Spinach

This gratin makes a simple accompaniment to roast chicken, pork or even baked eggs.

A puree of spinach and basil lends color and flavor to this Thai-style main dish.

Pass hot pepper sauce and warm buttered tortillas to complete this easy dish.

If you can't find one type of the greens for this recipe, you can either increase the other two kinds proportionally or substitute kale and/or chard.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Creamy fresh cheese meets spinach in this Indian classic.

Offer either brown or white rice and Asian beer, like Tsingtao. The chicken is especially tender because of the egg white and cornstarch coating.

Spinach and Feta Phyllo Triangles

What to drink: Hagafen 2002 Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley (kosher) or Brancott Vineyards 2002 Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand.

"My wife loves spinach salad, so one night I developed this recipe just for her," writes Jeff Edmunds of Yankton, South Dakota. "The crunchy apple slices and creamy avocado lend terrific texture and flavor." Add grilled chicken to this salad to make a main course.

This salad is as versatile as it is delicious. We loved it with squid and with shrimp. Add a loaf of crusty bread, and you've got a complete meal. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 20 min

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

At the restaurant, this spectacular starter also has a tomato confit vinaigrette. Here, we've substituted chopped seeded peeled tomatoes to simplify the recipe.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from chef Neil Perry's book Rockpool. Neil also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. For your convenience, we've converted the measures — with as much accuracy as possible — from Australian to American. For those who have metric equipment and wish to follow Neil's recipe to the milliliter, we've included the original measures too. To read more about Neil and Australian cuisine, click here. In this dish, the combination of pastry, fish, sauce, yoghurt and spinach makes a complete dish. The cardamom and tomato are a perfect match, and the fish steams gently inside as the outside of the pastry crisps up. This dish also works beautifully with the flat fish of Europe and America. It is important that the vegetables are well-seasoned and cooked until they caramelise to impart their flavour to the sauce. The depth of flavour of aromatics is so often lost when they are not allowed to do their job properly. The Tomato and Cardamom Sauce goes nicely with all seafood; its deep, rich flavour enlivens the taste buds. The tomatoes are cut up, skin, seeds and all. Slice into thin rounds, then into julienne and chop the julienne to give a uniform dice. Don't chop them as if cutting for concassé, they lose too much juice that way.