Make Ahead

In Philippine cuisine, dark, fairly harsh soy sauce is favored, but it’s often combined with sugar to create a syrupy dressing for vegetables. The added garlic gives this sweet and salty sauce a pleasant kick.

You can buy go chu jang, the excellent, slightly sweet and not-superhot Korean chile paste that is a part of Crab Soup (page 135) and many other Korean dishes, but in many places it’s easier just to make this substitute, which keeps for about a month, covered, in the refrigerator. It’s a good sauce for any grilled food or even raw vegetables. The best chile powder for this is not the typical Mexican chile powder but ground Korean chiles—co chu kara—which (obviously) you can buy at Korean markets (you can also buy pretoasted and ground sesame seeds). It’s bright red, looks like coarse cayenne, and is not super hot. A good alternative is chile powder made from ground New Mexico chiles.

This common, versatile sauce is usually served with grilled fish or vegetables or with shabu-shabu, but it turns up everywhere and can be used in many ways. It keeps indefinitely—a friend of mine insists it’s best after months in the refrigerator; certainly it’s no worse. You can buy yuzu juice frozen or—sometimes—fresh at Japanese specialty markets; it has a unique flavor but close enough to lemon and lime that the combination is a good substitute. You can also get bonito flakes at Japanese markets. If you are serving this as a dipping sauce at the table, garnish with finely chopped scallions or chives.

This is not the pickled ginger served at most Japanese restaurants: It’s better, because it contains no preservatives or coloring. It will not turn pink, or only slightly, but it will be delicious. You may have to play with the sugar content: Some people like it far sweeter than others. Two tablespoons, the amount I use here, is the minimum. If at all possible, use fresh young ginger for this recipe. It will be pinker, with a soft, smooth skin, not woody, like most of the ginger at the market (which is fine for other recipes and uses). Young ginger is easier to peel and slice, and the resulting pickle will have a more delicate texture.

The peppery bite of radishes is the featured player in this crunchy salad, which is served all over the Arab world in one form or another. Salting the radishes first improves both flavor and texture, but if you’re pressed for time, just salt the salad as you normally would.

Sesame seeds flavor foods from the Middle to the Far East, and this Japanese version is sublime. Spooned over grilled or broiled chicken, meat, or full-flavored fish, it produces a kind of instant teriyaki. It’s also fine over lightly steamed spinach or other vegetables. Good with a little minced ginger added, too.

Curry powder may be hot, mild, or fragrant; it’s usually blended to the producer’s taste, and if you make it often enough, you’ll find exactly what you like. Here the heat comes from a combination of black pepper and chiles. But the heat is usually moderate and well tempered by the other spices. If you like a milder, sweeter curry powder, see the next three recipes.

This North African salad will give you a wonderful new perspective on leeks. Uncooked, they are deliciously refreshing, especially when paired with tomatoes and cucumbers.

This curry still carries a bit of heat but is mild and fragrant. If I were looking for an all-purpose curry powder, this would be it.

Lighter than Mint Chutney with Yogurt (following recipe), and, with its fresh ginger and garam masala, spicier. I’d serve it with grilled chicken or lamb.

Hot enough to counter the yogurt’s blandness and sweet enough to offset its sourness, complex with spice and bright and sparkling with a load of mint, this is the model mint chutney, a refreshing counterpoint to simple grilled lamb, beef, eggplant, salmon, even hamburger.

Beet salads in general are wonderful, but this one is a refreshing change. For one thing, the beets are raw. For another, their sweetness is offset by the sharp taste of raw cabbage; it’s a fine if odd marriage. Think of it as Swedish coleslaw (like coleslaw, it can be made a few hours in advance). Whenever you peel beets—and especially when you’re grating them—be sure to wear an apron or clothing you don’t care about.

This can be served, with rice, alongside any dal (page 433) or as a condiment with spicy stewed dishes. It can also be mixed into yogurt to make a kind of Raita (page 175).

Toasted sesame seeds are an important ingredient in a great deal of Middle Eastern and Asian cooking. You can buy sesame seeds pretoasted (especially at Korean markets), but the toasting process is nearly effortless (just make sure not to burn the seeds). There are many colors of sesame seeds. The most common variety, which are called white but are actually pale to dark tan, sometimes with tinges of gray, are fine for almost all uses. Store sesame seeds in the refrigerator or freezer to prevent them from turning rancid—an uncommon but not impossible eventuality.

As with most spice rubs, there are nearly infinite versions of this, but all have four things in common: Coriander, chile, garlic, and caraway. It’s the latter that gives it a surprising flavor, one that complements meat, especially lamb, beautifully. If you are going to use this as a spice rub on the same day you make it, by all means use fresh garlic. If you plan to store it for a while, use garlic powder. And of course you can substitute preground spices for fresh, but this way is better.

This vegetable stock is not unlike Jus Rôti (page 163) but without the meat—the roasting step adds a layer of flavor that is a welcome addition to otherwise one-dimensional vegetable stocks. Although this is hardly a bare-bones stock, the addition of mushrooms or more root vegetables (especially parsnips) will give it even more oomph.

The easiest and most economical stock there is. And not only can it substitute for fish stock, but it’s useful in its own right. You can add vegetables, as you do for Fish Stock (preceding recipe), but it isn’t essential.

A wonderful all-purpose sauce and mayonnaise substitute; use it for grilled meats, steamed vegetables, even chicken salad. For a milder sauce, reduce the garlic to one clove and substitute paprika for the chile. And there are lots of options for the liquid; the flavors of the other ingredients are so strong that it doesn’t matter all that much. Many cooks simply use a bit of olive oil and some water. Others use hazelnuts, pine nuts, or blanched almonds in place of walnuts; all are good. Be sure to see Chicken with Walnut Sauce (page 278).

In Western cooking, vinaigrette is the closest thing to an all-purpose sauce. I recommend making vinaigrette in a blender, where it becomes so stable that it can be prepared hours before it is needed. Once made, it can be used on everything from green salad to cold meat, vegetables, or fish dishes to anything that has been broiled or grilled, whether served hot or at room temperature. I well remember the first time I had good vinaigrette, and it was in France. It was so far and away the best salad dressing I’d ever tasted (and at this point I was twenty-six years old, so I’d tasted at least a few, though the vast majority had come out of bottles) that I had to ask the secret. The answer—now so obvious, then a revelation—was shallots. But you can use such a wide variety of flavors in vinaigrette (see the variations) that these days the standard French variety seems almost clichéd.

If you thought consommé was for sick people, you’ll think differently after you try it. It’s deceptively addictive, a rich, clear soup with wonderful, deep flavor. There’s a reason this is a traditional starter at elegant meals; it whets your appetite without filling you up at all. You can use a food processor to chop the chicken and vegetables together; pieces about 1/4 inch in diameter are about right, so don’t overprocess.