No-Cook

You can buy go chu jang, the excellent, slightly sweet and not-superhot Korean chile paste that is a part of Crab Soup (page 135) and many other Korean dishes, but in many places it’s easier just to make this substitute, which keeps for about a month, covered, in the refrigerator. It’s a good sauce for any grilled food or even raw vegetables. The best chile powder for this is not the typical Mexican chile powder but ground Korean chiles—co chu kara—which (obviously) you can buy at Korean markets (you can also buy pretoasted and ground sesame seeds). It’s bright red, looks like coarse cayenne, and is not super hot. A good alternative is chile powder made from ground New Mexico chiles.

An unusual tomato salad, exceptionally fresh tasting it contains no oil—and terrific with any grilled food. You certainly don’t need to be making an Indian meal to serve it.

This common, versatile sauce is usually served with grilled fish or vegetables or with shabu-shabu, but it turns up everywhere and can be used in many ways. It keeps indefinitely—a friend of mine insists it’s best after months in the refrigerator; certainly it’s no worse. You can buy yuzu juice frozen or—sometimes—fresh at Japanese specialty markets; it has a unique flavor but close enough to lemon and lime that the combination is a good substitute. You can also get bonito flakes at Japanese markets. If you are serving this as a dipping sauce at the table, garnish with finely chopped scallions or chives.

The first time I ate this great summer salad, I could not figure out how the raw garlic flavor could be strong without being overpowering, but the reason is simple: the garlic is mixed with the dressing, then strained out. Peeling the tomatoes is far from necessary, but it’s a nice refinement. More important is to use delicious ripe tomatoes.

The peppery bite of radishes is the featured player in this crunchy salad, which is served all over the Arab world in one form or another. Salting the radishes first improves both flavor and texture, but if you’re pressed for time, just salt the salad as you normally would.

This North African salad will give you a wonderful new perspective on leeks. Uncooked, they are deliciously refreshing, especially when paired with tomatoes and cucumbers.

Not unlike the better-known Middle Eastern and Indian combinations of yogurt and cucumbers, this Polish version is more tart than its Eastern cousins, making it especially refreshing as a part of a meal with heavy dishes.

You can probably buy premade chaat masala more easily than you can find some of its ingredients, which may include ground pomegranate seeds and other exotica. But this is a good, simple version, contributed by my friend chef Suvir Saran. The sourness, which is its defining characteristic, is provided by the distinctive amchoor, a powder made from dried mangoes. If you have the time, toast together in a dry skillet (as for Hot Curry Powder, page 592) whole cumin and coriander seeds, then grind them before mixing them with the other ingredients.

This is best when you have freshly made sauerkraut—especially a whole head, which you can sometimes find at Eastern European specialty markets. There will, of course, be times when that’s impossible, and then you must turn to packaged sauerkraut. This is not a problem as long as you steer clear of the canned stuff and look for that packed in plastic bags, containing nothing but cabbage and salt. Serve this strong, tart salad with a hearty meat dish, like “Deviled” Pork Chops (page 362), Baeckoffe of Pork and Lamb (page 399), or Carbonnade (page 385).

Lighter than Mint Chutney with Yogurt (following recipe), and, with its fresh ginger and garam masala, spicier. I’d serve it with grilled chicken or lamb.

Hot enough to counter the yogurt’s blandness and sweet enough to offset its sourness, complex with spice and bright and sparkling with a load of mint, this is the model mint chutney, a refreshing counterpoint to simple grilled lamb, beef, eggplant, salmon, even hamburger.

Beet salads in general are wonderful, but this one is a refreshing change. For one thing, the beets are raw. For another, their sweetness is offset by the sharp taste of raw cabbage; it’s a fine if odd marriage. Think of it as Swedish coleslaw (like coleslaw, it can be made a few hours in advance). Whenever you peel beets—and especially when you’re grating them—be sure to wear an apron or clothing you don’t care about.

This is why people want to move to Italy: you can buy raw fresh artichoke hearts already trimmed (occasionally you can find these in this country’s best markets too, especially in California), and layer them with the best Parmesan and olive oil. The cheese and artichoke have some kind of symbiotic magic going on, making the whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Fantastic.

You might think Caesar Salad is American, but legend has it that it was invented in Tijuana in the 1920s by an Italian named Caesar Cardini, who originally called it “aviator’s salad” because so many of the U.S. Air Force pilots based in San Diego loved it. In any case, the secret to a great Caesar salad is making sure everything is as fresh as you can get it—this includes the eggs and lettuce—and the best quality possible: freshly grated (and real) Parmesan and good anchovies, packed in either salt or olive oil.

Here’s a “Why didn’t I think of that?” concoction that’s added to many plates—and sometimes simply set on the table as a condiment—throughout the Middle East. Fresh and delicious, it’s often made with mint instead of parsley or shallot in place of onion. Serve with any grilled meat, but especially Kofte (page 355).

Serve this raitalike dressing with any Middle Eastern kebab or kofte (pages 354–356), just as a drizzle, or with any grilled meat, poultry, or fish. If you have a source for fresh yogurt, this is the place to use it. Many times this is made with a teaspoon or more of minced garlic. Obviously, that changes its character greatly, but some people cannot live without it. Good either way.

Simple, basic, and essential. You can always make a true Vinaigrette (page 600), but as is, this is the simplest green salad, as good for entertaining as it is for weeknights. Almost any greens are good with this dressing, from romaine, Boston, or iceberg lettuce to frisée or radicchio, but a mixture is best. The prepacked mesclun mixtures now sold in almost all supermarkets make it even easier.

Among the simplest and most useful all-purpose chile pastes—terrific as a condiment for grilled food, and useful by the spoonful in braised dishes—this one can be made with nothing more than dried chiles (the standard red ones, inexpensive and readily available at any Asian market, are fine), garlic, and olive oil. A bit of cumin or Tabil is a nice addition. However—and this is a big however—harissa need not be fiery; it can be made with relatively mild chiles, like New Mexico or ancho chiles. Furthermore, whether you need the chiles or not is up to you; even if you use “mild” chiles, the sauce will be fairly hot if you do not. Obviously, some experimenting may be necessary to find your tolerance level. I have eaten harissa in many different forms, and this recipe is my choice. Harissa keeps for at least a week or two, refrigerated. It will lose a bit of intensity over time, but this is not necessarily a bad thing; some would call it mellowing.

Preserved lemons are a staple of North African cuisine that are called for in two recipes in this book, Onion and Saffron Chicken (page 295) and Roast Pepper Salad with Tomatoes and Preserved Lemon (page 193). But you can add them to almost any tagine—chicken, fish, or lamb—with excellent results. In fact, if you have a batch of these on hand, you may find yourself incorporating them into dishes that have nothing to do with their land of origin, things like Sautéed Scallops with Garlic (page 211), or as an adjunct to the fresh lemon in the meunière recipe on page 240. I’d had mixed luck with preserving lemons over the years and, while I can’t quite account for why that was, I can say I’ve worked out a way around it: treat preserved lemons like a “quick” or refrigerator pickle. The spices listed here are optional—feel free to omit them, change their quantities, or add to them to taste. They’re included to round out the sweet lemony high note and salty, acidic tang that characterizes the flavor of the preserved lemons.

A wonderful all-purpose sauce and mayonnaise substitute; use it for grilled meats, steamed vegetables, even chicken salad. For a milder sauce, reduce the garlic to one clove and substitute paprika for the chile. And there are lots of options for the liquid; the flavors of the other ingredients are so strong that it doesn’t matter all that much. Many cooks simply use a bit of olive oil and some water. Others use hazelnuts, pine nuts, or blanched almonds in place of walnuts; all are good. Be sure to see Chicken with Walnut Sauce (page 278).