5 Ingredients or Fewer

Mixing dried porcini with tomato paste is a simple way to omit butter and still keep chicken moist while infusing it with a woodsy mushroom flavor.

This sophisticated blend of strawberries, red-currant jelly, balsamic vinegar, and bay leaves may just replace chocolate sauce as your favorite ice cream topping.

Beets are high in folate, a vitamin that may help ward off heart disease; this dish delivers 1/3 of your daily requirement.

Editor's note: The recipe below is from Kimberly Kennedy's The Art and Craft of Entertaining. For Kennedy's baby shower tips click here.

Great with soup or salad — or alongside Linguine with Spicy Leek and Tomato Sauce.

Short-grain rice has an especially high starch content, which makes it sticky — and easy to press into a lettuce or nori wrapper.

A dollop of cream gives rich contrast to this pink summer ice.

Rich, creamy, and very strawberry.

Blue Lake is a stringless variety found at farmers' markets and specialty foods stores. Others work well, too, as long as they're fresh and tender.

This drink was featured as a Cocktail of the Month. Click here to learn more about the Margarita and for another great recipe. This recipe comes from Tres Agaves, a San Francisco Mexican restaurant with an exceptional selection of tequilas. Because limes vary widely in acidity, tequila fanatic Eric Rubin, the restaurant's managing partner, recommends tasting the drink (use a bar straw if you're making it for a friend) before you strain it, so you're sure you have achieved the proper balance between sweet and sour. Adjust the amounts of lime juice and agave nectar syrup as necessary, but be careful not to obscure the flavor of the tequila.

A habanero chile gives these onions a nice bit of heat.

Rösti In Zurich, a German-speaking city, practically every bar and beer hall Garnishes its big plates of meat with this kind of hash brown cake; it might be "cheese" or "onion" or "plain" Rösti, but you'll always be happy to see it. Refrigerating the whole baked potatoes overnight makes them much easier to grate.

Silky zabaglione, warm from cooking but also imbued with deep heat from the wine, cloaks the vanilla-scented fruit with a heady richness. Though it's normally made with Marsala, this more subtle version gives the season's first apricots a chance to shine.

Fiery habaneros impart brightness to a rich pork dish like Yucatecan-style pork.

This is not just the best dulce de leche ice cream we've ever had, it's one of the best ice creams we've ever had, period. The most blissful thing about it is that it's not too sweet; the delicate caramel essence isn't obscured by sugar. And since it's not a custard-based ice cream, it's easy to make.

Moroccan hospitality, always gracious, begins with mezes, the enticing little dishes set out to welcome guests before the meal. Cumin and mint are a classic combination, and they work particularly well with roasted beets — the cumin underlines their earthiness, and the mint freshens their undeniable sweetness.

Cornstarch is one of the secret ingredients behind this traditional crumbly Brazilian cookie. Ground cashews are the other, contributing their distinct brand of richness and nutty sweetness.