Make Ahead

This relish is good with a bit of minced jalapeño or habanero chile if you like hot food. If you have them on hand, don’t hesitate to add up to a quarter cup of fresh herbs, like basil, oregano, or marjoram.

Marjoram is related to and resembles oregano, but its flavor is better. Oregano is a good but not perfect substitute. This sauce is excellent over simply cooked seafood.

This is what most Americans are talking about when they say salsa. You can make it hot or not, as you like; it’s a good use for less-than-perfect tomatoes and an excellent sauce–side dish accompaniment for anything grilled, particularly seafood.

A classic preparation, useful year-round, and especially convenient when you want to cook the greens in advance.

The ease with which this dish can be thrown together and the range of meals it happily accompanies (menus with European, Middle Eastern, or Northern African accents are game, as are good old American cookouts) guarantee that it makes regular and frequent appearances on my dinner table. An assortment of olives is far preferable to just one kind. Try, for example, some oil cured, some big fat green Sicilians, and some Kalamatas just that simple combination will look bright and pretty. If you can lay your hands on more varieties, so much the better.

The wine plays such a major role here that it’s worth buying the right one. Finding a good off-dry white is not difficult: Almost any German wine made with Riesling (the grape name will be on the label) will do, except for those labeled trocken, which means dry. Although the cooking time for Chicken with Riesling is not short, it is largely unattended, and the dish can be made well in advance. In fact, as with many meat-and-liquid preparations, this may be more delicious on the second day. And this is a preparation that you can take in many directions, as you’ll see in the variations.

Although this minimalist but infinitely variable technique of herb-coating salmon is about as straightforward as can be, allowing the fillets to sit for a while after coating will encourage the fragrant seasonings to permeate the flesh of the fish; try fifteen minutes or so at room temperature or up to 24 hours in the refrigerator.

The intense orange color, meltingly tender texture, and wonderful flavor of gravlax give it an allure shared by few fish preparations—not bad for a dish whose name means “buried salmon” in Swedish. The curing process intensifies the color, tenderizes the texture, and enhances the flavor. Although most chefs jazz up gravlax with sauces and side dishes, it is brilliant on its own or with just a few drops of lemon or mild vinegar. And the rankest kitchen novice can make it at home. Be sure to check your salmon fillet for pinbones, the long bones that run down the center of the fillet; these are not always removed by routine filleting. Press your finger down the center of the flesh and you will feel them; remove them, one at a time, with needle-nose pliers or similar tool.

Despite its name, this dish isn’t fiery hot, but the addition of a fair amount of paprika gives the shrimp a bright red color that makes people think they’re eating spicy food. The real key here is fresh paprika, not that tin you inherited from your mother. After you buy it, taste it; if it is hot, use half a teaspoon. You can let the shrimp sit in the spice paste for hours. (In fact, I like to dump both shrimp and paste into a covered plastic container, shake them together to coat the shrimp, then carry the container to a party and grill the shrimp there.) But you can also mix the two together right before cooking.

For potato salads, my dressing of choice is usually a simple vinaigrette—here no more than oil and vinegar—augmented by a handful each of chopped shallots for crunch and flavor and parsley for color and freshness. The result is a great summer dish, good-looking and good tasting. As it stands, this is a potato salad with mussels; if you like, you can increase the amount of mussels, by as much as double, giving each component equal weight.

You can use any short-or medium-grain rice you like for this dish, which is most easily made with leftover rice

Many cucumbers are best if they’re salted first. The process removes some of their bitterness and makes them extra-crisp—it takes some time but almost no effort. Start with one or two Kirby (pickling) cucumbers per person—or half of a medium cucumber or about a third of a long (“English”) cucumber. For a full-meal cucumber salad with a Southeast Asian flair, try Cucumber Salad with Scallops (page 54).

A load of herbs and a strongly flavored vinaigrette make this salad special. Choose either the soy or the nut vinaigrette depending on what appeals to you, what you’re serving the salad with, and what you’ve got on hand.

This caribbean-inspired sweet potato soup is always appropriate in hot weather and makes an unusual starter for a meal off the grill. Serve it hot or cold; by all means chill it in warm weather, but remember it in winter. Whether you’re reheating it or serving it cold, make the soup as far in advance as you like, up to a couple of days. If you’re so inclined, you can make this soup even richer and sweeter by using half chicken stock and half canned coconut milk.

This Thai soup, like most European soups, begins with chicken stock. You can use canned stock if you like, because the added ingredients here are so strong that all you really need from the base is a bit of body. (Good homemade stock has better body than canned stock, of course; use it if you have it.) You can find all of these ingredients at almost any supermarket, and if you don’t have luck at yours, try an Asian market, where they are as common as carrots, celery, and onions. (And if you do go to an Asian market, pick up some rice or bean thread noodles, which require almost no cooking time and turn this dish into a meal.) You don’t need oyster mushrooms, by the way—fresh shiitakes or even white button mushrooms are just as good. All you really need to know is that lemongrass must be trimmed of its outer layers before being minced and nam pla (fish sauce) keeps forever in your pantry (and tastes much better than it smells).

Water-based soups are great, but many soups are indisputably better when made with meat stock. Of course you don’t always have stock, and there are short cuts that produce in-between soups. One of the easiest and most effective ways of making a potent soup quickly and without stock is to start with a small piece of prosciutto or other dry-cured ham. The long aging process this meat undergoes—almost always a year or more—ensures an intense flavor that is quickly transferred to anything in which it is cooked, including water. To save time, chop the vegetables and add them one at a time while you’re rendering the ham; by the time you’re done chopping, you’ll have added all the ingredients except water. And if you bring the water to a boil before you begin chopping, you really minimize cooking time, producing a thick, rich soup in less than thirty minutes. Do not omit the final drizzle of olive oil; its freshness really brings this soup to life.

This is my take on Senegalese chicken yassa, a rich, lemony, spicy, onion-centric dish traditionally served over rice. I've pulled way back on the peanut oil, which can make some versions of yassa too rich for my taste. In place of the oil, I built a relish around naturally rich avocados, and paired it with black-eyed peas dressed, with the advantages of a little acidity in mind, with a tangy vinaigrette.

Adapted from Chef Jim Cohen, Chef/Partner, The Empire Restaurant, Louisville, Colorado, and Pizzeria da Lupo, Boulder, Colorado This showstopper was created by Jim Cohen, who has both updated and upended tradition. Black tea? Pasilla chiles? Sweet fruit? Use ancho chiles if you can't find pasillas.

Yet another take on spicy fried chicken, this one bordering on fiery, but with a pleasant, feathery crust from the eggs. Marinate for up to a day if you like. You could serve this with almost anything, ranging from plain old cole slaw to Stewed Apples and Eggplant (page 458) to any of the Indian breads (pages 559–565).

The unusual thing about many Mexican fruit drinks is that the seeds are included; they’re blended, so you don’t realize this until you watch them being made, but this is the reason for their wonderfully intense flavors. This procedure works well for cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, or other melon.