Recipes

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

This light-on-the-noodles, heavy-on-the-vegetables dish comes together in under a half hour. Lots of fresh ginger and dried Thai chiles provide plenty of liveliness, a perfect counterpoint to the warm earthiness of the dark sesame oil. Never heard of tofu skins? They are the sheets that form on the surface of warmed soy milk, and you can find them in Asian specialty markets. They're tender and egg-y, and like tofu, absorb the flavors of the dish they're in.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

If you're a planner, you can soak and cook dried chickpeas for this easy pasta dish, but if you're not, no worries. Using two or three cans makes it a real cinch; you'll have it on the table in about 20 minutes. First, brown the chorizo or kielbasa and set aside. Toast the bread crumbs in the same pan with a smattering of minced garlic, and set that aside, too. Dump the chickpeas into the pan with a bit of their liquid and let that reduce a bit while the pasta cooks. After draining the pasta, toss it with the chickpeas and sausage, and heat through. Serve it in big bowls with bread crumbs scattered over the top and a few aggressive grinds of the pepper mill. Our favorite pasta shape for this recipe is conchiglie, or shells, because the chickpeas nestle inside like they belong there, but it will work with almost any small cut pasta.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

This relaxed take on the popular New Orleans shrimp stew comes together in about an hour, so you can get a taste of the Big Easy on a weeknight. Just make a quick slurry of onion, bell pepper, ham, parboiled rice, garlic, cayenne, thyme and tomatoes. Let it simmer until the rice is tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the shrimp, cook for a few minutes, and voila. You're done, cher. Just don't forget to season well with salt and pepper and taste as you go.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

If we're being truthful, this sweater weather recipe should really be called "winter squash and tomatoes with pasta," as the 2 pounds of squash far outweigh the ½ pound of penne it calls for. We think that's a good thing. Every single piece of pasta gets a generous coating of sauce, and there's even some left behind after the pasta is long gone. That's what bread is for.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Here's an incredibly easy one-pot vegan dish you can put together on a weeknight. For extra oomph, add more jalapeños and garlic, and don't forget to season with salt and pepper as you go. Black, or “forbidden”, rice was used in the photo, but you can also use brown.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Sun-dried tomatoes might scream 1980s nouveau cuisine to you, and that's a fair assessment considering their somewhat profligate use throughout the decade. Yet this dish may have you reconsidering their place in your pantry. Used sparingly, sun-dried tomatoes can impart a bold tomato-y taste that Mark Bittman argues is in some ways “better than ‘real’ tomato flavor.” In this 20-minute sauté, the intense tang of capers and tomatoes plays beautifully off the mild sweetness of shrimp. Serve it over pasta or rice, or alone with a big hunk of good bread.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

This Mediterranean fish stew is more difficult to spell than to prepare, and it is traditionally neither an idée fixe nor the centerpiece of a grande bouffe, but a spur-of-the-moment combination of the day's catch. Trying to duplicate the real bouillabaisse is an exercise in frustration, as the traditional combination of fish is not found in American waters. But creating an admirable local version is no more difficult than making clam chowder. Though some will argue that bouillabaisse must contain fish stock, any time you add a few pounds of fish to a simmering stew there is enough fish essence to make stock superfluous. If additional liquid is needed, water will do just fine.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

The standard coq au vin, even when it is made with shortcuts, is a hearty dish, what with its bacon, garlic, deep red wine and enrichment of butter. But the one I like best is made with prunes: it's darker, richer, fuller, the kind of recipe one adores and makes repeatedly. The prunes melt into the wine and become barely recognizable, bringing even more depth, not only of color but of flavor. Despite its relative ease of preparation, this becomes a serious dish, the kind that demands plenty of bread so that you can linger over the juices. Feel free to play with variations here: sauté some sliced button mushrooms, a dozen or more peeled pearl onions or whole cloves of garlic (but don't omit the chopped onions) in the skillet after you've cooked the bacon.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

Americans are a wing-loving people. The Buffalo variety, by most accounts “invented” at the Anchor Bar in, yes, Buffalo, is the official food of our most sacred event of the year: the Super Bowl. These can be made on the grill or in the oven.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

This recipe unites those who would become ecstatic when they see a dish of chicken skin on a restaurant menu and those who would flee into the street. The keys to dishes that feature handfuls of dried chiles are one, don't eat the chiles. And two, don't let any of them break open while cooking; each broken one will intensify the heat exponentially. But they're sturdy devils, so this is not that difficult. The browned chiles lend the dish a nearly fiery smokiness, rather than just plain fire. Browning the skin renders its fat, which in turn is used to cook the other ingredients. It's best to stir-fry the ingredients in batches, to brown them nicely, then combine them and build the simple sauce.

Mark Bittman · NYT Cooking

The pairing of pasta with mint and Parmesan is a good one. There is something about the lightly assaultive yet somehow sweet nature of mint that is unlike any other herb. Older cuisines use it occasionally, but it is rarely seen as a major player. In this dish, however, softened by butter and cheese, mint converts a basic but undeniably heavy combination into an easy yet complex pasta dish best described as refreshing. To the inevitable question, Can I use olive oil instead of butter? my answer is that you can, but you will completely change the nature of the dish; it won't be bad, but it won't be as good. Better, I think, to cut the butter back to two tablespoons. But because this sauce is cut with the pasta cooking water, the butter is spread nicely throughout, and it really isn't a huge amount per person.

Suzanne Hamlin · NYT Cooking

Suzanne Hamlin

Elaine Louie · NYT Cooking

Elaine Louie

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Florence Fabricant

Mario Batali · NYT Cooking

Marian Burros · NYT Cooking

Marian Burros

Marian Burros · NYT Cooking

Marian Burros · NYT Cooking

Marian Burros

Marian Burros · NYT Cooking

Marian Burros · NYT Cooking