European

Somewhat more elegant than its more famous French cousin, which is featured in the variation. Good hot, perhaps even better warm or at room temperature, this is an ideal buffet or picnic preparation. Like the eggplant pie on page 459, this may be prepared without a crust. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: onions of any type.

Almonds grow abundantly in Spain—you see the trees throughout the South and easily find fresh almonds, which are a rarity here—and play an integral role in many dishes, offering a rich flavor and body to sauces. This dish is a perfect weeknight offering, but it’s also a fine main course at a dinner party. I like monkfish here, but striped bass, grouper, red snapper, and black sea bass are all suitable; each will cook at slightly varying rates (the monkfish will take the most time, red snapper the least). This is wonderful over either white rice or a pilaf (page 513) or with crusty bread.

Sherry, garlic, and chickpeas, a decidedly Andalusian combination of flavors, is served by itself or as a side dish with almost any cut of meat, fish, or poultry. But I like it best with cod: the subtlety and tenderness of the fish are offset wonderfully by the big, almost meaty flavors of the scented chickpeas yet are not overwhelmed by them. If you have any advance inkling at all that you’re going to be tackling this recipe, try to cook dried chickpeas for it in advance (page 431). The best sherry to use here is Amontillado, which is slightly but not overpoweringly sweet; a ten-dollar bottle of Amontillado will suffice, and since you’re only going to use about a quarter of the bottle, there will be plenty left to chill and drink. Second choices would be slightly sweeter Oloroso or drier Fino.

Classically, meunière refers to fillets of sole that are floured and quickly sautéed in clarified butter, then finished with parsley, lemon juice, and a little melted butter. Over the years the definition has expanded to encompass a series of flexible techniques that can be applied to just about any thin cut of meat, poultry, or fish.You can serve this with a salad and bread, or with any good potato and vegetable combination. True sole is a uniquely firm fish, best replaced not by local “soles” (like gray sole or Pacific sole) but by sturdy fillets like red snapper, grouper, catfish, black-fish, or sea bass.

Everyone who grows red peppers roasts red peppers, because it is, to use a legal term, their highest and best use. Once they’re roasted, you can include them in a variety of recipes found here and in other books, or you can sauté them with onion and tomato, include them in stews, or put them on sandwiches. Arguably, they are at their best when served at room temperature, drizzled with oil and perhaps with some capers and anchovies. (They also keep very, very well, up to a few days, refrigerated.) You can roast these, grill them, or broil them; all methods work about equally well. Obviously, if you grill over wood, you’re going to get some added (and welcome) flavors.

A sweet classic, peperonata, like many vegetable stews, is easily varied: add chunks of potato, chicken, or zucchini or some minced garlic; a small chile or a bit of cayenne is also appropriate. Serve it hot as a side dish, warm as a topping for Crostini (page 41), or cold as a relish.

This is a side dish or an appetizer, but a very quick one, since piquillos (sold in cans or jars) are already cooked. You can use freshly roasted red peppers (page 470) as a substitute, but not canned pimientos, which will fall apart (and, in most cases, are tasteless anyway). Add a few anchovy fillets along with the garlic if you like.

The presence of artichokes in Liguria (the “Italian Riviera”) is enough to make you envious; they’re everywhere, they’re good, and everyone seems to know what to do with them. Here’s a simple dish, assuming you can get your hands on some good artichoke hearts. This is wonderful with either crusty bread or a simple rice dish, like Rice with Onions, Garlic, and Herbs (page 518). See page 98 for squid cleaning instructions if you need them.

Among my favorite squid dishes. Although sautéing, stir-frying, and deep-frying are good, fast techniques for squid, they tend to be messy because of squid’s marked tendency to spatter when cooked in oil. A gentle braise in flavorful liquid and seasonings is the perfect alternative, and this one, with its Provençal spirit, is delicious and warming. See page 98 if you buy squid that hasn’t been cleaned. Crusty bread is a must; keep the vegetable simple.

Even more so than most other people in the world with access to refined sugar, the Swedes and their fellow Scandinavians incorporate it into the most unlikely dishes. In this one, the caramel is not cooked until it becomes strongly bitter, but just slightly so. The butter then mellows it out. Not exactly health food by today’s standards, but a glorious side dish at any feast.

The combination of sauerkraut, juniper, and fruity wine is a divine one. You might as well use a German wine to be completely consistent. Best with pork, like Baeckoffe (page 399).

More than anywhere else, cooks in Portugal combine seafood and meat with abandon, and it usually works. This dish cries out for crusty bread. If you want a milder garlic flavor, add it along with the tomatoes so it cooks a little longer.

Every winemaking culture in the world cooks with its local product, but only Spain has sherry. And while sherry is not quite all-purpose, as simple white wine is, it is manifestly more powerful and incomparably more complex; in fact it rivals stock in the character it adds to many dishes. (When Spanish food comes with a good-tasting but anonymous “brown sauce,” you can bet it contains a hefty dose of sherry.) Sherry combined with seafood, olive oil, and garlic, as in this recipe, produces a magically Spanish dish, one that is not only classic but awesome and one you can consider a template for many others. You can spend a fortune on sherry, but since each bottle is the product of several different vintages it is consistent from year to year, and the fact that it is stabilized by alcohol enhances its shelf life (refrigerated, an opened bottle retains flavor good enough to drink for several days, and sometimes even longer if used for cooking). In short, all real sherry is good, and bottles costing ten bucks are more than acceptable. Fino is probably best for drinking, but the slightly sweeter, nuttier Amontillado and Oloroso are perhaps a little better for cooking. As is almost always the case in cooking, the clams you use here should be as small as you can find. Tiny ones the size of a quarter are fun, but the slightly larger cockles or West Coast “butter” clams are equally tender and easier to eat. Mahogany clams or good littlenecks are also fine; do not use “steamers,” whose sand will spoil the dish. In any case, buy only live clams; their shells should be undamaged and nearly impossible to pry open. Rinse them, scrubbing their shells if necessary, to rid them of all sand. Those that do not open during the cooking are fine; just pry them open at the table with a dull knife. Serve this as an appetizer or a main course, with good bread for sopping up the sauce.

In Lyon, fat remains king, which makes it a pleasure to eat there—assuming you can put your guilt aside. This salad is best made with a mixture of greens, some of which should be bitter, like dandelion. The poached egg (which ideally will be hot) softens everything, the bacon provides salt, crunch, and fat, the vinegar spices it all up—the combination is really a treat. One of my favorite lunches and a knockout first course, which should be followed by something light.

The story about this so-called Russian classic is that it was created by a nineteenth-century French chef, M. Olivier, who ran The Hermitage, a famous restaurant in Moscow. It is essentially a potato salad–chicken salad combo and, as such, eminently useful. This recipe outlines the basic salad; you can improvise as you would for Salade Niçoise (page 196).

Spanakopita is among the best-known Greek dishes in the States, though the leaden, soggy versions you often encounter here are wildly different from the cheese and spinach pies served in Greece. The key to making a light spanakopita is to use a relatively small amount of strongly flavored fillings, butter every layer of phyllo—which helps the pastry stay flaky, light, and crisp—and start with good feta. As always, when working with phyllo dough (page 629), make sure you keep the pieces that you are not working with covered with a damp towel; see Baklava (page 628) for more details.

The definition of a classic Niçoise salad is often contested, especially now that it is so popular at cafés and restaurants. It is, however, essentially a country salad, so the ingredients depend on what is in season. The basics of this rough country salad are lettuce, hard cooked eggs, anchovy fillets, black olives, tomatoes, and garlic in the dressing. Most people add tuna, too, but you can consider it optional. Among the myriad other possible additions are cooked green beans, potatoes, and artichoke hearts, raw or roasted bell pepper, capers, and basil.

There are many ways to make spinach gratin: you can use heavy cream as a medium (essentially making creamed spinach, then baking it with cheese) or stir spinach into a white sauce. This is the most substantial, essentially a custard, and my favorite.

Potato salad is an American classic, but this is a lot more flavorful than the mayonnaise-based version. It’s great served warm, but the important thing to remember is that it’s far better at room temperature than cold. If you like, add about 1/4 pound diced slab bacon, cooked until crisp, along with 1/2 cup minced shallot or mild onion for a Germanic twist.

A beauty—mild, soothing, and delicious. Be sure to use waxy (“new”) potatoes, which will not fall apart. As with the other tarts in this chapter, this is best warm or at room temperature and may be prepared without any crust at all. If you’re using a crust, the recipe will take less time if you have a premade crust.