Easy Authentic Recipes Fully Tested

Valentine’s Day

Love is in the air… And so are some seductive aromas!

Chicken Saltimbocca

Essentially an Italian rendition of chicken cordon bleu, chicken saltimbocca is simply cutlets, cheese, prosciutto, a lovely pan sauce and it’s on the table in 30 minutes.

30 mins

Sweet Endings

Nutella Truffles

Orbs of Nutella, chocolate, and cream, all dusted in cocoa powder. Need we say more?

1 hr 45 mins

Old-Fashioned Coconut Cake

Layers of vanilla cake take turns with oodles of coconut filling and the whole shebang is slathered with fluffy white icing. Uh, yes please!

2 hrs

Homemade Sno Balls

Fashioned from chocolate cake, filled and frosted with meringue, and festooned in a feathery pink coconut boa, these sno balls are the real deal.

1 hr

Classic Molten Chocolate Cakes

Sometimes called a volcano cake, this much ballyhooed molten dessert is, quite literally, bursting–er, oozing–with chocolate.

40 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!

The One’s Meal of the Week

Seared Duck Breast

An elegant and easy riff on steak au poivre that’s made with duck breast rubbed with garlic and peppercorns and cooked to a magnificently rosy medium-rare.

1 hr 40 mins

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Skillet Charred Broccolini

A simple side that comes together quickly, only messes up a single pan, and will earn you accolades from most (if maybe not all) the folks at your table.

15 mins

Skillet Potatoes for Two

A swift stovetop version of classic pommes Anna, these sliced spuds are swaddled in butter, garlic, and Julia Child’s enthusiastic approval.

30 mins

Chocolate Mug Cake

Molten, gooey, dense, chocolatey, and done in minutes with nary any evidence, er, we mean cleanup, this microwave mug cake is the solution to when you need dessert stat.

15 mins


Winter Dinners

Peruvian Roast Chicken

This anything-but-boring bird borrows its Peruvian accent from a technicolor dream coat of paprika, lemon, garlic, and cumin.

1 hr 45 mins


Portuguese Recipes

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Bacalhau a Gomes de Sa

Marcel Proust had his madeleine. David Leite has his Portuguese salt cod, potato, and egg casserole.

2 hrs 10 mins

Portuguese Deep-Fried Green Beans

In Portugal, deep-frying beans is a long-standing tradition. Serve these peixinhos da horta as a starter, snack, or, as the Portuguese do, a side dish.

45 mins

Pastel de Nata ~ Portuguese Custard Tarts

Not Portuguese? Not a problem. It won’t lessen your appreciation for these little lovelies with the shatteringly crisp pastry cradling ridiculously creamy custard.

2 hrs 30 mins


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