Make Ahead

Everything about this dish is light, clean, vibrant, and harmonious, with the wonderful taste of corn perhaps taking center stage. The corn's refined sweetness is marvelously juxtaposed with the elegant sour flavor in the cheese. Mushrooms provide an earthiness, and spinach leaves cut through all the elements to insure a clean, bright taste. A playful salad featuring buttery lettuces, tomato pieces, and Rawmesan adds even greater depth on the palate. Here, both the flavor and textural variety are extraordinary.

Slow-cooking these colorful vegetables renders them soft and silky. And serving them Mediterranean-style — at room temperature — makes entertaining easy, because you don't have to run back and forth between the table and the kitchen.

If you like curries, you'll love this recipe. The sauce is rich with coconut flavor and redolent with spice. Don't be alarmed by the number of red chiles — these are mild.

Ripe passion fruits look dry and very wrinkled. If you can't find them, look for frozen pulp at Latin markets.

The sweet and tangy apricot sauce that anchors this dessert is a nod to the spoon sweets — fruit preserves that are eaten from small spoons — traditionally served in Greece to arriving guests.

Editor's note: The recipe below is part of a healthy and delicious spa menu developed exclusively for Epicurious by Lake Austin Spa Resort. This is arguably Mexico's most famous special occasion cake. Tres leches means three milks — typically heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, and whole milk. Our version opts for a lighter more tropical soaking — reduced-fat coconut milk, fat-free sweetened condensed milk, and skim milk. You would think that all of this fluid infusion would turn the cake to sodden disintegration. But, in fact, it absorbs the liquids beautifully, much as does the equatorial earth absorb a sudden downpour. Accompanied by rum-caramelized bananas and topped with toasted coconut, this cake has become our most popular new dessert.

Western stocks are loaded with aromatics and many Asian stocks include ginger. This simple stock has a pure chicken flavor.

Although this dessert is not traditional (Nonya sweets typically call for unusual ingredients that are not readily available in the U.S.), you'd likely find a version of it at a contemporary Malaysian restaurant. It's extremely important to use very ripe mangoes — it's their fresh flavor that makes these puddings so delicious.

This Mediterranean dish can be served with bread or crackers as a meze (appetizer), and it's also great as a sandwich filling.

Tucked inside these juicy chuck burgers is a pocket of rich, salty tapenade. To experience the full range of flavors, build your burger with all the Accompaniments — the bite of red onion and the sweet crunch of gherkin pickles are key.

Lime cordial is a mixture of sweet limeade syrup and beer, club soda, or seltzer, in a ratio of about 3 parts syrup to 1 part beer or soda (the syrup by itself can also be properly called lime cordial). The wonderfully refreshing drink both complements and tames intense spices.