Simmer

Perfect for an elegant dinner party, this sophisticated dessert is a snap to make.

Lowcountry cooking is full of ideas that seem foreign to outsiders. This sweet and spicy chutney is the perfect foil for salty country ham. Ground together, the two form a paste for memorable appetizers.

FANESCA Maricel Presilla, chef-owner of the restaurant Zafra in Hoboken, New Jersey, first offered fanesca — a more elaborate rendition of the streamlined dish here — during Holy Week. Now it's one of the restaurant's most popular weekend specials year-round. Traditional accompaniments include bolitas de harina (flour fritters), fried plantains, and bottled hot sauce.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less, but requires additional unattended time.

Coffee Semifreddo "Drowned" in Coffee We have served this dessert at Pó for six years and it is consistently my favorite—a kind of adult milkshake. Be careful to use decaf for the bathing liquid, or your guests may be up yakking all night.

The caramel sauce adds a grown-up edge to these summer treats.

From L'Etoile, Madison, Wisconsin.

"Because my family loves this hearty stew so much, I included it in a cookbook I put together for my children," Joy Smith, Glastonbury, Connecticut. "It makes a comforting meal on cold winter evenings here in Connecticut, and it's a convenient dish that freezes and reheats well."

Pureeing half of the soup (including the meat) gives it a denser consistency. While most Hungarian cooks do not top goulash with sour cream, go ahead; it adds a nice creaminess and tang.

Serve with: Baked sweet potatoes and sautéed Swiss chard. Dessert: Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

No one seems completely sure where the name Hoppin' John comes from. Variations run from the clearly apocryphal suggestion that this was the name of a waiter at a local restaurant who walked with a limp, to the plausible, a corruption of pois pigeon (pigeon peas in French). Culinary historian Karen Hess in her masterwork, The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection, offers a twenty-plus page dissertation on everything from the history of the dish to recipe variations to a number of suggestions for the origin of its name, ranging from Malagasy to ancient Arabic. The only thing that all seem to agree on about Hoppin' John is that the dish is emblematic of South Carolina and is composed of rice and black-eyed peas. Many years back I was amazed to discover a startlingly similar dish on the luncheon table at the Dakar home of Senegalese friends. There, the dish was prepared with beef and not smoked pork, but the rice and black-eyed peas were the same. The name of that dish was given as thiébou niébé. There seem to be two variations on Hoppin' John: One calls for the rice to be cooked with the peas. The second calls for the peas and rice to be cooked separately and then mixed together at a final stage prior to serving. I prefer to cook my rice and peas together.

Fermented black beans are an essential ingredient to this soup. I couldn't find exactly the kind of beans Kunkhen used, so I settled for a prepared black bean garlic sauce, which was perfect and gave the soup the same earthy taste that Kunkhen's had. I recommend that if you are using black beans you begin by adding 5 teaspoons, then taste the soup for seasoning. If it needs more flavor, add more black beans. The tablespoon of black bean garlic sauce was perfect to season this amount of soup.