tropical-climate easiness, the ribs are grilled after being sprinkled generously with salt and pepper, not marinated or spice-rubbed. The infusing of the flavors — fish sauce, soy sauce, lime juice, jalapeños, ginger, garlic and lemon grass — comes after the cooking is done. It’s pretty neat how good that tastes. The recipe makes three or four entrée servings, but it also makes a good appetizer for six to eight.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking

In this Turkish method, vegetables (and sometimes beans) are cooked in plenty of olive oil — usually with tomatoes, onions and one or two other ingredients — until they have almost lost their shape. Then they are cooled and served at room temperature, when their flavors are at their fullest. Very often an herb or citrus juice is added just before serving for a little spark; thick yogurt and lemon wedges are standard accompaniments. It’s probably obvious that these dishes are pretty much ideal for warm-weather meals. They not only can be made in advance, but also must be, so they can cool down. Even a day or two ahead is fine; just take them out of the refrigerator about 45 minutes before serving.

John Willoughby · NYT Cooking