Garlic

You can cut and butter the bread well in advance, but don't bake it till guests arrive.

This is a winning-contestant recipe from Season Four of Fox's MasterChef.

Blanched garlic, which is sweet and mild, is blended with briny clam liquor and olive oil to make a creamy white sauce for this unconventional pizza.

Why do I love roast winter vegetables? For starters, because they are fresh, local, and seasonal. Unlike summer produce, they keep for a long time without losing most of their flavor. They feel like winter food: hearty, substantial, rib-sticking. Francis Mallmann quick-roasts them at very high heat in a wood oven until they almost burn. A home oven doesn't put out that kind of thousand-degree heat, but when something as simple as slices of Delicata squash are coated with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkled with kosher or coarse sea salt, and then roasted, they come out of the oven chewy, nutty, sweet, and savory. Part caramelization, part umami, and part Maillard. This dish is a slight adaptation of a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty, which I came across when I was asked to be a judge in Food52.com's "Tournament of Cookbooks." In case you don't know Yotam Ottolenghi's work—you'd never forget such a fun name—he is a London-based Israeli chef who writes a vegetarian column for the Guardian. He is not a vegetarian himself, which makes me trust his recipes even more. In other words, he is neither ideological nor moralistic about it: his only aim is food that tastes great. Caramelized and well-seasoned winter vegetables are fine by themselves, but the maple-mustard vinaigrette lifts the flavors enormously. We made this recipe for a New Year's Eve dinner, and afterward I received ooh-and-aah e-mails from people about "the best vegetables ever!" For sure, the company, the wine, and the other food had something to do with the reviews. But, taking all that into consideration, tell me, honestly, how often are people moved to praise a parsnip? A few years ago I would have said you need your own roast tomatoes for this recipe, but now I find that Desert Glory or similar deeply flavored cherry tomatoes, though they don't hold a candle to real summer tomatoes, are fine when caramelized.

Toum bi Zeit I had struggled for years to get this sauce right—clear white, creamy, and pungent. But it was only when my Lebanese friend and food writer Anissa Helou offered the suggestion of strained yogurt instead of the customary dampened bread or mashed potato that the whole thing began to come together for me. This is delicious but—obviously—for garlic lovers only. It is best made with a mortar and pestle, as a food processor brings out an acrid flavor.

I don't know why some people don't like mackerel and why it's not more widely served in the States. It's such a lovely fish, cheap and plentiful, and, served with this gently Spanish vinaigrette, an absolute winner. Make sure you dress the potatoes while they are still warm as they'll take on the dressing much better.

A stunning, veggie-packed bowl of spring goodness.

Serve the shrimp on toast to soak up the delicious pickling liquid.

Herbs in the dressing beg for herbs in the salad, too. We toss this vinaigrette with Bibb lettuce and lots of the tender green herbs— like mint, chervil, and parsley—that we grow in our window box.

Trimming tender baby artichokes is simple. As you go, transfer them to lemon water to keep them from turning brown.

This dish is a great way to serve eggs for a group. Take the eggs out of the oven when the whites are slightly undercooked; carryover cooking will finish them.

Versatile mojo verde is especially nice with steamed artichokes or roasted red peppers.

This sausage uses chicken and schmaltz, along with plentiful sage, garlic, ginger and pepper. And salt of course—sausage needs salt. My optimal salt level is 1.75 percent, so I multiply the weight of the meat (in ounces or grams) by 0.0175 to get that amount of the salt needed (also in ounces or grams). If you like less salt take it back to 1.5%. This seasoning makes a great breakfast sausage as well as an excellent grilling sausage. If you have a sausage stuffer and like to link sausage, by all means stuff this sausage into casing. I like to cook this in patties and cook them either in a sauté pan or on the grill. The schmaltz can be replaced with pork fat or pork belly, if you have access to thighs but not schmaltz, but I think it's most intensely flavored using chicken fat. I'm fanatical about keeping sausage fixings cold all the way through the making, and I'm especially crazy about it here, because chicken fat is pourable at room temperature. Thus it's important to keep everything—the fat, the meat, even the seasonings—close to frozen while you're making this. I freeze the fat, cut it in chunks and then grind it frozen. After grinding this can be mixed by hand using a stiff spatula, dough spatula or wooden spoon, but a standing mixer with the paddle attachment works best. Either way, make sure the mixing bowl is cold.

This version of pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas) thickens the sauce with puréed chickpeas, and it's finished with a fresh garlic-and-rosemary oil, which adds great flavor and an even better aroma.

All the great flavors of your favorite guacamole are combined in this easy-to-make soup that’s ready in a snap.

Another fantastic substitute for soupy beans, these pack a punch, which is just the thing for tortas. The chile powder should be reduced by half if serving these beans as a side dish.