Lemon

Next to brown sugar pie, this is my favorite chess pie. There are several theories as to how these pies came by their name. Some say that "chess" is a corruption of “chest,” meaning that these pies were so rich they could be stored in chests at room temperature. Others offer a different explanation: It seems that long ago when a good plantation cook was asked what she was making, she replied, "Jes pie," which over time became "chess." Still others insist that "chess" derives from “cheese,” as in the English lemon "cheese" (or curd). According to food historian Karen Hess, "cheese" was spelled "chese" in seventeenth-century England. In her historical notes and commentaries for the 1984 facsimile edition of Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-wife (1824), Hess writes: "Since the archaic spellings of cheese often had but one 'e' we have the answer to the riddle of the name of that southern favorite ‘Chess Pie.' " When I lived in New York, I baked dozens of lemon chess pies for the annual Gramercy Park fund-raiser and they sold as fast as I could unpack them. From that experience, I learned to buzz up the filling in the food processor. I even grate the lemon zest by processor. Here’s how: Strip the zest from the lemons with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, then churn it with the sugar to just the right texture. I next pulse in the lemon juice, then the eggs one by one. Finally, I drizzle the melted butter down the feed tube with the motor running. That’s all there is to it.

A refreshingly tart version of classic cranberry sauce. If you want it sweeter, just add more sugar.

Save any leftover sauce in the refrigerator for up to three days.

A delicious balance of tangy, sweet, and spicy.

Each squeezed lemon yields about 1/6 cup of juice.

Serve with crusty bread.

Simple and sophisticated.

These savory tartlets are similar to quiches.

Deconstructing the classic icebox cake, chef Adam Randall loosely layers chilled slices of yellow cake with tart lemon cream and then finishes the dish with a cloud of whipped cream and curls of candied lemon peel. This perfect summer dessert is so tasty that no one will ever guess its shortcuts: store-bought cake and sweetened condensed milk.

Use any leftovers as a spread for scones.

Grill the vegetables once the chickens have finished cooking. Because the artichokes have been precooked, it takes just a few minutes to finish them on the grill.

This tahini-based sauce serves as the foundation for mezes like hummus and baba ghanouj throughout much of the Mediterranean, but it's also a wonderful sauce in its own right, showing its versatility by adding a nutty, lemony hit to the kùfte or to vegetables or fish.

You would be hard-pressed to find something more refreshing than watermelon. This cooler is easy to make, beautiful to behold, and not too sweet. You'll want a pitcher of it in the refrigerator all summer.

To be safe, we boil the egg for 1 minutes rather than use it raw.

This dessert is like a frozen mousse, which helps explain its name: semifreddo, or "half-frozen."

Thick slices of pancetta are cubed and fried for the tastiest croutons ever.

Preserved lemons are perhaps most at home in Moroccan dishes, but we love their complex, bright flavor and aroma in all kinds of soups, stews, and salads. We've adapted Mediterranean-food authority Paula Wolfert's quick method and made it even faster by blanching the lemons first. If you manage to find Meyer lemons, this is a great way to capture their unforgettable taste and perfume.