Cast Iron Skillet

The two-step method of searing and then roasting this thick fillet is what keeps the fish succulent.

Active time: 1 hr Start to finish: 2 hr Though fig leaves keep the fish moist and make for a great presentation, it's also delicious without them. (Note that fig leaves are not edible.)

Jean-Yves Jaulin's Mojhettes au Jambon

In this recipe, based on a dish from the Republic of Georgia called tabaka, small chickens are flattened and weighted so they cook evenly and quickly. We call for poussins or Cornish game hens, but the same technique works well with a frying chicken.

Chef Susan Goss says that the secret here is in her cast-iron skillet. Nonstick pans produce anemic, soft corn bread. This recipe also works well with corn-stick or muffin molds, as long as they’re well-seasoned cast iron. If your pan is hot enough, the batter will immediately rise and start to cook around the edges. (The restaurant’s skillets rarely leave the oven.) At Zinfandel, the corn bread is served with a wonderful spread. To make it, combine 1 stick of softened unsalted butter with 2 tablespoons buckwheat honey (another honey or pure maple syrup can be substituted).

This compound butter is great on lamb or chicken, too. Or try it on crusty hot bread.

Way up in Maine, in the coastal town of Blue Hill, is Jonathan's, a small place much favored by locals. Owner Jonathan Chase and chef Richard Hanson both love fish, whether from the sea or from freshwater lakes and streams. This colorful main course is good with buttered and dilled new potatoes. Round out the meal with a green salad, and end with a slice of lattice-topped blueberry pie. (If necessary, have the fishmonger bone the trout, or use four small fillets.) Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Plancha is simply another word for comal, or griddle.

Using sun-dried tomatoes that are not packed in oil cuts down on fat. You can find them at some supermarkets, specialty foods stores and Italian markets.

This cake, thought to have first appeared in the 1920s, has had such names as pineapple glacé and pineapple skillet cake.

Jamie Davies and her late husband, Jack, were pioneers in the California wine industry. In 1965 they purchased and restored Schramsberg, a vineyard estate established in 1862, and they soon began producing the first American sparkling wine. When Davies thinks about comforting desserts, she remembers her childhood in Pasadena. "I was about eight when I started making upside-down cakes with my older sister, Dallas. We’d come home after school and mix up the recipe; I loved the sensual pleasure of making the batter. We'd put the cake in the oven, then go play croquet with our friends. Then we’d all come in and eat it up. We thought we had died and gone to heaven." The easy upside-downer here has wonderful spice flavors. Using canned pineapple chunks keeps the preparation simple.

This dish was inspired by pommes Anna, the regal, crisp-crusted potato cake rumored to have been named for Anna Deslions, a famous courtesan in nineteenth-century Paris.

This is known as chilpachol in Mexico. Don't forget to add a squeeze of fresh lime juice to each bowl.

These lamb chops—an easier version of recipes you may have made before—go nicely with sugar snap peas with ginger and garlic and couscous with apricots .