Dinner

“My mother (like many Puerto Rican mothers) has always had a copy of Yvonne Ortiz’s A Taste of Puerto Rico in our kitchen,” writers chef and recipe developer Gabriella Vigoreaux. “I can tell which dishes she’s made the most because the book just naturally falls open to those recipes. Only during quarantine have I started using it myself, marking new territory with soffritto stains on the pages my mother managed to keep pristine all these years. I turn to it when I want to taste my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s cooking with half of the effort. One of my go-tos is Ortiz’s guava barbecue sauce. It’s a wildly simple (four-ingredient) recipe with a single sentence procedure: ‘Thoroughly combine all the ingredients.’ It takes about five seconds to make but instantly conjures memories of childhood trips to the island, stopping at a kiosko for a pincho de pollo (chicken skewer) and licking the sticky sweet sauce from off my little fingers. My version is nothing like Ortiz’s, but it brings me back just the same. I’ve slathered this sauce on ribs and whole fish and used it as a glaze for pork belly, but I will always like it best with chicken. This is just to say, you might want to double it.”

Leela Punyaratabandhu’s phanaeng-marinated beef skewers belong at your next barbecue. 

Short ribs aren’t just for braising. Make sure to grill them to medium doneness, just long enough to render fat and tenderize, without letting them overcook or toughen.

For this dinner-worthy sandwich, you’ll sear the eggplant on the stove, then marinate it in oil and vinegar to make it silky-soft and flavor-packed. 

Pickling is an ideal way to reap the benefits of summer vegetables long after the season is gone. 

Adobo—both a style of preparation as well as the name of a dish—is one of the most widely known foods of the Philippines, often referred to as its national dish. To make adobo, which can be wet (very saucy) or dry (crispier and less soupy), pork, chicken, tubers, vegetables, squid, lamb, shrimp, or even duck, is simmered in vinegar, often with soy sauce, black peppercorns, and bay leaves. This recipe channels the same flavors of bright vinegar and dark soy sauce, using eggplant as the base, with the addition of ground pork for extra richness.

This pungent, spicy, and garlicky broth is inspired by rasam, a South Indian soup.

The key to stress-free stir-frying is all in the prep work. Be sure to chop, slice, and grate everything before even thinking about turning on the stove. Top this dish with fried eggs to put it over the top, but it’s also great without them.

A quick sear gives corn kernels caramelized edges and concentrated flavor. Here, they're cooked with crisp chickpeas, then tossed with za'atar and dressed with a mixture of ginger, jalapeños, miso, and tahini. 

This one-skillet dinner gets deep oniony flavor from lots of leeks cooked down to jammy tenderness.

Rick Martinez’s shrimp gorditas are inspired by his months of quarantine in Mazatlán, Mexico.

When you find yourself with more garlic than you know what to do with, whip up this extra-garlicky Caesar dressing, slather it on a chicken, and roast it to perfection.

Chef Lucas Sin of Junzi taught us this technique for fried rice in which every single grain is coated in egg yolk and fries up perfectly distinct and chewy.

Forget soaking your beans! Make like Rick Martinez and use this smart-cooking method instead. 

Cod and other whitefish shine brightest when nestled into a rich bed of aromatics and steamed to tender flakiness.

This super-flexible, all-purpose salad turns cabbage into luscious tangles of crisp leaves coated in a rich and bright dressing.

Chewy wonderful Korean rice cakes soak up the flavor of a ginger-garlic-scallion sauce we can’t quit.

You’ll find a version of this quicker-than-quick dish on many Korean tables as a banchan, or small plate. But with rice and a side of greens, it’s dinner exactly when you need it: right now.

In my family, this smoky, crispy, North Indian–style okra is an iconic, clamored-after dish. The key is to cook the okra for a long time, with a lot of whole spices. It’s a foolproof and quick way to get the most flavor out of the summer vegetable, while avoiding any slimy texture. 

To make chitranna, which translates to “mixed rice" in Kannada, bright yellow rice, colored with turmeric, is sautéed in oil that's been seasoned with black mustard seeds, curry leaves, chile, the umami-rich spice asafetida, and urad dal and chana dal, two lentils that add a nutty taste and crunchy texture. The dish is finally garnished with fried peanuts, grated coconut, cilantro, and a generous amount of lemon juice, resulting in a symphony of savory, sour, sweet, spicy, and herbaceous notes.

Palya is a classic South Indian recipe usually composed of a single vegetable chopped into bite-size pieces and sautéed in oil that has been seasoned with black mustard seeds, asafetida, chile, and curry leaves. The dish is then finished with lemon juice, grated coconut, and cilantro. This same preparation is referred to by different names such as thoran or poriyal depending on which state in South India you are in. Seasonal produce is preferred, but the combination makes even the saddest of vegetables at the back of your fridge sing. 

This Persian rice dish, known as kateh gojeh farangi, is the ideal late summer comfort food. The cinnamon tames the natural acidity of tomatoes, creating a sweet-savory aroma and flavor.

Snatch up summer’s last big, juicy heirloom tomatoes and join Sohla El-Waylly for a grilled naan and tomato party. Grated raw tomato and ghee-sizzled nigella seeds create a base for pretty-in-pink raita and do double duty smeared on the naan during grilling. Meanwhile, big tomato wedges get tossed in spiced yogurt before charring on the grill. The dough for the naan is sticky and soft, but don’t be tempted to add flour. A supple and moist dough is key to a tender, bubbly bread. Just keep kneading and the dough will grow bouncy and smooth. If you haven’t worked much with yeast, don’t fear! Flatbread is a forgiving place to start playing with fermentation.