Born to make wise use of leftover pasta, frittata di spaghetti is an underrated, versatile, and fun recipe to add to your repertoire. You can serve it as part of a buffet; cut into generous slices, or cube it for an unusual starter. It makes a great packed lunch for day trips, picnics, and beach outings too.
The frittata is usually made with spaghetti, vermicelli, or bucatini, but short pasta such as penne or rigatoni will also work. Eggs are the ingredient that binds everything together: as a general rule, allow one egg per person, and maybe one more for the pan. As the recipe was created to use leftovers, consider it a blank canvas and use it to upcycle any leftover cheese that has been sitting at the back of your fridge for too long: grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino or cubed or sliced mozzarella, scamorza, or provola. You can also add salami, pancetta, or mortadella; see the Note.
In Mexico you are as likely to find the comforting pasta dish fideo seco on the table as beans or rice, especially in central Mexico, where it is very popular. We cook fideos not as the Italians do, but like the Spanish, who brought them to Mexico, first frying them in oil until they are toasty and nutty-tasting, then simmering them in a tomato-based sauce or broth until the sauce thickens considerably and coats the noodles. Forget al dente—our pasta is soft, and that’s the way we love it. The dish is called fideo seco—dry noodles—because it is not saucy at all. It’s also very convenient, because you can make it ahead. You can get packages of fideo pasta, thin noodles broken into pieces, in stores that sell Mexican ingredients, but you can also use thin Italian noodles such as vermicelli, angel hair, thin spaghetti, or spaghetti, and break them up yourself.
I include three different kinds of dried chiles—ancho, guajillo, and chipotle—here in addition to tomatoes, onion, and garlic. For one more layer of complexity—a bit of sweetness in addition to smoky heat—I add some adobo sauce from chipotles in adobo. Top with a drizzle of crema and a sprinkling of tangy cheese, with some sliced avocado to counterbalance the heat of the chiles, and I guarantee that you’ll make it again and again.
I think I prefer this English version of pesto even to the classic Italian basil one. It’s lighter and more versatile. It’s good with pasta, on pizza, or just as flavoring for salad dressing, or indeed to serve with grilled chicken or lamb chops. Just about anything really!
One of the countless ways Korean food excites me is that it employs extreme temperature—whether it’s serving food in the ripping- hot stone pots called dolsot or frozen bowls. I remember the chef world—myself included—nerding out when Noma served squid with broccoli in a vessel made entirely of ice, only to find myself, a few weeks later, eating naengmyeon out of one in Flushing, Queens.
There’s no ice bowl required for this dish, though I do take a page from a restaurant I went to in Seoul where they put the chilled broth into a slushy machine. My at- home version uses a savory- sweet granita to top the cold, super-chewy buckwheat noodles in a spicy dressing. The addition of dragon fruit powder is 100-percent not traditional and 95-percent optional, but it does add a little sweetness and an absolutely spectacular neon pink color. Got that trick from Starbucks.
This is a meatless riff on one of my all-time favorite sheet pan dinners: a spicy harissa-slathered chicken loaded with lemony leeks, crispy potatoes, and a salty, garlicky yogurt topping. Here, roasted cauliflower stands in for the poultry, and almonds are tossed in for crunch. Added bonus: without the chicken, this lively, highly festive meal comes together in a flash.
My mom had a beautiful relationship with her in-laws. That she was neither Mexican nor Catholic was never a problem. She won them over. She told me she would sit down to a conversation about calculus with my grandfather, who also had an amazing mind, and he’d leave her behind in three sentences. Mom learned to cook Mexican food from my grandmother, who was a really good cook.
Sometimes the sauce makes the dish, and when you find a great one, it is worth having different preparations for the different seasons. We are evoking the spirit of tahini (one of our favourite sauces) with this, but making it with almonds in their skins, which brings a great nuttiness. We serve this at Honey & Smoke with peaches in summer, pears in autumn and sweet potatoes in winter. Spring is reserved for green vegetables and they don’t really work with this almond tahini, so we make a special, luxurious pistachio version instead to drizzle over grilled spring greens, dressed with lots of lime juice.
I was in Durango at a small restaurant in which they served a dish of rajas con crema as a condiment with other assorted salsas and chiles en escabeche. I tasted it and was so completely taken, I kept asking them to bring me more. It was creamy and spicy, with a tiny bit of sweetness from the charred chiles and the onion. The poblanos here in the northern states seem to be hotter than those in the US, so it does read a little more like a hot condiment, but I love the extra heat and am crazy for these rajas as a taco filling or as a side dish for grilled meat or fish. But honestly, I could eat this right out of the skillet wrapped in a warm flour tortilla. This to me is pure comfort food.
Making an amazing dish out of whatever bits you have lying around feels so heroic, and this version of that experience happens to be just to my odd taste. It is all the things I love together, and honestly, it’s so incredible that I really struggle not to make myself a second bowl after I finish the first. It’s a strange hybrid of nations and flavors, but it is so spicy and umami and sweet and savory that I just can’t stop eating it. It’s my kind of pantry pasta, using all the things I always have left over, like half or less of a box of pasta, some butter and garlic and chile paste and honey, and usually a partially finished bottle of wine. I wish I could help you all develop your own version of pantry pasta, but here is mine to get the creative juices flowing.
The inspiration for this recipes was Pan Bagnat, the traditional Nice “sandwich,” in which the top of a round loaf would be sliced off and some of the crumb hollowed out, mixed with tuna, olives, anchovies, etc. then spooned back in and the “lid” put on top. Later variations are often made with ham and cheese, and sometimes peppers layered up neatly inside the bread “shell,” but I thought it would be fun to stuff the ingredients between the slices of a whole loaf, and bake it. We often make this for lunch. and everyone loves it warm, but it is also a great picnic showstopper. You can carry it with you, still in its foil, then just open it up, drizzle with oil and let everyone help themselves. Although I have suggested using prosciutto and mozzarella, which melts very well, I always associate pain surprise with Provence, as I like to make it when I am there on holiday with the family, but using local cured ham and cheese instead.