Dried Apricot

Nothing can match dried fruit for convenience and intensity of flavor. And when you poach an assortment with port and a few spices, the results belie the ease of preparation. This is not a summer dessert—no one would mistake this for fresh fruit—but it is delicious, low-fat, and a welcome change from heavy winter desserts. One tip: Use a port you’ll enjoy drinking (or buy a half bottle), because you’re going to use less than a third of a full-size bottle in this recipe.

This recipe, adapted from a classic by cookbook author Claudia Roden, is a longtime personal favorite. It becomes heavenly if you add a little rose and/or orange flower water.

Chicken with dried apricots is hardly a new idea, but it’s almost always too sweet, and the routine addition of cinnamon and cloves makes the whole thing taste more like dessert than dinner. Take them away, add a little vinegar to counter the fruit’s sweetness, improve and simplify the cooking technique, and you have a beautiful dish for a winter meal.

You don’t see much cilantro in Europe, but you find it in the southeastern part of the continent, where several cultures mingle. Regardless of this sauce’s origin (it is closely related to Tarator or Skordalia; recipe follows), it is fabulous with grilled meats, especially lamb. Walnut oil is not essential here, but it really does make a difference.

Couscous, not actually a grain but a form of pasta, cooks quickly. Ideally, it is steamed over a spicy stew, from Stifado (page 336) to Chicken and Lentil Tagine (page 284), and certainly you can do that. But you will probably prepare it more frequently if you treat it somewhat like rice, as I do here. The couscous benefits from a short preliminary toasting, which brings out more flavor (otherwise, what you have is plain pasta); alternatively, turn it in butter as I do in the variation.

There are many ways to serve this simple classic, but I like to pipe the meringue into a ring on a baking sheet, then fill the center with the puree and top it with a little sour cream. The result is a surprising, rather elegant winter dessert that’s not too heavy but certainly sweet enough and fun to eat.

Whether seasoned with rose water or cinnamon, these are beguiling. They’re best with fresh fruit that is just short of perfectly ripe, but you can use reconstituted dried fruit also. Though they will not take as much stuffing, dates are good this way too. Rose water can be found in small bottles at Middle Eastern stores.

“Don’t make a big tsimmes out of it” was a favorite expression of my mother’s, as if making a tsimmes was a big deal and therefore making a big tsimmes—well, you get the idea. Making a tsimmes—a stew of fruits and vegetables, often on the sweet side, and sometimes grains—can be a big deal, especially if you begin with a piece of meat. But as a delicious midwinter stew of dried fruits and root vegetables, served as a side dish or even a main course, it’s hardly any work at all. To make one with meat, simply add these ingredients to the Cholent recipe on page 380. Many tsimmes recipes call for cooking the fruit until it falls apart, which is all too easy to do. In this one, which has less water than most, the fruit is cooked until perfectly tender but still intact. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: vary this as you like—not only is meat common, but so are turnips, beets, apples, barley, and the small egg noodles known as farfel. The key ingredients are the dried fruit, sweet potatoes, and carrots.

Pignoli (pine nuts) are an ingredient much loved and used in Italian cooking— from savory pasta dishes and pesto to meat dishes such as bracciole and rollatini, and an infinite number of desserts. Here it is the topping of the tart, and hence its name, pignolata, lots of pignoli. For me, pignoli are delicious nuts that I recall harvesting from a cone of the big pine tree at the end of my grandmother’s courtyard in Istria. It was a humungous pine tree—or maybe I was small. My brother Franco and the other boys would climb up the tree and shake or knock down the open cones. Burrowed in the open scales of the pine cone were the oval brown-shelled nuts, which the girls would crack open with stone on stone. First we would eat our fill, then we began collecting them for cooking. That fresh, sweet flavor of pine nuts is still vivid in my mind, and to me there is nothing worse than biting into a rancid old pine nut. So make sure that you get the freshest pine nuts, which should be sweet, nutty, and buttery at the same time. Buy them in small quantities, since they are expensive; use them quickly, and if you have some left over, seal them tightly in a plastic bag and freeze them for future use. To heighten their aroma, toast them just before using—although not in this recipe, since you will be baking them.

The way I roast turkey, I never stuff it. Instead, for holidays and special occasions when a turkey needs a special dressing, I make a gnoccho grande, a large loaf-shaped dumpling of bread crumbs, eggs, seasonings, and festive tidbits of dried fruits and nuts, wrapped in cheesecloth and poached in broth. Since I usually cook a big pot of turkey broth the day before I roast the turkey (to have plenty for the roasting pan), I’ll poach the gnoccho grande while it’s bubbling away. The next time you make turkey broth, try this wonderful big dumpling. It’s a great accompaniment to any poultry or meat dish, not just turkey, and a fine soup garnish, or cook it in the broth from Whole Poached Chicken (page 328).

This all-nighter mix is for those extended study groups or projects that go on and on, till eventually everyone is too lazy to go get something to eat. Our sweet, salty, and fruity combination will satisfy all their cravings, as well as keep them away from less healthy options (including coffee!).

These rustic half-moon pastries travel beautifully, making them one of my favorite picnic treats. Just wrap them in wax paper and you’re off!

This exotically spiced curry of chicken, tomatoes, peppers, dried fruit, and nuts is proof of Southern food’s cosmopolitan roots. Served with steamed rice, slivered almonds, and fresh parsley, it is wonderfully bone-warming and fragrant.

The ideal here would be the pale, plump zucchini varieties you find in Middle Eastern markets. I visit one near London’s Edgware Road that even has them ready prepared, their seeds removed for stuffing, and packed into little plastic crates. If these torpedo-shaped squashes escape me, and they often do, then I use the ubiquitous type, halve them lengthwise and scatter the filling loosely over the top rather than making a clumsy attempt to stuff them. The classic zucchini stuffings of the Middle East vary from family to family but usually include cooked rice or ground lamb, or occasionally walnuts, pine nuts, or hazelnuts, stirred into softened onion and then lightly seasoned with allspice, tomato paste, and parsley. The effect is a moist filling of elegance and pleasing predictability. I sometimes want something more unusual. A stuffing that intrigues as much as it pleases.

In Greece and Turkey, this bread is called Christopsomo or tsoureki (also known as lambpropsomo during Easter). It differs from stollen in that it’s proofed before baking, but the proofing time is shorter than for panettone. Mastic gum, also called mastica, is an aromatic gum resin derived from the bark of a Mediterranean shrub tree in the pistachio family. It can be found at stores that specialize in Greek and Middle Eastern ingredients. It adds a subtle and......breath-freshening flavor and aroma (no surprise, it has long been used as a natural breath freshener).

This granola is better than anything I have bought in a store (as homemade foods so often are), if that helps explain its boastful name! I use a mixture of nuts—everything from cashews, pecans, almonds, and peeled hazelnuts to walnuts. Pistachios, however, will burn quickly, so if you’re using them, add them at the end and let them bake for just a few minutes. This granola keeps for a long time in the refrigerator, so double the batch if you like. It makes a great gift, too! Serve it with milk or yogurt and fresh fruit.

This is a flavorful variation on the timeless pineapple upside-down cake. Here dried apricots are used, but the cake can be made with a variety of dried or preserved fruits with equally good results. It’s excellent topped with a dollop of whipped cream, ice cream, or creamy Greek-style yogurt.

The slow cooker is an excellent tool for making small batches of jams and preserves—just enough for a week’s worth of morning toast—without any fuss at all. You can use your stovetop recipes, just adjust for longer cooking times. Begin on low and end on high with the cover off, and plan on watching somewhat carefully for the last hour. Forsake the pectin and enjoy the spoonable texture of nothing but fruit.

I love, love, love dried apricots. They’re one of my favorite foods on earth, as long as they’re the ones from California. People are often tempted by Turkish and Chinese dried apricots, since they’re usually more colorful and far more plump (and cheaper), but I find them terribly sweet, and ice cream made with them lacks the delicious flavor and intensity of dried apricots. The combination of pistachio nuts and apricots is particularly good. Don’t toast the pistachio nuts or they’ll lose their lovely green hue. Make sure the pistachio nuts you’re using are fresh and crisp.