Vegan

Combining sweet, sour, salty, and bitter ingredients with a tangy vinaigrette,this salad almost explodes with flavor.

The bright flavors of fresh parsley and garlic make this vibrant sauce sauce a favorite accompaniment to Argentine beef. It packs a punch, so start with just a drizzle.

This quick and easy tomato sauce is the base for two meals: spaghetti marinara and steamed mussels with tomato broth. We call for canned tomatoes because most of the fresh ones available in the wintertime have a bland flavor and mealy texture. Sugar will help round out the flavor if your tomatoes are too acidic. You can also add a pinch of red pepper flakes if you like your sauce to have a bit of heat. The leftover sauce also freezes well for future meals.

This lively salsa is typically served with Argentine asado—beef, pork, or lamb cooked over an open fire or grill. It's also wonderful with a seared skirt steak.

Salade de Laitue The word laitue comes from the Latin word for milk, from the milky juices some lettuces can exude. Hearty, buttery Bibb leaves are a good example of the rich, juicy quality lettuce can have. They're so big and rich, in fact, that this salad almost qualifies as a meal in itself. This salad is all about freshness. Use plenty of freshly picked fines herbes: parsley, chives, tarragon, and chervil; harder herbs, such as savory, rosemary, and marjoram, would be too strong. Finish it with a squeeze of lemon juice. Buy nice rounded, mature heads of Bibb lettuce, with good weight; these will have the greatest amount of tender yellow interior leaves. If the leaves have become at all soft and leathery, a rinse in cold water will refresh them.

This is our basic vinaigrette, three parts oil, one part acid, pared almost to its essentials—no shallots, no salt and pepper—so that it can be used almost like a sauce base. The mustard adds flavor and strengthens the emulsion. Any number of additional ingredients may be added to it, depending on how it's to be used. Most often it's used to dress greens that have been seasoned with salt and tossed with fresh herbs, as with the Bibb Lettuce Salad .

Jan Schroeder of Corvallis, Oregon, writes: "A great thing about my job is that I get to do a lot of cooking. I work for the berry industry and one of my duties is developing recipes. I often get ideas from local chefs, but it's also rewarding to see what I can come up with on my own." Ribbon-tied jars of this chutney would make a nice holiday gift.

If you can't find mustard greens, broccoli rabe is a good substitute. Cut off and discard the tough stem ends, then coarsely chop the tender stems, leaves, and florets.

If you're making the striped bass in agrodolce sauce as well as this salad, save 1/3 cup chopped fennel fronds for garnishing the fish.

Spoon this sprightly condiment over grilled fish, alongside roasted ham, or, for an appetizer, atop slices of smoked salmon on buttered pumpernickel.