Simmer

Not quite a soup, New England fish chowder is known for its succulent large chunks of seafood and vegetables coated in a thin, milky broth. Traditionally this is made with cod; however, tilapia, flounder, or any other white fish will work fine. You can even use fillets directly from the freezer without defrosting them first. The fish will break into pieces as it cooks, or you can break it up while serving. Add any type of fresh or frozen seafood, such as crab or shrimp, or eight ounces of corn kernels for an even heartier meal. The type of milk used will affect how thick the broth is. Choose skim, 2 percent, whole, soy, rice, almond, or even heavy cream to suit your preference. To quickly remove the stems of chard (and other leafy greens like kale), hold the sides of the leaves together in one hand and use the other to rip the stem from the bottom of the leaf. Chard stems can be bitter. By chopping the stems finely and placing them on the bottom of the pot, they will have the opportunity to brown slightly and lose most of their bitterness.

Some traditional Southern cooks swear you have to cook your collards all day long. This recipe has a great silky, tender texture and good bacony flavor, but you don’t have to quit your day job to make it. Collards also pair well with Double Orange Pork Chops (page 24) and Down-Home Pinto Beans and Ham Hocks (page 127).

Just like every guy needs a great-fitting sport coat, every cook needs a fast way to dress up rice. You can play around with this recipe: Add pine nuts and basil in place of the almonds and parsley, use basmati rice, whatever floats your boat. It’s also terrific with pork, so think of it next time you cook up Double Orange Pork Chops (page 24) or Bobby’s Special Thick-Cut Garlic Pork Chops with Bourbon Glaze (page 87).

We’re not too modest to say that we’ve perfected the quintessential Southern bowl of supercreamy grits. Try this for breakfast with fried eggs and ham or serve it with Sautéed Shrimp with Bacon and Mushrooms (page 67) or Sweet and Spicy Pork (page 128).

We owe enormous thanks to our slow cooker for making it possible to turn our absolute favorite weekend treat, barbecued pork, into a four-ingredient recipe we can throw together for a weeknight. We love to make sandwiches with the soft, flavorful shredded pork on hamburger buns, and serve them with some Lemony Coleslaw with Raisins (page 116), on top or alongside.

One of Bobby’s favorite soups on the menu at The Lady & Sons is Confederate bean soup, a rich mix of baked beans, sausage, and cream. We skip the cream here to make a lighter version with just as much flavor as the original. It’s a hearty meal in a bowl and a dream come true for anyone who loves franks and beans.

We always have a red rice dish on the buffet table at The Lady & Sons. Here we added beef to the skillet to turn our Cajun-influenced red rice dish into an easy crowd-pleaser. Since we’re on the Georgia coast, we’ll also do red rice with sausage and shrimp, so you can use that instead if you like: Just brown crumbled sausage in place of the beef and stir in a half pound of shelled shrimp for the last five minutes of simmering (or until they’re pink).

For some people in the South, dessert doesn’t count unless it’s one thing and one thing only: this one.

I had never cooked with sorrel until I worked with André Soltner on his Lutèce cookbook. He was then the devoted chef-owner of the restaurant, on East Fiftieth Street in Manhattan, but he never forgot his roots in Alsace. There, leafy green sorrel is common, and its tart flavor accents any number of dishes. So it was not surprising that when André was developing a sauce for that quintessential American specialty, shad roe, his secret ingredient was sorrel. However, sorrel was not so easy to find in markets in those days, and André would have to bring an armful of handpicked sorrel from his own garden in the Catskills down to the Lutèce kitchen, so as not to disappoint his loyal customers. Later, when my husband and I bought our summer place in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, we discovered that wild sorrel grew abundantly in the surrounding woods and in the garden. I even planted a cultivated variety to make sure we had enough, and I soon dubbed sorrel, along with gooseberries, the lemons of the North. And now that Lutèce is no more, and I can’t enjoy a lunch there, I celebrate this spring delight by making myself André’s delectable shad roe with sorrel sauce.

This dish has much of the flavor of a cassoulet but is considerably simpler, because it uses ready-cooked duck-leg confit, which is obtainable today in most good markets and can also be ordered online.

Recently I’ve discovered an imported 1-minute polenta that works very well. So try it, and you can whip up a satisfying polenta supper in about 15 minutes.