5 Ingredients or Fewer

The key here is using cornstarch and rice flour. Cutting the okra in half from top to bottom, the seeds cling to the rice flour and cornstarch so the batter isn’t going anywhere.

The secret to this version of potato salad is sweet pickle relish—not diced cucumbers, dill pickles, or cornichons.

Start by serving this big pot of polenta as a soft, creamy side dish when it is freshly made, then divide the rest into baking dishes to use later in the week as polenta croutons and polenta crust.

Using a sliced whole lemon gives you unbeatable fresh aroma from the skin, bitter complexity from the pith, and tart, puckery juice from the flesh. Thin slices soften evenly and ensure that the lemon plays nicely with the pasta, butter, and Parmesan.

Thyme goes beautifully with sweet and citrus flavors, making it perfect for cocktails. This recipe multiplies easily for large groups.

The salad works best with strips of Persian flatbread, but plain tortillas work just as well. The addition of golpar, with its citrusy aroma, really lifts this dish, accentuating the sweetness of the pomegranates and adding a wonderful depth of flavor, so try and track some down if you can.

This lovely, simple dish is great to have in your fridge at all times. It adds a wonderful, distinctive flavor to any dish it accompanies.

This is a very simple way to make wonderful rice in under an hour. It is a technique favored around the Caspian, where rice is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

This classic cocktail, made with gin, lemon, maraschino, and violette, dates back to 1916. 

We love a fun twist on a classic cocktail—this Negroni riff is mellowed by an extra splash of gin and punched up with herbaceous Punt e Mes in place of the standard sweet vermouth.

The king of mezcal cocktails.

This dairy-free cocoa uses fragrant coconut milk as its base. Dried rose petals bring an extra dose of floral aroma and flavor—not to mention romance.

This riff on the Negroni cocktail is made with rum and a rich blend of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherries. 

This cocktail is a sort of marriage between a French 75 (a classic drink that combines gin, citrus, and Champagne) and a Negroni.

Quickly roasting oysters in a hot oven pops the shells apart so they can be opened the rest of the way by hand, no shucking skills required.

This is a quick summer dish that capitalizes on juicy tomatoes and requires the stove to be turned on for just a few minutes.

This gin cocktail is essentially an Aviation with orange bitters instead of Crème de violette.

Use this easy dumpling dough with any filling you like, or add some puréed vegetables to the dough for colored dumpling skins.

A frozen Negroni, no slushy machine required.