5 Ingredients or Fewer

Salty sautéed peppers, especially those that are mildly hot, are delicious summer treats—irresistible bites with a glass of chilled wine.

I like to roast a chicken with nothing more than a few herbs and seasonings. It is always satisfying, and the pan juices make a perfect sauce for the cooked bird.

Polenta is ground corn cooked in water to make a thick and creamy porridge. Coarse, stone-ground dried corn makes delicious polenta and long, slow cooking allows its full flavor to develop. When hot and just cooked, it is soft; as it cools, it becomes firm and can then be cut into shapes and fried, grilled, or baked. Polenta is versatile; serve it with all kinds of roasted or braised meats and poultry, vegetable stews, tomato sauces and ragus, beans, mushrooms, and greens. This recipe adds the sweet taste and crunchy texture of fresh corn.

For Bryant, shucking and eating freshly picked ears of corn reminds him how for generations his family was intimately connected with their food sources—they ate what they grew. When you eat juicy corn on the cob, served straight from the pot and slathered with butter, it’s easy to imagine such a connection. Freshness really matters with corn—as soon as it is picked, the sugars in the corn start converting to starch. Choose ears that feel plump and fat with tightly closed, bright green husks and golden brown silks. Look for stems that are moist and pale green, and check for tight, small, plump kernels. Kernels cut from the cob offer other possibilities: sautéed, with sweet peppers, chiles, tomatoes, squash, or beans; or used in cornbread and griddle cakes, and in numerous soups and salsas. To prepare kernels for cooking, pull off the husks and cornsilk from the ears of corn. Rub the ears with a clean dish towel to remove any clinging cornsilk, and snap off the stems. Cut the kernels from the cobs: Hold an ear by the tip, stand it up vertically with the stem end down, and use a sharp knife to cut down the length of the cob, cutting just deep enough to slice off the kernels. This is messy; to contain the kernels, it helps to work in a large bowl, or on a small cutting board set inside a roasting pan.

Tangy and crunchy fresh vegetable pickles are a perfect foil to fried fish. They cut the richness of the buttery breadcrumbs and make a beautiful and colorful plate. This method of breading and cooking the fish is also excellent for chicken breasts.

Steaming is one of the simplest and most nutritious ways to cook vegetables. It is an especially good method to capture the delicate flavors of tender young vegetables such as turnips and turnip greens, carrots and carrot tops, peas and pea shoots, green beans, cauliflower, beets, and spinach. After cooking, the vegetables can be seasoned lightly with salt and perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice, or flavored with various vinegars, olive oil or butter, or a sauce.

Oliver likes to blanch his greens. Blanching vegetables means cooking them briefly in rapidly boiling water. Blanching is suitable for all sorts of leafy greens: chard, kale, beet greens, turnip tops, collards, cabbage, spinach, sea purslane, dandelion, and nettles. Blanched greens can be seasoned and served warm; chopped and added to stuffings, meatballs, soups, and stews; or dressed and served cold or at room temperature.

Charlie makes this refreshing soup when tomatoes are at their peak of ripeness and flavor. The same method can be applied to extract flavor from other watery vegetables and fruits, such as cucumber and watermelon.

Pesto is a traditional pasta sauce, but it is also a delicious sauce for grilled vegetables and chicken, salads, and pizzas, and a perfect final flavoring to a bean and vegetable soup.

The simplest guacamole is made with avocado, onions, jalapeño, lime, salt, and cilantro. The amounts of the ingredients can vary; guacamole is very forgiving. The important things are to taste for a balance of salt, heat, and acid and to make the guacamole taste the way you like it.

Garlic vinaigrette is the dressing I make most often. The quantities that follow are only an approximate guide because garlics, vinegars, and oils vary so much in strength and intensity. The first step in making a vinaigrette is to macerate garlic in vinegar and salt. The vinegar softens the raw taste of the garlic, and the salt tames the sharp edge of the vinegar. Sometimes I like to mix different kinds of vinegar; a few drops of balsamic vinegar can temper a wine vinegar that’s too strong. Taste for balance and adjust by adding more salt or vinegar; it should be neither too salty nor too acidic. The mixture should taste delicious by itself.

Sweet potatoes and yams are virtually inter-changeable in the kitchen. Sweet potatoes have pale-yellow, dry, nutty-flavored flesh. Jewel and garnet are the two most common kinds of yam; both have reddish to purple-colored skin and brilliant orange, sweet, moist flesh. Look for firm, unblemished sweet potatoes or yams. They continue to sweeten after harvest, but they don’t store well and they tend to spoil fairly quickly. Wash them and roast them whole in the skin or peel them to roast, steam, or fry.

Parsnips look like large ivory-colored carrots. They are indeed related to carrots, but biting into a raw parsnip is not a good idea: they are almost inedible. When cooked, however, the flavor of parsnips is nutty and sweet. They are wonderful roasted or mashed, by themselves or with other vegetables, and they add a deep, complex note to broths and soups. At the market look for medium-size, firm, smooth-skinned parsnips; when you peel small ones, there’s not much parsnip left to eat, and very large ones have a woody core that needs to be removed. Prepare parsnips just like carrots, peeling away the skin and trimming off both ends.