Saute

This is a simple preparation that can serve as a side dish or main course (add some cooked sausage if you like) and can be made with any dark green, from spinach to collards to turnip or mustard greens. It needs no cheese.

Cabbage, when it begins to break down, becomes quite creamy, and that’s what makes this dish somewhat unusual. This will be stronger tasting if you use plenty of black and red pepper, olive oil, and pecorino or quite mild if you start with butter, reducing the black pepper, eliminating the red, and finishing with pecorino. You can also make it far more substantial; see the variation.

The sweet, familiar combination of pine nuts and currants offsets the mild anise bitterness of fresh fennel here. Omit the pasta from this Sicilian sauce and you’ll have a good vegetable dish. If you can find the herb fennel (those living in southern California can find it wild, and many gardeners use it as an ornamental), use a few of the feathery parts of its stalks in place of the tops of the bulb. If you cannot, add the fennel seeds for stronger flavor.

A Ligurian specialty, usually made with “stamped” pasta—pasta that is rolled out and then cut with dies in special designs. You can use any cut pasta for this, though perhaps it’s best with fresh pasta like malfatti (page 542). If you have Tapenade (page 604), simply stir it into any tomato sauce to get the same effect.

I featured this little group of recipes in my New York Times column and in The Minimalist Cooks Dinner, but it’s so instructive, important, and wonderful that I felt it belonged here as well. All (well, almost all) the variations begin with bits of cured meat cooked until crisp, around which are built a number of different sauces of increasing complexity. Most people insist that the “genuine” meat for these recipes is pancetta—salted, cured, and rolled pork belly. Pancetta is available at almost any decent Italian deli and at many specialty stores, but you can use bacon (or even better, if you can find it, guanciale, which is cured pig’s jowl; see the back of the book for mail-order sources). Pecorino Romano is the cheese of choice here, but Parmesan is also good.

These are hand-rolled spaghetti from Tuscany; they’re thick, like bucatini, but have no holes. They must be boiled right away, or they will stick together. I think this is a fine project for a rainy afternoon with a ten- or twelve-year-old who likes to cook. If you’re not in the mood, simply make spaghetti and follow the directions for this wonderful and simple sauce. This—as you’ll quickly gather—is poor people’s food, a rather meager dish. This does not prevent it from being delicious, which it is, but you might want to follow it with a meat or fish course and vegetables.

Udon noodles are generally made with softer wheat than Italian pasta, giving them a more tender texture. You can find them at Japanese markets and many supermarkets. Like Chinese noodles, they’re great stir-fried. And, as in any stir-fry, you can substitute for the pork, shrimp, or vegetables if you like.

These curried noodles are a standby, and can be prepared much more simply: stir-fry the noodles with onions and curry powder, for example, or with a bit of egg. This is a relatively elaborate version, and can be made more so with the addition of bean sprouts (with the basil), sliced Chinese sausage (with the pork or chicken), egg (as in the Pad Thai on page 536), or vegetables like broccoli or asparagus (parboil it first), or tomato. Information on Asian fish sauces like nam pla is on page 500.

Though you don’t see Pad Thai all that much in Thailand (I was told there that it was “a Chinese dish” and therefore inauthentic), it has become a standard at American Thai restaurants—and for good reason. The combination of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy in a variety of textures is irresistible. There’s nothing difficult about making Pad Thai at home. Just make sure you’ve portioned out all the ingredients before you start cooking and, especially if you’re entertaining, take care of the first two steps before your guests arrive. Information on Asian fish sauces like nam pla is on page 500.

A different kind of noodle dish, one in which the noodles are fried crisp and then topped with a simply made stir-fry. Of course, you can use any stir-fry you like on top of a bed of noodles like this one; the noodles are essentially taking the place of rice.

Mandoo are Korean dumplings almost identical to gyoza, though they are more often steamed than panfried. If you don’t feel like making dumplings, you can use this broth to make soup with duk, Korean rice cakes; these are sold fresh or frozen at most Korean markets. Sometimes noodles are added to this soup as well, a nice but unnecessary touch.

This is lovely, strong-tasting, and quite complex. It’s a wonderful side dish but can also serve as the centerpiece of a vegetarian meal.

Paella isn’t always bright yellow rice studded with overcooked seafood—it’s not even always made with seafood. Here’s a great version made with chicken, chorizo, and mushrooms that I learned from Spanish chef Jose Andres, based in Washington, DC. It’s a hearty one-dish meal impressive enough for any company.

This is the sambal traditionally served alongside Nasi Lemak, usually at breakfast; you might prefer these as a cocktail snack. For more about dried anchovies, see page 25.

With a couple of good side dishes, this delicious standard makes a satisfying main course.

A great way to use leftover rice and a nice cooked treatment of kimchi, which you can buy at any Korean market if you don’t want to make your own. Good as a side dish with Korean food, this also makes a fine snack or even a main course (add chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp if you like). The butter is a contemporary feature, but it’s how I learned this (from a Korean-American friend), and I like it that way.

Quicker and easier than the preceding recipe, this one usually relies on mushrooms and meat for flavor. Though it’s a cross-cultural technique and not at all traditional, I think adding a small handful of soaked dried porcini to the fresh mushrooms as they cook is a big improvement. You can buy toasted sesame seeds in Korean (and usually Japanese) markets, but toasting them yourself takes less than 5 minutes.

Leftover rice is not only acceptable here but practically mandatory: fresh or warm rice does not fry well, but clumps together and sticks to the wok. You need cold, stale rice, which separates during cooking. If you have neither roast pork (even the Cuban Lechon Asado, page 375, will work) nor Chinese sausage, ham is a fine substitute. No meat at all is fine, too, of course; see the variations.

When dried—as you will usually find them—pasillas are often called chile negro, or black chile. They are thin, small, shriveled, and very dark. They are also earthy and not especially hot, so they yield a rich, densely flavored sauce traditionally used with lamb, beef, and chicken. If you want some heat, soak a dried chipotle or two with the pasillas. If you can find fresh tomatillos, use them in place of the tomatoes. Slip off the papery husks and add a little water to the sauce.

This is a sharp, spiky sauce, but not a superhot one (it’s not a supergreen one, either!). Use it as a dip for chips or vegetables or as a basting sauce when roasting meat, fish, or vegetables.