Recipes

Molly O’Neill · NYT Cooking

Molly O'Neill

Regina Schrambling · NYT Cooking

In this recipe, which was featured in The Times in 1989, the chef Edna Lewis suggests braising chicken over hominy with a mélange of aromatic vegetables to make a one-dish meal that is both light and filling. When the bird is cooked, its juices meld with the vegetables to make a thin sauce that can be thickened with cream. Hominy can be found in the canned-vegetables aisle of your supermarket. Regina Schrambling

Molly O’Neill · NYT Cooking

The chef and cookbook writer Edna Lewis believed that the key to spring cooking was a light hand, and here she goes easy on rhubarb, sweetening it just a little with sugar and nutmeg. This recipe, which was featured in The Times in 1991, tempers the rhubarb’s natural tartness a bit but still allows it through, showcasing the fruit’s natural texture. Molly O'Neill

Molly O’Neill · NYT Cooking

Molly O'Neill

Nora Kerr · NYT Cooking

Nora Kerr

Alex Witchel · NYT Cooking

This recipe by Edna Lewis, which was featured in a Times article about her in 2009, is an easy one, a classic light cake that is delicious topped with fruit, glazed with lemony sugar, turned into a summer parfait, or eaten all by itself. Be careful not to overbeat the egg whites, and bake it until it springs back to the touch. Alex Witchel

Kim Severson · NYT Cooking

In this recipe, Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock call for an overnight brine for the chicken and a further buttermilk bath that should last for 8 to 12 hours. That’s a lot of unattended prep time before you get around to frying them in a slurry of lard and butter flavored with country ham. This is a time commitment, but the result — cooked in a cast-iron pan — is food to impress, and impress deeply, a dish made of humble ingredients that would be welcome on the finest china. Even better? It’s just as good cold as it is hot. Kim Severson

Kim Severson · NYT Cooking

This gingerbread, from the chefs Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, is just wonderful: a little spicy, a little sweet, very simple to make, and absolutely delicious. Whipped cream is an easy topping, although dulce de leche or another warm, caramel-y sauce takes it to a special place. But it’s also kind of nice plain, wrapped in waxed paper and tucked inside someone’s lunch. Kim Severson

Kim Severson · NYT Cooking

This recipe for lemon cheesecake by the Southern chef Edna Lewis was featured in a Times article about Southern cakes. It is a lovely layer cake that makes economical use of yolks and whites, and it’s nothing like what a New Yorker thinks of as cheesecake. The “cheese” is really an eggy lemon curd piled between layers of cake made sturdy by egg whites. More lemon curd covers the whole cake, its layers visible beneath the slightly translucent jelly. The cake tastes better the next day. Kim Severson

Sam Sifton · NYT Cooking

Sam Sifton

The New York Times · NYT Cooking

This buttery, fluffy dish comes from Edna Lewis, the African-American chef and cookbook author credited with preserving countless recipes from the old South. It serves as not only a seasonal bridge — a farewell to summer, with winter chill waiting in the wings — but also as a sweetly welcome blurring of the lines between a side dish and a dessert. The New York Times

Francis Lam · NYT Cooking

These sweet, sour and aromatic pears are terrific served with ice cream or yogurt, or they can be canned for preserving after cooking. Edna Lewis calls for Seckel pears, but this recipe works for Bosc or other varieties that will keep their shape when cooked. If you have to substitute, try to find smaller fruit, and halve them lengthwise if needed to fit in the pan. The leftover syrup is delicious in drinks. Francis Lam

Francis Lam · NYT Cooking

Edna Lewis mastered dozens of bread and biscuit recipes over the years, and in “The Taste of Country Cooking,” she offers two for biscuits; this is the flannel-soft version. Be sure to use homemade baking powder, which you can make easily by sifting together 2 parts cream of tartar with 1 part baking soda. It leaves no chemical or metallic taste. Francis Lam

Francis Lam · NYT Cooking

Edna Lewis's family looked forward to visitors during hunting season, and they would prepare elaborate, generous breakfasts like this smothered rabbit to fortify them. You brown the rabbit in butter and bacon fat, drape it with sweet onions and then slowly cook it until the onions give up their juices. The Lewises served it with biscuits or corn muffins, jellies or preserves, oatmeal and coffee or hot cocoa. Francis Lam

Francis Lam · NYT Cooking

In “The Taste of Country Cooking,” Edna Lewis offers two recipes for strawberry preserves — one for wild and one for cultivated fruit, using different techniques to highlight their nuances. For garden berries, she gives an unusual method of heating the sugar separately, cutting down on the actual cooking time of the strawberries and preserving their delicate, fresh flavor. Francis Lam

Francis Lam · NYT Cooking

After reading that Edna Lewis preferred extra-fine cornmeal, I adapted her recipe to use corn flour. (Be sure to get corn flour, not pure white cornstarch.) These muffins have great corn flavor, and they have a very tender, creamy texture when hot and stay moist when cool. If you’re using regular cornmeal, the muffins are still delicious, especially warm; just reduce the buttermilk to 2 cups. Francis Lam

Molly O’Neill · NYT Cooking

This recipe first appeared in The Times in 1992, with an article by Molly O'Neill, when Edna Lewis, many years after writing her seminal cookbook “The Taste of Country Cooking,” was the chef at the Brooklyn restaurant Gage & Tollner. The addition of lemon zest and juice make this brighter and less sweet than typical sweet potato dishes. Molly O'Neill

Melissa Clark · NYT Cooking

In her cookbook, “The Taste of Country Cooking,” Edna Lewis includes this homey dish of baked tomatoes in her menu for a summer wheat-harvesting dinner. Sweetened with sugar and thickened with pieces of buttered bread, it’s an unusual side dish that’s just as good when made with soft, overripe tomatoes as it is with perfect ones. Using a mix of different size and color tomatoes makes this both visually and texturally appealing. But feel free to use whatever ripe tomatoes you have. Melissa Clark

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Dena Kleiman

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Dena Kleiman

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Dena Kleiman

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Jessica Kirk, a Kansas state barbecue champion, was forthcoming about her barbecue secrets in a 1989 interview with The Times. To her, who is preparing the sauce and meat is as important as what goes into it. ''There is a lot of ego involved in this thing,'' she said. This barbecue marinade can be used with chicken, beef or pork.

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Dena Kleiman · NYT Cooking

Dena Kleiman