Dairy

Avocado pureed with buttermilk (low-fat) and yogurt (with the cream on top) yields a pale green soup laced with masses of minced herbs, textured with cucumber, and garnished with slivered radishes, herbs, and green pistachios. All in all, it's a fine soup for a hot day, and although the recipe makes just a scant quart, it will be enough for four or more servings.

This is the “house” burger at Bobby’s Burger Palace. It’s a basic burger (I like it garnished with red onion, tomato, romaine lettuce, and horseradish mustard) with CRUNCH. The crunch factor comes from a big handful of potato chips layered between the burger and the bun. Some of you may have added chips to your sandwiches as kids, and if people ever told you that you were nuts, I’m here to say that you’re not! Oozing melted cheese becomes a part of the chips and those crunchy chips become a part of the burger—delicious. I love getting a mouthful of juicy burger and salty, crispy potato chips in one bite; it’s a way to get a true contrast of textures into your cheeseburger. In fact, I make it an option to have all of the burgers at Bobby’s Burger Palace “crunchified.”

There are many versions of Turkish yogurt cake. This one is like a light, airy, fresh-tasting cheesecake. If you wish, you can make a syrup, which should be passed around in a jug for people to help themselves. I prefer the cake pure and simple, without the syrup.

This dish is a true Southern delight, our riff on Louisiana-style spicy shrimp combined with cheesy grits just the way we make ’em at The Lady & Sons. It’s amazing how easy this is to whip up. Make it for your family, and they’ll swear you spent all day tied to the stove.

Chinese five-spice powder adds a complex, spicy note to this cake.

Cupcakes for Thanksgiving? Why not? These treats pair tender cake with a salty-caramely frosting.

For step-by-step instructions for shaping these biscuits, see Prep school.

Skip the wine—this salad is perfect with a Belgian ale. Saint Andréis a soft, ripened cheese much like Brie or Camembert. Either cheese would make a good substitute.

Transfer pot with mashed potatoes to oven and rewarm uncovered until potatoes are heated through, about 10 minutes for freshly made potatoes or 30 minutes if potatoes are made ahead. Transfer mashed potatoes to large serving bowl. Drizzle with remaining dressing and serve.

Poblanos, often called pasillas, are mild, green-colored chile peppers sold at some supermarkets and at specialty foods stores, farmers' markets, and Latin markets.

These hearty rolls are packed with good-for-you stuff: whole wheat flour, old-fashioned oats, and wheat bran.

People may feel a bit wary at first glance, but this broccoli soup is delicious and the eyeball is a harmless hard-cooked egg.

Layers and layers of thin, tender whole-wheat crêpes and smoked salmon make a stunning multilayered cake-like torte. To serve, cut into small wedges for an appetizer or into slightly larger wedges to accompany a salad.

Yogurt drinks are popular throughout India—some are flavored with sugar or fruit, while others, like this one, are more savory. "I give sample tastes of this all the time at the restaurant," says Susan Feniger, "and people are shocked by how refreshing it is."

The glory of a chess pie is its rich custard filling (long ago also used to fill tartlets called cheesecakes, hence the name). The secret to the accompanying salsa is to panfry the pineapple until it's charred, bringing out the fruit's acidic, musky qualities. And as for the last-minute drizzle of caramel sauce—how bad could that be?

In Vietnam, yogurt is known by a couple of different names: sua chua (sour milk) and da ua, pronounced "ya-orh," which is actually a transliteration of yaourt, reflecting the dish's origins during French colonization. Semantics aside, this just may be the silkiest yogurt you’ll ever taste, with a delightful balance of sweetness—which comes from condensed milk, a staple of the Vietnamese pantry—and tanginess. At Street, Feniger and Alger make and culture their own yogurt, but this recipe produces similar results and is much quicker.

Simultaneously salty, sharp, spicy, and sweet (in other words, completely irresistible), these nuggets are chef Edward Lee's way of saying, "You can have a casual meal without compromising true culinary endeavor." The tradition of serving mustard with a soft pretzel is strictly an American one; Lee makes his own honey mustard, jazzing it up with chiles. For sources for country ham and pretzel salt.

Lee believes that classic dishes are far from being precious artifacts; they are inherently adaptable, and that's what makes them timeless. The starting point here was his "very Italian" wine importer, Enrico Battisti, but instead of polenta, Lee uses quick-cooking stone-ground grits from Anson Mills, in Columbia, South Carolina."They're better than any polenta," he says, "because they're so fresh. I call them hero grits."

Roy Choi approaches food like a graffiti artist: "I just want to put it out there and be gone before anyone knows I spray-painted on the wall." So if you've been following Kogi BBQ-To-Go tweets but haven't been quick enough to find the truck, these fusion quesadillas should satisfy your cravings.