5 Ingredients or Fewer

Gajar halva is a luxurious Indian dessert made from carrots slowly cooked down with sweetened milk and spices. This version is fast enough for weeknights and brings the warmth of the Indian sun to mind.

Roasting already-roasted cashews seems counterintuitive, but it deepens their rich flavor as the green beans cook alongside.

A simple flurry of slightly bitter endive slivers is just the right palate cleanser after a substantial meal. The key to the equally easy vinaigrette is to temper sumptuous walnut oil with lighter, more neutral vegetable oil.

Juicy pineapple meets creamy avocado, crisp jicama, and red onion in a refreshing salad that goes especially well with the cilantro-chipotle tilapia .

Mild tilapia takes beautifully to a robust, smoky cilantro-chipotle sauce.

Riz au Lait et Rosace d'Oranges The great rice pudding revival taking hold of Paris is an oddly quiet phenomenon. In interviews for this book, individual bistro chefs like Gérard Fouché were genuinely surprised to learn that dozens of their colleagues had also added a riz au lait to their dessert menus during the last few years. Hankerings for home-style throwbacks are universal: You will be among many instantly enticed by Fouché's creamy rice pudding.

Forget the box of chocolates this year. Instead, make your loved one swoon with a bottle of this chocolate liqueur. Be sure to get started at least three weeks ahead so that the flavors have time to meld. Any leftover liqueur would be terrific stirred into coffee or hot chocolate.

Round out the meal with potatoes and a green salad, if desired.

This small, round pasta is named for its resemblance to peppercorns, so why not pair it with black pepper, which, along with lemon, adds brightness to the parmesan?

The kitchen was the domain of Miraglia Eriquez's grandmother, but this recipe was her grandfather's specialty. Sitting at the dining table, Poppy, as he was known, would peel and cut oranges, toss the pieces into glasses, and cover them with red wine. After the oranges soaked up and sweetened the wine, he would eat forkfuls of the fruit, then down the drink. It was—and is—the perfect prelude to dessert.

A generous drizzle of parsley-oregano oil brings a wave of herbal freshness to slender stalks of simply cooked Broccolini.

No surprises here: The classic combination of bitter greens and sweet sausage is as warming and comforting as the Italian grandmothers who have been making it for generations.

In this quick version of a common Puglian dish, pungent garlic and spicy red-pepper flakes turn frozen broccoli into a perfect partner for ear-shaped pasta.

Sang Maw Mah Tai Goh Editor's note: This recipe is reprinted from My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen: 100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons, by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo. This simple dish is a New Year prize. Its sweet flavor is one of the recurring themes of the New Year. It was special to my grandmother, and it is to me as well. I make it not only every New Year, along with Turnip Cake, but also at other times throughout the year when I fancy it. The water chestnut powder at this recipe's base is cereal-like and can be eaten as a breakfast porridge when cooked with water and dark brown sugar. Among traditional Chinese it is considered a substitute for mother's milk when cooked with water. My granddaughter, Siu Siu, loves it.