Onion

This light and satisfying soup highlights the earthy flavor of the greens.

Chef Michael Skibitcky tweaked this Joan Nathan recipe , deleting the cilantro and adding ground coriander. For an authentic Israeli presentation, load the just-fried balls into pita bread and top them with chopped veggies, pickles, harissa hot sauce, and piquant tahini sauce.

This recipe is a tribute to the chickpea salad they sell at the prepared-foods counter at Zabar's market in New York City, which my wife, Beverly, and I have always enjoyed. The key to this recipe is letting the beans soak after they've cooked. Rather than seasoning the beans while they're cooking, which keeps them from softening, you season them after they've cooked and then give them time to absorb the salt and garlic. Ideally, this recipe should be made a day or so ahead of time to let the flavors develop even further. Alot of people use parsley as a "default herb" to garnish a dish without really thinking about whether another herb might work better. But the flavor of parsley here truly matters; it completes the balance of the salad.

There's no trick to this straightforward, old-fashioned side dish—just delicious ingredients simply prepared. Store-bought peas have been picked and frozen at their peak freshness; their delicate sweetness and bright color require little embellishment.

No need to call your local pizza joint. Thanks to prepared dough and bottled roasted red peppers, making your own calzones can be easy and far more satisfying.

Ruggiero freely admits that she developed this recipe out of laziness. Tiny pearl onions require fiddly peeling, but replacing some of the onions with red grapes alleviates much of that tedious work. It's a shortcut that pays delicious dividends: The grapes' juicy pop plays nicely against the pork. A Sherry-vinegar glaze contributes a winey complexity to the sweet onions and fruit, tying the dish together.

This simple take on carbonara is the ideal postwork fallback dinner.

Simple savory tarts abound in Provence. A particular favorite includes slow-cooked onions, mellow and nearly as sweet as marmalade, punctuated with hints of the herbs that grow wild all over the region—in this case, fennel. Cooks are known to vary their crusts depending on the affair, from short, buttery versions to pizzalike yeast crusts; the latter is used here to keep the tart light.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Diane Kochilas's book Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table. Kochilas also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Kochilas and Greek cuisine, click here. There is this great bustling taverna in one of the northern Athenian suburbs near where we live, and this is the house special, so much so that the chef refused to give me a recipe for it. So, I deconstructed it myself only to re-create it pretty much intact. The tomatoes, cream, and ouzo make a great sauce. You could easily make a quantity and serve it over pasta. It would look and taste good with squid-ink linguine.

The terms spring onions and green onions aren't synonymous, but the two vegetables are often interchangeable. Spring onions have a larger, rounder bulb end, and they’re slightly stronger in flavor. Look for them at farmers' markets and specialty foods stores.

Top the dough with the onion mixture, then add your toppings. Blue cheese and halved Kalamata olives would work well with the onions.

Gremolata is usually made with parsley, garlic, and lemon peel. Here, shallot replaces garlic, and tarragon and orange peel are added.

The easiest way to crack the coriander seeds is to put them in a heavy-duty plastic bag and pass over them with a rolling pin. For a great sandwich, split a biscuit and fill it with sliced ham or smoked salmon.

This recipe is as delicious for lunch or supper as it is for breakfast. Morel mushrooms tend to trap grit, so swish them around in cool water, transfer them to fresh water for a 15-minute soak, and pat dry before using.

Sweet sausage will workin this springtime risotto, too; the final result just won't taste spicy.

Ramps stand in for both basil and garlic in this new spin on pesto.

Dotted with bits of vegetables and seafood or meat, savory pancakes are both a popular side dish on the Korean dinner table and a beloved street-food snack. To make them more elegant, we’ve kept these crisp, colorful pancakes on the small side so they can be easily picked up with chopsticks and eaten in a few bites.

"Koreans are short rib masters," says Chou, who lived and cooked in Korea for several years. "It's their favorite cut." While some ribs are sliced thin, marinated, and grilled, others are reserved for stews and soups. Kalbi jjim, one of the country’s best-known concoctions, shares some ingredients with a European beef stew—namely, carrots, onions, and potatoes—but here the brothy, slightly sweet dish gets its robust undertones from dried mushrooms, soy sauce, fish sauce, and molasses, plus a dollop of hot red-pepper paste. Though it is rustic-looking, the meat's tenderness and the broth’s amazing depth make clear why this dish is a national treasure.

Bell peppers and cumin add sweetness and spice to this tangy tomato soup, but it's the pimentón that really pulls all the flavors together.

This time-honored example of kitchen thrift is ready when you are: Have it simmering away while you tend to another meal or are puttering around on a Saturday morning. Just looking at it in the refrigerator or freezer will make you happy, secure in the knowledge that you can put a terrific meal on the table in no time at all.