30 Minutes or Less

If you have leftover poached chicken, the moist meat makes a wonderful warm salad, with raisins and pine nuts and a lively, sweet dressing (similar to the Cooked Carrot Salad with Pine Nuts and Golden Raisins, page 45). Three cups of dressed chicken would serve 3 or 4.

This is one of those almost miracle dishes: it is ready in 10 minutes, it is quite inexpensive, it is full of flavor and texture and very gratifying, and all of my grandchildren love it. The brininess of the sea will come forth with the underlying garlic, lemon, and olive oil, the flavors all tied together by bread crumbs, then captured in the opening shells of this sweet mollusk. But one thing is required of you in order for this miracle to happen. The mussels you buy must be absolutely the freshest; otherwise, turn the page and go to another recipe. To enjoy this dish best, you must serve it piping hot in hot bowls, because the shells cool quickly. Grilled country bread and spoons will help scoop up every last drop. If you have some left over, remove mussel meat from the shells and return it to the sauce to make a great condiment for a plate of pasta the next day.

This is a fine fast sauce for Shrimp and Tomato Ravioli and Simple Ricotta Ravioli (preceding recipes) as well as for Potato, Leek, and Bacon Ravioli (page 186). Make the sauce just before the ravioli come out of the pot, for the freshest taste. You should definitely peel the tomatoes for this: see my method on page 261.

Marinara is my quintessential anytime tomato sauce. I can start it when the pasta water goes on the stove and it will be ready when the pasta is just cooked. Yet, in its short cooking time, it develops such fine flavor and pleasing consistency that you may well want to make a double batch—using some right away and freezing the rest for suppers to come. The beauty of this marinara sauce is that it has a freshness, acidity, and simplicity of taste, in contrast to the complexity and mellowness of the long-cooking tomato sauce that follows. This recipe for marinara includes lots of fresh basil, which I keep in the house at all times, now that it is available in local supermarkets year-round. I cook a whole basil stalk (or a handful of big sprigs with many leaves attached) submerged in the tomatoes to get all the herb flavor. Then I remove these and finish the sauce and pasta with fresh shredded leaves, giving it another layer of fresh-basil taste. (If you are freezing some of the sauce, by the way, you can wait until you’re cooking with it to add the fresh-basil garnish.) This sauce can be your base for cooking any fish fillet, chicken breast, pork fillet, or veal scaloppini. Sear any of these in a pan, add some marinara sauce, season with your favorite herbs, and let it perk for a few minutes—you’ll have yourself a good dish.

Bagna cauda is one of Piemonte’s best-known dishes. The name means “warm bath,” and that’s what it is: a sauce of garlic, butter, oil, and anchovy heated in a deep earthenware container set on the table over a little flame, like a fondue pot. Also on the table are arrayed a great variety of cut vegetables, raw and cooked, to be dipped in the piping-hot sauce, eaten, and savored. In Piemonte, bagna cauda will always include some of the fabulous vegetables for which the region is renowned, such as cardi gobbi from Nizza Monferrato, and the gorgeous long peppers of Carmagnola. At home I serve an assortment of seasonal vegetables: You’ll find some suggestions on the next page. This is a great starter on the table or for a buffet. To make more sauce for a crowd, simply multiply the ingredient amounts given in the recipe.

This is one of those recipes that I am sure you will cook again and again. It takes just minutes, and when you set the mussels on the table, steaming and aromatic, they beckon the whole brood. Give everyone a warm soup bowl, put a ladle in the pan to scoop out the shellfish and luscious sauce, and set a basket of grilled country bread in the middle. Nothing could be better.

If you’re a Ro*tel lover, then this is your dish. (In case you aren’t familiar, it’s a blend of diced tomatoes with green chiles, often used to make a mean chili con queso.) We love how Tanya adds spinach to her version of this popular Southern dip, so it makes us feel healthy and good even though it’s still a “comfort” food. We’re typically starving upon arrival, and a great spicy spinach dip with a bowl of tortilla chips is a good way to take the edge off. Throw your luggage down and dig in!

I love it when the first bunches of springtime sorrel appear in the market. It has a fantastic sour, lemony-mint thing going on that does something great for clams. The only drawback is that when you cook sorrel, it turns the worst color of brown. Sprinkle it on the dish at the last minute for the best flavor and look. Please try to find guanciale for this dish—it has a delightful fattiness to it that can’t really be replicated. If you can’t find guanciale, use bacon or pancetta instead. Everyone thinks clams have to be cooked over high heat. It’s not necessary in order for the clams to open, and it can render them tough if not done carefully.

After a rugged weekend of deer hunting, this is the dish I celebrate with . . . okay, not really. I buy farmed venison, just as you will. The nice thing, other than not having to don your camo and risk getting ticks, is that farmed venison is less intense than wild deer meat, with a rich, sophisticated flavor that is perfectly accented with a simple agrodolce. Forget about beef tenderloin and serve this instead—I promise the luscious texture and wild essence will win you over. As with tenderloin, though, make sure you serve the venison rare.

Many recipes that pair carrots with orange call for cooking the carrots with orange juice. Here, I use strips of peel instead, so that you get just a hint of orange, keeping the flavors bright. In the restaurants, we use Thumbelina carrots, a cute, round variety with incredible sweetness. Don’t go crazy chopping the mint—you don’t want to turn it into paste. Just do a few quick strokes with the knife, toss with the carrots, and serve right away. You might want to caution your guests not to eat the orange peel.

Uni, or sea urchin roe, is at once delicate and incredibly rich. I like this preparation because the chive and radish offer a bit of bite and cut some of that richness, while the lemon and cucumber contribute a breezy freshness. Because the portions are small, make sure you cut the vegetables into a very fine, uniform dice. This would make a very elegant passed appetizer at a cocktail party. You can find fresh uni packaged in trays at Asian markets.

This tangy relish, which packs enough flavor to play a starring role on any plate, showcases the sugary sweetness of fresh summer corn. For a light and easy supper, spoon it over Chicken Under a Skillet (page 139) or Grilled Grouper with Heirloom Tomato Salsa (page 102).

German for “little sparrow,” spaetzle are tiny dumplings that make a delicious side dish to any number of meats. A former sous chef enriched the traditional recipe and came up with this delicious variation that we typically serve alongside medallions of venison. Creole cream cheese is the secret ingredient here. It has a tart flavor and a texture as rich and thick as mascarpone. It was traditionally eaten as a spoon food, almost like yogurt, topped with sugar or fruit. It was almost lost until the Slow Food movement came along, and people became more interested in artisanal food products. These days it is produced locally and sold at the farmer’s market. My favorite variety is made by the Mauthe family (see Sources, p. 384) at their hormone-free dairy north of Lake Pontchartrain.