Today’s dish, a creation of Naples, Italy, is a great example of Southern Italian flavors and ingredients. Baccalà, or salted codfish, is pan-fried in olive oil, and served in a peppery-sweet tomato sauce with roasted bell peppers and chile pepper, pine nuts, and golden raisins. This sauce is my favorite part of the dish – [...]

Here is a simple, delicious pasta dish from Puglia, Italy. The noodles, Bucatini, are tossed with a sauce full of Southern Italian flavors: olive oil, garlic, chile pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, almonds, black olives, orange zest, and basil. There are so many great flavor combinations at work here. It may seem like a lot of ingredients [...]

This pasta is tossed with a deeply flavorful sauce that’s made from just a few common Italian ingredients. It shows how just a few ingredients in combination can transform an ordinary pasta into something special. The first step in this dish is to make oven-roasted tomato sauce. This in itself is a delicious pasta sauce. [...]

There are many versions of stuffed peppers. This Mexican version is a blend of spicy, sweet, and nutty flavors with a deep roasted aspect. The poblano is a large chile pepper, and these stuffed poblanos make either a hearty appetizer or a main course. They are stuffed with spinach, raisins, and pine nuts, and served [...]

From my series of Chinese dishes, this one is most satisfying in the middle of the dark, dismal New York City winter. It has a thick broth, thin cut slices of beef, strips of celery for a little crunch, and tons of hot chile flavor. This dish will warm you up and clear your sinuses. [...]

These crispy beef slivers are often eaten as a snack in Sichuan, China, similar to jerky. They are cooked by the “Zha Shou” method (炸收, literally translated as fry and take in), in which the meat is deep fried until crisp, then simmered in an aromatic liquid, which flavors and coats the meat as it [...]