Root Vegetable

Broccolini is a hybrid of broccoli and Chinese kale. You'll need to cook and cool the rice before you begin.

Goes great with: Stir-fried snow peas, green beans, sliced zucchini, and fresh basil. What to drink: New Zealand or Oregon Pinot Noir.

The buttery sauce that coats the crabmeat and the shells is part of the pleasure of this dish; to really enjoy it, dispense with the utensils and just eat the crab with your hands. Serve with a green salad dressed with tarragon vinaigrette and plenty of crusty sourdough bread.

Low-fat and low-cal, this dish tastes lively and bright.

What to drink: Pour brut or rosé Champagne throughout the meal, or pair the soup with a light red wine (try an Oregon Pinot Noir) and the Oven Roasted Dungeness Crab with a fragrant dry white, such as Viognier or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

This is a basic court-bouillon that can be used to poach any kind of shellfish and most firm meaty fish.

Tomatoes are great for grilling. The searing heat caramelizes the tomato's natural sugars. Tomatoes readily absorb the flavors of herbs and other seasonings, and their shocking red color looks terrific on a plate along with grilled poultry, seafood, or beef. The tomatoes can be grilled on any sort of indoor grill—for that matter, you could also smoke them in a stove-top smoker.

Rodolfo Lagua, a thirty-year California barbecue veteran of Filipino heritage, was the inspiration for this recipe. Lagua learned this way of preparing tri-tips from his friend Sammy Ariola, one of the area's first Filipino immigrants. "I have no money for you to inherit," said Ariola, as he lay on his deathbed, "but I'll give you the recipe for my marinade." Since then Lagua has won numerous barbecue contests with his Filipino-style tri-tips, raising thousands of dollars for Filipino community charities. He's now working on bottling the sauce commercially, once again as a fund-raiser. The interplay of salty, sweet, and sour is pure Filipino, and the lemon rind adds an intense blast of citrus flavor. I've adapted my approximation of Lagua's recipe to London broil; in the Tips [below] you'll find instructions for making tri-tips with this marinade. Lagua would serve the meat with boiled rice.

The cooking time of lentils varies — the fresher they are, the faster they will cook.

A kugel is traditionally baked in a single large pan, but using a muffin tin is a bit more elegant—and produces an abundance of tasty browned edges. Serve the kugels as a main brunch dish or an accompaniment to pot roast or baked chicken.

This beautiful pasta dish features a classic trio of Italian ingredients. Bottled roasted chestnuts make preparation surprisingly quick.

Asopao de Pollo Angel Rodriguez of New York, New York, writes: "My family in Puerto Rico used to make this asopao for special occasions or when we needed something to eat while fishing by the river. This dish is made with sofrito, a flavor base in Latin American cooking.

This rich soup is hearty enough to serve as a main course. Dried tangerine peel and star anise impart an exotic note, and pickled mustard greens provide contrast to the beefy broth.

This mackerel, which pairs well with the fennel endive salad , was inspired by our trips to Southeast Asia, where dishes are commonly served with whole sprigs of fresh herbs for diners to pull off the leaves and eat as desired. Incidentally, this means less chopping for the cook. Also, to save time, we minced the ginger and garlic in a mini food processor.

The trick to stuffed soup buns is to fill them with a solid form of soup. The tender wrappers are filled with an aspic made from pork and chicken bones, which melts into a savory broth during steaming.