Root Vegetable

If you've never had rutabagas, here's a great way to try them. Ginger-roasted pears add sweetness and a touch of spice—the perfect balance for this earthy root vegetable. Slice one extra pear and roast it (with the cubes) to use as garnish.

Squash is often sold already peeled and seeded, making this recipe even easier.

The small potatoes known as fingerlings have a sweet, buttery flavor. Small redskinned potatoes would work well, too.

Japanese horseradish gives these a bit of heat. Great with steak or prime rib, too.

Over-the-top delicious.

These will add a southwestern-style kick to your Thanksgiving menu.

Roasted carrots, parsnips, and rutabagas add great depth of flavor.

Mushroom fans, this one's for you: a hearty rosemary-bread dressing made with dried porcini as well as shiitake and button mushrooms.

This gets a delicious lift from lemon in the butter, in the gravy, and under the skin, plus a shortcut for "preserved" lemons.

This excellent, all-purpose broth can be made three days ahead; keep it covered and chilled.

Red lentils, faster-cooking than other varieties of the legume, are the foundation of this earthy, rustic soup. Light but satisfying, it's a wonderful (and easy) start to an autumn meal.

A frequent host of special dinners at Chez Panisse, Niloufer Ichaporia King is an amazing Parsi cook whose recipes are truly inspiring. When we saw this one in her new book, it struck us as the perfect marriage of whisper-light omelet and aromatic, dosa-like filling.

The legacy of San Francisco's Italian and Portuguese immigrants—many of them fishermen—lives on in this fuss-free take on the North Beach favorite, with fresh fennel adding a subtle touch of anise to the tomato-based seafood stew.

Requiring labor-intensive veal stock and a tableside flambé, this tony restaurant dish is usually impractical for the home cook. But we've found a shortcut you'll love: Using just a bit of puréed black-bean soup creates a wonderfully velvety—and completely convincing—sauce.

Using the pan drippings to sauté the vegetables allows the bacon's smokiness to permeate the whole dish. It's a striking complement to the sweet potatoes and red peppers. And don't fret about making too much—you won't have leftovers for long. The flavors will meld further and make for a terrific breakfast the next day.

Thick chicken breasts can be hard to get just right; often you're left with a too-dry, too-bland dinner. But this high-heat roasting method results in crisp, crackly skin that gives way to moist flesh, perfumed throughout by a pocket filled with herbed garlic paste.

Chefs will tell you that sometimes inspiration comes from the exalted—but just as often by chance. "I was shopping for porcini mushrooms at a restaurant-supply store and saw a bag of king oyster mushrooms sitting next to a package of some amazing pistachios," says Chang, though this sophisticated dish would never give away its accidental origins.

We love this cool vehicle for fennel seed on its own, and we venture it would also boost any other fruit-based dessert as beautifully as it does the pear crisps.