Simple Cooking

This chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting gets a generous (and fun!) garnish of chopped chocolate and peanuts.

Any salty hard cheese, such as an aged Manchego, Grana Padano, or Mimolette, would be a fine substitute for the Parmesan in these cookies.

Chicken wings also work well here. Use 3 pounds, and skip the rice flour and cornstarch coating.

Roasting vegetables is just one of the things a sheet pan is good for.

This is the South Indian equivalent of cake: essential at every wedding, birthday, and holiday. Indians like to serve it warm and soupy. This recipe is part of our menu for Sadhya, a South Indian feast.

Erisheris are thick curries traditionally made with yams or pumpkin, toasted coconut, and whole kidney beans. They are hearty and earthy, with a tropical twist of coconut and curry leaves. My variation, made with sweet potatoes, crosses over beautifully to a fall or winter menu; I've even served it for Thanksgiving. This recipe is part of our menu for Sadhya, a South Indian feast.

Serve with warm tortillas or rice to make a heartier meal.

Jasper Soffer, bartender at the Mulberry Project in New York City, created this simple-to-prepare seasonal cocktail for our story Spring Cocktails Perfect for Brunch. The rhubarb simple syrup, Soffer explains, is simultaneously sweet and tart, not unlike a rhubarb-apple crumble or a strawberry-rhubarb pie. If you want to make this drink outside rhubarb's short early-spring season, frozen fruit makes a great substitute.

Caramelized pineapple with a honey-orange glaze makes for a quick and elegant weeknight dessert.

Sweet meets salty in these oatmeal-raisin cookies flecked with crisp bacon bits. They're great for breakfast or an afternoon snack alongside a cup of coffee.

Barigoule is typically a stew of artichokes. This version blends vegetables in a bit of vanilla-scented sauce.

Redzepi uses whatever foraged mushrooms he finds to make this rich ragout; feel free to do the same while foraging at your local farmers' market or supermarket. Omit the oysters and lardo (used here in place of Speck), if desired.

This dough is chewy, bubbly, and better than what you'll get at most pizza places. It bakes wonderfully in a home oven, on a pizza stone or a baking sheet. And thanks to the brilliant no-knead method of Jim Lahey—owner of New York's Sullivan Street Bakery and pizza spot Co.— it's easy to prepare, deriving its character from overnight fermentation, not laborious kneading. Just remember to start at least 1 day ahead.

Martin Cate, owner of the rum-centric Smuggler's Cove bar in San Francisco, shares his spiced rum recipe below. The secret: Start with good rum, and don't overinfuse the mixture.

This coconut curry adds a tangy note to a South Indian menu. This recipe is part of our menu for Sadhya, a South Indian feast.

This waffle recipe is a ham and cheese sandwich disguised as the greatest brunch dish of all time.

Nadine Levy Redzepi created this incredibly rich, moist cake. "Fat with fat—what could be better?" asks her husband. Serve it for dessert or with coffee or tea for breakfast.

We cook our chicken in two phases to keep the skin taut and the flesh moist and juicy.

"The best thing about serving a braise," says chef Cruz Goler, "is that timing isn't critical, making this a great party dish." French in technique but Italian in spirit, the recipe calls for pleasantly bitter Treviso radicchio to act as a foil to the rich pork. Be sure to let the pork cool in its liquid so that the braised meat can continue to soak up the sauce.

South Indian rice is parboiled during processing, which creates a more nutritious but harder grain that needs to be boiled like pasta for 40 minutes. The grains are puffy and separate, and they absorb the curries beautifully. Indian parboiled rice can be ordered from iShopIndian.com; but if this type is not available, American-style converted rice or regular long-grain white rice are both good substitutes. (North Indian basmati rice would not be served at a Sadhya.) This recipe is part of our menu for Sadhya, a South Indian feast.