Gourmet

Gajar halva is a luxurious Indian dessert made from carrots slowly cooked down with sweetened milk and spices. This version is fast enough for weeknights and brings the warmth of the Indian sun to mind.

This gratin is more elegant than your usual broccoli and cheese casserole, thanks to a custardy base and plenty of parmesan.

Elegant and deliciously buttery, these golden fantails are an obvious choice for entertaining. Their shape resembles a blooming flower, with each petal forming a perfect pull-apart bite. But don’t worry—they are surprisingly straightforward to put together in a muffin pan.

Roasting already-roasted cashews seems counterintuitive, but it deepens their rich flavor as the green beans cook alongside.

Grimes spent hours exploring Nagyvásárcsarnok, Budapest's largest indoor market hall, where he discovered all kinds of cured and jellied meats, pickled vegetables, and a virtual hanging garden of sausages. This magnificent cold layered terrine, which requires almost no cooking, was inspired by that bounty. Horseradish and sour cream, so abundant in central European cooking, complement the beets and the tongue's smoky richness. The success of this dish depends largely on using good-quality borscht such as Gold’s Russian Style (avoid brands containing high-fructose corn syrup).

Sizzling with fresh ingredients, this lively Asian stir-fry keeps prep time to a bare minimum without sacrificing flavor.

The delicate crust of this galette gets a warm spiciness from fresh sage.

There are lots of meatless burgers in the world, but this Latin American-inspired recipe is especially satisfying without being stodgy. It's pantry-friendly to boot.

The sweet raisins and bits of smoky cheese studding this risotto make for an arresting contrast with the smooth, savory rice.

The combination of fennel and roast pork is an Italian classic. Here, fennel bulbs become a tender, almost silky partner for pork, but to create another layer of flavor, we’ve added some crushed fennel seeds.

Classic shape plus not-so-classic flavors gives these rolls an element of surprise. That’s not to say the wintry blend of pumpkin and orange is overpowering; it’s actually very subtle, so the rolls go with just about anything you put on the dinner table. Leftovers would be awfully good slathered with butter and toasted for breakfast.

During a research trip to Budapest, food editor Paul Grimes ate his way through plates of wild mushrooms for dinner and servings of sweet strudels for dessert. When he returned, he came up with this elegant hors d'oeuvre of thin cylinders of phyllo filled with the woodsy intensity of mushrooms. Brushing the phyllo layers with duck or goose fat lends an authentic flavor; butter also works perfectly well.

A simple flurry of slightly bitter endive slivers is just the right palate cleanser after a substantial meal. The key to the equally easy vinaigrette is to temper sumptuous walnut oil with lighter, more neutral vegetable oil.

This fudgy cake is packed with intense, chocolaty richness.

Tender veal shanks get great depth of flavor from lecsó, a kind of Hungarian sofrito of sautéed onions, frying peppers, and tomatoes, to which paprika and, in this case, stock are added. (Grimes found that Cubanelle peppers are the best substitute for the long, yellowish-green peppers found throughout Hungary.) Finished with sour cream, the sauce yields more than you need, but you'll be happy to have leftovers to serve over noodles, chicken, or pork.

Juicy pineapple meets creamy avocado, crisp jicama, and red onion in a refreshing salad that goes especially well with the cilantro-chipotle tilapia .

This soup has many layers in its complexity, but the overall effect is of cleanness and freshness. An optional addition of jasmine rice makes a heartier meal.

Latin-food authority Maricel Presilla describes sofrito—the sautéed mix of aromatic vegetables that is the bedrock of this vegetarian soup—as the DNA of the Latin kitchen because it carries a basic flavor code. There's onion and garlic, to be sure, but also tomatoes and various herbs, spices, and chiles, depending on the region. For this red-bean soup, we were inspired specifically by Puerto Rico, as evidenced by recao (an herb similar to cilantro) and by chiles that are fruity rather than hot. Just for fun, we included a last-minute sprinkling of Italian gremolata for brightness.