Alcohol

Julia Child's world-famous coq au vin recipe calls for the dramatic lighting of cognac. Traditional ones simply call for chicken, the contents of your crisper, and drinkable wine.

The Abruzzese of Italy love hot peppers and delight in food that has a bit of a kick. In this rich pork stew, called spezzantino dimaiale alla'abruzzese, red bell peppers add sweetness and balance the heat. Some versions of this recipe use chopped rosemary instead of fennel seed.

Long, slow cooking turns a supermarket chuck roast into something gloriously tender, flavorful, and aromatic. Leftovers are delicious shredded, heated in the sauce, and served over egg noodles.

The sweet raisins and bits of smoky cheese studding this risotto make for an arresting contrast with the smooth, savory rice.

Crisp-skinned duck breast really pops with the nutty, buttery flavor of tawny Port. Any leftover meat makes a terrific sandwich.

For dessert, Grimes was inspired by something from Vienna, a little farther along the Danube: linzertorte. It's traditionally made with hazelnuts and raspberry jam, but this version, with its warmly spiced almond pastry and vivid apricot filling, spoke to Grimes of the highly polished coffeehouses in that part of the world. Cooking dried apricots with brandy and sugar allows you to control the sweetness quotient, and the result is all about the magically musky, tangy fruit.

This recipe is one of the simplest and most delectable recipes in the book. The flavor of the mussels pairs beautifully with the unique flavor that the saffron imparts to the broth. You will find yourself making this recipe again and again.

Editor's note: This recipe is from chef Wolfgang Puck. Braising is a great way to coax tenderness from tough cuts of meat. The term applies when the main ingredient is a relatively large cut and the amount of liquid is relatively small. The moist, gentle heat gradually breaks down the meat to melting softness while releasing the big flavor that hardworking muscles develop. Beef brisket is one of my favorite candidates. The cut comes from just under the first five ribs, behind the foreshank. Large and stringy, brisket is usually sold cut into halves, one relatively square and the other tapering to a point. Both are delicious, but the point cut, as it is known, has more flavor because it is slightly fattier. Here I braise the meat in a combination of beef broth and red wine, with aromatic root vegetables and dried apricots, a popular Eastern European flourish.

Adding Sherry wine vinegar and herbs at the end of cooking this vegetable stew makes the pure flavors shine even brighter.

The peppery watercress and tangy onion are balanced by the sweet richness of the braised figs. It takes eight hours to pickle the onion, so be sure to plan ahead.

Forget the box of chocolates this year. Instead, make your loved one swoon with a bottle of this chocolate liqueur. Be sure to get started at least three weeks ahead so that the flavors have time to meld. Any leftover liqueur would be terrific stirred into coffee or hot chocolate.

Blood oranges are small, sweet, nearly seedless oranges with vivid bright red flesh. They have a slightly floral flavor with berry undertones. Blood oranges are in season from December to June and are available at some supermarkets, at specialty foods stores and farmers’ markets, and from melissas.com.

A chocolate cocktail? You bet. This intense drink showcases the smooth flavor of the Homemade Chocolate Liqueur. The cocktail is served at Orson, Chef Falkner’s restaurant, where some of the cocktails are named after films that Orson Welles acted in or directed. This beverage takes its name from the 1970 film Catch-22. To up the ante, carefully dip the rim of each glass in melted chocolate before you pour the cocktails.

Mexican coffee is spiked with Kahlúa, but in these simple puddings, the liqueur is on top, whipped into cream.

Lean turkey cutlets benefit from a slightly sweet Marsala wine sauce and the twofold richness of prosciutto and Italian Fontina.

In the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, lasagne bolognese is usually made with a besciamella sauce. Italian-American cooks often replace that time-consuming step with ricotta. In this wickedly good interpretation, food editor Melissa Roberts combines the two traditions by whisking milk into some of the ricotta, creating a billowy pseudo-besciamella (the remaining ricotta mixture is stirred together with spinach). We rarely call for specific brands, but we did find that widely available Barilla no-boil dried noodles produced an exemplary lasagne. An egg pasta, this one comes very close to the flavor and delicacy of homemade.

The kitchen was the domain of Miraglia Eriquez's grandmother, but this recipe was her grandfather's specialty. Sitting at the dining table, Poppy, as he was known, would peel and cut oranges, toss the pieces into glasses, and cover them with red wine. After the oranges soaked up and sweetened the wine, he would eat forkfuls of the fruit, then down the drink. It was—and is—the perfect prelude to dessert.

Anna Di Bene, Oltranti's grandmother, never let anything go to waste in her kitchen in Lucca, Italy. Whenever she cooked chicken, she saved the livers for this delicious antipasto. Spicy red-pepper flakes and salty capers cut through the richness of the topping.