Chelo Ba Tahdig - Steamed Persian Rice with Tahdig

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

Shabu shabu, which means “swish swish” in Japanese, is named for the sound the ingredients make when they’re cooking. This warm and festive style of Japanese hot pot is meant to be shared with family and friends, cooked and served tableside in a donabe over a portable gas stove. A beautiful variety of vegetables and beef or pork are sliced so they can quickly poach in the mild kombu, or dried kelp, broth. (Sometimes, the kombu is paired with a bonito dashi.) If you don’t have a donabe, a Dutch oven or similarly sized pot will do; the portable burner is a must, though. Use this recipe as a guide, and select the ingredients you like from each category. A trip to a Japanese or Asian market will take care of the shopping, but many of the ingredients here are available at standard grocery stores. Once everything has been prepped, all that is left is to gather around and cook together.

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

This creamy and rich atole, or corn-based drink, is made with Mexican chocolate, cinnamon and raw cane sugar, then thickened with toasted masa harina for a soothing hot drink that is often served in cooler months and for holidays like Día De Los Muertos and Las Posadas. Piloncillo, a cone-shaped raw cane sugar, is usually added for sweetness, but you can use brown sugar in a pinch. If you’d like to experiment, add warm, whole spices, such as cloves and star anise, or orange peel to the simmering pot. Traditionally, champurrado is prepared in a clay pot and mixed with a molinillo, a wooden whisk, to make the drink frothy, but for a similar effect, continually whisk the champurrado, or use an immersion blender to froth it up right before serving. Champurrado is often served with hot, crispy churros alongside.

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

Unagi no tare, or Japanese eel sauce, is a salty-sweet combination of soy sauce, mirin, sugar and sake that is typically brushed over grilled eel and eel sushi. It’s similar to teriyaki sauce, but sweeter, and can be thickened to your liking. Besides using it as a glaze, try eel sauce as a marinade or dipping sauce for any number of dishes, such as chicken, fish, eggplant, mushrooms or tofu. Or, drizzle over rice, noodles or stir-fries.

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

Crisp, light and airy, the coating for battered and fried shrimp tempura is achieved with a few simple, though crucial, steps: Using seltzer in the batter adds airiness, and chilling the ingredients, including the flour, prevents gluten formation, making it more delicate and light. It’s important not to overmix the batter, and using chopsticks as the stirring tool helps. Finally, don’t overcrowd the pot when frying, and make sure to maintain the oil’s temperature so the shrimp don’t absorb it and become greasy. For a classic shrimp tempura, follow the prep steps here as best as you can to keep the shrimp from curling. Serve the dish hot with tentsuyu, a savory dashi and soy dipping sauce.

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

For crackly crisp yet juicy tonkatsu, or Japanese pork cutlets, pound boneless pork loins until impossibly thin, dredge in flour, egg and panko, then deep-fry, not once, but twice. (After the first fry, the pork rests for a bit, allowing it to finish cooking from the residual heat without drying out. It’s quickly fried a second time until golden brown.) Drizzle the finished pork cutlets with tonkatsu sauce, a spiced, sweet and tangy sauce. Here, ketchup and Worcestershire make for a quick rendition, but you can also purchase premade sauce at Japanese markets and online. Serve piping hot tonkatsu and rice alongside a heap of cold shredded cabbage drizzled with a creamy dressing, if you like.

Naz Deravian · NYT Cooking

A fragrant, fluffy buttery rice pilaf is pure comfort. The word pilaf generally refers to a rice dish in which the grains are toasted in a fat like butter, ghee or oil before being cooked in broth or other liquid, and the dish’s many iterations span the globe from Central and South Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe to the Caribbean. (Other grains like barley and bulgur, and noodles such as vermicelli or orzo – see Tip – can also be included.) In this simple version, onion and garlic are cooked in butter, which is then used to toast long-grain basmati rice until nutty and gently seasoned. The process of first rinsing the rice, then toasting in fat, prevents clumping. The amount of added liquid may vary slightly depending on the brand of rice, but do cut down on the salt if using a salted broth. With this base, you can get as creative as you like and add a variety of vegetables, herbs, spices, chopped nuts, dried fruit, ground meat or even shrimp. Or serve as is alongside chicken, fi