Recipes

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

While it’s probably frowned upon to say this in Italy, I think of pesto more as a formula than as a single recipe. Hence this mint pesto, from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), which is subtly tart and sweet, buttery, lemony and a little spicy. It’s great with most roasted vegetables. Spoon on bread or pita for sandwiches, or drizzle over grain bowls, couscous or a chickpea salad. Pair with crackers, crudités, olives and soft vegan cheeses for a sharing platter. You can also use walnuts instead of pistachios.

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

This caramelized, sweet-salty winter squash, from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), is so delicious you’ll want to make it every week of fall and winter. When sliced very thinly and roasted in a hot oven, squash becomes chewy and even crispy, its sweetness further coaxed out by maple syrup. Roasting chickpeas gives them a nice crunch, and plating these crispy, chewy morsels over creamy mint pesto makes for a harmonious medley of textures.

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

This easy yet impressive restaurant-quality dish, from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), spotlights one of my favorite underrated vegetables. Fennel bulbs are sliced into thick wedges, seared in a hot pan, then braised in freshly squeezed orange juice and vegetable broth until silky soft and melt-in-your-mouth tender. Finishing with zingy orange zest accents the fennel’s sweetness, while olives and walnuts add a salty, savory, meaty bite.

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

This stir-fry, from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), hits all the comfort food take-out notes with its combination of salt and pepper tofu, blistered green beans and a tangle of silky noodles, all coated in a deeply savory, garlicky, salty and spicy sauce. (Watch Nisha make this recipe on YouTube.)

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

I think of this recipe, adapted from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), as a spin on a North Indian chana masala with the addition of spinach and coconut milk and a South Indian-style tadka to finish. Tadka, perhaps my favorite and most used flavor-infusion technique from Indian cooking, is the process of blooming spices (and sometimes aromatics) in a fat, such as oil. Drizzling it on top of chickpea masala just before serving takes this meal from great to excellent. This has everything you might want in a creamy Indian-restaurant-style gravy dish, including the depth of flavor you typically get only after a slow simmer, but it’s ready from start to finish in a little over an hour. Watch Nisha Vora make this dish in this video.

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

Green cabbage, plant-based milk, olive oil and walnuts come together in this surprisingly creamy, dairy-free pasta. When thinly sliced and sauteéd, cabbage softens into silky strands with a buttery sweetness, making it an ideal partner to mingle with pasta. To echo the rich savoriness of a classic white sauce without using cream or cheese, oat or cashew milk is mixed with olive oil, umami-rich nutritional yeast and finely ground walnuts. As it coats the pasta, the sauce naturally thickens while the cabbage practically melts into the pasta. Finish with fresh basil and lemon for a luxurious yet weeknight-friendly meal. (Watch Nisha make this recipe on YouTube.)

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

Humble green cabbage wedges are roasted to charred perfection and made dinner party-worthy with a drizzle of tamarind and a crunchy, Indian-inspired peanut-sesame topping. Roasting cabbage at a relatively low temperature followed by a shorter burst of high heat allows even the toughest parts of the cabbage to turn melt-in-your-mouth tender while delivering deeply browned, crisp outer leaves and gloriously charred bits. Finishing with tamarind awakens the cabbage with a sweet-sour acidity, and the peanut crunch featuring sticky Medjool dates, mustard seeds and green chiles rounds out every bite with its blend of sweet, salty and spicy. (Watch Nisha make this recipe on YouTube.)

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

One of my favorite party tricks is showing folks that cabbage, a cruciferous vegetable often used in coleslaw, can get gloriously sweet and buttery. In this recipe, adapted from my book “Big Vegan Flavor” (Avery Books, 2024), cabbage wedges are seared in a hot cast-iron pan until charred, releasing cabbage’s natural sugars. Next, they’re nestled into a tangy, spiced tomato sauce and braised until they are meltingly tender and take on a nutty flavor. Finally, they’re doused in a creamy tahini sauce, which takes the dish to new heights. Pair with any cooked grains hanging out in your fridge or with slabs of bread. (Watch Nisha make this recipe on YouTube.)

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

An ideal weeknight sheet pan dinner features: 1) a protein and vegetable that can be roasted at the same time; 2) a flavorful sauce that comes together in one bowl; and 3) a little pizzazz. Here, cauliflower and canned chickpeas are roasted until browned and tender (along with whole garlic cloves that become divinely sweet). Torn Medjool dates are added near the end of roasting, adding irresistible bites of slightly crisp, caramelized sweetness. While the oven works its magic, tahini is whipped until creamy to act as the bed for the main ingredients and bring all the Middle Eastern-inspired flavors together. If you don’t mind using another pan, toasted pine nuts make for a fabulous garnish. (Watch Nisha Vora make this recipe on YouTube.)

Nisha Vora · NYT Cooking

Sweetness and warmth mix and mingle in this mostly sheet-pan dinner, with naturally sweet roasted carrots and red onions accented by the warm, earthy heat of curry powder-laced tofu and a garam masala-scented yogurt sauce. Crumbling extra-firm tofu into small pieces and tossing them with olive oil and potato starch before baking turns them into crunchy bite-sized nuggets, offering the perfect textural contrast to soft white rice, creamy yogurt sauce and tender carrots. Finishing with fresh green chiles adds another layer of heat, this one grassy and sharp. While this is utterly scrumptious as a rice bowl, the fillings are also delicious tucked into a warm pita. (Watch Nisha Vora make this recipe on YouTube.)

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Salmon cooked en papillote, which means wrapped in a packet of parchment (or foil), is a dramatic way to procure perfectly cooked salmon, but it isn’t difficult. Fold a fillet into a cut piece of parchment, and then layer it with seasonings or perhaps vegetables or citrus fruit. Then simply bake the packets until done. The steam created by the parchment produces reliably moist salmon, and opening the individual packets at the table makes for a fun way to start dinner.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Slow-braising to infuse meats with deep flavor and produce warming, stew-like plates of food is a cooking method of choice when the weather brings a chill. This chicken dish is the product of what I call the usual three-step affair (brown chicken, add other ingredients and some liquid, cover and slowly simmer). But I gave it a bit of heat, unpacking sake, ginger, garlic and the spicy Korean condiment gochujang, plus well-mannered slivers of poblano chilis into the pan. You can now find gochujang in supermarkets or online; you won’t use the entire jar for this dish so exploit it for other occasions. It keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator. The chicken will welcome a pillow of steamed rice alongside.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Without much prompting, Maria Luca Caudullo, whose in-laws founded the Bronte pistachio company Antonino Caudullo, will reel off any number of pistachio recipes. Filet of beef with a pistachio crust, “olives” made with crushed pistachios and sugar syrup, panettone with pistachio paste, and also for Christmas, a simple pistachio cake. “That one I only make for Christmas,” she said. Her instructions were simple and clear enough, though the baking temperature of around 120 degrees Celsius, or about 260 degrees Fahrenheit, raised some doubts. Baked at 275 degrees, the cake takes longer than the 25 minutes she suggested, but the results are excellent. Florence Fabricant

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

The lure of this pastrami recipe from La Boîte, a spice emporium in Hell’s Kitchen, is that it is a project that does not require a smoker. The essential ingredients are smoked salt and Prague powder (the curing salt sodium nitrite). Both are sold online. It will take nearly a week to make, but the meat is mostly unattended. You could start it on Monday and have it ready for Sunday dinner. The pastrami — reheated and served with warm sauerkraut, or sliced on rye with mustard and sauerkraut — makes for superb cold-weather feasting. Keep it in mind as you plan for the Super Bowl or other occasions for feeding a crowd. Florence Fabricant

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

This hearty, umami-rich pasta dish is easily assembled in less than an hour. For the best texture, use your hands and not the food processor. Chopping the mushrooms and crushing the tomatoes by hand ensures some uniformity. The sauce can be prepared in advance, since you will summon the powers of the cooking water from the tagliatelle. Use more, if needed, to moisten the mixture before serving.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

The open-face Alsatian tarte flambée can be as versatile as a quiche. Most often it’s given classic treatment, with bacon and onions on a pastry-lined bed of crème fraîche and fromage blanc. But why stick to tradition? You can make it with mushrooms, omit the bacon and dot it with caviar, add smoked salmon, pave it with zucchini slices, and explore other cheeses, including Taleggio and chèvre. Here’s an assertive version that keeps the bacon but opts for Roquefort cheese, leeks and walnuts. And instead of pizza dough, which is a typical underpinning, for a more expedient result, you can make it with pie pastry.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

A bottle of workmanlike Scotch or other whiskey can be as useful in the kitchen as it is on the bar, contributing alcohol and flavor to a range of recipes. A splash of it can sharpen a pan sauce for steak or pork, it’s excellent flambé material, and it’s especially compatible with dried fruit. I have soaked dried currants in whiskey to add to a simple chocolate cake. For this recipe, which takes its cue from the Blood and Sand cocktail made with orange juice and Scotch, I used the spirit to bolster a warm bread pudding laced with orange, both grated zest and candied peel, and finished with a marmalade and whiskey glaze. Supermarkets and fancy food shops, as well as online sources, sell candied orange peel. But absent that ingredient you can substitute slivered dried Turkish apricots.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Spring for me means discarding dark sauces and turning toward ingredients that are light and green. Here I’m inspired by the French blanquette, a stew, usually veal, in a creamy white sauce. I replaced the veal with plump sea scallops and brightened the whole thing with verdant, seasonal asparagus. Traditionally a blanquette is thickened with egg yolks and has pearl onions and often button mushrooms in the mix. The onion is in my version, but minced. I also omitted the mushrooms and used new potatoes that, unlike the mushrooms, help thicken a sauce made without the egg yolks. The result is a dish that’s fancy enough for guests yet easy enough for a weeknight.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Just as a little saffron, garlic and paprika can conjure the flavors of Spain, so too will preserved lemons, cumin, mint and olives evoke Morocco. This salad and the accompanying couscous can be doubled or tripled to anchor a generous buffet. Both can be assembled a couple of hours in advance and set aside on a kitchen counter. Serve them at room temperature.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Here’s a summery take on grilled swordfish, dressed with the fixings for that ever-popular, all-American sandwich, the BLT. No, it's not a slice of grilled swordfish in a sandwich, though that might not be a bad idea in some other context. This dish is dinner-party fare, fresh off the grill. Bacon, arugula and tomatoes in a lemony dressing, bolstered with bacon fat, top and sauce the fish. As an added bonus, I’ve brushed some of the bacon fat on the fish before grilling. The BLT mixture can be assembled a couple of hours in advance, so the grilling is the only last-minute task. The finished dish has a bright, beautiful presentation that suits the season.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

I turn to this recipe -- adapted from the French chef Madeleine Kamman, who died in the summer of 2018 — when cool weather is on the horizon. Perhaps it’s the dried fruit or chicken braised in a sauce (instead of being striped on the grill) that appeals to the season. But it’s an easy winner for those first dinners when fall appears. Though plumped raisins are called for, other dried fruit, like diced figs or quartered prunes work well, too.

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

Though quite straightforward, this recipe for Norwegian apple cake from Nevada Berg's cookbook “North Wild Kitchen” did raise a question. A whole tablespoon of cinnamon? Really? But it was not at all excessive, giving the cake autumnal fragrance and flavor along with a nicely burnished surface. What this recipe also offers is great flexibility. Though it calls for an 8-inch springform, it also worked in a 9-inch and a 10-inch, the latter providing a little less cake in proportion to topping (though no change in cooking time). Larger pans require more fruit. And on that score, in place of apples the recipe works well with fresh figs and peaches. Small purple plums, pears, apricots and even bananas are some other options to consider. Florence Fabricant

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

This Basque classic from Marti Buckley's cookbook “Basque Country: A Culinary Journey Through a Food Lover's Paradise,” requires a bit of quick stove work once the clams start to open. You must be sure there is a nice amount of liquid in the bottom of the pan, enough to swirl around so the flour coating on the fish and the olive oil can thicken and emulsify the sauce. And though it's called salsa verde, it's not a dense herbal purée as in Italian cooking but a fresh, rather sheer parsley-based mixture. Florence Fabricant

Florence Fabricant · NYT Cooking

The chef Kyle Connaughton’s recipe for pickled mackerel is straight out of the Japanese playbook. It’s simple and foolproof to prepare, and the time it takes is mostly unattended. He serves it plain or over rice that’s been dressed with some cucumber and toasted sesame seeds. I also tried seasoning the rice with a couple of spoonfuls of the leftover vinegar marinade plus grated ginger, black sesame seeds, minced scallions and diced avocado, and Mr. Connaughton seconded that idea, as well as the notion of serving the pickled fish Scandinavian-style, with sour cream, sweet onions and boiled potatoes. Florence Fabricant