Weeknight Meals

When cooked with aromatics and rich tomato sauce, lentils are anything but bland.

Starting the chop in a hot pan lets you get a good initial sear; lowering the heat gives you control while it cooks through.

If the vibrancy of this dressing fades, perk it back up with more lime juice.

The mushrooms are not salted as they cook—this is intentional. The teriyaki sauce they're tossed in adds plenty.

Harissa is a great shortcut ingredient to flavor, but no two jars (or tubes) are the same. Taste first—if it seems very spicy, use a bit less. You can always stir more into the chickpeas when the dish is finished.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Chef David Chang's Bo Ssäm. Japanese short-grain white rice is the only rice we make. We, like all restaurants and many home cooks, use a rice cooker to prepare it—it's just that much easier and more reliable than cooking rice on the stove. Here are directions for both methods.

Gravy is pure comfort for me, and if I can make a gravy into a meal, so much the better. This is one of my favorite ways to have a rich, comforting, and filling dinner in less than half an hour. It also contains one of my favorite methods to get a toasty gravy base with lots of depth—toasting bread crumbs. After caramelizing the onions, you sprinkle in the bread crumbs and toss them around a bit until golden brown. Then, when you add the liquid ingredients, the bread crumbs thicken and flavor the gravy. It's wonderful served with grilled or sautéed kale, and over mashed potatoes.

White soy sauce is sweeter than regular soy sauce, a good counterbalance to the earthy brussels sprouts.

If you like bold, assertive flavors, this rustic side dish is for you. Try it with roast chicken or pork tenderloin.

To cut baking time, fork the tuber a few times, then nuke for 5 minutes.

Feel-good food: New research shows the vitamin C in acorn squash may help boost your mood.

Watercress is the green of choice in Cuba, its peppery taste a perfect foil for the avocado and the sweet pineapple in this classic Cuban salad. I serve it with shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce called enchilado de camarones. In Cuba, the pineapple is never roasted, but this technique adds another dimension of flavor I find very appealing.

For seven centuries, Moors and Christians fought one another in Spain, but in the guise of black beans and rice they surrendered to each other's charms within the all-embracing New World pot. Like the hybrid culture that flourished in medieval Spain, the rice dish known as moros y cristianos is an exemplar of exchange between civilizations. It is feast food in Cuba, where you'll find it in the western provinces. Considering that there is a Veracruzan version of this dish and that Cuba always imported black beans from Mexico, we are left in doubt as to which version came first. Regardless of its place of birth, it is one of the most felicitous rice and bean combinations I have ever tasted. The flavors of all the other ingredients are absorbed seamlessly by the rice, the vinegar providing point and counterpoint to the mealy beans, the aroma of cumin and oregano a subtle backdrop for the meaty smoked bacon, which in turn joins forces with the olive oil to add aroma and sheen to the rice. And then the color, a dark brown or hybrid of white and black.

Editor's note: Pair this with Maricel Presilla's Puerto Rican–Style Ají Dulce Sauce (Ajilimójili) . Boiled yuca is a small miracle. I can hardly think of another vegetable so transformed just by simple boiling. The impenetrable tuber, which starts out fibrous and as hard as the tusk of an elephant, becomes a creamy and supple vegetable. Boiled yuca is also the stuff with which many other preparations start, and you will come back to it time and again. There is no single rule that will help you figure out how much time it will take to cook fresh yuca until fork-tender. A general estimate is 30 minutes, but it might take less time or much longer, depending on the type of yuca. Start testing the vegetable with a fork 15 minutes after the water comes to a boil and continue to test until you reach the desired texture. Usually I prefer to remove the central spindle after rather than before cooking. It takes some force to whack through it when you're cutting the raw yuca into chunks, but it is much easier to detach the spindle from cooked yuca. Serve the yuca with a sauce of your choice or with just a sprinkling of olive oil and some salt.

This remoulade is a classic French dish and makes perfect use of an under-used vegetable. Choose from capers, parsley or gherkins (or any combination of all three), to add flavour and a pretty hint of green. The celeriac will discolour and brown as soon as it is peeled and sliced, so either use it straight away or soak it in water with lemon juice added, for up to 1 hour before using.

Lucy's Whey The grilled cheese sandwich at Lucy's Whey has garnered an extensive group of followers. These devotees appreciate the careful attention that goes into each bite. With so few ingredients, each one should be extraordinary. If you follow this advice at home, you will see how a humble cheese sandwich can turn heads. You can make as many sandwiches at once as you have room for on a panini press (or in a ridged grill pan weighted on top with a skillet).

Feed this luscious sandwich to your egg-eating veggie friends when they get a burger craving, and they'll likely think twice about ever ordering a veggie burger–puck again. When you eat it, it drips and spills everywhere in a decidedly appealing way. NOTE: The bun must be fresh. Really fresh. A stale bun will wreck this sandwich.

Native to Catalonia, Spain, Garrotxa is a throaty, goaty cheese that imparts an almost cheddar-like tanginess. A gray mold blankets this pasteurized flavor titan, which gets its smooth earthiness from the lush coastal grasses that feed the goats raised to make it. Cutting away the rind on this firm cheese is easy, and a sharp knife run down the sides will shave off the moldy exterior without sacrificing much of the Garrotxa beneath. Here, Garrotxa coalesces with two other signature Spanish ingredients, sun-dried tomatoes and Serrano ham, to create an ethereal cheese gratin polished with just a touch of butter, milk, and crème fraîche. This recipe isn't your typical melty, creamy macaroni and cheese; rather, it's a drier dish that allows the ingredients to mingle coyly while remaining somewhat independent.

Until about a year ago, it never occurred to me that oatmeal could be a savory dish, but once I stumbled upon it (thanks, Penny de los Santos!), it quickly became one of my favorite breakfast (or breakfast-for-dinner) treats. The egg on top mixes up the textures, which could get a little blah by the end of the bowl without it.