Beverages

Pollo con Frutos y Frutas Secas As this recipe demonstrates, Ferran Adrià, the alchemist chef of El Bulli, is as practical as he is inventive. It's adapted from the cookbook he dedicated to quick recipes that can be made with supermarket ingredients, and it features a store-bought rotisserie chicken that's deliciously doctored with a sauce of dried fruit, pine nuts, and port wine. Though you can whip the dish up in less than half an hour, the flavors are sophisticated enough for a fancy dinner party. If you'd like to roast your own chicken, so much the better.

These dessert soufflés are light and satisfying. The vermouth really brings the sauce together.

Danish blue cheese, which is more economical than Roquefort, adds a rich tang to these cheese puffs.

Carbonnade is a Belgian beef stew flavored with beer, onions, and brown sugar. We’ve substituted inexpensive chicken thighs. Serve over egg noodles.

Who needs lobster? Mussels bring a similar richness to this soup.

Soufflés are usually associated with extravagant meals, but they're cheaper to make than you may think. A soufflé is made primarily of eggs, a very budget-friendly ingredient.

This nontraditional spin-off of an old-fashioned favorite makes a fun dinner-party appetizer plate or main course for more intimate gatherings.

Serve at room temperature with a sprinkling of salt, cornichons, Dijon, and a baguette.

While reminiscent of a marinara sauce, red bell pepper, cognac, and jalapeño add hints of newness to this luscious, traditional favorite lobster dish.

Ever dream about bringing an impressive roast to the holiday table with equally impressive ease? Now you can. Stuffing and preparing the pork a day ahead leaves you free to entertain and makes the meat especially flavorful as well. Bacon wrapped around the roast keeps it moist as it cooks. Prunes and dried apricots simmered in Port bring a fruity but not overly sweet intensity to the pork and its sauce.

"I've never been keen on pineapple," food editor Paul Grimes admits, "so I challenged myself to make a pineapple dessert that I would actually like." Charring the wine-poached fruit caramelizes it and softens its acidity while highlighting its floral notes. With vanilla and a cidery syrup, this dessert feels at once wintery and light.

Mashed potatoes are a tried-and-true side dish with steak, but for something new, try an Italian purée of white beans—it's just as creamy and much faster.

This is called a meringue buttercream because its foundation is egg whites, not the more traditional yolks. That makes it very light, satiny, and easy to spread—a plus if you're making a many-layered cake like the one in the preceding recipe. The base for this buttercream yields two different-flavored frostings: espresso coffee and bittersweet-chocolate mocha.

Let's just say that finding yourself alone in a room with a plate of these cookies and a tall glass of milk would be very, very dangerous. The trifecta of chocolate, hazelnuts, and rum is irresistible. Decorating the cutouts with royal icing adds a festive touch.

Don't let a cloudless sky stop you from enjoying a white Christmas. Create your own by whirring hot milk in a blender until it's as light as freshly fallen snow. The creamy froth blankets strong, dark coffee for a special morning brew.

What better way to celebrate the holidays than with something fabulous? In this elegant European-style cake, thin layers of different flavors come together in each bite. Fine-textured spongecake, soaked in espresso syrup, plays off of crisp hazelnut meringue, while the coffee and mocha buttercreams intensify the richness of a collapsed chocolate soufflé. The faint, bitter edge of dark coffee essentially saves this dessert from itself.

This holiday twist on the traditional brunch cocktail sparkles ruby red with pomegranate juice, its tart intensity offset by a hint of sweetness from fresh orange juice and Cointreau.