Easy

Tarator, or skordalia (page 600), is one of the most useful dressings I know, a mayonnaiselike sauce that contains neither egg nor oil. Here it transforms ordinary chicken salad.

Nori, the familiar seaweed used for rolling sushi, is a popular snack in Korea, especially when treated this way. And if you use the pieces of nori to pick up clumps of rice—a common after-school snack—you may find yourself making this frequently.

A great cool salad, especially wonderful if you use fresh horseradish. (If you never have, buy just a small piece of the root, which looks like a tree root; peel and grate it, being careful not to get any of its juices in your eyes.) You can prepare the fish and dressing ahead of time and toss together immediately before serving.

Like the recipe on page 486, here is yet another super version of “creamed” spinach (true creamed spinach is on page 490), this one popular in Thailand and elsewhere. You can add curry powder or garam masala to this mix or make it into more of a stew by adding some minced pork or shrimp.

In most parts of the world, and certainly throughout the Mediterranean, seafood salad is as simple as this: you dress some poached fish with olive oil and loads of lemon. (Actually some people prefer vinegar, and it’s certainly traditional in many places, but I always go with lemon if I have it.) If you want to make it more elaborate, you add poached vegetables or serve it on a bed of greens. So view this simple recipe as a guideline, not as dogma; use whatever fish you have, a variety or something as simple and common as shrimp. Add vegetables and vary the seasonings if you like. It will be fine any way you do it.

Potato salad is an American classic, but this is a lot more flavorful than the mayonnaise-based version. It’s great served warm, but the important thing to remember is that it’s far better at room temperature than cold. If you like, add about 1/4 pound diced slab bacon, cooked until crisp, along with 1/2 cup minced shallot or mild onion for a Germanic twist.

There is no easier way to make a humble veg seem elegant than glazing it in this manner; turnips become royal enough to serve with any dish, but I like them best with roast chicken or beef. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: carrots, radishes, onions, beets, parsnips, or other root vegetables.

Most squash preparations are fairly bland, sweet, even insipid, but not this one, a lovely winter stew that can be a centerpiece for vegetarians (or for meat eaters with the addition of a few cubes of boneless chicken). A good rice pilaf (page 513) would suit this fine. It would also be at home alongside plain grilled steak. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: Semi-ripe plantains, potatoes, or sweet potatoes.

Houria is a great starter, but you can also serve it alongside North African meat dishes, like Lamb Tagine with Prunes (page 407) or Chicken and Lentil Tagine (page 284). It comes in many forms but always combines the sweetness of carrots with the typically earthy spices of North Africa. It’s best with cooked carrots, but if you’re in a hurry you can make it with raw carrots; see the variation. Julienning carrots for houria is easiest with a mandoline (see page 167); if you don’t have one, slice or chop them roughly.

Green beans (or almost any other vegetable for that matter) gain an exciting twist from this miso-based dressing. You can find miso (see page 123) at well-stocked supermarkets and Asian markets; red miso (which is actually brown) is most often used in this dressing, but you can also use white. If you cannot find miso, see the variation, which is worth trying in any case.

The vegetables in Vietnam are as beautiful as any I’ve ever seen, and, because there was still little refrigeration when I visited the country, they were fresher than most. This might explain why I enjoyed the simple vegetable stir-fries so much. Then again, it may be the nam pla—or, to use the Vietnamese term, nuoc mam. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: you can use whatever vegetables you like here—you want a total of three to four cups for four people—as long as you follow the basic principles of stir-frying (page 311).

If you’re going to the trouble of making dosa—all the soaking, pureeing, and overnight resting—it’s sensible to make the amount called for in the preceding recipe (plus it’s not like 4 cups of rice and 1 cup of dal cost much more than half those amounts). But it’s unlikely you’ll have the griddle stamina or appetite to make it through all that batter. Hence, uttapam—a fancy version of dosa. These are perfect for lunch—I usually fry a couple and eat them with whatever leftovers there are from the dosa meal the night before. And although it might be untraditional, I season them with a pinch of chaat masala (page 594), but feel free to omit it if it doesn’t appeal or you don’t have it on hand. If you’re using a pancake griddle, you should be able to cook two uttapam at a time; or you could have two nonstick griddles going at the same time.

Tabbouleh, the well-known salad that uses bulgur as its base (usually; there’s also a rice version, which I’ve included as a variation), should be dominated by its herbs, mostly parsley but also mint. You can prepare the bulgur ahead of time and toss in the herbs right before serving.

Bulgur, which is precooked cracked wheat (see page 525), needs only to be reconstituted to be ready to eat. Usually this is done with water or stock, but here freshly made tomato juice is the liquid. (I had no idea what I was tasting when I first had this, but fortunately it was explained to me so I could experiment.) The nuts add a welcome crunchiness to this wonderful salad.

There are two keys to this salad. The first is buying dry, pressed tofu (bean curd), which is sold at most Asian food markets and some natural food stores. It’s much firmer than regular tofu and has a dense, chewy texture and a brown skin. (If you can’t find it, use extra-firm tofu and press it yourself; see page 491.) The second key is allowing the salad to marinate long enough for the tofu to absorb the dressing. That part’s easy, but it does require advance planning.

A delicious way to prepare spinach ahead and present it beautifully. This is a place where perfectly fresh spinach will really strut its stuff. (You could use frozen spinach for this preparation, but it will not taste as good.) For a really stunning look, roll the cold cooked spinach in a bamboo sushi-rolling mat, then slice the log on the diagonal before dipping it in the sesame seeds.

A simple summer salad that is best with tomatoes that have just started to ripen. You can also toss this salad into hot or leftover pasta for a quick hot dish or pasta salad.

Don’t be deceived by this salad’s simplicity: the lemon dressing and fresh herbs bring out the complex flavors of the tomatoes and onions, and if the ingredients are good, the results are practically miraculous. Note the extremely useful technique of “killing” the onions—as they say in Turkey—which you might try whenever you use raw onions, to tame their harshness. You can make this salad an hour ahead of time, refrigerate, and toss again before serving.

Usually served as a panchan (side dish or small appetizer), this makes a fine little salad, too. Like many panchan, it contains sesame oil. To trim bean sprouts—a process I consider unnecessary but many people worldwide believe essential—simply pull off the thin little tail.

Stale bread is not only okay for this dish but preferable. You can make a similar dish (called fattoush and Middle Eastern in origin) using pita bread; make sure it’s nice and crunchy before tossing with the tomatoes and olive oil. Use ripe, flavorful tomatoes here. And add some chopped shallots or red onion to the mix if you like.