Herbs & Spices

Learn how our executive food editor rediscovered the joys of fresh pesto and made it her own.

This apple's crisp flesh doesn't brown as quickly as other kinds, so it's ideal chopped in salads.

Slices of Braeburn apples hold their shape well when baked until crunchy—perfect for a batch of munchable homemade chips.

My friend Myriam Richard-Delorme in Paris is a great cook and she gave me this recipe. All you do is put a leg of lamb in a roasting pan with lots of cut-up tomatoes, onions, garlic, rosemary—and then pour honey over it to caramelize the lamb and tomatoes while they roast. Everything cooks in one pan and a few hours later I have the most succulent roast lamb, plus the tomatoes and pan juices become the vegetable and the sauce. OMG is it fabulous!

There are so many variations on mashed potatoes—but this combination of potatoes and basil is a marriage made in heaven. Creamy potatoes and the fresh peppery basil really complement each other, and the Parmesan doesn't hurt, either. Everyone asks for seconds!

Every Passover, my maternal grandfather, Irving, made beet horseradish from scratch. He was a gardener with a true green thumb when it came to tomatoes, but I can't remember if he grew his own horseradish. What I do remember is how teary-eyed everyone got when he served my grandmother's homemade gefilte fish with his beet horseradish on the side. Through the sniffles, we all expressed delight and assured him that this batch was the hottest and best yet. Horseradish is one of those flavors I have always loved. For all you other horseradish lovers out there, here's a fabulous dip. Use extra-hot prepared horseradish to guarantee those sniffles and teary eyes.

Dry mustard and five spices transform regular old ketchup.

This homey spot, which gets its name from the tidal strait that runs between Brooklyn and Governors Island, is a neighborhood favorite. Locals crowd around the butcher-block bar and take a seat at the communal table crafted from ceiling beams from a local warehouse. Chef Ryan Angulo keeps diners satisfied with house-made pickles, Brooklyn-made mozzarella, and hearty hunks of meat, like the roast leg of lamb here.

This vegetarian entrée would also be delicious served with lamb or shrimp.

Cooking the fish in olive oil makes it amazingly moist.

THIS SABBATH RICE DISH, typical of Provence, reveals the history both of pilau or pilaf, as it is called in French, and of Persian Jews who settled in the area near the Camargue, the rice-growing area of southwestern Provence located on the triangle of land between the two major tributaries of the Rhône River. Jews, first by barge and later by boat, used the river to bring goods here from the Mediterranean. The word and the dish pilau come from Persia, taking various forms as the dish traveled around the world. In India, it became pulao; in modern-day Iran, it is called polo; and in Provence, pelau or pilaf. Rice, and therefore pilaf, traveled with the Jews to Provence, where many Persian Jewish merchants and scholars settled and lived until the end of the fourteenth century or even later. These Jews, who traded rice, cooked it for the Sabbath with fragrant spices like nutmeg, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, and saffron. Some scholars believe that Jews brought saffron to Europe from Asia Minor for their Sabbath rice. The late Karen Hess, author of The Carolina Rice Kitchen, repeatedly told me that Jews first brought rice to the Camargue. In their Inventory of the Culinary Patrimony of France, Philip and Mary Hyman relate that emigrants from the Piedmont paid a dîme of rice to noblemen in the year 1497. And although pilau and riz au safran are no longer particularly Jewish dishes in Provence, they are clearly rooted in the Sabbath tradition. This simple recipe is typically eaten on Rosh Hashanah, alongside a symbolic whole roasted fish with a Sephardic sweet-and-sour greengage-plum sauce.

MOROCCAN COOKS USUALLY MAKE this tasty salad with Swiss chard, but I have seen it also with beet leaves. Eaten all year round, it is prepared by Moroccans on Rosh Hashanah for their Sephardic Seder, when they say a series of blessings over squash, leeks, dates, pomegranates, black-eyed peas, apples, the head of a fish or a lamb, and Swiss chard and beet greens.

When I was a student in France, Rose Minkel was a fixture at Friday night dinners at my friend Nanou’s home. Called Mémé, an endearing term for “Grandmother,” she brought with her the recipes from her family’s native Metz, a city in the province of Lorraine with a long Jewish presence. Though the Jews had been in Metz for many generations (some say the first Jews settled there in 221 C.E.), up until the eighteenth century they lived a very different life from non-Jews in the town. They paid extra taxes on meat, wines and liqueurs, and other provisions. It was easy to spot a Jew on the street, because the men wore yellow hats to distinguish them from the black-hat-wearing gentiles. But over time they did assimilate, and already at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Jews of Metz began to speak French instead of Yiddish. One Rosh Hashanah recipe that I remember most fondly was this simple roast chicken with peeled apple quarters, cinnamon, sugar, and wine.

Think of this as Mexican toast.

Chef Max Mackissock of The Squeaky Bean in Denver takes a back-to-nature approach to ingredients: He uses produce straight from the garden at his restaurant or the farmers’ market the eatery hosts weekly. With veggies like that, who needs meat? This tasty vegan dish has plenty of protein, plus healthy carbs, thanks to whole-grain, fiber-rich farro.