Recipes & Food

For years, falafel was Israel’s iconic food, its global culinary ambassador. But in recent years, another Israeli dish with working-class roots has become a major player in the game of street-food diplomacy: the savory tomato and egg mixture called shakshuka.

An eggplant curry with lemongrass and coconut milk recipe.

These quick and easy chicken meatballs are loaded with flavor for a fast meal that's still impressive. Fish sauce adds umami and funk, while Thai green chilies, scallions, and fresh ginger offer different levels of heat, and a sprinkle of crunchy turbinado sugar balances it all out. Serve these meatballs up as lettuce wraps with a pantry raid of whatever pickles you have on hand to make it a fresh and light meal perfect for any warm summer night.

Fresh, green asparagus is a well-loved vegetable, delectably crisp and sweet. When it’s available at the market or grocery, use it in abundance. Asparagus is amazingly versatile: it can be steamed, simmered, roasted, battered, grilled, sautéed or wok-fried. Thinly sliced, it’s even wonderful raw in a salad. The cooked spears can sport a variety of guises, from simple salt and pepper seasoning with butter or olive oil, to more complex sauces like beurre blanc. But it also holds up quite well to bold spicy treatment — anchovy, garlic, olives and chiles are all highly asparagus-compatible.

Here is a shockingly good accompaniment to chicken-liver pâté that came to The Times from the kitchen of the Fort Defiance in Brooklyn But don't think that is its only use Bacon-onion jam is also a terrific sandwich condiment

You might ask, why sous-vide a hamburger? It's one of the simplest foods to make using traditional methods, so does precision cooking really have anything to bring to the table? For larger burgers, of the six- to eight-ounce range, the answer is yes: Sous-vide precision cooking is a wonderful method of ensuring that your burgers come out with an unparalleled level of juiciness every single time.

Photograph by Gordon Mark While the Very Thin Grilled Cheese Sandwich is great on its own--especially if you're into more cheese than bread--it makes its appearance here as part of the recipe for our Hamburger Fatty Melt. Quadruple this recipe...

A grilled cheese is a grilled cheese, right? I mean, it's the first meal that most of us learn how to cook at home by ourselves. It's the perfect midnight snack or soup-dipper. It's great for kids but is never turned down by an adult. It's salty, gooey, crisp, buttery, and comforting in all the right ways. But there's grilled cheese, then there's GRILLED CHEESE. Here are 20 great ways to tell the difference.

With only a splash of cream per serving, the secret to this soup's creamy consistency is carrot purée. Its subtle sweetness mellows the acidity of canned tomatoes, for a hearty soup that feels like a meal on its own. Finished with a handful of fresh basil, this soup is the perfect accompaniment to any salad or grilled cheese.

Look at that fried chicken sandwich. Check out the crisp, craggy crust with that come bite me sheen that promises juicy, tender meat underneath. Look at that potato bun, its buttery, golden dome beckoning to you, and the playful little pickles. All of that can be yours, top to bottom, with just five simple ingredients.

The Mexican sandwich takes the same taco flavors and turns them up to eleven, offering a world of fluffy buns and spicy meats that no food lover should leave uneaten. Here are a few of our favorite types.

The mild heat of this hearty ancho chili-based soup is balanced by sweet corn and black beans.

Preserved lemons are useful in all sorts of recipes, and they're easy to make.

These sweet and savory chicken skewers get their crispiness from a caramelized brown-sugar glaze and crunch from toasted sesame seeds and almonds.

I think there should be a t-shirt or sign that reads: Miso butter just makes it all better. Not soba noodles, shredded chicken, and crunchy vegetables come together in one pot. It take half an hour to make from start to finish, but it'll only take a fraction of that time to slurp it all up whether you use chopsticks or forks.

Cemitas are a type of Mexcian sandwich that originally hails from the State of Puebla, but they've taken on a life of their own in New York City. This recipe creates a cemita sandwich as served in the restaurants and taco trucks of New York, in particular along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. These are gently warmed sandwiches served on a griddled sesame bun with taco-meat fillings of your choice, avocado, lettuce, tomato, chipotles, refried beans, mayo, and queso Oaxaca, a Mexican string cheese, that's hand-shredded into hairlike strands. Papalo, a floral Mexican herb, adds its own sp...

In the realm of chocolate, fat is flavor—so why do most bakers keep low-fat cocoa on the shelf? For an instant upgrade to your favorite desserts, try one of these rich, full-bodied natural cocoas, and say good-bye to low-fat chocolate.

This savory French toast is inspired by my mother’s simple version made with Thai green chili and onion. It's soaked in a creamy coconut green curry for that custardy center we all recognize, but with the pungent and spicy flavors I grew up on.

This French toast recipe gets a savory twist from spicy and funky green curry paste. We amp up store-bought curry paste with fresh herbs and additional lime juice and fish sauce. Blending the curry base and soaking the bread well in advance ensures that the curry soaks all the way through, for a flavorful, custardy center. With the prep work squared away the night before, this dish is perfect for any lazy Sunday.

Leftover risotto? Take a page from the Milanese kitchen by frying it in ample butter to form a beautiful golden pancake with a crispy, crunchy crust. The dish, known as risotto al salto is usually made from the saffron-scented risotto alla milanese, or sometimes from a basic risotto al parmigiano (risotto flavored simply with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano).

A dosa is a thin, lightly crisp crepe made from a batter of fermented rice and lentils, and it's popular throughout South Asia. We've tested all aspects of the process, from how to ferment the rice and lentils to how to grind them and in what ratios. The result is a perfect dosa every time.

Caramelizing onions the traditional way can take over an hour. Here's a rapid-fire way to get soft, sweet onions in only fifteen minutes.

For such a simple dish, French onion soup should be easy to make great. And yet, so many versions taste like a cup of burnt-onion tea with melted cheese trying its best to cover up the flaws. Here's what you need to know to get the best flavor in every steaming bowl.

How fast can you caramelize onions without the "cheaty" additions of sugar and baking soda, relying only on heat and a bit of water to prevent burning? I managed to do it in 15 minutes and 22 seconds. Not bad, considering it can take over an hour to do it the traditional way. Watch the video!

For such a simple dish, French onion soup should be easy to make great. And yet, so many versions taste like a cup of burnt-onion tea with melted cheese trying its best to cover up the flaws. Here's what you need to know to get the best flavor in every steaming bowl.

For my money, the very best classic steak sauce you can make at home, a sauce that will wow your guests with its flavor and elegance, and—most importantly—a sauce that can be made start to finish in under half an hour, is béarnaise. The catch (there's always a catch) is that made with the classic technique, it's very easy to mess up. Here is a foolproof technique that uses hot butter and a hand blender for perfect results every time.

Most of us know that Béarnaise is a derivative sauce based on Hollandaise, but how many of us know other children of that classic French mother sauce? Here's one to add to your stable: Choron sauce, made by blending tomato purée with Béarnaise. It's delicious on steak, chicken, eggs, vegetables, and more.

This pesto sauce, through rounds and rounds of testing, has been honed to the perfect ratio, ingredients, and method. And, while a mortar and pestle requires a bit of work, the superior sauce it produces compared to a food processor can't be argued with. This is the true, best pesto, but if you're using a food processor, this ratio of ingredients will still produce a great sauce.

You can spend close to $400 on a stockpot, but does spending more get you a better pot? To find out, we rounded up 14 models, ranging from around $34 to nearly $383 (at the time of testing), and put them through handling and cooking tests to find the designs that work best.

Injecting is a great way to get flavor down into the meat. It is faster, cheaper, and more efficient than brining. Here's how to do it.