Garlic

My dad, Antonio (a.k.a. Tony), inspired this dish. Like a painter’s body of work, his culinary life is marked by distinct periods. When he went through an osso buco period, I decided that if I was going to be making a lot of osso buco, it was going to be a Mexican osso buco, spiked with lime, chiles, cilantro, and garlic.

Chocolate and chiles have been paired up for centuries in Mexico. Ancho-infused hot chocolate was a drink reserved for royalty, believed to produce strength and virility. The combo is especially tasty with beefy short ribs. You can substitute bittersweet chocolate for the Mexican chocolate; just add a pinch each of sugar and cinnamon and a few drops of almond extract—the ingredients that make Mexican chocolate unique.

This blend of two classic flavors, combined with a hint of chipotle, makes for a fast and easy party favorite. You can make these 3 days ahead and store them in an airtight container.

Tomatoes are a staple ingredient in Italian cooking, and this dish is inspired by the beautiful image of vast fields of sweet vine-ripened tomatoes that are a common sight in southern Italy. The bright, concentrated flavors of the tomatoes in this dish make them a great simple accompaniment to grilled fish or meats. Actually, they are so delicious you’ll want to serve them on their own as an antipasto; just pop them right into your mouth. Each tomato holds its shape as it cooks and becomes sweet and tender, with a golden crust and gooey cheese in the center. My mouth waters just thinking about it!

Since olive oil is the backbone of this dish, use the best you can lay your hands on and be sure to keep the heat under the oil medium-low, because you want to avoid browning the garlic at all costs. (Well, not at all costs. If you brown the garlic, you’ll have a different, more strongly flavored kind of dish, but one that is still worth eating.) Garnish with a good handful of chopped parsley. For thirty seconds’ work, this makes an almost unbelievable difference.

The ease with which this dish can be thrown together and the range of meals it happily accompanies (menus with European, Middle Eastern, or Northern African accents are game, as are good old American cookouts) guarantee that it makes regular and frequent appearances on my dinner table. An assortment of olives is far preferable to just one kind. Try, for example, some oil cured, some big fat green Sicilians, and some Kalamatas just that simple combination will look bright and pretty. If you can lay your hands on more varieties, so much the better.

Buy snow-white cauliflower with no brown spots; use broccoli or one of the hybrids (broccoflower, romanesco broccoli, and so on) if the cauliflower does not look good. And though it is a full-flavored dish, remember that cooking will mellow the assertive flavors of the anchovies and garlic, so don’t skimp on either. This dish is just as good warm as it is hot.

You’ll find strongly seasoned, crunchy pork everywhere in Latin America, and it’s always irresistible.

Why do so many recipes have you brown lamb shanks and other tough meats when the long braising needed to make them tender ends up breaking down the lovely, crisp crust? The simple answer is that browning creates complex flavors, but it also creates a spattery mess. So here’s a solution: grill or broil the shanks after braising. This will give them the ultimate crust, and the braising liquid will serve as a succulent sauce.

Chimichurri is a simple Argentinean steak sauce made almost entirely from parsley, with huge amounts of chopped garlic and red pepper. In spirit, it’s not unlike pesto, but because everything is hand-chopped rather than ground or mashed, it has a bit more chew to it. And its powerful ingredients set it apart, making it the perfect complement for mild-tasting but meaty tenderloin.

Chicken Al Mattone as it’s rightfully called, is the simplest and best method for producing crisp, delicious skin and wonderfully moist meat. All you need is a split chicken and two ovenproof skillets or a skillet and a couple of bricks or rocks. (The weight serves two purposes: it partially covers the chicken, which helps it retain moisture, and it ensures that the flesh of the chicken remains in contact with the skillet, which encourages browning.) Once covered, the chicken is transferred to a very hot oven to finish cooking. Handling the hot, heavy pan takes two hands—be careful.

Once in martinique I ate at a restaurant that was so simple that almost all of the food—chicken, tuna, quail, pork, and veal kidneys—was grilled. Not only that; it was all served with the same thin, powerful sauce, made of lime, scallion, chile, and garlic, with loads of allspice. It was the allspice that made the sauce unusual, but there was more to it than that: the garlic and scallion looked uncooked but had lost their harshness and become easily digestible. Furthermore, the base of the sauce was not oil, but water. With the help of a friend who was born on Martinique, I was able to duplicate the sauce at home. It’s called sauce au chien, which means “dog sauce” (a fact I chose not to research too aggressively). And it’s great with almost anything grilled.

In its traditional form, this cold potato-and-leek soup borders on boring: potatoes, leeks (or onions or a combination), water or stock, salt and pepper, butter, and cream. What little complexity the soup has comes from butter, lots of salt and pepper, good stock, and, of course, cream. But if you add other vegetables, like garlic and carrots, things become more interesting. And you can nudge the soup over into gazpacho territory by adding a tomato to the mix, along with basil. Some protein, like shrimp, can turn it into more of a whole-meal soup.

Most soups have origins, but none more so than this Mediterranean one of France, whose antecedent is usually called something like boiled water. At its most impoverished, this is no more than garlic simmered in water to give it flavor, with a few crusts of bread added for bulk. Simple as it is, boiled water is the perfect example of how an almost absurdly elementary preparation can be converted quickly and easily into one that is nearly grand. Use stock in place of water if you have it. This is a fine place for canned stock, because the garlic-scented oil will boost it to a higher level. Remember to cook the garlic very gently to add complexity and color; by then browning the bread in the same oil, you increase its flavor immeasurably. Also consider doubling the amount of bread given in the recipe here; like me, you may find the allure of bread crisped in garlic-scented oil irresistible.

Good tomatoes are bursting with potential. The difference between consuming a tomato out of hand and slicing it, then sprinkling it with a pinch of salt and a few drops of olive oil, is the difference between a snack and a dish. And the great thing about tomatoes is that it takes so little to convert them from one to the other. In this instance—though not always—peeling and seeding the tomatoes is worth the effort. To do so, bring a pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, cut a small X on the smooth (flower) end of each tomato. Drop them into the boiling water. In about thirty seconds, you’ll see the skin begin to loosen. Immediately remove from the boiling water and plunge into a bowl of ice water. When they’re cool, peel, then cut them in half through their equator. Squeeze and shake out the seeds. (For best flavor, do this over a strainer and recombine the reserved juices with the pulp.) Use fresh thyme (1 teaspoon), dill (1 tablespoon), basil (1/4 cup), parsley (1/4 cup), chervil (1 tablespoon), chives (1/4 cup), or a mixture of herbs to make this even better; garnish with fresh herbs, too, if you like.

Boiled potatoes and sour cream are a classic Eastern European combination, but this recipe takes the idea a step further to produce a rich, full-flavored main course that is especially great in winter. Serve with a light salad and rice or crisp bread.

This Laotian version of arroz con pollo is a rich, flavorful, and gorgeous one-pot dish, unusual and quite easy. See page 500 for information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla).

Duck confit is one of those foods that began as a method of preserving and continues because it tastes so damn good. It’s a simple enough process, and the results are dependable. It’s best when you use duck fat as a cooking medium. While not exactly a pantry staple, duck fat isn’t terribly expensive if you buy it from a specialty retailer that makes most of its money from other parts of the duck (like Hudson Valley Foie Gras: www.hudsonvalleyfoiegras.com). Fortunately, confit is not bad with olive oil either, though when you do the math on the two and figure in how delicious potatoes sautéed in leftover confit fat are, duck fat becomes increasingly appealing. My favorite way to serve duck confit is with a simple and strongly flavored salad of bitter greens—like the Green Salad with Vinaigrette, Roquefort, and Walnuts on page 165 minus the blue cheese and made, if possible, with a fifty-fifty walnut oil/olive oil dressing.

This dish incorporates many of the distinctive elements of Spanish cuisine: almonds, garlic, saffron, and sherry. The addition of hard-cooked eggs to poultry dishes, traditional and still popular, is called pepitoria. Serve with Yellow Rice (page 518) or any other rice or potato dish and whatever vegetable you like.