Main

I have never been able to do the cold-pizza-for-breakfast thing, but there are some foods I just love eating cold the day after—fried or barbecued chicken, for instance. Happily, my local grocery store does rotisserie chicken, either plain or barbecue, and on weeknights when homework is taking forever, I am grateful for this easy main course salad that the kids will actually dig into. For my husband and me, it’s all about the creamy, spicy poblano dressing. But for the kids it’s strictly ranch—no cilantro, please! For a more substantial meal, serve this with corn bread or, better yet, jalapeño corn bread (add chopped pickled jalapeños to your favorite recipe).

This salad was a customer favorite at Spice Inc. It’s best with buckwheat noodles, but it can also be made with somen (wheat) noodles or even spaghetti. This is a great salad to eat all summer long.

All along the Gulf Coast, crab is plentiful and almost cheap during the summer. It has a luxurious flavor, but it’s still light, and in this ceviche-like salad the lime and basil enhance the warm-weather flavors. The salty capers are a good foil for the sweetness of the crab and carrots. Serve this refreshing combination on lettuce leaves, as described below, or in a parfait or martini glass, garnished with a wedge of lime and some tortilla chips.

These days the phrase “pasta salad” registers as a bit of a throwback. But as long as I’ve been making this salad, people have raved about it and asked for the recipe. Orzo is a small rice-shaped pasta. It’s easy to overcook, so watch it closely and taste it toward the end of the cooking time. I actually prefer orzo imported from Greece—it’s a bit more toothsome than Italian varieties. Serve this salad as a meal on its own, or alongside grilled fish, lamb chops, or roast chicken.

I used to think that lentils were bland in a brown rice (good-for-you-but-boring) sort of way. But the luscious combination of ingredients in this salad changed all that. Loretta Keller, a former sous chef who is now an acclaimed chef in San Francisco, gave me this recipe. The lentils and dressing are great on their own, but they’re even better paired with goat cheese, with its creamy texture and tangy flavor, and ripe garden tomatoes. This salad makes a quick and easy lunch, especially with a loaf of crusty sourdough bread or some crostini (thin slices of toasted bread rubbed with garlic, sprinkled with salt, and drizzled with olive oil).

This dish combines some of the best New Orleans flavors—shrimp, tasso, creamy grits, and a bit of spice—in an elegant, satisfying presentation. This dish is so popular that Donald Link, my partner and the chef at Herbsaint, couldn’t take it off the menu even if he wanted to. If you are serving this for a dinner party, make the grits the day before or in the morning, and the rest of the dish will come together quickly that night.

Fusion cuisine gets scoffed at a lot, but it can work beautifully, as this dish, with its Latin and Asian influences, attests. From the marriage of avocado, cucumber, limes, chiles, garlic, and cilantro (known as coriander everywhere else but the Americas), Peppered Tuna with Asian Guacamole was born. The cucumber lightens up the avocado and adds a bit of crunch. Hoisin Dipping Sauce rounds out the peppery warmth with sweet spiciness. Serve four plates as a first course, or top Sesame Wonton Crisps (p. 89) with a slice of the tuna and a dollop of the guacamole and serve on a platter to make an elegant party snack.

This recipe is an adaptation of a dish from the Troisgros Brothers, a famous restaurant in Lyon. The “gâteau” is a stack of delicate crêpes layered with creamy béchamel sauce, Gruyère or Comté cheese, ham, and prosciutto. There are countless variations to this elegant dish. You can use plain crêpes or herbed, as I do here. I sometimes make a more “locally flavored” version by folding crayfish and spinach into the béchamel (and omitting the hams). The key is cooking the assembled gâteau until it’s bubbly and brown. I like to serve this with a deeply flavored Smoked-Tomato Butter (p. 63), but this dish is great on its own. For a quick assembly, make the sauce and the crêpes a day or two in advance. Wrap the crêpes in plastic wrap and freeze until needed.

I remember being terribly impressed the first time I was served these at a friend’s house in the early ’80s. At that time, it was exotic and ambitious to attempt Chinese food at home. Times have changed, thanks in large part to the late Barbara Tropp, the famed chef of China Moon Café in San Francisco, whose wonderful books, like The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, have made cooking authentic Asian food at home much less daunting. These crispy, flavorful little dumplings make a great starter or hors d’oeuvre if you’re feeding a crowd. The filling multiplies easily, and once you get the hang of filling the dumplings, you can whip up a lot in a relatively short period of time. If you’re a vegetarian, leave the pork and shrimp out and add some sautéed shiitake mushrooms instead. The tart dipping sauce is the perfect complement to the rich filling.

My mother learned this dish when we lived in Holland in the late ’50s. It was part of the rijstafel—an Indonesian take-out feast of many dishes—that my parents used to have delivered to the house. We used to watch wide-eyed as a flurry of delivery guys carried in dish after dish stacked in round metal containers. When we gather as a family on Christmas and other special days, we rarely have turkey or ham, but more often rice and curry or bami goreng, a noodle dish, with these satés as an appetizer. It is still the favorite family snack. The pork marinade is effortless to put together. While the meat absorbs the flavors, you can stir together the spicy peanut sauce. I tend to grill the satés, but my mother actually cooks these on an old waffle iron that has a smooth side, not unlike a panini grill.

When I was little, my mom used to deep-fry tiny bay scallops and serve them with melted butter. One time I ate so many that I made myself sick. It was years before I could try another scallop! These days I like to serve large sea scallops, which are easy to sear and make for a beautiful presentation. What’s more, their rich, sweet taste marries well with so many ingredients that sometimes it’s hard to decide what to serve alongside. Here, I’ve paired them with spinach, bacon, and tomatoes for a quick one-skillet sauté that’s bright and festive. The bacon can be omitted, but let’s face it: everything is better with bacon, and here its rich, salty flavor is a nice foil for the sweet scallops. I recommend a nonstick pan, as the juices sometimes get a little syrupy and sticky.

Loaded with onions and peppers and cheese, these substantial quesadillas have a lot of personality—and make great use of leftover Jalapeño-roast Pork (p. 269). Serve them with margaritas for an instant party, or simply add a green salad with orange segments and red onions for an easy week-night meal. The Ancho-Mango sauce keeps well for several days, and it will perk up any number of sandwiches.

If you’re not from Crescent City, this dish might seem like an unlikely trio of ingredients, but it’s my twist on a much-loved Louisiana combination. In New Orleans, we tend to serve oysters with just about anything—especially if there is beer and hot sauce involved. When I’m traveling, or asked to bring New Orleans-style food to other parts of the world, tasso is one of the things I smuggle. Tasso is another Cajun staple—cured, smoked pork (usually the shoulder), seasoned with red pepper, garlic, and various spices and herbs. Tasso is typically vacuum-packed, so it doesn’t spoil easily. Since the flavor is intense, it’s used more as a seasoning. In other words, 3 pounds of tasso provide the same mileage as 10 pounds of andouille—which I’m not willing to schlep. (So far I’ve managed to infiltrate France, Thailand, and England with tasso discreetly nestled in my luggage—and the authorities were none the wiser.) I’m an eggplant freak, and I can eat it any way, anytime. I have yet to find an eggplant dish that I don’t like—unless it’s one that’s undercooked. Eggplant is a great flavor carrier that stands up well to other ingredients. But you can also make this recipe by substituting sautéed spinach or fennel for the eggplant. A gratin is a nifty appetizer because it can be assembled in advance and requires very little last-minute prep.

You can’t come to the French Quarter without being seduced by a rich, bubbling crabmeat gratin. This is my take on the traditional New Orleans dish—it’s luxurious and surprisingly simple to prepare. For the most elegant presentation, serve this in individual gratin dishes as a lunch or a first course for a special meal. This gratin gets added flavor and crunch from the topping, a Spicer staple.

Here’s one I stole from my friend, mentor, and sometimes tormentor from Louis XVI Restaurant, Daniel Bonnot. He taught me how to make these about twenty-five years ago. Beignet is essentially just a fancy French word for a fritter. In New Orleans, people have been known to subsist on beignets and coffee alone. This is not advisable. Feel free to substitute chopped crayfish tails for the smoked salmon—both versions are dangerously addictive.

The summer before I started cooking professionally, a friend and I spent three months on a sailboat in the Bahamas. Hey, it was tougher than it sounds! Every day we had to catch our dinner with spears, no less. If we didn’t get a fish or lobster, one thing we could always count on was finding conch. They were and are delicious, but man, are they labor-intensive, as it’s hard to extract the meat from their shells. These fritters, which are easy enough to stir together on a sailboat and are served all over the Bahamas, are so delicious that we didn’t (and you won’t) much mind the work, especially as your conch meat will already be extracted from the shell. Serve them with ice-cold beer, plenty of hot sauce (or my Cat Island Cocktail Sauce), and a creamy Lime Mayonnaise (p. 181) that will help cool the fire. And don’t be surprised if they inspire you to slip into a swimsuit and snorkel mask.

For years, I would eat eggs only as an excuse to have bacon and hash browns. And then I made this discovery—the French method of slow cooking. The results of this technique are so good, I’d be perfectly happy to eat the eggs plain, without embellishment, but in this version I still get my potatoes and bacon. This dish requires patience: it’s tempting to turn the heat up and finish the eggs quickly, but if you do, they will lose the creamy, custardy consistency that elevates this dish beyond breakfast. Try these eggs as a first course before something simple and light, such as a vegetable or chicken sauté, or grilled fish or beef. You can also serve them for brunch, with fresh fruit or a green salad.

This recipe is based on the much-loved Spanish dish called Gambas al Ajillo, or shrimp with garlic. The basil is not a traditional ingredient, but I like how its fresh flavor pairs with the sweet, garlicky shrimp. Smoked Spanish paprika, or pimentón, has a unique flavor and is well worth tracking down. You can find it at most specialty food stores, or in Latin markets. It’s typically much cheaper at the latter.

There’s a reason Hank Williams was inspired to write and sing “Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filé gumbo…” Crayfish (pronounced “craw-fish” in Louisiana) pies are a beloved New Orleans snack, and this recipe has more vibrant flavor than traditional versions. With a spicy, savory filling encased in slightly sweet cornmeal dough, these crispy little pies are a somewhat refined take on one of my favorite Jazz Fest treats. Serve them with plenty of cold beer.

No self-respecting resident of Louisiana will need this recipe! Everyone in this state has his or her own method (complete with secret ingredients—I know one guy who uses Tang, the powdered orange drink) for boiling shrimp, crab, and crayfish. For outsiders, here’s a brief rundown of the basics. Start with the freshest, sweetest shrimp available. I love to add spicy sausage and potatoes to the pot, but by all means, omit or add what you like (even Tang). The peeling process may throw some people off, but that’s part of the fun. This recipe calls for 2 pounds of shrimp, so you can get a feel for it before you move up to the more common 20-pound party batch. If you can get your hands on some crabs or crayfish, you will need to go a bit stronger on the seasoning and the cooking time, as those hard shells need more spice and more time to absorb the other flavors.