My mother, Larisa, was born in Odessa, Ukraine, and has made borsch all her life. ’This is the hot winter version: vegetarian and super-quick to prepare but also hearty and filling, with a lovely sweet-sour flavor and gorgeous red beet color. It’s served garnished with fresh herbs and a dollop of sour cream.
A sweet-and-sour symmetry is inherent in my style of cooking. If it isn’t expressed through actual components of a dish, it’s delivered via side bowls or ramekins. Okra chow-chow has become one of my favorite media for attaining culinary harmony. And considering that okra is integral to Southern cuisine and agriculture, it’s also one of the clearest examples of two food cultures existing side by side and the ways they intersect. Serve okra chow-chow alongside scrapple (as I so often do), and you could consider this dish the poster child of Amish soul food.
Nicole Taylor highlights one of her favorite spice blends from her book Watermelon and Red Birds in this weekend hash. It makes two cups of seasoning, but if you’re anything like Nicole, you’ll have a jar of this on the counter for everyday use. As an intuitive cook, she recommends vibing how much spice to use when cooking the hash. Want more after it’s cooked? Feel free to sprinkle more- we certainly did!
Tastes great with: Toasted bread (as a starter), or pasta or couscous (as a main course)
Could I write a book without featuring crispy gnocchi? Of course not. So I give you my proudest barbecue creation. Forget about threading just plain old vegetables on a stick —here, you intersperse veggies of your choice (I’ve done bell peppers here, but see the note below) on skewers with just-blanched gnocchi. The result is crisp perfection like you wouldn’t believe.
The recipe for this hearty, garlicky bread soup comes from Rosa Filipe of O Barro restaurant in Redondo, Portugal. According to Filipe, the soup is often nicknamed “beggar’s soup” because it contains no meat or fish.
Though I use hot sausages here, you can use any kind of fresh Italian-seasoned sausage you prefer. Chicken or turkey sausages would lighten this dish up a bit, but take care not to overcook them: they dry out faster than pork sausages. Leftovers work well in a frittata or as a sandwich filling.
Kati rolls began, the story goes, on the streets of Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), where Kahaani takes place. Meat kebabs were wrapped in flatbread and sold as an easy, portable meal. Kati means “stick” and refers to the skewer on which the kebabs were cooked. Since then, kati rolls have evolved beyond kebabs to encompass hand-held wraps with any number of fillings - India’s version of the burrito.
When I was first married, my mother gave me a recipe from her close friend, Naomi, to make for shabbos. It was a version of this chicken that I tweaked and tweaked over the years to create this easy but flavorful chicken. What I really love about this dish is that it’s a cooked chicken that you can reheat or serve at room temperature for shabbos lunch because it is not saucy!
The chewy, nutty farro that forms the base of our grain bowl was supereasy to make: We just poured it into plenty of boiling salted water and cooked it like pasta. While the farro cooked, we roasted broccoli rabe, red bell peppers, and sweet Italian sausages all on the same baking sheet and prepared pickled grapes to add some juicy brightness to our bowl. We mixed a portion of the pickling liquid with mustard and the garlic-infused oil left over from the garlic chips to make a potent dressing. We stirred some into the drained farro to ensure that every bite was flavorful. Topped with roasted vegetables, sausage, pickled grapes, and garlic chips and drizzled with dressing, this grain bowl makes a satisfying hot dinner or a great packed lunch.