Easy Authentic Recipes Fully Tested

A white plate sitting on a folded napkin on a wooden table, with a pile of cheese crisps on top and one leaning against the plate.StartersSliced skirt steak topped with salsa with a bowl of salsa and charred lime halves on the side.MainsA whole roast chicken on a platter with a bowl.ChickenA citrus fennel salad assembled on a white and blue serving platter, topped with fresh herbs.SaladSeveral Swedish cardamom buns cooling on a wire rack.BreadsSticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream on a white plate with a fork, beside a small bowl of extra toffee sauce.Desserts

My Christmas Favorites

Garlic and Herb Pork Crown Roast

This Christmas crown roast of pork is brined then rubbed with garlic and herbs then oven-roasted. The center of the crown roast is filled with wild rice.

3 hrs 40 mins

Potatoes Dauphinoise

Potatoes. Cream. Cheese. And a French lineage. We really don’t think comfort food gets any more comfort-y than this.

2 hrs 30 mins

Eggnog Pie

Essentially a slightly tipsy cheesecake, this bourbon-enhanced eggnog pie is something we’re classifying as “holiday desserts for parties where people like to party.”

1 hr 15 mins

Dinner Tonite

Winter Ingredients

A caramelized onion and Gruyère galette with a rye crust and sprigs of thyme.onion+Five small tarts filled with orange curd and topped with candied orange slices on a cooling rack.CitrusNine colorful braised carrots on a white platter.Root VegA ceramic bowl filled with mashed kabocha with a spoon resting in it.SquashStuffed mushrooms with chives and black pepper on a white plate, garnished with chopped cashews.MushroomA bowl of white beans and Tuscan kale, sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, with a spoon.Beans+

Hannukah Dishes

Nach Waxman’s Beef Brisket

Like a chorus line of Rockettes, tender slices of brisket lean on each other in perfect symmetry and perfect doneness. Here’s how to replicate this performance at home.

4 hrs 10 mins

Potato Latkes with Apple-Date Chutney

All fancied up for the holidays, these boast all the perfectly-crisp-on-the-outside-tender-on-the-inside awesomeness of traditional potato latkes as well as a few surprises.

1 hr 30 mins

Challah

As buttery and airy as brioche but with a far weightier responsibility than its breakfast chum, challah ensures a sweet new year in Jewish tradition. We’ll break bread to that.

3 hrs 15 mins

Hamantaschen

Our testers are singing the praises of these sweet cookies that are stuffed with poppy seed and apricot filling. We’re quite certain you will be, too.

2 hrs 15 mins

David Leite

Hey, I’m David Leite

I’m a three-time James Beard Award-winning food writer, cookbook author, memoirist, podcast host, and publisher. I created this site in 1999 to help you find simple, quick, and wicked flavorful recipes. For the past 24 years, I’ve been cooking, teaching, and writing about all types of food, including those from my Portuguese heritage. Let’s eat! Vamos comer!

Read More About Me

Portuguese Recipes

come mais

Christmas Eve Cod ~ Bacalhau da Consoada

A traditional recipe on Christmas Eve in Portugal, this dish of salt cod, potatoes, and cabbage is drizzled with a garlic oil and topped with hard-boiled eggs.

1 hr

Portuguese Fennel Soup

Fennel soup, or sopa de funcho in Portuguese, is a staple in Madeira and the Azores Islands. This recipe is full of fennel, pork, sausage, cabbage, and beans.

2 hrs

Most Beloved Recipes

These are the most popular, most loved, and most made dishes over the past 25 years.

Find a New Recipe

Roast Pork Butt in the Oven 

This roast pork butt, coated in a simple rub of brown sugar, paprika, cumin, and red pepper flakes, is an incredibly easy recipe to make and yields enough pulled pork to feed a small army.

10 hrs

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

Is anything more soothing than standing before a burbling pot of Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce? (Hint: Our answer is absolutely not.)

6 hrs

Batter-Fried Chicken

Proof that it doesn’t take buttermilk or an insufferably long overnight brine to make insanely tender, crazily crisp, gosh darn perfect fried chicken.

1 hr 30 mins