Recipes

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This is a not-very-sweet, very grown up chocolate mousse, and it is quite easy to make. If you prefer the idea of a chocolate orange mousse, substitute Cointreau. Rum works well, too. Or you could use coffee in place of the alcohol. In any case, eating it is an example of living well.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Julia Child wrote that the Gateau Reine de Saba was the first French cake she ever ate. My version is a bit simpler to make than hers. I melt the chocolate with liquid, and I use all ground almonds rather than the traditional mixture of flour and almonds. I like my Reine de Saba to be slightly more like pudding and voluptuously melting. As "Reine de Saba" is French for Queen of Sheba, this seems entirely fitting. It also makes this cake eminently suitable for those who are gluten-intolerant. A little of this cake goes very far. You can easily get 12 slices out of this cake, so each person isn't consuming a huge amount of sugar. But to be defensive is to end on the wrong footing. A cake this good does you good, both body and soul.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This colorful dish is great on a dreary day, or any other time for that matter. It doesn’t take long and can be a side for any chicken or fish dish – or, as Nigella Lawson originally suggested, as a perfect accompaniment to her recipe for dal, a red lentil stew spiced with turmeric, chili and ginger, and colored with sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

What I have come to understand is that how food looks as you prepare it can make as much difference to the cook as it does, on the plate, to the person who gets to eat it. When the skies are drab and life feels a little gray, I am absurdly cheered by the fresh brightness of a vibrantly orange dal, a red lentil stew spiced with turmeric, chili and ginger, and colored with sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Just seeing that mixture in the pan lifts my spirits. It helps that a dal is simple to make: a bit of chopping and the stew all but cooks itself. And it can be made in advance and then reheated, always a bonus. This dal makes a wonderful, exuberant partner to broiled salmon, but I love it without meat, too, when I partner it with my “bright rice.”

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

I have always had an aversion to the stir-fry. For me it has seemed a technique that sounds easier than it is. Everyone is always impressed that a stir-fried dish takes so little time to cook, but I saw endless chopping followed by frenzied last-minute activity at the stove that I felt unsuited for. I am a clumsy person, and there simply isn't a wok large enough for me to do a stir-fry and not end up with half the ingredients over all the burners. The recipe that won me over was this pork and mushroom dish. Marinating the pork keeps it wonderfully tender and makes the dish deeply flavorsome. And slicing mushrooms is never an effortful activity. Many Chinese cooks add a cornstarch paste at the end of cooking to create a binding sauce, but I love this one starch-free and light. You get depth but sprightliness.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

If meat is involved, you can find me covering it in flavor-enhancing tenderizing liquids before grilling, broiling, baking or roasting it. The more you do to the meat before you cook it, the less you have to do during or after. In this case apple juice or cider gives tang and wards off stringiness, a small amount of oil keeps things juicy and maple syrup, soy, star anise, cinnamon and garlic impart deep, luscious flavor. These two meats work well in conjunction: the relatively lean chicken is enhanced in taste and texture by the pork ribs, which give off flavorsome fat as they roast. You can use whatever ribs you like; meaty ones are best, but as long as the ribs are separated, rather than in a slab, they'll do just fine. As for the chicken, I implore you to use thighs, bone-in, skin-on because the meat is more tender and the taste infinitely better. (Make sure you use a large enough roasting pan so you don't have to crowd the pan. If the pan is crowded, the meat will steam, not brown.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

It's hard to imagine an easier salad than one of chopped cooked beets, vinegar-steeped onion and crumbled Danish blue cheese. It must surely become one of your summer stalwarts.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

The centerpiece of a summer solstice menu created in 2005 for The Times, this dish alludes to gravlax — the Scandinavian dish of cured salmon — with the spices used to poach the salmon and the sweet mustard sauce. The cooking technique here yields the most tender flesh you may ever encounter with salmon.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This salad couldn’t be easier. Simply slice the peeled cucumber as finely as you can and macerate it in sugar, vinegar, salt and chopped dill. This makes quite a lot of liquid as it sits in the refrigerator, but it’s meant to.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This potato salad takes its inspiration from a Swedish wintertime classic, Janssen's Temptation, a gratin of cream-swathed potatoes spiked with anchovies. You might think that 10 anchovy fillets strike too strident a note, but against the rich sharpness of the eggy sour cream dressing and the sweet salad potatoes, they just provide balance.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

A sweet ending for a summer solstice party, this spongecake is light and not too sweet, and the cream and berries make it seem almost more of an unmolded trifle than a cake. I seem to remember that in Norway alcohol is poured over the split sponge, but here I’ve moistened the cake with a strawberry purée. You can use any fruit.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Nigella Lawson brought this recipe to The Times in a 2006 article about vegetarian comfort food. "The mushrooms, which are easy to cook, require a certain amount of patience and trust. Once you tumble your huge pile of prepared mushrooms into the pan, you could quite reasonably believe they will never cook down, never lose their bouncy rawness and could go on absorbing oil forever. Just start by moving them around gingerly in the pan and then, when they have all had their turn in the heat, clamp on a lid and let them give off their bosky juices." Serve with Ms. Lawson's Spiced and Herbed Millet (as shown) or rice.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

Millet is an underused grain associated with rough-hewn, well-meaning vegetarianism: although we all think it might be good for us, we doubt it will be one of life's true pleasures. But when it is tossed in a little oil, well-seasoned and simmered in broth, it produces a toothsome graininess, not as nutty as bulgur but more interesting than couscous. Leftovers make a great grain salad the next day: think tabbouleh and add masses of freshly chopped herbs, a judicious amount of good olive oil and a spritz of lemon juice.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This is a warming rather than hot curry. You can taste the spices and enjoy their aromatic fullness. The ginger, chile and pepper flakes provide heat, while the coriander and cumin add a pleasurable earthiness. Meanwhile, the sweetness of the coconut milk, heightened by the soothing starchiness of the sweet potatoes, has as a counterpoint the fierce tang of tamarind. As a side dish, this recipe would be fine without the chickpeas, but as a meal, along with rice and maybe some steamed broccolini, they add heft and, if you're interested, protein.

Julia Moskin · NYT Cooking

This easy recipe is basically a macaroni and cheese with vegetables. It is a jumble of cuisines: British, with the brussels sprouts; Italian, the pasta with potatoes; and lavish, with its gooey mixture of ricotta, butter and Parmesan. It is also child-friendly and easy to cook on a weeknight. Julia Moskin

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

These plums can also be made in advance (though remember to reheat gently so the fruit doesn't fall apart) and their berried cinnamon-scented syrup drenches the sweet French toast gloriously. If you wish, you can remove the cooked plums and let the syrup reduce for a more intense, stickier sauce.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

This is a fancy restaurant dessert that's easy to make at home: mix up the little cakes, stash them in a fridge for a day and then take them out as you sit down to your meal, popping them in the oven just 10 minutes or so before serving them with a dollop of vanilla or pistachio ice cream. As each oven varies, it's worth having a practice run of these to see exactly how long the babycakes need to give them this glorious texture.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

You could think of these cinnamon squares as the wintry brother of tangy, summery lemon bars, but what they really are is shortbread topped with a cinnamon-infused glaze, perfect with a cup of tea or a mug of coffee. And it is a reassuringly straightforward recipe. Make the crust and press it into a pan, bake it and let it cool. Drizzle a warm cinnamon glaze over it, cut and serve. Inhaling is wonderful; eating is even better.

Nigella Lawson · NYT Cooking

The chicken stew here does have an authentic origin, but I have lightened it a little by dispensing with the cream that would be added luxuriously in its country of origin. And you can cheerfully use a dry or semi-dry from anywhere in the world. I have nothing against the regular coq au vin, but I might actually prefer this sprightlier version. It's certainly easier to make: in place of all those whole baby onions, which have to be peeled one by one, you can just chop your onions the usual and considerably less bothersome way. And since I always think that the breast meat of a chicken can be a bit stringy when cooked for a long time, I instead choose thigh portions. So no dismembering of a carcass is required either.