European

For a German apple cake full of sweet, tart flavor, cookbook author Luisa Weiss swaps out raisins for fresh cranberries and skips the sugar in the filling.

I like to make a batch of Lebkuchen Spice Mix—a mixture of all the “usual suspects” in wintertime baking—in early fall so that I’m ready for the Christmas baking season. The mixture below is a great all-purpose one. But you can also tinker with the amounts if you want to highlight one flavor or another.

This classic Yorkshire pudding recipe comes from the original 1961 edition of The New York Times Cookbook. Serve with your favorite roast beef.

Bright, piquant green peppercorns and a flambéed splash of Cognac make this classic French sauce a fun and festive way to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Classic orange Suzette sauce is great for crepes, regular pancakes, waffles, and French toast. Maple syrup can sit this one out.

Sadly, you’re not going to be able to waltz down to the corner store and pick up escargot and shells. We ordered the Saveurs brand, along with the shells, from Amazon. This recipe is worth the wait.

The smoky sauce and mix of spices in this meatball recipe complement lamb perfectly.

Stuffing salad still counts as salad, right?

You know how the cheese sometimes oozes out of a grilled cheese while it’s cooking and gets all brown and crunchy when it hits the skillet? Well, this open-face sandwich recipe is dedicated to making that happen on purpose.

Traditional Greek skordalia is mostly garlic and olive oil with some potato or nuts added to thicken it. We flipped the ratio in this recipe: more potato, less garlic. Serve as a dip, or thin out with lemon juice and olive oil and use as a sauce for fish.

The trick of making an espresso extract to add to the dough is a good one to know. If you want to use it for other things—a spoonful is good in brownies, chocolate sauces or even in chocolate chip cookies—make more than you need now and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will be fine for months. Of course these are good with coffee and coffee drinks, but they’re surprisingly nice with milk and not at all bad with cognac.

Making Stollen is not for the faint of heart. Avoiding it altogether because excellent store-bought Stollen abounds is further abetted by the invention of Stollenkonfekt, bite-size chunks of spiced, tender Quark dough studded with almonds and raisins and thickly cloaked in vanilla-scented confectioners’ sugar. They may be a relatively recent development in the world of Christstollen, which dates back to the Middle Ages, but they more than make up for their youth. In other words, want the rich, buttery, spicy flavor of Stollen without the work of a yeasted dough and the weeks of impatiently waiting for the loaves to be ready? If so, Stollenkonfekt is the thing for you.

I like spreading Quark on my morning slice of bread and topping it with jam, but you can also mix it with salt and herbs and dollop it next to boiled potatoes for a light meal. Using buttermilk will result in skim Quark, which is best for baking recipes. If you want a creamier Quark to eat as is, simply stir a little heavy cream into the Quark to loosen and enrich it. (Mixed with high-quality fruit preserves, this makes for a luxurious little snack.)

This is the recipe given to me by Pierrette Lejanou. The addition of walnut oil at the last moment brightens the taste of the beans. Begin preparations two days before you plan to serve the cassoulet.

Traditional duck confit is not only cooked in fat but also preserved for a period of time. A true confit has a unique flavor developed as it ages in duck fat. You can make it the traditional way, buy ready-made confit, or use the cooking method described here, called sous vide (under vacuum). Recently, I learned how to use this method to make duck confit for use in Cassoulet in the Style of Toulouse, where large succulent chunks of boned meat are set between layers of beans to bake for a second long cooking. Sous vide–prepared confit will survive this extra cooking and remain flavorful and moist. Additionally, this is the easiest and least messy way to prepare this essential cassoulet component.

This easy slurry method takes polenta into weekday fare. And this recipe shows how to make a deeply flavored mushroom sauce with the simple addition of dried porcini. Both techniques are in my go-to repertoire.

Deconstructed with fresh tomatoes and by quickly hand-pounding chicken into cutlets then broiling, this becomes a fresh, modern alternative to a time-consuming classic.