Root Vegetable

If you have a nice sharp chef's knife, this is a breeze. (Or if you don't, you should buy a sharpening stone, and you'll never have blunt knives again.) The idea for this recipe came about when we were catering a HUGE job on a TINY budget. They wanted tuna tartare, but I knew it would be expensive, and it's best eaten soon after it's made or it starts to get all gummy. Gravlax, on the other hand, needs at least a couple of days to cure, so I decided to use diced salmon instead of tuna, for economy, and to marinate it with our gravlax spice mix a day before the event, freeing up the chefs for other last-minute things. In my test run, I added orange zest, thinking, isn't orange good with salmon? Normally you would put something like this on a cucumber slice and that would be fine, but the juniper in the marinade suggested potato, so we served it on a slice of crisp potato, and it was ravishing in the extreme. The potatoes can be made ahead of time too, as long as they're cooked until they're completely crisp and stored in an airtight container until you need them. Any potato not cooked all the way through will soften the others; if that happens, pop them all in a 350°F oven for five minutes, or until they've crisped up again. The salmon can be sticky, so use two teaspoons to put it on the potato. I could never remember of which there was more in the gravlax cure, sugar or salt (since in the basic gravlax recipe one is three tablespoons and one is four). So after years of irritably looking up such a short recipe, I decided to THINK for a second and realized salt has four letters so salt is the four tablespoons. Welcome to my world.

In winter we use a variety of greens and winter vegetables to make interesting salads that taste fresh, refresh our palates, and aren't trying to reproduce the delicate leafy greens of the summer.

Mango Chutney is the one we think of as the "original" and most traditional of all chutneys. It goes well with curries, chicken, pork, lamb, and game.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here. David Bouley: Mario and I wanted to put fresh herring on the menu, but we couldn't find a consistent source for the best product from the North Sea. So we came up with this dish using mackerel, an underused fish in this country. When you marinate the raw mackerel, it becomes very mellow in flavor. It's a clean-tasting fish, not a bit "fishy" or strong. We marinate the mackerel in Bibb lettuce and cucumber juices, then mix it with beet and apple for sweetness and a little crunch. It's both light and refreshing.

This tried and true recipe, a Hong Kong tradition of chicken roasted in the Chinese manner, has a long history in my family. It is the dish I have made when, because of circumstances, our family has not eaten together: my older son off to swimming practice, my daughter to ballet, and my younger son to lacrosse. Or I am off to a cooking class and I must leave dinner in the oven.

Our appreciation of peri-peri prawns comes from Mozambique, where these shellfish are cooked in the traditional Portuguese style.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here. Spätzle are tiny dumplings that you make by passing a thin batter through a colander (or a spätzle maker) into a pot of boiling water. You can serve them simply boiled and drained, topped with melted butter and poppy seeds, or fried with onions and cheese as we do here. This is a rich mountain-style skiers' dish that will really keep you going.

Onions, cheese, and yogurt pies abound in the north of Greece, especially in shepherds' communities where dairy products are daily staples. This recipe is culled from that tradition, but instead of preparing a whole sheet pan with homemade phyllo, I have reworked it to make it accessible and more in tune with the meze style of eating.

Pre-peeled baby carrots make this soup super-easy. For a dramatic garnish, place a whole star anise atop each serving.

Improv: Instead of smoked salmon, try this with a generous dollop of caviar on the eggs, or top them with smoked trout or whitefish.

These popovers are like individual Yorkshire puddings. To make a dozen large popovers, just double the recipe and use two pans.

This recipe makes much more dressing than you'll need for the salad, but it's so delicious you'll be glad to have extra in the refrigerator.