Simple Cooking

This luscious drink gives hot chocolate a run for its money. Really caramelizing the sugar keeps the drink from tasting cloyingly sweet. Add a glug of good rum or skip it as desired.

This winter cocktail is bright and fizzy, spicy with ginger, and smoky with Scotch. Think of it as a Penicillin, gone extra-festive.

No new drink of the twenty-first century has gone further in terms of fame than this complex, spicy, smoky turn on a Whiskey Sour. 

This is bread topped with an easy chile-pecan paste that can be used in so many different ways, but the paste spread on some bread and topped with slices of Brie, sprinkled with sugar, and then broiled.

A practically perfect brownie: dense and fudgy thanks to the chia seeds; rich, but not sickeningly so; with a salted caramel-like flavor that comes from using white miso and salt together.

Pizza meets eggs in purgatory in this one-skillet stovetop meal which is punchy from tomatoes, creamy from starchy orzo and melty mozzarella, and ready in under an hour.

This easy-to-make cocktail was one of the earlier drinks I created for the bar menu at our Brentwood restaurant, Tavern. It is made with a honey syrup infused with fresh ginger and chiles de árbol, so you get those flavors and that heat in the cocktail. I added grapefruit to make it tangy.

Warm up with this concoction of bourbon, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. It’s not a Southern classic, but it certainly drinks like one.

In this cocktail, Riesling (Marrero favors dry Rieslings from the Finger Lakes or Alsace) adds brightness to a mix of fresh apple cider and bourbon. Blending dried figs with honey syrup gives you a sweetener that’s full of earthy, nutty notes, and a small amount of floral liqueur gives the tart, refreshing drink a subtle luscious quality.

The campfire smokiness of the Lapsang Souchong (which is brewed strong, so that the tannins intensify) is a great counterpoint to sweet, tart stone fruit.

Serve this with a bowl of potato chips (Utz, please) and another little bowl of extra olives and sit outside with a friend. That’s all I have to say about that!

Chanterelle mushrooms and a crunchy, sweet, and salty walnut-bacon topping make this holiday side dish a stand-out.

This cheesecake has a chocolatey rich mousse-like texture that is absolutely amazing.

This festive, refreshing cocktail balances bittersweet Campari with tart, unsweetened 100% cranberry juice. The drink’s tartness and bitterness awakens the palate for whatever you’ve got cooking.

Cooking cabbage wedges until very tender is one of the easiest, most delicious things we can think of. If the spiced tomato broth has reduced to the point where the pan starts getting dry and dark before the cabbage is ready, just add a splash of water to loosen it and keep going.

These date balls, which I make each year for Diwali, are nutty and fudgy—without any chocolate. In years when the celebrations for Diwali and Thanksgiving are close together, I like to make a double batch to add to our Thanksgiving spread. They fit right in. 

In this recipe, every single grain of rice gets coated in egg yolk and fries up perfectly distinct and chewy. Think of this method as a canvas for mixing in different ingredients and flavors—just don't skip the furikake.

This super-flexible, all-purpose salad turns cabbage into luscious tangles of crisp leaves generously coated in a rich and bright dressing.

These beans cook with a combination of herbs, alliums, and chiles—and salt is added right from the start. No pre-soaking means this just might be the easiest pot of beans you'll ever make.