Tomato

Slow cooked onions are good enough by themselves, but when you combine them with the liquid exuded by olives and tomatoes you have a gloriously juicy bed on which to serve any fish fillet or steak. This combination, I think, is best with grilled tuna or swordfish—their meatiness gives them the presence to stand up to the richly flavored mass of onions, creating an easy dish that is strikingly Provençal and perfect for summer.

You can never go wrong by adding a little crunch to scallops when you sauté them (see the following recipe for another example). Usually, you dredge them in flour, cornmeal, or bread crumbs before adding them to the hot pan, and it’s something that most everyone seems to like. But you can take that crunch and give it an intense flavor by dredging the scallops directly in a spice mix. Although you can’t do this with everything—dried herbs don’t get crisp, and some spices are far too strong to use in this quantity—it works perfectly with curry powder, which not only seasons the scallops and their accompanying sauce but gives them the crunch we all crave.

This Shrimp dish is based on a combination of ingredients traditionally used to cook tripe in and around Rome. It’s a simple tomato sauce spiked with the powerful flavors of browned garlic, chiles, and mint. When you make it with tripe, it must cook a long time for the tripe to become tender; when you use shrimp, the dish is practically done as soon as the shrimp are added.

So few ingredients and so much flavor—as long as the ingredients are of high quality! Omit the basil if you can’t find any, but where there are good tomatoes there is probably good basil. Add slices of mozzarella to make this more substantial.

Anyone who’s ever had a garden or raided a corn field knows that when corn is young you can eat it cob and all and that the cob has as much flavor as the kernels. That flavor remains even when the cob has become inedibly tough, and you can take advantage of it by using it as the base of a corn chowder—a corn stock, if you will. Into that stock can go some starch for bulk, a variety of seasonings from colonial to contemporary, and, finally, the corn kernels. The entire process takes a half hour or a little bit longer, and the result is a thick, satisfying, late summer chowder.

I like gazpacho, but the ultimate minimalist version—take a few tomatoes, a red pepper, some onion, oil, and vinegar, and whiz it in a blender—doesn’t always cut it for me. When I confessed this to my friend and sometime co-author Jean-Georges Vongerichten, he suggested I abandon tradition entirely and combine tomatoes with another fruit of the season: cantaloupe. These, combined with basil and lemon—in place of vinegar—produce the mildest, most delicious, creamiest gazpacho I’ve ever tasted. Make sure to use ripe cantaloupe and tomato at the height of the summer for the best results.

Good tomatoes are bursting with potential. The difference between consuming a tomato out of hand and slicing it, then sprinkling it with a pinch of salt and a few drops of olive oil, is the difference between a snack and a dish. And the great thing about tomatoes is that it takes so little to convert them from one to the other. In this instance—though not always—peeling and seeding the tomatoes is worth the effort. To do so, bring a pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, cut a small X on the smooth (flower) end of each tomato. Drop them into the boiling water. In about thirty seconds, you’ll see the skin begin to loosen. Immediately remove from the boiling water and plunge into a bowl of ice water. When they’re cool, peel, then cut them in half through their equator. Squeeze and shake out the seeds. (For best flavor, do this over a strainer and recombine the reserved juices with the pulp.) Use fresh thyme (1 teaspoon), dill (1 tablespoon), basil (1/4 cup), parsley (1/4 cup), chervil (1 tablespoon), chives (1/4 cup), or a mixture of herbs to make this even better; garnish with fresh herbs, too, if you like.

The name refers to “hunter’s style,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I doubt that hunters in Italy, or anywhere else, ever carried all these ingredients, but this is a traditional southern Italian dish. This is a far better version than those popularized in the sixties, which were essentially chicken with canned tomato sauce. This is great with bread, even better with a simple risotto (page 521).

There are more versions of this dish than you can count. You can add cayenne if you like or a little wine or stock. Some olive oil at the end contributes freshness, and 1/2 cup or more of rice cooked with the chicken (add twice as much boiling water or stock as rice, at about the same time) makes the dish more substantial. And so on. In short, it’s one of those universal recipes, but in all forms associated with southern France. Bread is the most common accompaniment, but this saucy chicken is good over rice or other grains as well.

A dark, fairly intensely flavored stew that is best made with rabbit (or, traditionally, hare), but is quite good with chicken.You can make the entire dish in advance and let it rest at room temperature for a few hours before reheating (or cover and refrigerate overnight). This is lovely just with crusty bread, or with any potato dish.

In a largely vegetarian country, eggs take on more importance than they have traditionally in the States. Indians eat eggs in a variety of interesting ways and at all meals. Here they’re hard-cooked, simmered in a spicy tomato sauce, and served as a main course. It’s a great, easy, and inexpensive weeknight dish. Serve with Pilaf (page 513) or another rice preparation.

A basic spicy braised dish (non-Indians might call it a curry) that can be varied as you like (a couple of ideas follow the main recipe) and can also be made with lamb, pork, or seafood. Though it is traditionally made quite hot in its northern India home (as much food there is), you can reduce the number of chiles to one for a much milder version or increase them if your tastes run that way. Because the chicken is not browned, the dish is relatively easy to make; you can remove its skin if you like, because without the browning it adds nothing. I love this with a Paratha (page 559) but that might be too much work; it’s delicious with any rice dish also.

Zarzuela—the word means “medley” in Spanish—unites a variety of fish and is, like bouillabaisse, a dish whose ingredients can be varied according to what you can find. The traditional sauce accompaniment for Zarzuela is Romesco (page 606), but the variation makes that superfluous. I love this with crusty bread.

A wonderful spin on beef stew containing both dried fruits and vegetables. You see this combination throughout Central Asia (and occasionally in the Middle East and Europe), and it’s an easy one to exploit. Dried fruits keep forever and take no preparation to add their wonderful body, sweetness, and acidity to what otherwise might be a dull dish. Other fruits often used here are quinces, chestnuts, or dried apricots. You can make this up to a day ahead of time and reheat before serving—it only gets better with time. Serve with couscous (page 526) or any other simple grain dish. Other cuts of meat you can use here: lamb or pork shoulder, lamb shanks or short ribs (both of which will take considerably longer to become tender).

Call this fish with puttanesca sauce—strong flavored, and swordfish can really take it. Serve with plenty of crusty bread or scoop out the fish after it cooks, put the sauce over pasta, and serve the fish on the side.

The fish equivalent of classic beef stew, and definitely a winter dish,with its base of root vegetables. You can, of course, vary the vegetables according to what you have in your pantry—cauliflower, zucchini, eggplant, and even okra will work well. The stew should be very thick, not really soupy at all; so though you may add water as necessary while cooking, be sure not to add too much. Since the fish is added when the vegetables are just about done, you can substitute almost any white-fleshed fish or even shellfish. Just adjust the cooking time as necessary. Serve this on top of rice or with crusty bread.

“Old clothes” may not sound that appetizing, but it’s one of those overcooked, funky, juicy, tender dishes you can’t stop eating (at least I can’t). And the only thing even remotely difficult about it is shredding the steaks into the ropy strands that give Ropa Vieja its fanciful name. Still, it’s not you-can-do-it-wrong difficult; it’s just a bit of an upper-body workout. You could cut the recipe in half and cook one steak, but with a dish that takes this long and keeps as well as it does (you can refrigerate it for a few days or even freeze it), I think this is a sensible amount. As a bonus, when you braise this much meat you end up with at least a quart of rich, dark beef stock, redolent of bay and cloves—perfect for cooking Arroz a la Mexicana (page 517)—which, not coincidentally, is a perfect side dish for Ropa Vieja. A couple of preparation notes: green bell peppers are a bit more traditional here, but I prefer to make Ropa Vieja with the sweeter red bell peppers. You choose. Cutting the steaks in half to make two thin steaks (hold the knife parallel to the cutting board) is a bit of a challenge, but if you freeze the steaks for about 30 minutes first, the firmer flesh will make it easier. Take your time, but don’t worry about doing too good a job—you’re going to shred the meat anyway.

Oven-baked ribs, which were once the standard, are now uncommon, because everyone thinks grilled ribs are the thing. But these are delicious, great with rice or polenta, and far easier than grilling. But if you like, you can use this sauce for grilling, too: parboil the ribs in water until nearly tender, then grill them, basting with the sauce, until they are nicely browned. Other cuts of meat you can use here: chunks of pork shoulder, short ribs (which will need much more time), bone-in chicken thighs (which will cook much more quickly).

Despite its name, this is not a tamale (it’s closer to polenta). It has neither the taste nor the texture of a real tamale, and, strictly speaking, it isn’t even Mexican, unless you remember that Texas is as Mexican as it is American. That being said, tamales are complicated, and this, at the very least, combines the earthy flavors of corn and pork. It’s a true Tex-Mex dish, dating back at least a century. Serve with rice and beans.

I’d heard of hunkar begendi and even tried it in Turkish restaurants elsewhere before I went to Istanbul, but I was not prepared for the reverence it inspires. Not only is this dish delicious—its name means “Sultan’s Delight”—but its appearance causes a hush to fall over a table. This is great stuff, a creamy, eggplant-laced béchamel topped with tender braised lamb. It’s a fair amount of work, but worth it.