Cookbooks

I like to make a batch of Lebkuchen Spice Mix—a mixture of all the “usual suspects” in wintertime baking—in early fall so that I’m ready for the Christmas baking season. The mixture below is a great all-purpose one. But you can also tinker with the amounts if you want to highlight one flavor or another.

This classic Yorkshire pudding recipe comes from the original 1961 edition of The New York Times Cookbook. Serve with your favorite roast beef.

Fermented black soy beans—a Chinese cousin to miso paste—are the key to this flavorful weeknight stir-fry.

There is no better use for leftover rice than chahan. A brief trip in a pan resurrects the grains and a few pantry ingredients—little more than eggs, oil, and salt—transform tired rice into a super-satisfying meal. To give the humble dish a little flair, I whip up a saucy broth filled with vegetables and shrimp and pour it on at the last minute. Of course, you can add any ingredients you like—peas or asparagus, kimchi or Japanese pickles, pork, or even, as I do at Morimoto Napa, duck confit.

My mom makes the most delicious salmon chowder. It always reminds me how tasty leeks are. The combination of tomatoes and cream creates a pretty pink base.

The most popular person at any Japanese street festival is the yakisoba guy. Standing at a small cart with a hot griddle, he wears a twisted hair band and holds two giant spatulas, one in each hand. With great energy and fanfare he stir-fries a heap of vegetables and pork with chukasoba noodles—the yellow, springy Chinese-style wheat noodles more commonly known as ramen. He finishes with a glug of the special bottled sauce that tastes like a spicier version of tonkatsu sauce, and customers walk toward him like zombies. At home, however, the dish is best cooked one portion at a time.

To me, chili powder need not be superhot, but you can change that if you like—just add cayenne or some spicy dried chiles (most of the common dried red ones you find are pretty fiery). But it is easy enough to add heat at any stage of cooking or even at the table, whereas the warm, welcoming flavor of good chili powder is hard to come by. When you’re buying dried chiles, look for those that are not brittle; they should retain some moisture and even be a bit soft.

Zhoug is a spicy herb sauce of Yemenite origin that you find in Syria and Israel. It’s often the go-to condiment for falafel and is eaten with bread for those who want heat with every bite. It’s a must with Shakshuka, and you’ll probably find yourself stirring it into scrambled eggs, spreading it on a sandwich, mixing it with Greek yogurt to make a dip, or just eating it by the spoonful.

Shakshuka means “all mixed up” in Hebrew and is one of the most popular breakfast dishes in Israel and at Sofra. Many countries in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean claim a version of their own, like Tunisian chakchouka, made with peppers and harissa, and a Moroccan version made with lamb sausage and harissa. The eggs are poached directly in the spicy tomato sauce, so it’s important that the sauce is well seasoned and warmed before you add the eggs.

The trick of making an espresso extract to add to the dough is a good one to know. If you want to use it for other things—a spoonful is good in brownies, chocolate sauces or even in chocolate chip cookies—make more than you need now and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will be fine for months. Of course these are good with coffee and coffee drinks, but they’re surprisingly nice with milk and not at all bad with cognac.

Takes the fear out of frying with a foolproof explanation and a universally loved snack as your reward.

Making Stollen is not for the faint of heart. Avoiding it altogether because excellent store-bought Stollen abounds is further abetted by the invention of Stollenkonfekt, bite-size chunks of spiced, tender Quark dough studded with almonds and raisins and thickly cloaked in vanilla-scented confectioners’ sugar. They may be a relatively recent development in the world of Christstollen, which dates back to the Middle Ages, but they more than make up for their youth. In other words, want the rich, buttery, spicy flavor of Stollen without the work of a yeasted dough and the weeks of impatiently waiting for the loaves to be ready? If so, Stollenkonfekt is the thing for you.

I like spreading Quark on my morning slice of bread and topping it with jam, but you can also mix it with salt and herbs and dollop it next to boiled potatoes for a light meal. Using buttermilk will result in skim Quark, which is best for baking recipes. If you want a creamier Quark to eat as is, simply stir a little heavy cream into the Quark to loosen and enrich it. (Mixed with high-quality fruit preserves, this makes for a luxurious little snack.)

While you can make a very nice vanilla sugar by simply plunging a vanilla bean into a jar of sugar and leaving it there (for a really, really long time), I actually like to make a slightly fancier version by processing vanilla and sugar together until the bean is all broken down and the sugar is speckled with countless tiny beans and specks of pod. The sugar is more intensely flavored than regular vanilla sugar. Packaged in a pretty glass jar, it also makes for a great gift.

Also known as advieh, this aromatic blend comes from Persian cuisine. It’s fragrant, a little sweet, and gently warming. It is delicious mixed with sugar and sprinkled over baked goods, donuts, and rice pudding or added to dried fruits that are cooking into jam. It straddles the sweet and savory world because it’s also great for flavoring rice pilaf with toasted nuts, lentil soup, lamb meatballs, braised chicken, or vegetable stew. It’s a blend that is shared by chefs and pastry chefs. Use it to make Persian-Style Carrots and Black-Eyed Peas.

Resting yeast-raised waffle batter overnight enhances their flavor and makes their texture wonderfully crisp and fluffy.

One of my favorite crops from my husband’s farm are his fall carrots. I prefer the fall carrots because as the weather gets colder the vegetable sugars concentrate, yielding the sweetest carrots of the year. We use lots of carrots in this recipe, so that it’s more about the carrots than anything else. For the best flavor, serve it cold the day after you make it. You can substitute chickpeas for the black-eyed peas, if you prefer to use another type of bean.

This is the recipe given to me by Pierrette Lejanou. The addition of walnut oil at the last moment brightens the taste of the beans. Begin preparations two days before you plan to serve the cassoulet.

Traditional duck confit is not only cooked in fat but also preserved for a period of time. A true confit has a unique flavor developed as it ages in duck fat. You can make it the traditional way, buy ready-made confit, or use the cooking method described here, called sous vide (under vacuum). Recently, I learned how to use this method to make duck confit for use in Cassoulet in the Style of Toulouse, where large succulent chunks of boned meat are set between layers of beans to bake for a second long cooking. Sous vide–prepared confit will survive this extra cooking and remain flavorful and moist. Additionally, this is the easiest and least messy way to prepare this essential cassoulet component.

Who doesn’t love banana bread? This one is just sweet enough, with fabulous crunch if you add walnuts and coconut, as I always do. There’s no better solution for over-the-hill bananas, and the batter comes together in less than 10 minutes. I’ve been making this recipe — created by my late dear friend Sherry — for almost fifty years; it’s incredibly reliable.