5 Ingredients or Fewer

Most vegetables can be prepared with little more than olive oil and salt, but few are as rewarding as beets, which can be stunningly delicious when done this way. One key is to bake them—which dries out their flesh a little bit and concentrates their flavor—rather than boil them. (Think of the difference between a baked and a boiled potato.) It takes some time, but it is easy and reduces staining. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: carrots or parsnips (peel before roasting), turnips or rutabagas; cooking time will vary.

Essentially a simplified sauerkraut and a very light pickle. Use good-quality soy sauce and serve this as a side dish with Japanese or other Asian food. Do not try to make this in very hot weather; fifty or sixty degrees is ideal. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: any mixture of vegetables, as in the variation.

This easy, fast cooking process turns carrots into a luxury vegetable. For even better flavor, add the grated zest of an orange or a lemon when about five minutes of cooking time remain. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: turnips, radishes, onions, beets, parsnips, or other root vegetables.

Tender, sweet carrots with delicious garlic cloves and a hint of exotic spice, this is another Indian dish that goes well as a side dish with food from almost anywhere. Add a few dried chiles, left whole, if you like, or hot red pepper flakes to taste. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: parsnips.

A staple dish of India, often made with potatoes added (cook large chunks of the potato in the same water, at the same time, as the cauliflower and simply increase the amount of oil and spice). Best with homemade curry powder or garam masala. The cumin seeds add a nice bit of crunch but are not essential. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: broccoli, potatoes, carrots, turnips, radishes.

This is broccoli as it’s done in Rome: garlic, olive oil, and lemon (almost everything—from mussels to beans to veal—can be cooked with these flavorings and called Roman-style). The first method is more familiar and perhaps a tad more reliable for beginning cooks; the second requires a bit more judgment, but it’s better. If you like, add a few anchovy fillets along with the garlic. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: almost anything—dark leafy greens like collards and kale, cauliflower, green beans, carrots, and beets, for example.

You’ll need a nonstick skillet for this or at least a very well-seasoned cast-iron or steel pan (or cheat and start with a tablespoon or two of corn oil). Although this recipe will work with frozen corn kernels, it is far, far superior when you strip the kernels from fresh cobs. Corn cooked this way is terrific in salads—either green or bean—where you are looking for extra crunch and flavor.

If you think nothing beats grilled fresh corn in the summer, think again: street vendors in Mexico, Chile, Peru, and other Central and South American countries figured out how to make a great thing even better, adding a little lime juice and chile powder to what is already a near-perfect food. The tart lime juice is incredibly refreshing, and a little smoky heat from the chiles brings out the crisp sweetness of the corn. For a more indulgent version, see the variation.

You can use this technique for radish (especially daikon), eggplant, zucchini, even cabbage; salting time will vary, but in every case you will wind up with an ultra-crisp vegetable that is great as a snack, a garnish, or an addition to salads and soups.

The Japanese not only love eggplant; they also produce some of the best—the slender, long, lavender-colored varieties are sweeter and firmer than the fat, almost black ones. Here the skinny ones are essential. Make this up to an hour in advance; like many eggplant dishes, it’s good at room temperature. Or make in advance and run under the broiler to reheat, until the miso topping bubbles (reserve the sesame seeds until after you do this).

A pastry suitable for any pie, though for desserts I would go with the Sweet Tart Pastry on page 654. Here you can use olive oil in place of butter, with quite good results. The keys to easy success: use a food processor and chill the dough before rolling it out.

I never did find out what this was called in Germany, but I do know it’s surprisingly good even though it’s the kind of concoction you’d come up with to make use of the last three ingredients in the house. The pears’ sweetness offsets the saltiness of the ham (this is a good place to use ordinary ham, as long as it’s not too sweet; prosciutto or the like would be overkill), the green beans add freshness (and welcome color), and the three distinct textures make the eating fun. Serve with simply cooked meat or fish.

Remember fish dishes baked with canned cream of mushroom soup? This is the original, and you may not believe how good it is. Never buy dried porcini in the tiny packages sold at stores. A package should contain at least an ounce, and the mushrooms should look like mushrooms, not powder. Given that you can buy a pound of dried porcini for as little as $25 (look on the Internet), you should expect to pay no more than $5 for an ounce. Serve this with buttered rice or noodles.

Closely related in flavor and spirit to the classic French pissenlit (dandelion greens with bacon), this differs in that the greens are cooked from the start. Also, though it may be finished with lemon, vinegar is almost never used. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: any relatively tender, bitter green—curly endive, escarole, dandelion, even Belgian endive, cut crosswise.

This is an excellent side dish, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, the base of an elegant salad—combine it with Gorgonzola and walnuts, for example—or a fine topping for Grilled Polenta (page 530) or Crostini (page 41). Other vegetables to prepare this way: split Belgian endives (use four), or even small heads of romaine lettuce.

Think of this as a simpler take on paella. It’s Eastern European in origin, so it was often made with freshwater fish, but you can use any fillets you want. With a salad, this is a wonderful—and very fast—one-pot meal. If you’re using water instead of stock, you might augment its flavor slightly by simmering it for 15 minutes with a carrot, an onion, and a celery stalk, along with a few peppercorns, a garlic clove, a bay leaf, and a teaspoon of vinegar; strain before proceeding. If you don’t have time for this, that’s fine too—the dish will still be good, even if you just use water.

Endives have a couple of things going for them: they’re grown inside (mostly in the dark, so they stay white), so they’re fresh all year round; they have great form and nice crunchy texture; they are unusually bitter, but in a pleasant way. Cooked—especially with good stock—they are elegant and delicious. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: leeks (split and washed), romaine lettuce (quartered, the long way), or any root vegetable—especially carrots.

The ideal fish for this Norman preparation is Dover sole—the real thing, a fish with great flavor and unmatched texture. But this isn’t an ideal world—you’re unlikely to find Dover sole and equally unlikely to want to pay the asking price if you do. Fortunately, cod is a good substitute. In fact, as long as you don’t overcook it, it’s fantastic here. Any firm but not tough white fillet will also work: red snapper and black sea bass are excellent choices. If you can pick up mussels at the same time, by all means go for the variation; the broth and overall results will be improved markedly. In Normandy, this would inevitably be accompanied by a potato gratin like the one on page 482 and, if you were lucky, a salad.

The bright green stir-fry of Chinese restaurants. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: if you can’t find gai lan, use broccoli raab or even collards or kale; broccoli or cauliflower will work too.

People cook food in packages all over the world—the tamale counts as one, too—but leave it to the Italians to do it simply. In Rome, you would have this with bass or turbot, but really it can be made with any fillet you like. Cooking in packages requires a small leap of faith to determine that the food is done, because once you open the packages you want to serve them. This method has always worked well for me.