Cast Iron Skillet

Chilpachole de Jaiba This typical dish is adapted from a recipe given to us by our official guide, Ricardo Muñoz. Although picking the crabmeat is time-consuming (enlist a friend to help), you will be rewarded with a truly exceptional soup.

Jean-Yves Jaulin's Mojhettes au Jambon

This cake, thought to have first appeared in the 1920s, has had such names as pineapple glacé and pineapple skillet cake.

Way up in Maine, in the coastal town of Blue Hill, is Jonathan's, a small place much favored by locals. Owner Jonathan Chase and chef Richard Hanson both love fish, whether from the sea or from freshwater lakes and streams. This colorful main course is good with buttered and dilled new potatoes. Round out the meal with a green salad, and end with a slice of lattice-topped blueberry pie. (If necessary, have the fishmonger bone the trout, or use four small fillets.) Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Plancha is simply another word for comal, or griddle.

In this dish, the richness of the venison is balanced by the sweet-tart fruit compote.

The French dessert that's known as clafouti is a pancake crossed with a fruit-filled custard. It's best served warm, right from the skillet. If you don't have a cast-iron skillet, any ovenproof variety is fine. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Round out this menu with boiled green beans and corn muffins. Finish with chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream.

These lamb chops—an easier version of recipes you may have made before—go nicely with sugar snap peas with ginger and garlic and couscous with apricots .

Using sun-dried tomatoes that are not packed in oil cuts down on fat. You can find them at some supermarkets, specialty foods stores and Italian markets.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

In this entrée, balsamic vinegar gives tartness to a cream sauce that balances nicely with the pork and figs. Sautéed spinach or chard would go well with the dish.

Many southerners object to the practice of adding sugar to corn bread, but associate food editor Alexis Touchet, who grew up in Louisiana, is all for it. Sugar, in fact, is listed as an optional ingredient in the recipe for "pain de maïs nonpareil" in The Picayune's Creole Cook Book, first published in 1901. It's important here that your cast-iron skillet is well seasoned and thoroughly preheated—you want the batter to sizzle when you pour it in.