Onion

Vietnamese hybrid sandwiches called banh mi are great for lunch or a casual dinner.

The Middle East on a flatbread: Turkish meatballs, a tahini-spiked yogurt sauce, and muhammara, a Syrian red pepper spread.

A tagine is a Moroccan stew. In this version, tender beef meatballs are braised with vegetables, then served over herbed couscous.

In South Louisiana, any sauce is called gravy. This dish would be our equivalent of biscuits and sausage gravy, except we've got all this seafood down here that finds its way into nearly everything. Serve this gravy over biscuits ) with Oeufs au Plat , and you've really got something. As a chef, I make this a bit more complicated than it needs to be: I start with the shrimp in the pan, then remove them so they don't overcook, and then I add them back once it's all come together.

Editor's note: Serve this veal with Chef John Besh's Jalapeño Cheese Grits . Grillades is a Creole version of pot roast; the meat is sliced or pounded thin, then slow-cooked in a pungent sauce. If veal shoulder isn't available, substitute boneless, sliced Boston butts of pork. Sure, you can use a leaner cut of veal (and if you do, you'll want to cut the cooking time down by half). But I encourage you to find those cheaper cuts of meat that have much more flavor than either the loin or the leg.

Get your fix of two favorites (Chinese and pizza) in one crusty canapé—for fewer than 150 calories.

Bodino Stifado Me Praso Braises like this are perfect for meat with tough muscle tissue and tendons (which come from the part of the animal that works hard), a great example of poverty cooking. This less expensive cut of meat develops its own natural and luscious sauce as it cooks. You want a little marbling in the meat, because it melts down as you cook and adds a lot of flavor to the sauce. You can use brisket, shanks, shoulder—all fairly tough meats—but save the filet mignon for the grill or a pan. It takes a little time to cook and become tender, but it's a relatively easy setup, and once you get it onto the stove you don't have to worry about it for about an hour. So you can do your laundry, or walk the dog, or make a salad. A couple of days later, if you have any leftovers, you can shred the meat, then return the meat to the sauce and add your favorite pasta. The resulting dish is a Greek version of beef Stroganoff. The herbs are very important to the flavor development here, since I'm using water instead of stock, so use fresh herbs if possible.

For a nutty flavor, toast the masa in a small skillet until golden.

This combination of several different varieties of roasted onions, crunchy croutons, and melted cheese is great with the pork.

A quick pickling gives the shrimp a bright, tangy flavor. Timing note: The shrimp need to chill in the pickling mixture for three to six hours before serving.

I call this herb and spice rub North African because, besides the classic oregano and rosemary, it contains Tunisian and Moroccan spices such as caraway, cumin, and turmeric. In addition, it is spiked with harissa, the ubiquitous hot pepper paste that is to Arab North Africa what chile oil is to Asia. Use the same spice mixture to rub poultry, beef, or pork two to three hours before grilling and leave at room temperature. Or you can mix 3 tablespoons of this rub with 3 tablespoons yogurt and baste chicken breasts or legs or skewered lamb and pork before grilling. Better yet, leave in the spicy yogurt marinade in the refrigerator overnight.

Traditional chowders all start off with a hearty soup base of onions and potatoes, and that makes a good soup just by itself. To this fragrant base you then add chunks of fish, or clams, or corn, or whatever else seems appropriate. (Note: You may leave out the pork and substitute another tablespoon of butter for sautéing the onions.)

This classic and delectable pasta dish originated in the region of Abruzzi, in the little town of Amatrice, northeast of Rome, where it was traditionally prepared without tomatoes. But it is the Roman version of pasta all’amatriciana, with tomatoes, that I share with you here—the version that is best known and deservedly popular. Lots of onions; chips of guanciale (cured pork cheek, now available in the United States, see Sources, page 340), pancetta, or bacon; and San Marzano tomatoes are the essential elements of the sauce, Roma style. Note that the onions are first softened in water, before olive oil is added to the pan—a traditional but unusual step that is said to make the onions sweeter. The standard pasta used is bucatini or perciatelli (spaghetti are only tolerated). The long, dry strands of perciatelli resemble very thick spaghetti but are hollow like a drinking straw. When cooked, they are wild and wiggly, so you might be tempted to cut them. Do not—once you’ve got them on your fork, they’re delicious and fun to eat. It is quite all right to slurp them. Indeed, as kids we would suck them in so fast that the end of the noodle would whip us in the nose, splattering sauce all over our faces. What a wonderful memory!

The inspiration here is the fantastically rich dish called Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake), a southern German specialty that arrived in America with European settlers and quickly became a staple in Pennsylvania Dutch homes, where it is known as Zwiwwelkuche. Slow-cooked onions are combined with eggs and sour cream and spooned into a yeasted dough. The pastry is then partially folded over the filling.

Folding sweet jumbo lump crabmeat and chopped scallions into the classic batter of cornmeal and buttermilk dresses up these pups for a party. They're crisp, fluffy, and, truth be told, dangerously easy to eat, especially after a dip in a lemony homemade tartar sauce speckled with parsley, sweet pickles, and capers. For information about crabmeat.

Look no further for a go-to recipe when making vegetarian stews and gravies. The stock here gets its deep flavor and color from roasting the vegetables and then deglazing the pan with red wine.