Food

Recipes

Tea-Brined Chicken Breasts On Asparagus Salad

Lightly pounding the chicken breast turns it into a chicken steak of sorts that will cook more quickly and evenly. Since breast meat is so lean, brining helps keep it juicy.

Recipes

Heirloom Tomato & Blue Cheese Salad

If you can get your hands on it, use the piquant Dragon’s Breath blue cheese from That Dutchman’s Farm in Nova Scotia.

Recipes

Beet Salad With Sunflower Seed Picada

In Spain, a picada is a combination of chopped garlic, bread and nuts, and usually used to thicken and flavor a sauce. Here, it adds a crispy, nutty element to the salad.

Recipes

Citrus Fizz Mocktail

Recipes

Cauliflower With Truffle Oil

For a less-heavy version of this soup, hold the butter or oil and simmer all the vegetables together in the stock. Skip the cream at the end, and serve the truffle oil on the side so diners can drizzle it themselves.

Recipes

MA-PO Tofu

A fiery stew of silken tofu, ground pork and heaps of green onion, ma-po tofu is one of the most popular dishes in the Sichuan canon. The secret ingredient is chili bean sauce, a spicy, umami-rich condiment available at Chinese supermarkets.

Recipes

Harira (Moroccan Lamb And Lentil Soup)

Some supermarkets sell frozen lamb stewing meat from New Zealand that’s tailor-made for this recipe. Don’t add salt until the very end, as lentils take much longer to cook in the presence of sodium.

Recipes

Chicken Matzo Ball Soup

While you can make perfectly delicious matzo balls with vegetable oil, duck fat will yield the most sublime results. Jewish cooks traditionally save the fat skimmed from making chicken stock — called schmaltz — for these dumplings.

Recipes

Winter Soupe Au Pistou

Feel free to play around with the vegetable medley in this Provençal soup, using whatever is in season or kicking around your kitchen. If you need to save time, use store-bought basil or kale pesto instead of the parsley pistou.

Recipes

Pea Soup With Lobster

If you make this soup ahead of time, cool it down rapidly in a large bowl placed in a bowl of ice to help preserve its vibrant green color.

Recipes

Beet & Apple Soup With Feta

To protect against staining from the beets, wear rubber gloves and a full apron, and grate them directly over a large bowl.

Recipes

Five-Spice Pork Wraps With Hoisin Barbecue Sauce

The bottom of a 2-piece tart pan and a long metal spatula make the job of transferring the hot roast much easier. You could also put out leaves of Romaine hearts to wrap the pork for anyone watching their carbs.

Recipes

Tuna Brochettes With Eggplant-Caper Dip

While the dip can be made up to 3 days in advance, cut and sear the tuna as close to serving as possible to preserve its freshness and bright color.

Recipes

Orange Twist Champagne Cocktail

For a signature cocktail with more punch, add 3⁄4 oz. of cognac to the flute before you pour in the sparkling wine. Orange bitters can be found at most gourmet food shops.

Recipes

Chipotle Peanut Brittle

To avoid getting fingerprints on the brittle, wear latex gloves (not rubber gloves) when you break it into pieces. Adapted from Tom Colicchio’s Craft of Cooking.