Recipes

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

This photogenic, red-and-green whole fish from Contramar in Mexico City has been replicated at restaurants across the country, and for good reason. The bright, zingy parsley sauce painted on one side and the smoky, spicy chile sauce on the other make for a brilliant balance of flavors and colors. The dish is based on a traditional coastal Mexican dish, but it was the addition of the parsley sauce and the presentation — the brainchild of Gabriela Cámara, the chef of Contramar — that made this dish a worldwide sensation. It may look dramatic, but the technique is quite simple, and can easily be adapted for fillets rather than a whole fish. Priya Krishna

Priya Krishna · NYT Cooking

Bhel puri — a type of chaat made with puffed rice, chutneys and various toppings — is the ultimate entertaining dish, whether you are hosting or bringing a dish to a potluck. Most of it can be prepared in advance, leaving mostly the assembly which allows you to really put on a show for your guests. You can make a good chaat with store-bought chutneys and bhel mix. But it’s the homemade chutneys and fried tortilla strips that make this exceptional, providing the sweet-salty-fresh-crunchy combination that is the hallmark of chaat. The ingredient list is long, but after you make the chutneys, you are 80 percent of the way there. When you have the components prepared, set them out in bowls, invite all your guests to gather around, and make your chaat live, tasting and tossing for everyone to see.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This recipe, from “Dessert Person” (Clarkson Potter, 2020) is one of those ace-up-your-sleeve, slice-and-bake cookie recipes every baker needs. The pinwheels are super tasty, need no decoration and require no major assembly. These buttery, nutty, shortbready cookies achieve the highest calling for any recipe: They look and taste as if they are harder to make than they are. (Watch Claire make them here.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This recipe is a detailed roadmap to making bakery-quality light, flaky croissants in your own kitchen. With a pastry as technical as croissants, some aspects of the process — gauging the butter temperature, learning how much pressure to apply to the dough while rolling — become easier with experience. If you stick to this script, buttery homemade croissants are squarely within your reach. (Make sure your first attempt at croissants is a successful one, with these tips, and Claire Saffitz’s step-by-step video on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

The amount of ham and cheese inside these croissants might seem a tad skimpy, but resist the urge to add more. The extra moisture from the filling can make the interior soggy and affect how the dough rises, so rest assured it’s more than enough to flavor these savory pastries. (Make sure your first attempt at croissants is a successful one, with these tips, and Claire Saffitz’s step-by-step video on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Chocolate sticks called “batons” are made especially for rolling easily into pain au chocolat. Here, two batons are spiraled into the dough so you get rich pockets of chocolate in each bite of flaky croissant. You can order batons online, but regular chocolate bars, cut crosswise into thin sticks, work just as well. Either way, use a good-quality chocolate. (Make sure your first attempt at croissants is a successful one, with these tips, and Claire Saffitz’s step-by-step video on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Rum simple syrup and toasted almond cream — both quick and easy to assemble — are all you need to transform stale homemade or store-bought croissants into deliciously sweet and fragrant pastries. The amount of syrup might feel excessive, but it’s needed to replace the moisture lost in the croissants as they become stale, so be generous when soaking them.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This recipe makes a classic sesame-studded hamburger bun with just the right amount of sweetness and richness to complement but not overwhelm a beefy patty (or whatever you like to put on your bun). It toasts beautifully, which is recommended to add a bit of sturdiness to the soft crumb. Make sure you let the dough proof fully before baking, otherwise the surface of the buns might split. The recipe time factors in dough preparation. If you already have all-purpose enriched bread dough on hand, this is much swifter work.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This dough, a hybrid of brioche and Japanese milk bread, bakes into a light, soft loaf with a silky crumb. There are two key steps to the bread’s texture: The first is a tangzhong, or “water roux,” which originated in Japanese baking but was popularized throughout Asia and beyond by the Taiwanese pastry chef Yvonne Chen. The second is a long, slow mix that develops sufficient strength in the dough to support a lofty rise in the oven. Unless you have superhuman strength and patience, a stand mixer is required. The dough is slightly sweet, making it ideal for cinnamon rolls or pistachio morning buns, and suitable for sandwich bread or hamburger buns.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This is a decidedly less-sweet kind of morning bun, topped with a lemony, cardamom-scented sugar for crunch and flavor rather than the typical icing or sticky goo of a cinnamon bun. Unlike most sweet buns, which tend to stale quickly, these stay soft and pillowy long after they cool. The buns are best the day they’re baked but will keep, stored airtight at room temperature, for up to 4 days. The recipe time factors in dough preparation. If you already have all-purpose enriched bread dough on hand, this is much swifter work.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This delicate cake is inspired by fraisier, a French cake made from layers of sponge, strawberries and cream. Fraisier cakes are elaborately constructed and typically combine several components to make the cream filling, but this strawberry cake is lighter, looser and much more casual. To avoid squishing the cake when slicing, use a serrated knife in long, even strokes to cut clean slices. (Watch Claire make this cake and two others on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

The exquisite combination of raspberries and cream is made even more so by the addition of this light, finely textured sponge cake. The cake should be chilled before serving to ensure it holds its shape. Because the sponge is oil-based rather than butter-based, it stays soft and flexible even when cold. (Watch Claire make this cake and two others on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

These rich yet refreshing lime bars are for citrus lovers who appreciate puckering acidity in their desserts. The curd filling contains a bit of cornstarch, so it sets firmly in the oven, allowing you to slice, stack and store the bars easily. A little fresh mint inside the shortbread crust — which is made entirely by hand — adds an herbal complement to the lime.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This dairy-free babka, enriched with olive oil and flavored with a ribbon of almond flour, brown sugar and cinnamon, starts with a classic challah bread dough. In the oven, the oil and sugar mingle to create a chewy, caramelized coating. You can omit the almond flour to make this nut-free, but the cinnamon ribbon will not be as pronounced. Be sure to let the babkas proof fully before baking, which will ensure a light, supple texture. (Watch Claire make this recipe on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

This challah recipe is ideal for first-time bread bakers, as it contains several checks and tests to indicate exactly when you’re ready to move on to the next step, minimizing the potential for failure. The biggest risk factor is underproofing, especially in a cool environment (the dough is temperature-sensitive), so for a light, silky loaf, make sure you give it sufficient time. If your oven has a proof setting, you can use it to speed up the process considerably. (Watch Claire make and braid this dough on YouTube.)

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

While soufflés are delicate and sensitive creations, they're also fundamentally simple, consisting of a flavored base that's lightened with beaten egg whites. The keys to success are beating the egg whites properly so they're stable and voluminous, working quickly to prevent their collapse, and thoroughly greasing the ramekins so the mixture can rise unencumbered in the oven.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Like a creamless gratin, this potato casserole gets its flavor and richness from caramelized onions and chicken (or turkey) stock. For a sliceable texture, bake the casserole ahead of time and let it cool completely (during which time the gelatin in the stock and the starch in the potatoes will set), then reheat before serving.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Unlike American-style twice-baked potatoes, which are laden with cheese and sour cream, these potatoes, inspired by the French dish pommes duchesse, get their richness primarily from egg yolks. While you can scoop the filling back into the skins with a spoon, piping it with a star-tipped pastry bag makes the potatoes especially fancy.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

If you like the creaminess of mashed potatoes but not the uniform texture, try this potato cake, which is like a cross between hash browns and a classic mash. Made with fluffy baked russet potatoes and flavored with garlic, browned butter and tangy sour cream, the cake is cooked on the stovetop, then transferred to the oven, where it takes on a crispy, golden brown crust. Make sure your nonstick skillet is oven-safe, or use a very well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Though this cake requires you to soak dried fruit overnight in a mixture of rum and orange juice, allowing it to become plump and soft and flavorful, before you assemble the batter, it’s exceedingly faster (and every bit as delicious) as a traditional fruitcake that takes weeks to age. For the best flavor, use the highest-quality dried fruit you can find.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Nougat is not exactly for the faint of heart: Preparing it involves heating honey and a sugar syrup separately to different temperatures and streaming them into beaten egg whites in rapid succession. Make sure you have all of your ingredients ready before you start cooking, and the reward is a candy unlike any other with a snow-white color, fresh honey flavor and lots of toasted pistachios to temper the sweetness and add crunch.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Fudge can be fickle, easily becoming grainy and hard if it’s beaten too much or if the sugar mixture crystallizes, the result of undissolved sugar crystals. Try to make fudge in a cool environment that is not humid, and, if the final texture isn’t quite what you desire, know that cooking the fudge at a temperature that’s a few degrees lower the next time will result in a softer fudge, while a few degrees higher will make it firmer. Fudge also dries out easily, so make sure it’s well wrapped.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Despite being primarily made of sugar, these soft caramels are wonderfully complex in flavor, as the sugar is cooked to a deep amber before fresh dairy is added and the mixture cooked again. Infusing the cream with coffee is optional, but it lends a pleasant bitterness to the candies.

Claire Saffitz · NYT Cooking

Named for a bicycle race that runs between Paris and Brest, France, this show-stopping dessert is an assemblage of praline-flavored ​​mousseline piped inside a ring of pâte à choux designed to resemble a bike wheel. The recipe might appear daunting, but all of the components can be prepared separately and in advance, so assembly isn’t a monumental effort.