Simmer

Another delicious Indian soup, similar to the Spicy Indian Lentil and Tomato Soup (page 26), but with rice and a very different blend of spices.

This potato and chickpea curry, with its coconut milk and sugar, is more characteristic of southern Indian cooking than northern. The chickpeas themselves take a nice, long cook, while the remaining ingredients are added about an hour before serving.

Muslims from Persia and Central Asia invaded India from the north and ruled much of the country during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. As a culture, they are called “Mogul.” They brought with them a period of relative peace and affluence, unifying the native cultures and cuisines of India with those of the Persian Empire. Adding yogurt to a dish is a Mogul touch, as is sealing food with dough in a clay pot and cooking it directly over the coals of a fire. The following recipe is a typical Mogul-style dish, cooked in your slow cooker instead of over a fire. Add the yogurt at the last minute to avoid curdling. (Note: If you cut the eggplant into cubes, the dish makes an excellent sauce for pasta.) Serve with basmati rice.

When most of us think of Indian food, we think of lentils or chickpeas as the legumes of choice. However, because most Indians are vegetarians, beans form an important protein source in the Indian diet. The array of beans that actually appears on the table in India is far vaster than we imagine. Waari muth is a Kashmiri recipe calling for black beans, similar to the kind of beans found in Mexican, Cuban, and Southwestern dishes. It’s a simple dish, yet with the typical seasonings of the Indian subcontinent, and very nourishing. Serve either in a bowl by itself garnished with cilantro, or over rice.

Dal can be a soup or stew (depending on how much liquid you use) of dried lentils, vegetables, and seasonings. Traditionally served over rice in much of India, it is a staple of the Indian diet. Millions of variations exist from region to region and cook to cook. Here is just one of many variations. This recipe makes use of the Indian technique of adding some last-minute ingredients for freshness rather than subjecting them to the full cooking time.

In southern India, dal is traditionally served thin like a soup, then ladled over rice. But in northern India, where dal is traditionally scooped up with roti or served on rice, it is usually made thicker, almost the consistency of a porridge. I’ve suggested 4 to 5 cups of water so that you can make it thin like the southern Indians or thicker like a northern “stew.” In addition, you can vary the heat intensity in the finished dish by the number of serrano chiles you add. Keep in mind that one serrano will add heat to the whole dish.

Most Americans would consider eating oatmeal for breakfast, but for the vast majority of Asians, rice is the breakfast food of choice. Here is a distinctively Indian variation on the Asian breakfast theme that can be cooked while you sleep and be ready for breakfast when you wake up.

This is one of the most beautiful marmalades I know of. As the delicate shreds of quince cook, they turn brilliant red and intensify in color as the fruit reduces to a fragrant, shimmering jelly. This preserve is terrific at breakfast or as a filling for Easy Marmalade Tart (page 93). It’s also great paired with slices of Manchego or Cheddar cheese, served with a glass of sherry. This marmalade was inspired by a recipe from Helen Witty’s book Fancy Pantry.

I make this marmalade in the dead of winter whenever my collection of confitures is running low, since, happily, good pineapple is always available. One pineapple yields a lot of jam—another thing to be happy about. The best way to judge if a pineapple is truly ripe is to take a whiff. If the fruit is ripe, it will smell strong and sweet and the flesh will be sweet, too. Using the old wives’ tale method of plucking a leaf from the top just means you’re going to get strange looks from the people in the produce department. And if you do it in France, where I live, you might even be reprimanded.

In my humble opinion, red plums make the best preserves, and certainly one of the easiest. Their skins give the jam a pleasant tartness and contain so much pectin that even inexperienced jam makers will be blushing like rosy plums with the pride of success. Tossing the fruit with sugar and letting it stand for a few hours intensifies the color of the strawberries so that the jam cooks up with a vivid crimson color.

Figs have two seasons—the first figs appear in late summer and the second batch shows up around mid-autumn. If you miss the first one, not to worry—the second is usually more prolific and the figs are even tastier. Don’t be put off by fresh figs with skins that are split and syrupy; those are the ones that taste the best. For jam making, I like black Mission figs, which are the most common variety, but this recipe will work with others as well. Figs are high in natural sugar, which means that the jam cooks relatively quickly.

If I have a jar of candied ginger within arm’s reach, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll find my hand reaching into it. Yes, you can buy candied ginger, but it’s not at all difficult to make your own. From one good-size knob of fresh ginger, you can make enough so that even if you are caught with your hand in the ginger jar as much as I am, you’ll have some left to toss with fruit dessert, such as the Nectarine-Berry Cobbler with Fluffy Biscuits (page 104) or to add to a batch of Nonfat Gingersnaps (page 200). Take time to cut the ginger across the grain into thin slices no thicker than a coin because you want to make sure that any fibers in the ginger are minimized. If you can find young ginger in the spring, you should definitely use it.

Thin strips of soft-candied citrus peel enliven the flavor of desserts and look beautiful as garnishes for cakes, fruit compotes, sherbets, custards, and, especially, Champagne Gelée (page 114). Although it’s convenient to have a jar on hand to use on a whim, they’re quick and easy to make.

There’s no reason to ever buy candied orange peel since it’s so much better when you make it at home. I can’t bear throwing away anything remotely edible, so when I have rinds left over from juicing oranges or tangerines for sorbet, I always make a batch of candied peels and serve them alongside. Finely chopped bits of candied orange peel enliven a batch of cookies like Gingersnaps (page 199) and add an unexpected, but delicious, twist when tossed into a fruit dessert such as Apple-Blackberry Crisp (page 101). This candied orange peel is thicker and more substantial than Soft-Candied Citrus Peel (page 253). In addition to being used an an ingredient or garnish, it can be enjoyed on its own as a confection.

This sauce bridges two seasons—it marries the citrus fruit of winter and spring’s rhubarb. Its delicate color and bright flavor makes it the ideal accompaniment to Ricotta Cheesecake with Orange and Aniseed (page 55).

Even when they’re in season, fresh apricots aren’t always easy to find, so I turn dried apricots that are available everywhere and at any time of the year into this delightfully tangy apricot sauce. I always use California dried apricots, which have a much deeper flavor than imported ones, and I highly recommend you do the same.

During the brief cherry season when fresh cherries are abundant (and inexpensive), I make as many batches of candied cherries as I can, as they keep beautifully in their syrup for months in the refrigerator. I’ll add a handful of candied cherries to a fruit crisp before baking, or drain them well and fold them into a batch of just-churned ice cream. They are particularly good spooned over lemon desserts, such as Tangy Lemon Frozen Yogurt (page 174) and Lemon Semifreddo (page 65), and are delicious used in place of the chocolate-covered peanuts in White Chocolate-Ginger Ice Cream (page 149). Or, if no one’s looking, I just pluck one from the jar and pop it into my mouth.

This is my all-time favorite chocolate sauce and the one I’ve been making for almost three chocolate-filled decades. Don’t let the fact that it doesn’t contain any cream or butter make you think that this sauce is lacking in any way—it gets maximum intensity from ramped-up amounts of chocolate and cocoa powder. I do prefer to use Dutch-process cocoa powder here because of its stronger flavor and darker color, but you can use natural cocoa powder if that’s what you prefer or have on hand. Since it has no cream or butter, I don’t feel any guilt liberally pouring this sauce over desserts like Anise-Orange Ice Cream Profiteroles (page 172) or a wedge of Pear Tart with Brown Butter, Rum, and Pecans (page 91).

One day while cooking some blueberries, it occurred to me that the sharp taste of a sizable shot of gin would nicely complement the berries, so I reached for the bottle and poured some in. Gin’s herbaceous flavor does indeed marry nicely with blueberries—it can hardly be tasted once cooked, but somehow it just rounds out the blueberry notes. Now, whenever I cook with blueberries, a bit of gin finds its way into the mix.

For those who like their chocolate sauce rich and thick, this sauce has more body than the Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce (page 243), courtesy of a modest amount of cream. It is particularly appealing when served side by side or gently swirled with White Chocolate Sauce (below) as an accompaniment to wedges of chocolate cake.