Gluten Free

It seems every country that grows rice makes rice pudding, and almost every experienced cook has his or her own technique. After years of playing with it, this is the one I like best, and it works well with the variations of most cuisines. In many cases rice pudding is simply milk bound by rice; often the amount of rice is well under 10 percent of the total. I prefer this recipe with just 1/4 cup, no more. The result is a thick milk custard with a recognizable but understated rice presence. If you want a dense and slightly chewier mixture, use the larger amount of rice. Other possible additions to rice pudding: a strip of lemon zest, a pinch of saffron threads, or a teaspoon of ground cardamom added at the beginning; a couple of tablespoons of raisins and/or slivered pistachios stirred in at the end. See the variations, and the following recipes, too—this group of recipes is unending.

A recipe from my friend Sumana Chatterjee, whose family lives in Calcutta. The ingredient list, obviously, could not be shorter, but don’t be deceived: This is a labor-intensive dish, best made on a cool day (we made it on a hot one and lost about five pounds each) when you are going to be in the kitchen for a long time. Having said that, it is wonderful stuff, creamy and delicious, representative of the scores of different milk desserts made throughout India.

Palm sugar, or jaggery, is dark, unrefined sugar made from a variety of sources, including the sap of the palm tree. It can be chunky and must be broken up; dark brown sugar is a nearly perfect substitute. This dish is great with slices of ripe fresh mango.

A quicker, easier version of the preceding coconut milk pudding, this simple dessert is popular at food markets throughout Southeast Asia. Great with mangoes or any other ripe tropical fruit.

These sticky, sweet dumplings, which are easier to produce than most savory dumplings, are served at New Year’s festivities throughout East and Southeast Asia. Palm sugar and glutinous rice flour can be found at most Asian markets.

This is quite possibly the simplest dessert “recipe” imaginable: vanilla ice cream doused with coffee. The dessert probably originated in Turin, an important city for both coffee and ice cream, and is served in bars there all over town.

Traditionally paskha is not cooked but put in a special pyramid-shaped mold, weighted, and drained in the fridge for a day or so. But given people’s concerns about raw eggs, and since baking is a legitimate alternative, I make a baked version, which is just as good (and actually keeps longer).

How quick-cooking rice came into existence I’ll never know, given how easy this is. Basically, you can cook long-grain rice any way you want to, as long as you use sufficient water and stop the cooking (draining excess water if necessary) before it becomes mush. This is the most straightforward method.

This dish contains a lot of flavors, but one distinguishes Indonesian cooking from almost every other: dried shrimp. These tiny crustaceans can be bought at most Asian markets and need only be soaked in hot water for a few minutes before use. (There’s also a shrimp paste, which requires no soaking; you can use this instead.) But, like nam pla—Southeast Asian fish sauce—dried shrimp are an acquired taste for many people. I like them, but I’ve also made this successfully without them when I fear guests will balk. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: I’ve never seen this without green beans, but certainly you could substitute any root vegetable for the carrot and zucchini or any other summer squash for the eggplant.

In their simplest form, quesadillas are warm corn tortillas encasing spicy melted cheese, but the basic construction simply begs to be built upon. See the variations and keep in mind that the possibilities are endless—take advantage of what you have in the refrigerator or garden. Fresh corn tortillas are best, but flour ones are acceptable. You may dry-sauté the quesadillas, with no oil, in a nonstick or well-seasoned cast-iron skillet.

“Don’t make a big tsimmes out of it” was a favorite expression of my mother’s, as if making a tsimmes was a big deal and therefore making a big tsimmes—well, you get the idea. Making a tsimmes—a stew of fruits and vegetables, often on the sweet side, and sometimes grains—can be a big deal, especially if you begin with a piece of meat. But as a delicious midwinter stew of dried fruits and root vegetables, served as a side dish or even a main course, it’s hardly any work at all. To make one with meat, simply add these ingredients to the Cholent recipe on page 380. Many tsimmes recipes call for cooking the fruit until it falls apart, which is all too easy to do. In this one, which has less water than most, the fruit is cooked until perfectly tender but still intact. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: vary this as you like—not only is meat common, but so are turnips, beets, apples, barley, and the small egg noodles known as farfel. The key ingredients are the dried fruit, sweet potatoes, and carrots.

An unusual appetizer, in both its meat (lamb ribs, while delicious, are not seen that frequently) and its spicing. Ask the butcher for a lamb breast, cut into ribs; give him a couple of days’ notice to make sure he can get one.

Ratatouille calls for a fairly specific list of vegetables: eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and usually onions. These are cooked slowly, together, with a lot of olive oil and some garlic. The dish is finished with fresh basil; how could it be bad? Needless to say, ratatouille is best in midsummer, when the vegetables are at their peak. It can be served hot or at room temperature and is delicious both ways. It’s especially good with grilled sausage.

The most difficult part of making negima, the popular Japanese appetizer in which meat is wrapped around scallions or chives, is slicing the meat thin enough. You can ask your butcher for ultra-thin-cut sirloin, and you might get it, but it’s probably easier to use pork, chicken, or veal, all of which are regularly sold as thin cutlets. With a little gentle pounding, they’re thin enough, and the process becomes easy.

Like many dishes from India, this one contains a lot of ingredients and requires a fair amount of precooking work but is easy to assemble. If you can find fresh paneer—the simple cheese that appears in many Indian dishes—by all means use it. But tofu makes a great substitute. Serve over rice or as part of a larger Indian meal.

This is similar to Grilled Satay, which follows, only in that it is meat on a stick. But this deep-fried version is crunchier, and the skewer itself is best when made from lemongrass or sugarcane, either of which imparts a subtle aroma to the meat (and gives you something to gnaw on, if your tastes go in that direction). Since the meat is pressed around the skewer like a meatball—the result is kind of a meat lollipop—it needs to be finely minced to hold together well; a food processor does the job perfectly.

Sardines are not sold fresh as often as they might—or should—be. But when they are, and they’re in good shape (make sure they don’t look tired and old), they’re worth grabbing. Fresh anchovies or smelts make a good substitute, again as long as they’re gleaming. All of these little fish may be sold gutted, but if yours are whole, simply make a slit along the belly of each and, under running water, run your finger along the inside cavity to remove the innards. (You can eat them with their guts too, as many Europeans do; they’re delicious that way.) Though I usually “grill” these in the broiler, they can also be cooked over a fire, using a fish basket, just until browned on each side. You can also fry sardines; treat them as you would Fritto Misto (page 94), and serve them with any light tomato sauce, like Fast, Fresh Tomato Sauce (page 606).

Quenelles, like gefilte fish (page 36), are fish balls, but they are elegant fish balls, containing cream, herbs, and butter. As a result, they’re more expensive and more caloric than gefilte fish, but faster and easier to make. Also like gefilte fish, they traditionally were made from freshwater fish (especially pike), but you can use any delicate white-fleshed fish you like. This is a big, fancy first course, best followed with something light and simple, unless you’re planning an elegant dinner. Chervil is the best possible herb to use here, but it is almost always difficult to find; dill is the standard second choice.

Similar to Tempura (recipe follows), these are usually made only with vegetables—but a very wide assortment—and the batter is best when prepared with chickpea flour (also called besan or gram flour and available at Indian and many Asian markets and most health food stores). Traditionally, the batter also often contains anardana, a powder made from ground pomegranate seeds—if you can find some (try the same stores that have besan), add a teaspoon to the batter, along with the garam masala. Pakora batter can also be fried on its own, as a fritter; mix a medium onion, chopped, into it, and drop it by the tablespoon into the hot oil.

These sweet fritters are a cross between doughnuts and potato pancakes. That may sound strange, but, like doughnuts or churros, they make a great break fast or snack food. Buñuelos are most often made from a combination of three roots. One is yucca (also known as cassava and, confusingly enough, tapioca and manioc); it has a tough brown skin, bright white flesh, and a tough core that should be cut out before cooking. The second is malanga (also called taro), which resembles a hairy yam but has a lovely, creamy interior, sometimes streaked with purple. Finally, there’s boniato, also known as batata or Cuban sweet potato. It’s in the same family as sweet potatoes and yams (and either can be substituted here). The reddish skin encases white flesh, which is dry and has a subtle sweetness. All three of these can be found at major good supermarkets and Latin groceries, right next to one another.