Blender

This recipe was developed by Julie Robles, longtime Lucques cook, then souschef, then chef de cuisine. It’s one of those magical recipes in which you combine a few simple ingredients and end up with an unexpectedly dramatic result. It’s a foolproof recipe, but, tasting it, you’d never know how easy it is to make. As long as you have a blender (it doesn’t work as well in a food processor) and really great tomatoes, this refreshing gazpacho is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

To make this exotic green rice, simmer basmati rice in a broth of mint, chives, parsley, and cilantro perfumed with sautéed red onion, fennel, and fennel seeds. When you prepare the herbs, don’t waste too much time on fastidious herb-picking. They all get puréed into an emerald green broth, so no one will ever know if you cheated a little and left some of the stems on.

Call me boring, but I prefer my sweets on the simpler side, and I drive my pastry chefs crazy with my penchant for, well, plain vanilla. When it comes to custards, I’m a particularly staunch traditionalist. So, when pastry chef Roxana Jullapat told me about her coconut flan, I was skeptical. But its elegant and classic presentation charmed me instantly—a snow white cylindrical custard oozing with golden caramel syrup and surrounded by Elgin Marble apricots simmered in Beaumes de Venise, orange juice, and spices. Roxana’s coconut flan convinced me that there’s life beyond a vanilla pot de crème (which is also delicious! See page 235).

I love dishes with catchy retro names. The Green Goddess salad was invented in the 1920s by the chef of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, who made it in honor of British actor George Arliss. The actor was a guest at the hotel while starring in a local production of William Archer’s The Green Goddess. The basic components of this classic California dressing are anchovies, mayonnaise, garlic, tarragon, parsley, and chives. I add watercress to the puréed herbs, which turns the dressing a deep emerald green and adds a clean, peppery flavor. Thick and rich, the dressing coats the romaine leaves the same way a Caesar salad dressing does. Once you have this dressing in your repertoire, you’ll find yourself using it for all sorts of things. Try a dollop over grilled fish, or spread it on bread instead of mayonnaise when making a sandwich.

Part Indian, somewhat Moroccan, a little bit French, and vaguely Slavic, this dish is a true mutt. Arranged on a bed of vibrant herbed rice and topped with spiced cucumbers, this snapper takes you into a world where hot, sour, sweet, and salty exist harmoniously.

Super-green watercress makes the perfect starter to a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. One St. Patrick’s Day at Lucques, in order not to lose the bright, vivid green color and fresh lively taste of the watercress, I decided to make the soup to order. Rather than cooking the watercress, I planned to wilt it with hot vegetable stock and then purée it with tarragon, parsley, chives, and a touch of cream. As that night approached, the restaurant was booked solid, and I began to worry about my made-to-order soup scheme, but Daniel Mattern, my equally obsessive sous-chef, insisted we go for it in spite of the anticipated 180 reservations. He recruited the waitstaff to bring their blenders from home, and organized his new found equipment into a lean, mean soup station as if it were business as usual. That night, all 180 bowls of soup were made to order and managed to arrive at the tables pipinghot. Dan must have had the luck of the Irish because he pulled it off without a hitch. Served with an anchovy toast, this “à la minute” soup is great any day of the year.

The story of the Bellini begins during Prohibition with American playboy Harry Pickering, who drank at the Europa Hotel in Venice with bartender Giuseppe Cipriani. Pickering’s family had cut off his funds in a last-ditch effort to get him back home and quit drinking. Pickering asked Cipriani for a loan of 10,000 lire—the equivalent of $61,000 today—to get his affairs in order. Cipriani lent him his life savings, only to not hear a word from Pickering for over a year. Legend has it that when Pickering returned to the bar, he ordered a drink and paid Cipriani 50,000 lire as a show of gratitude so he could open his own bar. In 1931, Harry’s Bar in Venice opened and the Bellini cocktail was created there shortly afterward.

This all-year-round cocktail, an Employees Only original, is a fine example of what you can do with a lessinspiring spirit like vodka. We wanted to combine traditional Mediterranean flavors such as figs, lemon, and honey. Mixing with vodka is a challenge similar to that of cooking with tofu; no matter what you do to it, it’s still tofu. All the flavor and texture comes from the other ingredients in the mixture; vodka really contributes only alcohol to the structure of the cocktail. In the case of the Mediterra, any other spirit would interfere with the clean balance of fig to honey.

On the weekends, barbecue sauce shows up at nearly every meal. I’ve made countless versions over the years, but this is still one of my favorites. I draw flavors from around the globe to get just the right balance of sweet, spicy, and tangy. You can brush this on any meat while it’s grilling to build a sticky glaze. When mixed with homemade mayonnaise, it becomes an amazing spread.

Less is more in this simple glaze. The complexity here comes from cooking the garlic and onion until sweet enough to round out the heat of the chiles. I love brushing this on any grilled meat or fish. Another fun use is tossing this sauce with fried calamari or popcorn shrimp.

This is more than just hot sauce. The funky, fruity blend can sear your tongue, but in a pleasant tingling way that allows you to still taste the layers of flavors. You can use this the way you use bottled hot sauce—for buttery sauces, soups, eggs—you’ll find that it just makes everything taste so much better.

I consider myself a pretty high-energy guy, but some mornings, even I need something that will really wake me up. The fresh ginger and pinch of salt brighten the fresh fruit and vegetable juices here, making this an ideal breakfast drink. It also cures a hangover like nothing else. Or so I’m told . . .

Whenever I serve something really rich, like Soy-Braised Lamb Shanks (page 168), I like to have something tart and bracing to go with it. The tangy-hot blend of apples and chiles goes well with just about any red meat, and the combination of creamy and crunchy is unbeatable.

Cherries and mustard may sound like an unusual pairing, but they taste great together. Sweet, tart, and hot, this sauce goes well with chicken and veal as well as pork.

Cold soup and hot shrimp—this is a fantastic combination on a warm night. Blending the honeyed sweetness of this summer melon with intensely savory vegetables makes this dish incredibly refreshing. And I give the hot, spicy shrimp a hit of freshness by grilling finely sliced mint right onto them.

Here I combine woody herbs with the potatoes and tender herbs with the fish. The result is an intensely flavorful and fragrant dish.

When basil grows in my garden, I want to make the most of it. To enhance its aroma, I pair it with pistachios and add a hit of chile and lemon zest to brighten it. Be sure to start with roasted pistachios in their shells and to keep the pesto coarse to highlight the crunch of the nuts.

This pasta dish pairs creamy with crunchy, tart with sweet. Summer string beans also offer a little crunch to balance the juiciness of the tomatoes. I especially like using orange Sunbursts from my garden.