Anise

While there’s no wrong way to toast New Orleans, the Sazerac, a boozy combination of bitters, anise liqueur, and a whole lot of whiskey seems awfully right.

Mala dry pot may be hot pot’s soupless cousin, but don’t mistake this lack of soup for lack of flavor. 

Bake your plums in an anise-tinged, pancake-like batter for a simple dessert that’s airy, silky, and just sweet enough.

A crisp, assertive salad of shaved radishes and parsley provides an addictive counterpoint to these fennel-rubbed, fire-kissed pork chops.

A drizzle of Sriracha at the end balances out the glaze’s sweetness and adds earthy complexity to this short ribs recipe.

Looking for a throw-together app that seems way fancier than it is? Look no further than this gussied-up goat cheese situation.

The fruit-to-sugar ratio in this marmalade recipe makes it not too sweet and you can really taste the grapefruit.

This pared-down mulled wine recipe is great for impromptu entertaining this weekend.

Steam, fluff; steam, fluff. This couscous recipe is time-consuming but worth it.

Granted, this is a bit of work for a salad, but that’s how to transform vegetables into brag-worthy ingredients. To simplify, you could char the beets and greens in a dry cast-iron skillet.

This classic French spiced bread is great for sweet toast in the morning, or it can be sliced thinly and served with pâté for a pretty party appetizer.

You're familiar with French dip, of course. This is pho dip! In a stroke of holiday genius, you'll use the turkey carcass to make an aromatic broth.

These spiced-packed pickles are the perfect combination of tart and sweet, great for pre-dinner snacking or to top a sandwich. Yellow squash is delicious, but the brine also works well with cucumbers, zucchini, onions, or mushrooms.

Steaming might seem a surprising way to start cooking a turkey, but the payoff is real: The extra step makes the bird extra-juicy, and cuts down on the overall cooking time.

Most butchers will remove the backbone for you; see left to learn how. Lots of guests? Roast two 12–14-pounders; spatchcocking anything larger will be harder and takes longer.

Drizzle this sweet-salty vinaigrette on green salads or on roasted carrots.

Pizzelle, which some say are the original cookie, are thin waffle cookies from the Abruzzo region of Italy. They’re made of a simple batter of flour, eggs, sugar, and butter, and are cooked in a pizzelle iron (available at cooking supply stores and online sources) that is either electric, like a waffle iron, or handheld over the stove, which is what we use. Note that this recipe makes enough batter for 16 pizzelle. They should be served the day they’re made, but the batter lasts for a week in the refrigerator so you can reserve the extra batter to cook fresh pizzelle whenever you want them. We serve pizzelle with the Caramel Coppetta with Marshmallow Sauce and Salted Spanish Peanuts (page 296) and also sticking out of each serving of gelato or sorbetto. Thin wafer cookies are often served in a coppetta of gelato in Italy, and it just makes the presentation more festive.

This variety of plum, even when ripe, retains a certain tartness that is offset here by the anise and the almond paste, all of which, when lolling about in the cream, seem made for each other.