European

Forget about chicken pieces. You can grill these two chickens— flavored (Sicilian-style) with lemon, parsley, and garlic—whole.

Our take on this dish, famously named for the fact that Italy's "ladies of the evening" quickly made it between clients, is just as fast and easy as the original and requires nothing more than some everyday items you probably have in your pantry already.

Think of this as "panzanella verde." There's a lightness here and an herby earthiness that make this the kind of salad you really want on the hottest of summer days.

While soufflés often sound difficult to make, this recipe is easy to follow and yields impressive results. We like to serve ours with high-quality vanilla bean ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

Editor's note: The recipe below is from Perfect Parties by Linnea Johansson.

Serve this yogurt-based Greek staple as a first-course accompaniment to pitas and other breads, or as a light but creamy sauce drizzled over spiced roasted meats.

You'll be amazed that anything this simple could taste so good, not to mention that all this garlic—yes, two heads, not two cloves—can produce such a seasoned, mellow taste.

Don't be frightened by the word soufflé. This subtly sophisticated dish isn't difficult at all (just be careful not to overbeat the egg whites).

Travel editor William Sertl took a weeklong boot-camp course at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. For this classic French dish, students were taught how to sauté the chicken on one side—without touching it—until it's golden, before turning it only once. The pan-sauce lesson that followed yielded a simple, elegant cloak for the very juicy chicken.

In the remote mountains of Georgia, the star ingredient of this bread called khachapuri—akin to pizza—is the firm but creamy salted cow's-milk cheese called sulguni. A blend of Havarti and mozzarella will give you a similar velvety texture.

A zeppola is an Italian fritter. The dough is similar to choux pastry, which is used to form cream puffs, éclairs, and gougères.

Pizza bianca (white pizza) is a Roman dish that's more like seasoned flatbread than your typical pizza. It's great with the salumi and cheese.

This is a traditional Tuscan method—bricks weigh down the butterflied chicken, resulting in even, quick cooking and crispy skin (you'll need two bricks for this recipe; wrap them in foil). If you don't have bricks, a cast-iron skillet will do the trick. Ask your butcher to butterfly the chicken for you.

For the moistest, most intense mostaccioli imaginable, Miraglia Eriquez increased the cocoa, hazelnuts, and spices. And these little frosted cookies only get better with age, so feel free to bake them up to four days ahead of when you plan to serve them.

In a twist on the classic Italian combination of peaches and Amaretto, Ferrigno pairs fresh apricots with a seriously over-the-top syrup, made with amaretti and the liqueur, that plays up the complexity of the sweet-and-tart fruit.

For this pasta dough, we used a mixture of cake and all-purpose flours. It's too delicate when you're making noodles, but it's great for filled, double-edged pastas like ravioli.

This is a soup that really benefits from homemade stock.

Torta di Cioccolata al Forno con Vaniglia e Noccio For this sophisticated cake, which will thrill any fan of bittersweet chocolate, Ferrigno took inspiration from a favorite Perugian café called Bar Sandri—Perugia being, as she puts it, the "firm historical chocolate capital" of Italy. And inspiration was all she could take: She requested the recipe from the chef several times, but he wouldn't divulge it. Desperate, she played around with the ingredients until she came up with something that tasted right.