Cookbooks

Vibrantly colored, mouth-watering collard-peanut pesto adds flair to this dish that brings out the best of garden-fresh zucchini and other squashes.

Butter mochi is a mainstay at any island party: a perfectly chewy, slightly sticky, and just-dense-enough coconut-custard glutinous rice cake.

Requesón is a salty, spreadable Mexican cheese that tastes like a creamier, more acidic version of ricotta. Making it from scratch is easy: You curdle milk with vinegar or another acid such as lime juice, and then warm it and watch the curds form. Most street vendors use it as a tlacoyo filling, but you can use requesón for all sorts of things—stirred into scrambled eggs and tomatoes, smeared into a corn tortilla with salsa, or spread onto a piece of toast with honey or mixed in a dip of fresh herbs and olive oil.

Avocado leaves are the aroma of Oaxaca, and they are the main flavor in this indispensable staple. So many things can be created out of this little bean paste flavored with anise-y avocado tree leaves. It is the base for memelas, tlayudas, molletes, enfrijoladas, and so much more. Growing up, we stopped at the market in Tlacolula—a small village located near Oaxaca City—just to buy the paste, already made, in little plastic bags. You buy some tasajo, you grill it, you get some fresh tlayudas, some salsa, and then you spread some of this paste all over your tortilla like it is a savory cake frosting.

Chances are, if you're not Oaxaqueño and grew up in this last generation in Mexico or the United States, you’ve probably been taught to think that pork fat like aciento—Oaxacan-style chicharrón paste—is not good for you, and that you should always cook and eat things made with a plant-based oil instead. It’s normal to think this way. That is, until you go to Oaxaca and see that aciento is a way of life and that a lot of elders live to be more than one hundred years old eating the stuff on a daily basis. You’ll also realize that it is amazingly flavorful and really completes a lot of masa-based Oaxacan dishes such as tlayudas, memelas, empanadas, and chochoyotes. Think of it as a Oaxacan brown butter. If you do it right, it should taste nutty and toasty, not like lard or like fat. I also understand that a lot of people may not have the time to properly render chicharrón into a paste, so this shortcut version using olive oil is much quicker and tastes almost as good. If you can’t find or don’t have access to fresh chicharrón, American-style pork rinds also work well.

Instant potatoes turn gnocchi-making into a breezy, 15-minute affair rather than an hours-long commitment.

The two imperatives are that the tomatoes must be truly ripe and sweet and that the sauce should be eaten at once. If you must, you can hold it for up to two hours refrigerated and tightly covered, but it loses its magic fast. For the right slightly coarse texture, the ingredients should be chopped separately by hand. The only thing I sometimes do with the food processor is the chiles. Try to find fresh ones—canned jalapeños will work, but aren't ideal in a sauce supposed to be sparkling fresh.

Make coconut sticky rice in the microwave for creamy, perfectly tender results in under 10 minutes. Serve it with shredded coconut, toasted sesame seeds, and of course, ripe mango slices.

Ripe nectarines roast until they're tender and caramelized before they’re placed on a bed of tangy Greek yogurt. Everything gets topped with a drizzle of olive oil and honey—and a sprinkle of nuts and herbs.

People always want bread to dip into their clam broth, so why not put the clams right on the bread from the get-go?

If Thai food were laid out as one of those nutritional pyramids they showed you in health class, green papaya salad would be at the bottom, right above rice. In other words: It is fundamental. 

This is my version of a veggie burger—using the meatiness of seared clusters of maitake mushrooms gives an additional layer of umami with a miso glaze.

This low-effort, high-flavor tomato demonstrates how the Thai concept of balancing flavors can be achieved in different combinations.

These shortcut Egyptian-style falafels are made with frozen edamame and peas instead of the traditional fava beans. Sear them to make the most crunchy surface and pair them with buttery brioche burger buns.

These buns employ raspberry jam spread on top of the rolled-out dough so that when you roll it up, the jam is spiraled
throughout the individual buns.

Sinuglaw is a combination of fish ceviche—in this case, vinegar-cured tuna—plus smoky grilled pork belly. The flavorful dish gets dressed with coconut milk, ginger, red onion, chiles, and tomato.

Pork belly is ubiquitous throughout the Philippines; the fat is glorious and tastes great grilled. Getting a nice char on the fatty bits is important, as it adds another level of flavor to the salty-sour-tart-sweetness of the soy-calamansi marinade.

In this herby make-ahead brunch dish, French onion dip meets savory bread pudding. Put the strata together the night before, then bake at breakfast time.

This blend gives my French Onion Breakfast Strata its distinctive flavor profile. Chives are my herb of choice, but oregano or thyme is also nice.

Halloumi and mint are a classic Cypriot flavor combination and they meld so perfectly together. This recipe is inspired by my hosts at the Bougainvillea Guesthouse in North Nicosia, who greeted me with a plate of these when I checked in, tired and weary, after an international flight.