Simmer

Nutritious sweet potatoes need little embellishment to make a flavorful soup. This one is made extra easy by microwaving the sweet potatoes ahead of time, sparing the cook from having to scrape and dice them. Just scoop, mash, and heat for a comforting, nearly-instant soup.

With a generous portion of tofu, this soup is perfect to team with a light noodle dish.

If you find yourself with too much lettuce and some leftover rice, here’s a great way to use both.

This comforting classic thickens considerably as it stands, resulting in a generous quantity of soup. Each time you reheat it, thin it with additional water, and adjust the seasonings. Or, once your original batch cools, consider freezing half of it for later use. This soup is a meal in itself. All you need is a good bread and a salad—simple or bountiful, as you prefer.

In this dish a hunk of ham is left whole as it cooks with the peas. Not cutting it up is very country.

Chicken wings don’t have to be just chicken wings. This teriyaki glaze is incredibly easy to make and turns a boring concept into something sophisticated.

Always have this on hand.

Slicing the beef paper-thin when stir-frying will get the meat nice and crispy, so make sure your knife is sharp. If tangerines are not in season, oranges make a fine substitute and no one will be the wiser. The only weird ingredient is the black Chinese vinegar. It has a sweet, malted flavor that is very traditional in Chinese cooking. If you’re a purist about Chinese food, the black vinegar will be worth the trip to an Asian market. If you can’t find it, I’m not going to tell anyone if you substitute balsamic vinegar.

Chicken Cacciatore is a dish that time has forgotten. It’s simple, rustic, and truly Italian, and my buddy Frankie DeCarlo likes it, too. I would serve this with Soft Polenta (page 244). If cutting up a chicken intimidates you, buy precut pieces or have the guy at the meat counter do it for you—that’s his job, right?

I had this dish in a noodle shop in Australia. When I asked the Thai owner for the recipe, he had an odd reaction; out of nowhere this little guy pulls out a karate move and takes a swing at me. In the end, he chased me out of the kitchen with a cleaver, but not before I swiped the recipe. It was worth it. If you are not able to get your hands on kaffir lime leaves, up the lemongrass to 4 stalks. But do make the effort to try to find them in your area or look for them on the Internet; there really is no substitute for their amazing flavor.

Good clam chowder starts with really good, fresh clams. It’s easy to find them if you live on the coast, but even if you’re landlocked in Ohio, you can ask the guy in the seafood department to order them. I use both cherrystones, which are large and meaty, plus smaller littlenecks, which are more delicate and should be cooked only briefly. I don’t care for bottled clam juice because of its high sodium content.

This is a great dish to serve on Sunday night when The Sopranos come on. It’s classy and understated. A good way to add more intense mushroom flavor is to throw the mushroom stems in with the chicken stock. Just be sure to brush the mushroom stems first for any loose dirt.

These pork dumplings can also be served by themselves without the soup. Just steam them instead of boiling them in the broth. You will have leftover filling, so you can make it once and serve it twice.

Being a kid from South Carolina, I always had fresh biscuits growing up. This recipe is as close to my grandmother’s as I could get without having a spiritual adviser. They’re big, fat, and light as a cloud, just like I remember them. The peach and rosemary spoon fruit adds a little contemporary twist.

Growing up, my family had a tradition that whoever got the bay leaf had to do the dishes.

One trick that I learned a long time ago about cooking pork is that you have to brine it. The brine for this recipe is a sugar-salt solution mixed with apple juice concentrate (you will need 2 cans of frozen juice) for the brine and spiced apples. With its sweet apple flavor, this is an intense marinade that works miracles on pork chops. Trust me—once you taste a thick pork chop that’s been flavored in a brine, you will never go back. Cozy up to your butcher to get the pork chops cut to your liking. Thin pork chops—no way! Serve this with Corn Pudding (page 236).

If you have never experimented with Thai ingredients before, try this recipe—the flavors are mental. Lemongrass, coconut milk, basil, lime: They all hit the palate in perfect harmony. If you love Thai food, this is a great dish to start playing around with—and it’s very easy. The floral aroma of green curry simmering on the stove is hypnotic. Kaffir lime leaves are crucial to this dish and are worth the trip to your local Asian market. Serve with Perfect Steamed Jasmine Rice (page 240).