Fry

Chinese cooks don't use a lot of raw vegetables, but instead prefer to stir-fry or braise them. There are a few exceptions, however, and in Hong Kong cooks fill crisp iceberg lettuce leaves with savory minced pigeon meat. Since we have no intention of domesticating the pigeons outside my New York City apartment window (pigeon meat is hard to find in the United States), we've substituted chicken in this recipe, which tastes equally as delicious. Chuck all the filling ingredients in a food processor if you're in a hurry, but larger chunks of mushrooms and water chestnuts add texture. Don't forget the fresh cilantro leaves heaped on top.

I stepped up on a cinder block to enter the open kitchen and realized then just how short the cook was; he flicked on the burner and the flame shot up as high as his chin. His broom closet-size kitchen swelled with heat and even with my average height, I towered over him awkwardly as he wielded the wok with beef and soy sauce. "You must play basketball!" he suggested. On his kitchen wall and out of reach of the blazing flame, plastic bags of spices hung from low-set rusty hooks, and his windowsill nearby lay scattered with tangerine peels set out to dry in the sun. Cooks in China are in the habit of keeping the peels of the tangerines they eat and spreading them out to dry in the sun for later use. Then they just rehydrate a few pieces whenever they want to add a nutty, slightly bitter note to a stir-fry or stew. Tangerine Beef is a Sichuan specialty and tall on flavor.

For all those who can't wait to nibble at the skin when the turkey comes out of the oven, these cracklings are for you. You won't believe how insanely delicious they are as the star of this salad. Don't be surprised if you start buying turkey thighs on a regular basis, just to make cracklings.

This dish might not be to everyone's (westernized) taste on a hungover morning, and it's also a breakfast with many components—rice, grilled fish, miso soup, pickles and a Japanese-style omelette—and some relatively obscure ingredients. Having said that, this is as clean, wholesome and nutritious as breakfast gets, so if anything is going to make you feel better it may well be this. However, I advise you to steer clear of tofu with a hangover (vegetarians: you may shoot me now); I've used cubes of potato instead.

Bomboloni—small round Italian doughnuts—is almost as much fun to say as they are to eat. It's like a party in your mouth when you repeat the word, which you will be doing over and over between bites of these balloon-light spheres of the tenderest yeast dough. Bomboloni are the new hot item on restaurant menus these days, and you'll instantly understand why when you taste your first. It won't be your last, that's for sure, which is why we've accompanied them with three different sauces for dipping. Each is delightful on its own, but if you want to go all the way with all three, you'll find they play well together, too.

Bastoncini di Mozzarella Fritta
This great, very tasty appetizer could also be turned into a vegetarian meal. The Italian title says it's "Roman," and that is how it has been named on most Italian American menus, but mozzarella and anchovies are a well-known combination in southern Italy. There are mozzarella-and- anchovy fritters; and zucchini flowers are stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, then fried. In this recipe, the mozzarella is fried between layers of bread, and then topped with a puckery sauce of lemon, capers, and anchovy.

Panino alla Primanti
Just down Smallman Street from our Lidia's restaurant, I have serious sandwich competition in Primanti's, a Pittsburgh institution. I am charmed by their incredibly oversized warm capicola sandwich stuffed with French fries and coleslaw. I am not sure where in the U.S.A. this tradition of stuffing a sandwich with French fries became Italian, but the sandwich was so tall that I could not open my mouth wide enough to get my first bite. Primanti's started as a sandwich pushcart, manned by Joe Primanti, in the Strip in the 1930s, selling sandwiches to truck drivers. One night, a trucker wanted to check if his load of frozen potatoes were good, so Joe Primanti cooked them up. Customers began asking for them, and to expedite the service they were added to the sandwich.

Chef Todd Aarons of Tierra Sur at Herzog Wine Cellars in Oxnard, California, shared this recipe as part of a Hanukkah cocktail party menu he created exclusively for Epicurious. These potato and Jerusalem artichoke latkes fry up quickly and are best served immediately, but if necessary, they can be held briefly in a warm oven. If you can't find Jerusalem artichokes—also known as sunchokes—Aarons recommends substituting parsnips or celery root.

Chef Nancy Oakes was initially underwhelmed when developing this dish. "The eggs were just poached and a little squishy," she says. "Frying them in breadcrumbs made things more interesting." For maximum crispiness, chill the poached eggs before giving them a pre-fry roll in the egg whites and panko.

Editor's note: Use this recipe along with theGazpacho . (This recipe is for fried croutons, but if you prefer to toast the croutons, preheat the oven to 375°F. Spread the croutons out on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes)

Look for shichimi togarashi, a Japanese seasoning mix, at Japanese markets and savoryspiceshop.com.

Fried capers lend a light, salty crunch to these addictive little bites.

Piquant Dijon mustard and a little cayenne pepper put the diable in these crisp pan-fried chicken breasts.

In most parts of Texas, enchiladas are rolled tortillas stuffed with a filling and covered in sauce. But often in West Texas (and also New Mexico) the filling and sauce are instead layered between flat tortillas. They look a bit different, but the end taste is the same, not to mention stacked enchiladas are a heck of a lot easier to make. Another feature of stacked enchiladas is the inclusion of a fried egg on top. I don't know how this tradition came about, but it's a brilliant addition. When the yolk mixes with the sauce, its creamy transformation takes the sauce from merely delicious to truly decadent. I was born and raised a rolled-enchilada girl, but I can appreciate a plate of stacked ones, especially those made with an ancho chile sauce. And if I squint, I can see in the stack the rugged terrain of West Texas, with the egg standing in for clouds and the sun. It's West Texas on a plate.

Frazzled? Feast on fish! Tuna is high in vitamin B12, which stimulates the brain's production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps you relax.

"Really good fried chicken and really good biscuits—together, they're like Wonder Twin powers," says chef John Currence, owner of Big Bad Breakfast in Oxford, MS. For a no-fry, old-school treat, split biscuits and smother with Sausage Gravy . Trust us, you'll be full.

These skillet-fried biscuits are a little sturdier than many other biscuits in order to hold the fresh berries intact. The butter bumps up the flavor as well. When they are fried, they remind me of the blueberries we picked early one morning as Girl Scouts and made into pancakes—a culinary highlight of my childhood. But they are very special baked as well. Either way, they’re a winner.

These flavorful frites are not only a clever riff on a fried standard, they're also lamb's best friend. The Middle Eastern accents in the za'atar spice blend pair well with the gamey meat and intensify the eggplant’s flavor. After many experiments, Terzo Piano chef Meg Colleran Sahs discovered that a rice-flour coating resulted in the highest crunch factor.