European

Panna cotta is an Italian custard dessert. It's similar to pudding but is thickened with gelatin instead of egg yolks. This version is a velvety almond custard topped with fresh cherries and a candied almond garnish.

Layers of homemade mixed herb pesto lend a fresh brightness to this vegetarian main.

What makes this beautiful appetizer even more attractive? Both of the salsas and the toasted baguette slices can be prepared one day ahead.

Making your own coarse fresh breadcrumbs takes just a minute; see "Test-Kitchen Tip" at the end of the recipe for the how-to.

See "Ingredient Tip" for information on buying pizza dough.

Floating islands are similar to snow eggs but are baked in the oven in a bain-marie (water bath). The dessert can be made in individual portions, as here, or in a large soufflé mold. The bottom of each mold is coated with a caramel finished with butter to keep it a bit softer. The filled molds are then cooked, surrounded by water, in a roasting pan. Some of the caramel adheres to the bottom of the dishes when the floating islands are unmolded, but some of it drips down over the desserts to mix with the custard sauce. The rum-custard sauce is made with fewer egg yolks than traditionally called for in a custard cream. The milk, cornstarch, and sugar mixture is brought to a rolling boil and poured directly on top of the yolks. Because of the small proportion of egg yolks to milk, the temperature of the mixture rises to 180 degrees, ensuring that the lecithin in the egg yolks wil thicken. The sauce doesn't need further cooking and is strained to eliminate any curdled pieces. Here the custard sauce is flavored with rum, but it could be flavored with cognac, bourbon or vanilla instead. Floating islands can be cooked a day or so ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator so the tops don't get rubbery. Covering also keeps the dessert moist, preventing the sugar from hardening around the edge of the molds, and thus making the floating islands easier to unmold.

Baked Alaska is called an "omelette norvégienne" in French when made in the oval shape of an omelete. However, this dessert is done in a conical shape to emulate a volcano; hence its name. The top of a "volcano" is adorned with a hollowed-out lemon half that is filled (as soon as it comes out of the oven) with warm brandy, which is ignited, and the dessert is brought flaming to the table. The lemon mousseline cake, used here to hold the ice cream in the center, can be made a day or two ahead and stored in a plastic bag to keep it moist. If you prefer, a standard genoise or a sponge cake or pound cake can be substituted for the mousseline cake, as can ladyfingers. The volcano bakes quickly, in 10 to 12 minutes, and should be brought to the table as it comes out of the oven. Although the egg whites shouldn't be beaten until the last moment, the ice cream and cake can be assembled ahead and kept covered in the freezer.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Mousse is an elegant variation on Chocolate Mousse with hazelnut paste. Like Chocolate Mousse, this can be spooned into attractive goblets, topped with a bit of whipped cream, and served as is, or used as a filling for a layer cake. It also can be piped over the cooled Hazelnut Brownies, creating a simple but surprisingly memorable dessert.

If the polenta is ready before the rest of the meal, keep it in the pan and press parchment or waxed paper directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming; partially covering the pan with the lid will also work. Stir well before serving.

This recipe yields puffy, golden pancakes with minimal effort because they’re baked rather than cooked on top of the stove. Lemon cuts the sweetness of these pancakes and imparts its fresh, citrusy flavor. Serve with Venison Sausages (page 185).

This is a different sort of frittata, not the neat golden round of well-set eggs that’s probably most familiar. Here the eggs are in the skillet for barely a minute, just long enough to gather in soft, loose folds, filled with morsels of asparagus and shreds of prosciutto. In fact, when I make this frittata or the “dragged” eggs—uova strapazzate, page 143—I leave my eggs still wet and glistening so I can mop up the plate with a crust of country bread. That’s the best part of all.

Sweet crabmeat and sweet peas make a great match in this springlike risotto.

These Provençal eggs, laced with softened onions and chard, never fail to elicit sighs of appreciation. I'm forever grateful to Nathalie Waag for making trouchia when she came to visit—it has since become a favorite. The trick to its success is to cook everything slowly so that the flavors really deepen and sweeten.

This old "gourmet" standby can indeed be spectacular, or it can be exceedingly dull. Everything rests on the quality of the ingredients. With good cheese, first-rate ham, homemade crumbs, and a little care in the cooking, you can't go wrong. If, however, you use indifferent, packaged boiled ham and ordinary cheese, and add insult to injury by overcooking them, you'll kill yourself wondering what all the fuss is about.

This recipe is a lifer. I’ve been making it for more than 20 years, and every time I try to file it away, someone inevitably comes along asking for it. I brought it to my first staff get-together when I was working at Chez Panisse and, from then on, for all of the parties that followed, when I would even think of making something different, my friends and coworkers would cry out for this caramelized chocolate bread pudding. A few years later, the bread pudding gained an East Coast fan club, too. I was working at Alloro, a tiny restaurant in Boston’s Italian district. Back then, the Mafia owned all the local cafés and had a monopoly on the dessert-and-coffee crowd. Whereas the other (probably wiser) restaurants on the street obeyed the unspoken law of not selling dessert, at Alloro we broke the rule and secretly served this bread pudding to our in-the-know customers. We worked hard to keep the highly requested dessert under cover, and it seems we succeeded: both the recipe and I are still around. A few things make this bread pudding better than most. I love custards and am often disappointed by bread puddings with too much bread and not enough pudding. So be careful to use just a single layer of brioche, which creates a crispy crust but won’t absorb all the rich, silky custard underneath. Once you break through the caramelized, toasty top layer and dig down through the luscious custard, a treasure of melted chocolate awaits you at the bottom.

Pop a few of these to feel lively all night long—they supply energizing iron and protein. And capsaicin, the compound that gives chiles their fire, may kick up your metabolism.

Snacking on this tapa could keep you serene: The omega-3s in tuna may help quell anxiety. Seek out pole-and-line-caught bonito tuna; it's safe to eat and sustainable.

Party food can peel off pounds! These Spanish peppers could help you drop a size. We use goat cheese instead of traditional manchego to slash fat. Plus, two peppers deliver a third of your daily vitamin C needs, and C has been shown to increase fat burning during exercise.

Bread pudding was originally created as a way to use up stale bread. Today, the dessert is a favorite in the U.K. and the U.S. Here, rich brioche is combined with a vanilla custard and pieces of tangy ginger-infused rhubarb.

Legend has it that the Bakewell tart was invented in the 1800s in the village of Bakewell. An inexperienced cook made a mistake when putting together a strawberry tart—and ended up with a pie crust with a layer of preserves on the bottom and a soft, cake-like filling. This version uses raspberry preserves, but strawberry would also be delicious.