Recipes

Vaughn Vreeland · NYT Cooking

This time-tested family recipe from Susan Herbst will change the minds of any scone skeptics. The mother of Becky Hughes, an assistant editor at The Times, Dr. Herbst is an avid baker who perfected this recipe after more than 30 years of tinkering. The crunchy, crusty exterior is typical of a standard scone, but one bite proves they’re something special. The interior is especially supple and buttery, while the use of cake flour ensures a supremely tender texture that’s neither dry nor crumbly. Dr. Herbst calls for chocolate chips, but feel free to customize with different mix-ins, such as blueberries, dried cranberries or cinnamon chips. These are best warm with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

Vaughn Vreeland · NYT Cooking

It’s impossible to not smile when you gaze at these out-of-this-world treats. This is a blondie riff on the classic American grocery store treat, Cosmic Brownies, with a marbled galaxy-like topping. Brown butter and a good bit of salt are the backbone of this recipe’s base, which comes together in minutes and is extremely customizable. Try adding any of your favorite mix-ins, such as toasted nuts or sprinkles. The swirled ganache topping may look intimidating, but with a spatula and a bit of confidence, it’s very easy to achieve something striking. Make sure to choose a mix of colors that look nice when they run together, and most importantly, make sure to have fun while swirling them.

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

The chef Fany Gerson makes her tangy and sweet roast chicken with an apricot glaze: a mixture of apricot jam, butter and garlic that is applied while the chicken is in the oven, keeping it juicy and flavorful inside and out. The apricot butter is also whisked into the pan drippings, along with shallots and red wine vinegar, to make a vibrant sauce. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

The chef Fany Gerson’s spicy, dynamic take on a classic matzo ball soup is a staple of her Rosh Hashana table. The broth gets a bright kick from green chiles, cilantro and garlic; the matzo balls are blended with onions and fresh herbs (use an extra-large pot to prevent the balls from overcrowding); and the finished soup is garnished with even more onions, chiles and cilantro, plus avocado and lime for freshness and color. The broth calls for two chickens, even though you use the meat from only one of the chickens shredded in the soup. Ms. Gerson says using two chickens boosts the flavor of the broth, and you can use the meat from the second one the following day for enchiladas or tacos. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Asado, a complex, salty-sour dish of pork shoulder slowly cooked in tomato sauce flavored with garlic, soy sauce and calamansi (a small citrus fruit), is a dish frequently eaten in Pampanga, said to be the culinary capital of the Philippines, and it is often served at large gatherings. This recipe comes from Chad and Chase Valencia, brothers and owners of the Los Angeles restaurant Lasa, who serve their mother’s asado alongside turkey and honey-roasted ham at Thanksgiving. The trick to the asado’s rich depths is evaporated milk; for a little extra salt and heft, you can add grated queso de bola, the nutty Filipino cheese served during the holidays. Don’t skip the overnight refrigeration step, which really allows the flavors to deepen. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Breakfast is hugely important in Filipino culture, a legacy of the country’s rich agricultural past, when farmworkers ate large morning meals to get through the day. Accordingly, the morning after Thanksgiving, the brothers Chad and Chase Valencia — who own the Filipino restaurant Lasa in Los Angeles's Chinatown — make breakfast sandwiches for their family out of leftover asado (a salty-sour pork dish), ham or turkey. The sandwiches are endlessly customizable: Chase mixes the asado and its accompanying sauce into the eggs, like a scramble, to become the base of the sandwich, while Chad crowns his with a fried egg. But the constants are the queso de bola, a nutty Filipino cheese (similar to Edam cheese) served during the holidays that melts elegantly atop the meat, and pan de sal, a slightly squishy, yeasted roll whose sweetness stands up to all the savory components of the sandwich. Both the cheese and the pan de sal are readily available at many Asian grocery stores, and well worth ge

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Silog, rice bathed in lots of garlic and crowned with a runny egg, is a hearty and essential part of any Filipino breakfast, and it comes together very quickly. For Chad and Chase Valencia, brothers and owners of the Filipino restaurant Lasa, in Los Angeles, the best time to make silog is the morning after Thanksgiving, when they top it with seared leftover turkey (or ham), and gravy to moisten the bits of rice. You're going to have to plan ahead for this recipe, as it’s best made with day-old rice; freshly made rice won't get as crisp in the pan. And don't be intimidated by the amount of garlic here — it all mellows out, while still providing a potent punch. Chad notes that this dish will work in almost any nonstick pan, except for a steel or aluminum-bottomed pan; you could even use a well-seasoned cast-iron pan or wok. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

There are two secrets to this silky, not-too-sweet pudding, a Jamaican holiday staple from Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig: Freshly grated nutmeg provides the warm, toasty flavor and batatas (white-fleshed sweet potatoes) give the dish its dense, starchy texture. The combination of sweet potato and coconut is decadent, but not overly so — like a poundcake merged with a cheesecake. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig, prepares this hearty, spicy dish from her native Jamaica with her homemade curry powder blend. It’s worth making to maximize the dish’s depth and complexity, and the recipe here makes extra (which can be used in any kind of stew or braise). Hazel insists that the best way to prepare goat is not to brown the meat first, but to cook everything all at once in the same pot. “When you heat everything up together,” she said, all the flavor “gets locked in there.” Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Callaloo is a simple stewed dish of greens, tomatoes, onions and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. The dish is eaten across the Caribbean, but this version comes from Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig of L’Artusi in Manhattan. Hazel makes the dish every Christmas exactly as she ate it in Jamaica: with saltfish, which adds heft and a pleasant funk. If you’re not able to get callaloo (which can be found in fresh or canned form at Caribbean markets and some international grocery stores), any sturdy green will do, like kale or Swiss chard. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

In many South Asian households, making yogurt is standard practice. The writer Priya Krishna’s father has been making yogurt at the family’s home in Dallas for as long as she can remember, using a yogurt culture he has kept going for more than 25 years. No store-bought yogurt has ever held a candle to the homemade version, which is thick and pleasantly tangy. You can really taste the milk. (Organic milk will often yield a creamier result.) You may have been told that you need special machines and containers to make yogurt, but this recipe, which appears in her 2019 cookbook “Indian-ish,” is quite simple: All that’s required is a heavy-bottomed pot and an oven. You can use one batch of yogurt as the culture for the next, and watch your yogurt evolve over time. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

I could use all sorts of fancy words to explain this dish, but the best description is this: pizza in rice form. The inspiration for the recipe, though, is oddly enough not Italian — it’s a hybrid of a classic South Indian tomato rice with onions and a shockingly fantastic Spanish rice recipe my mom and I photocopied out of my seventh-grade Spanish textbook for a school project. The crispy, bubbly, broiled Cheddar topping (use the sharpest white Cheddar you can find!) adds a little something something, making it a worthy dinner party dish. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Of all the places my mom, who lives in Dallas, has traveled for work, her favorite will always be London — the cobblestone streets, the limitless sights, the walkability and, most important, the pubs. She spent a lot of time in pubs on early '90s London business trips, and the only vegetarian dish was very often a baked potato. This is where she discovered the ingenuity of filling a soft, steamy potato with all kinds of tasty toppings that absorb nicely into the starchy flesh. In this recipe, she subs out the big potato for smaller, thin-skinned ones (for a prettier presentation), and the bacon bits, chives and packaged cheese for spicier, brighter toppings: chiles, chaat masala, onions and ginger. This dish takes almost no time to put together once the potatoes are baked, but looks very impressive as an appetizer or a small side. Tip: Cut the ginger, onion and chiles while the potatoes bake, so everything is ready for assembly. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

This chicken, which is the brainchild of my aunt Sonia, is legendary among our cousins. Until recently, though, no one knew what, exactly, went into it. Whenever my aunt would make it on a family vacation, she’d disappear for a half-hour and reemerge with a Ziploc bag filled with the marinade and the chicken breasts. No one (not even her only daughter, Isha) was allowed to know the contents. The marinating chicken would smell so good, I’d legitimately have thoughts about eating it raw, carpaccio-style (which is disgusting, I know!). Well, folks, I am here to tell you that, after much negotiation, I have finally pried that chicken recipe out of Sonia’s hands. Both the marinade and the cooking method (low and sort of slow) feel ingenious to me, and the payoff is huge: Charred, spicy, slightly funky, juicy chicken that is equally wonderful by itself or rolled up in a roti, taco-style, and served with various salads and chutneys. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Here’s a simple, no-bake sweet that riffs on peanut laddoos, a bite-size Indian confection made of ghee, sugar and nuts, with a chocolate coating inspired by buckeyes, the peanut butter and chocolate treat popular in Ohio. It was dreamed up by Hetal Vasavada, the blogger and author of the dessert cookbook “Milk & Cardamom,” which combines the traditional Indian flavors she grew up with and the Western sweets she encountered as an American kid in New Jersey. The cardamom, ghee and jaggery provide both an interesting twist to the traditional flavor combination and a slightly grittier texture, which Ms. Vasavada likens to that of a Butterfinger candy bar. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

These vegetarian nachos take their cues from paapdi or papri chaat, the spicy, tangy and sweet Indian snack of fried dough wafers piled with chickpeas, tomatoes, onions, yogurt and various chutneys. This take starts with standard nacho elements: tortilla chips, black beans and a healthy amount of bubbly, melted cheese. But the classic chaat pairing of spicy and verdant cilantro chutney with sweet and sour tamarind sauce provides another level of brightness and complexity. Don’t skip the chhonk, a sauce made of melted ghee, cumin seeds and red chile powder that is drizzled over the top of the nachos. It provides a rich finish and even more crunch.

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

This cozy vegetable main is an ode to earthy, maple-y fenugreek, a staple spice of Indian cooking that is a perfect match for the mild sweetness of butternut squash. Normally roasted, butternut squash is gently stewed here with ginger, onion, turmeric, tomatoes and brown sugar, bringing out a unique and addictive sweet-and-sour flavor. Kaddu is traditionally paired with puri, a type of fried bread, but roti, tortillas and even toast work well with this bright and hearty one-pot dish. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

There is nothing quite like the tangy, sweet and sour sensation of tamarind, the main ingredient in this essential Indian chutney. In chaat, a category of spicy, savory, tangy and crunchy Indian snacks, tamarind chutney provides the pungent, pucker-inducing element that makes those dishes so craveable. In this recipe, from Maneet Chauhan’s cookbook, “Chaat” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), the tamarind flavor is sweetened with jaggery, dates and raisins, and brightened up with ginger, with deep umami coming from the chaat masala. It’s possible to find high-quality store-bought tamarind chutney, but nothing beats the vibrant flavors of a fresh batch made at home. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

In her cookbook, “Chaat” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), the chef Maneet Chauhan refers to this bright, spicy chutney as a “workhorse staple in the Indian pantry.” She uses it primarily in chaat, but also drizzles it on top of roasted vegetables, dollops it onto soups and spoons it over scrambled eggs. This chutney “makes virtually any Indian recipe taste better,” she said, with its harmony of lively, complex flavors, such as chaat masala and asafetida. Like a lot of chutneys, it also includes toasted dal, which brings nuttiness and a little texture. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

This vibrant green chutney from Maneet Chauhan’s “Chaat” (Clarkson Potter, 2020) is as easy to make as it is versatile. The combination of mint, cilantro, green chiles and lime juice makes for a fresh and bright sauce, but the mango pulp is especially key, giving the chutney a slightly creamy texture and a subtly sweet flavor. This chutney has a lot of uses in Indian cuisine — a building block for chaat, or a dipping sauce for pakora, for example — and it can also be used as a sandwich spread or marinade. It lasts up to two weeks, refrigerated, in an airtight container, but it will start to lose its vibrancy and flavor after a week — best to make it one batch at a time to enjoy that day. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

The beauty of chaat — a category of tangy, sweet, fiery and crunchy Indian snacks — is that it’s built for customization. The only common denominator is that alchemy of flavor sensations, often driven by a combination of sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney, a bright herb chutney (like this cilantro-mint chutney or this green chile chutney) and cooling raita. Otherwise, base ingredients and toppings (and even those chutneys!) can all be interchanged. This spirit is the driving force behind Maneet Chauhan’s chaat party, from her cookbook, “Chaat” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), a choose-your-own-adventure spread that allows eaters to build a chaat suited to their tastes: More crunch! Less spicy! More sweet! More herbs! It’s entirely up to you. This is a great way to entertain, and also a quick, no-cook dinner. Use this list as a starting point for ingredients, but feel free to get creative. If you are able to get banana leaves, spread them out over the table before arranging everything else on top

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

For Haitians, soup joumou is synonymous with freedom. The story goes that during French colonial rule of Haiti, enslaved Africans were forced by their oppressors to cultivate squash for this dish but were not allowed to eat it. When Haitians won their independence on Jan. 1, 1804, they ate soup joumou to celebrate. The formula varies slightly from family to family, but usually includes calabaza squash, beef marinated in a bright epis seasoning of onions, peppers and herbs, an assortment of other vegetables and pasta. This classic version is adapted from “Let’s Speak Haitian Food: Stories from the Haitian Diaspora on Cuisine, Community and Culture” by Cindy Similien, a Haitian-American author and community advocate. The inclusion of both vermicelli and homemade dumplings adds a springy bite and thickens the broth of this one-pot dish, which can be made on Haitian Independence Day, or for any special occasion. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

This cozy dessert from Sara Mardanbigi and Edgar Rico, the owners of Nixta Taqueria in Austin, Texas, is a take on sholeh zard, a loose, heavily spiced Persian rice pudding Ms. Mardanbigi grew up eating. It also borrows influence from the Mexican arroz con leche of Mr. Rico’s childhood. Their take is warm and smoky with black cardamom and saffron, velvety from egg yolks and butter, and has a savory finish. It calls for arborio rice instead of the usual basmati to add a slight chew, and strawberry powder instead of rosewater to provide similar floral notes with a punch of acid. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

In the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series (later known on television as “Game of Thrones”), George R.R. Martin devotes a lot of ink to lemon cakes, a favorite of the Lady of Winterfell Sansa Stark. The cakes have since become a pop culture totem for fans of the series. This recipe is inspired by a version found in “A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook” by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer. You don’t need to be a fan of “Game of Thrones” to love these cookielike treats, which are dense in texture, bright in flavor and boast a tart-sweet lemon glaze. The cakes are easy to throw together for a potluck or to satisfy a teatime craving. Priya Krishna