European

For the best flavor, marinate the chicken overnight. If you're short of time, use a 15-ounce can of cannellini or lima beans instead of the dried beans. With this rich, garlicky sauce, you need only a fresh salad to complete the meal.

The sauce known as all'arrabbiata—or "in the angry style"—is made with hot red pepper flakes (and sometimes fresh chilies for an extra kick). I like to use the briny elements of olives and capers and skip the fresh chilies, adding depth to the spiciness rather than just more heat. Perfect with penne or rigatoni.

Why settle for plain old ham and cheese when you can easily make this panini? You will have some roasted radicchio left over, which is fine since it makes a nice addition to a green salad and will keep a few days in the refrigerator.

Not all cream sauces are super-rich. This pasta gets its creamy sauce from a combination of part-skim ricotta and pasta water, which come together to make a really easy, lighter cream sauce. Don’t leave out the lemon zest; it brightens the flavor and adds a wonderful lemony aroma as well.

This just might be my all-time favorite dessert. It's the simple essence of sweet apples and crisp pastry with no distractions. We've all collected several similar recipes over the years, but this is the best one I've ever made. If I need to make it even faster, I use defrosted frozen puff pastry instead of making the crust (see note), but you'll want to eat it an hour or two after it comes out of the oven.

One of the things I enjoyed most on my first visits to France were the cold rice and bean salads. They seemed so simple, and the only rice and beans I had eaten at home were hot and served in soups or casseroles, or under some creamed meat. Here is a typical French-style cold white bean salad.

Kale goes by another name, one much more dashing, especially in Italian. Cavolo Nero, black cabbage, may not evoke superhero status, but it's close. Kale does seem invincible and it's known to make the eater more so, too. It's also called dinosaur kale (also called lacinato), maybe because its leaves look like the back of a lizard. Those thin knobby leaves squeak. Do not confuse cavolo, accent on the first syllable, with cavallo, accent on the second, or you'll be ordering black horse, and in certain parts of the world will find it. Hearty and good for the spirit. I like soaked and cooked cannellini better than canned ones.

The beauty and subtlety of wild garlic makes this dish very appealing, and fresh curry leaves add a fragrance that is quite seductive. During the summer months we pod fresh coco beans and cook them directly in the curry until soft. In winter we soak dried cannellini beans overnight and precook them in water for an hour or so over gentle heat, with one or two herbs added for flavor. I like to serve this curry just as it is, but you could add chunks of white fish to it.

Picada hails from Spain, or more specifically, from Catalonia. Flavored with nuts, bread crumbs, and herbs, it is a punchy, vibrant paste—often used as a sauce to enliven dishes, and to thicken stews. Here it partners full-flavored skirt steak and elegant escarole lettuce, which is just wilted to serve as a vegetable. Like romesco, there are plenty of other uses for picada, if you have any leftover.

You can serve polenta in its most traditional form, but you can also use it to create an easy variation on gnocchi. I first learned this technique from my friend, Milan-born and-raised cooking teacher Nadia Frigieri. Making both the polenta and the sauce in a slow cooker means there’s little hands-on effort required to make this stunning dish. Adding a green salad makes this a meal.

A traditional Scottish dessert usually served on Burns' Night, cranachan or "crowdie cream" uses oatmeal and Scottish heather honey, rich amber in color and with a caramel flavor. Raspberries or loganberries are the traditional fruits, but any soft fruit can be used. Likewise, Scottish pinhead oats are best here, but the similar steel-cut oats will work too. Serve with a dram of whisky and a piece of shortbread for extra authenticity.

When we cook with friends at Silvia Baracchi's school, Cooking Under the Tuscan Sun, we often whip up this very simple dessert. I never thought of chocolate as seasonal, but in Tuscany, it's considered more appropriate for fall and winter. Seldom do you find it on a summer menu, perhaps because we have a plethora of plums, melons, and white peaches for hot weather dolce. With this, Silvia suggests a full-bodied sweet red wine with enough alcohol to "clean your mouth." Her choices are a passito from Pantelleria or an aged Recioto. I'm partial to the passito from Arnaldo Capraia.

Weighing down a chicken with bricks seems so ancient. Did the advisors to Roman emperors hatch the slogan, "A chicken under every brick," to go along with the bread and circus motif? Brick morphed so naturally from the good earth—add water and high heat (ecco fatto, terracotta) and civilization started to build in a big way. Roman bricks were longer and narrower than present-day bricks, but any brick will do. If you have a few handy, you should wash them, let them air-dry, and wrap them in a few sheets of aluminum foil. Otherwise, you can use a heavy pan of some sort. I've used an 8-quart Le Creuset, covering the bottom with aluminum foil.

The defining aspect of Swedish pancakes is their superthin size. Make these small for a sweet Sunday morning treat. Berries appear often in Swedish food, both fresh, as atop these pancakes, and in sauces for savory dishes.

Paella is arguably the most famous dish of Spain. It can be made with fish, chicken, or sausage, and sometimes is made with all three.

A spiedo is a kitchen spit over an open fire that is most often used for cooking whole animals, particularly chicken. Spiedino—;literally "little spit"—refers to food cooked on skewers, which is how we like to prepare pork loin. Grilled briefly over a smoky fire, the meat takes on an addictive char that counterbalances the sweet, mellow soffritto of pine nuts, garlic, and currants.

This recipe is (very slightly) adapted from the second St. John restaurant cookbook, Beyond Nose to Tail (if you don't already have both the St. John books, buy them now as not only are the recipes brilliant but the turn of phrase is a joy). I would recommend you buy one or two 12-hole madeleine pans for this, if you don't already have one, as once you've made these you'll be sure to make them again. You can serve the first batch while the second batch is in the oven; you'll need both.