Make Ahead

You'll use some of the dressing for the grilled chicken and the rest for the noodle salad .

This salad is great with grilled chicken thighs, lamb chops, or leg of lamb.

The classic Italian sauce gets an update with the addition of parsley and tarragon.

Floating islands are similar to snow eggs but are baked in the oven in a bain-marie (water bath). The dessert can be made in individual portions, as here, or in a large soufflé mold. The bottom of each mold is coated with a caramel finished with butter to keep it a bit softer. The filled molds are then cooked, surrounded by water, in a roasting pan. Some of the caramel adheres to the bottom of the dishes when the floating islands are unmolded, but some of it drips down over the desserts to mix with the custard sauce. The rum-custard sauce is made with fewer egg yolks than traditionally called for in a custard cream. The milk, cornstarch, and sugar mixture is brought to a rolling boil and poured directly on top of the yolks. Because of the small proportion of egg yolks to milk, the temperature of the mixture rises to 180 degrees, ensuring that the lecithin in the egg yolks wil thicken. The sauce doesn't need further cooking and is strained to eliminate any curdled pieces. Here the custard sauce is flavored with rum, but it could be flavored with cognac, bourbon or vanilla instead. Floating islands can be cooked a day or so ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator so the tops don't get rubbery. Covering also keeps the dessert moist, preventing the sugar from hardening around the edge of the molds, and thus making the floating islands easier to unmold.

My Nana was quite a baker, as I found out while I was writing Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times. But these simple, delicious cookies became a staple around my house precisely because I'm not a whiz in the kitchen! They're a perfect "basic" cookie—they're easy to make and great with tea at mid-morning or in the afternoon, or as dessert. Around the holidays, they make a lovely, inexpensive gift when you put them in a pretty tin.

What a fantastic barbecue side: It's juicy, crunchy, and bright enough to provide delicious relief even from your richest dishes, and substantial enough to stand in for starchy sides like potatoes. I add a ton of marjoram and dill, but chives and basil taste amazing, too.

After these plump up from a quick brine, and cook in their shells, they'll eat more like peel-and-eat lobster tails than plain old shrimp. Serve this alongside grilled steak, and it'll be not only a great respite from the meat's richness, but it'll give you a surf-and-turf experience, which for me was one of the most exciting things to get at a restaurant when I was little.

When I developed this recipe, there were many arguments among the tasters, otherwise known as my friends, about whether or not it was too spicy. Some people liked the kick and others did not. I like it spicy, but if you want less heat, lay off the chiles: use one chile instead of two. Serve the ceviche with tortilla chips for a play on texture. I recommend using aquacultured bay scallops for this dish as they are grown and harvested sustainably. Bay scallops are in season from October to January. It's also perfectly acceptable to buy frozen scallops and defrost them; the dish will be just as successful.

When a butcher eats a salad, it tends to contain lots of meat and few vegetables. At Chez Navarre Jerome Navarre serves a version he learned from his father, a butcher.

In Galicia, empanadas are large enough to serve many people, unlike the individual empanadas of Latin America.

Here is a jewel of an Afghani dish. It is one I cook regularly, sometimes with shoulder of lamb instead of chicken thighs. I serve it with slow-cooked spinach, finished with leeks and a minuscule amount of rhubarb. This may sound strange, but the rhubarb is sweetened by the leeks and it really does work.

These thin, anise-flavored pancakes are similar to French crepes.

This is a lovely dish to serve with grilled pita bread, either alongside a couple of other mezze, while you have a drink before supper, or as an appetizer in its own right, or as a light lunch with a good salad on the side. In the summer, please use fresh peas; at all other times of year the wondrous frozen pea will do. You can make this dish in advance, put it in the fridge, and bring it back to room temperature when you want it.

This salad is a mix of fresh and caramelized cherry tomatoes and cubes of smoky San Simón cheese.

Navarre adds hard-boiled eggs to his version of this classic green French sauce, good on anything from fish and cold meats to grilled foods.

Donatella still remembers the lure of these addictive sweets. "I always got in trouble with my aunt because I would sneak into the kitchen and steal them," she says. Frying the dough in extra-virgin olive oil adds an authentic flavor. You'll need about five cups of oil for frying.

For Donatella, fava beans were an acquired taste. "When I was a child, I hated them," she says. She’s come around to the hearty, healthy bean and has always been a fan of dandelion greens, an ingredient that many Italians believe calms the stomach. Timing note: The favas need to soak overnight.

Traditionally, the broth, meats, and vegetables are all served separately, but feel free to serve everything in the same bowl. The beans need to soak overnight, so start this recipe one day ahead.

Serve the peppers, salad, and empanada together, tapas style, then follow with the stew and the pancakes. Or, if you prefer, serve the peppers as an appetizer and the salad as a first course. Follow with the stew, the empanada, and the pancakes. Keep in mind that the heat of the peppers varies widely—some are mild, others are hot. The heat is tamed by Tetilla cheese, a creamy cow's-milk cheese from Galicia, and a garlicky mayonnaise that's inspired by Spanish allioli.

This subtly spicy mayo is great on fish and sandwiches—and on fries, too.