Herbs & Spices

This winter cocktail is bright and fizzy, spicy with ginger, and smoky with Scotch. Think of it as a Penicillin, gone extra-festive.

No new drink of the twenty-first century has gone further in terms of fame than this complex, spicy, smoky turn on a Whiskey Sour. 

Since Chinese eggplant has fewer seeds, it is noticeably less bitter than its fellow nightshades. This makes it the perfect ensemble player in this cast of heat, ginger, and garlic.

This mall classic, peppered with the ultimate combo of mint and chocolate, is every bit as ridiculous and over the top as it is delicious and irresistible. The secret ingredient in these cookies is the milk powder, which brings an amazing depth of flavor.

Freshly ground cardamom seeds and black peppercorns perfume these holiday cookies, adding a punch of flavor to the speckled dough.

Standing three tiers high, the magnificent Bombay sandwich is a whopper of a construction. It’s available on every street corner, and each stallholder obsesses over their own special blend of spices, vegetables, and chutneys, for that “better than yours” taste. Although it’s a wonder, it’s also a labor of love to make at home, and so in this recipe I’ve attempted to embody its spirit—a sharp, hot green chutney, cheese, and onion—but in a pastry roll that can be made in just minutes.

This easy-to-make cocktail was one of the earlier drinks I created for the bar menu at our Brentwood restaurant, Tavern. It is made with a honey syrup infused with fresh ginger and chiles de árbol, so you get those flavors and that heat in the cocktail. I added grapefruit to make it tangy.

Poach turkey in an anise, ginger, and scallion broth, then shred the meat and toss with a savory, lard-enriched sauce for this traditional Taiwanese preparation.

June Edelmuth has become known all over Sydney for this legendary bread. The deliciously dense cinnamon and sugar-swirled babke honors the memory of June's Russian grandmother, Minka.

This super-flexible, all-purpose salad turns cabbage into luscious tangles of crisp leaves generously coated in a rich and bright dressing.

This pungent, spicy, and garlicky broth is a riff on rasam, a South Indian soup. Tamarind juice typically acts as the base for the dish, but here tomato paste and lime juice add fruity acidity to balance the intense flavors.

You’ll find Korean rice cakes in all kinds of shapes and sizes—from long cylinders to thin, oblong rounds. While their flavor does not change according to shape, textures do. Thin rice cakes work well for this stir-fry, as they quickly absorb flavors and soften into crispy, chewy coins.

This dish of tender spiced goat layered with saffron rice, cashews, and golden raisins is a celebratory meal ideal for birthdays and holidays of all kinds.

This aromatic rice pudding is flavored with cinnamon and cardamom, and gets a topping of pistachios and edible flowers.

This creamy, frozen Indian dessert gets its flavor from finely ground pistachios and a pinch of floral, earthy saffron.

These milky little doughnuts are a burnished bronze on the outside, white and cakey inside, and soaked to the core with delicately flavored rose syrup.