Onion

These zucchini fritters are the perfect way to start the meal. Serve the keftedes, grape leaves , octopus , and feta and olives as mezedes (appetizers).

A hearty Italian bread salad serves up good-for-you omega-3 fatty acids (thank you, salmon!) along with vitamin C–rich green beans.

Rounding this main course into supper for company is easy. Get store-bought hummus and pita chips for everyone to nibble on while you're at the grill, and serve the skewers with rice or couscous on the side and a bottle of rosé. Have a guest bring ice cream, sorbet, or cookies for dessert.

Crunchy and colorful, this is an ideal first-course salad. Be sure to grate the peel from the tangerines before cutting the fruit into slices.

A staple of classic Japanese cooking, teriyaki is wonderful with not only seafood but also poultry, beef, vegetables, and tofu. Often, however, this versatile sauce can be quite sweet. My version uses fresh orange juice, which adds just a touch of natural sweetness as well as some acidity to temper the sweet mirin. Pouring some of the teriyaki sauce into the hot pan with the fish further reduces it so the sauce really coats the fish with a deep, caramel glaze that enhances the delectable moist, buttery, and tender qualities of black cod perfectly. Other good fish for this dish are Alaskan cod, true cod, sablefish, or wild salmon. Searing each side of the sticky rice cake gives a nutty flavor and crisp texture. I also like to serve these rice cakes with vegetable stir-fries in place of plain rice. If you have a rice cooker, use it to prepare the rice according to the manufacturer's directions. If not, follow the instructions in the recipe to prepare it in a saucepan.

This recipe appears at just about every occasion in Cajun Country. Whether it's a holiday, funeral, family reunion, or potluck dinner, you can bet there will be at least one form of dirty rice or rice dressing. At the Link family reunion in Robert's Cove, I counted six versions, all different. The essential ingredients are few, but flavor and texture vary greatly. The main difference between dirty rice and rice dressing is that rice dressing is generally made with ground beef or pork, whereas dirty rice is made with pork and chicken livers. Many people think they don't like liver, but when it's balanced with other flavors, the liver taste is not overpowering. I've served this deeply flavored rice to many people who claim they hate liver, only to have them love it.

These little warm onion tarts are lovely amuse and get any winter meal off to a good start. Vary them with different kinds of onions. Julia Child has commented that cooking would be in a sorry state indeed if it weren't for onions. I agree!

The yellow pepper mole may have lots of ingredients, but the result is a delightfully complex sauce. Golden raisins and white chocolate preserve the golden color of the roasted peppers, and while those may sound sweet, onion, garlic, and tomatillos keep the sauce savory, fresh, and never cloying. At the restaurant we give this a hint of smoked red pepper sauce and cilantro oil and garnish it with cilantro.

The beauty and subtlety of wild garlic makes this dish very appealing, and fresh curry leaves add a fragrance that is quite seductive. During the summer months we pod fresh coco beans and cook them directly in the curry until soft. In winter we soak dried cannellini beans overnight and precook them in water for an hour or so over gentle heat, with one or two herbs added for flavor. I like to serve this curry just as it is, but you could add chunks of white fish to it.

As anyone familiar with Indian food knows, chickpeas are one of the most common types of legumes found on Indian tables. In this popular recipe, the spices and fresh ingredients are added at the very end of the cooking time to preserve optimum flavor and freshness. Regulate the heat by the amount of cayenne you use.

These succulent stews, roasts, and piquantly spiced meat dishes are among our heartiest entrées. Slowly baked in casseroles or simmered in large stockpots, they'll suffuse your kitchen with wonderful aromas. Most of these well-stewed entrées were developed by Eastern European Jews, because the tough and sinewy cheaper cuts of meat they could afford required hours of cooking to become tender. But that's not the whole story; other meat recipes hail from the abundant sheep- producing regions of the Middle East, where lamb is traditional spring fare and the featured entrée at Sephardic Seders. Some entrées in this chapter are suitable for an elegant dinner party, while others consist of everyday dishes like meat loaf, corned beef hash, and potted meatballs.

Editor's note: Chef Roberto Santibañez, the chef/owner of Fonda in Brooklyn, New York shared this recipe as part of a festive taco party menu he created for Epicurious. He recommends serving this salsa with his Carnitas or Carne Adobada Tacos . The Spanish name for this salsa means "rooster's beak," and originally referred to a salad of jicama, peanuts, oranges, and onions. But today, whether you're in Minneapolis or Mexico City, if you ask for pico de gallo, you'll get the familiar cilantro-flecked combination of chopped tomato, onion, and fresh chiles. This tart, crisp condiment (also known as salsa Mexicana) has become so common on Mexican tables that it seems like no coincidence that its colors match those of the national flag. Besides finding firm ripe tomatoes and seeding them, the key to this salsa is adding plenty of lime juice and salt, and not skimping on the chiles. Because without a burst of acidity and heat, you're just eating chopped tomatoes.

Editor's note: Chef Roberto Santibañez, the chef/owner of Fonda in Brooklyn, New York shared this recipe as part of a festive taco party menu he created for Epicurious. To make tacos, you'll also need 24 to 32 warm corn tortillas, 2 cups of salsa, chopped white onion, chopped cilantro, and lime wedges. Santibañez recommends serving the tacos with Fresh Tomato Salsa , Roasted Pineapple Salsa , or Taco-Shop Guacamole, a blend of avocado and tomatillos. Picture this: Mounds of juicy, tender, crispy-edged pieces of pork just waiting to be tucked into freshly made tortillas or piled on a plate along with rice and beans. This recipe is the classic way to make them—well, almost. Many restaurants and stalls put a whole butchered pig in a huge copper pot and let it simmer away until any liquid has evaporated. That's when the pork goes from being braised to being fried, browning in its own luscious fat. I do the same thing here, except I suggest using pork shoulder instead of the whole animal. And while the pork is traditionally browned on the stovetop, doing it in the oven is even easier and more effective. Pile the result on tortillas with salsa, chopped onions, and cilantro.

Before the success of Animal restaurant, the glowing New Yorker profile, and their new fish spot, Son of a Gun, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo Were upstart caterers to the stars. Bummer, they can't cater your Oscar party (they're already booked), but they've shared the recipe for one of their most popular dishes: melted petit basque cheese and chorizo dip with grilled bread. animalrestaurant.com

This multi-culti recipe brings a moroccan flavor (the spice blend ras-el-hanout) to pastitsio, the classic Greek pasta dish.

Salt-and-vinegar chips and Guinness will turn this into a pub dinner.

Bright vegetables (like bell peppers and tomatoes, which are filled with vitamins A and C) take center stage in this dish.

All hail kale: Research shows it turns on your body's natural detoxifying enzymes to help ward off lung and stomach cancers.