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Polenta is a very simple dish of ground corn cooked in water. It is exceptionally tasty and, like pasta, remarkably versatile. When first cooked, polenta is soft; as it cools, it becomes firm and can then be fried, grilled, or baked. Soft or firm, polenta is great next to roasted or braised meats, or sauced with a spoonful of tomato, meat, or mushroom sauce. For variety, fresh corn or fava beans can be stirred into soft polenta. Polenta can be turned into a luscious torta by layering it with cooked vegetables, cheese, and sauce. Whether ground from yellow or white corn, polenta is ground coarser than cornmeal but finer than grits. When fresh it smells sweet and looks bright yellow. Like all grains, it should be stored in a cool, dark place and replaced when old. Cook polenta in boiling water. The approximate ratio of water to grain is four to one. This will vary depending on the variety of corn, how coarse it is ground, and how fresh it is; each batch you buy may be slightly different. Choose a heavy-bottomed pot when cooking polenta to avoid sticking and burning; use a flame tamer if a heavy pot is not available. Bring the water to a rolling boil and add the polenta in a slow, steady stream while stirring constantly with a whisk. Turn the heat down and continue whisking for 2 or 3 minutes, until the polenta is suspended in the water and no longer settles to the bottom of the pot. (This helps keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.) Season with salt and cook the polenta at a bare simmer, stirring occasionally, for about an hour. The polenta will be fully cooked and softened after 20 to 30 minutes, but the longer cooking time allows its full flavor to develop. Be warned that the thick polenta is very hot, so be careful when stirring and tasting. I spoon a bit onto a small plate to cool before tasting. Polenta should have a pourable, creamy consistency. If the polenta becomes thick or stiff while cooking, add water as needed to maintain the proper consistency. If too much water is added by accident, and the polenta becomes thin and soupy, just keep cooking it to evaporate the water. Polenta will set up quickly if not kept warm, so turn off the heat and cover the pot to keep it soft and hot for 20 minutes or so, or hold it for a longer time in a double boiler or by setting the pot in a larger pot of hot water. Polenta can be finished with butter or olive oil and cheese to enrich it and add flavor. Parmesan is the classic cheese to stir in, but try others; fontina, cheddar, or pecorino for example. Mascarpone or blue cheese is a luxurious garnish to top a bowl of soft polenta. To make firm polenta, spread hot soft polenta evenly onto a rimmed baking sheet (it is not necessary to oil the pan). A depth of about one inch works well for most purposses. Let the polenta sit at room temperature or refrigerate until set. Don’t cover until it has cooled. The firm polenta can be cut into shapes to bake, grill, or fry. To bake, brush with oil and bake at 350°F for 20 minutes or until crisp. To grill polenta, brush it with oil and place on a grill over hot coals; to prevent it from sticking, make sure the grill is hot. To fry, use shallow or deep fat. Polenta will always set up when cooled, but both very thin polenta and polenta that has been finished with a lot of butter or oil can fall apart when grilled or fried. A polenta torta is made of alternate layers of polenta—either freshly made soft polenta or polenta that has already cooled and set—and sauce, such as tomato sauce, meat sauce, or pesto; cooked greens or other vegetables; and cheese. A polenta torta is a great make-ahead dish, ready to heat up any time.

Fava beans are a harbinger of spring. Like other kinds of beans, they form in pods, but they are also covered in a tough, rather bitter skin. The earliest harvests offer beans that are tiny, brilliant green, and so tender they don’t need to be peeled. When not eaten raw, straight from the pod, these are best cooked briefly with a little water and oil or butter. As the season progresses, the beans continue to mature, and they become larger and starchier. At this point they can be popped out of their pods, skinned, and cooked into a luscious, bright green purée that I adore slathering on crisp croutons or serving alongside roasted meats. Still later in the season the beans turn yellow and dry out and are too mature to use this way. Fava beans do require a bit of preparation, but their delicate taste and splash of color are well worth the effort. Popping the beans from their thick soft pods is an enjoyable group project that even little children can join. An easy way to pop the beans out of the pod is to grasp one with both hands; bend the pod back against your thumbs and press out, snapping the beans out of the pod. After the beans are shelled the opaque outer skin of the bean needs to be removed. (Although in Mediterranean cooking the skins are sometimes left on, this increases the cooking time and results in a different taste.) To do so, plunge the beans into boiling water and leave them until the skin is easy to remove. This will take less than a minute, so check one right away. (If you cook the beans too long they will get mashed when you try to slip them out of their skins.) Drain the beans and put them in a bowl of icy cold water. When they are cool, drain them, and pop out the beans, using a fingernail to slit the skin and squeezing the bean out with the fingers of the other hand. Don’t cook the skinned beans too quickly; medium-low heat is best. Stir them occasionally as they are cooking, and, if you notice that they are drying out, add a bit of water. They are done when they can be crushed into a smooth paste when pressed with a spoon. All kinds of beans, fresh or dried, can be flavored and made into tasty purées. I love cannellini bean purée, fresh cranberry bean purée, and refried pinto beans, too. Another favorite hors d’oeuvre is chickpeas with olive oil and hot pepper puréed and served with flatbread or crackers.

Beans cooked and served simply seasoned—like the cannellini beans in the previous recipe with garlic and rosemary—is only one of a great many bean dishes—soups, gratins, purées, and more—that are tastier when their primary flavoring comes after an initial cooking. I sometimes add garlic or herbs or even a bit of onion while the beans are cooking the first time, but I find that good flavor is most prominent when it’s added after the primary cooking. Added flavor can mean anything from a dash of olive oil to a complex tomato sauce, depending on the dish. For example, in the classic Italian dish called fagioli all’uccelletto (which means beans seasoned like a small bird), the cooked beans are simmered in a garlicky tomato sauce with plenty of sage. An example from Mexican cuisine is frijoles refritos, beans which, after an initial cooking, are fried in lard with garlic and sautéed onions, and then mashed. (There are exceptions to every rule, and one that comes immediately to mind is that when something like a ham hock or a prosciutto bone is used to flavor beans, it can be added at the beginning to cook slowly with the beans throughout their cooking.) The beans should be drained of most of their liquid before final flavorings are added. (Save the bean water to make a tasty soup base or to moisten a gratin as it cooks.) Once the beans are ready, stir in the flavorings. Continue to cook them together for at least 10 minutes or so, to allow the flavors to infuse the beans. To make gratins like the one that follows, first sauté onions, carrots, and celery together. To make sure they contribute their full flavor, season the vegetables to taste before adding them to the beans. Beans are very lean and the addition of a flavorful oil or fat makes them taste even better.

Dried beans cook best when soaked for a number of hours. Overnight is best. Cover the beans with plenty of water to keep them from poking up above the surface when they have absorbed water and swelled. I cover them with at least three times as much water as beans. If all the beans were not completely submerged overnight some will cook at a different rate than others and you’ll end up with overdone and underdone beans in the same pot. Drain after soaking and use fresh water for cooking them. All over the world, beans are traditionally cooked in earthenware pots (and for some reason they seem to taste better when they are), but any heavy nonreactive pot will do. Try to choose a wide pot so the layer of beans isn’t too deep; otherwise the beans are hard to stir and the ones on the bottom of the pot get crushed. Be sure to use enough water that stirring them is easy: the water level should always be an inch or so above the level of the beans. If the water is too low, the beans will be crowded and will tend to fall apart when they are stirred. Worst of all they might start to stick and burn on the bottom of the pot. Salt is best added towards the end of the cooking to keep the beans tender. When done, the beans should be tender but not falling apart, though it is better to overcook them than undercook them! You don’t want them to be the least bit al dente, or crunchy. The best way to test them is to bite one. Start testing after an hour. When they are fully cooked, let right away, the skins will crack and they’ll look shaggy. When cooking fresh shell beans there is no need to soak them. Just pop them out of their shells and put them in a pot. Cover with water by no more than about 1 1/2 inches: the beans will not absorb much water. Add the salt at the beginning and begin testing for doneness after about 10 minutes. Depending on the variety, the beans may take as long as an hour to cook, but usually they are done in much less time. Beans can be flavored at the end of their cooking and served right away; or once cooked, they can be cooled, flavored or not, refrigerated (or frozen) in their liquid, and used later.

I wanted to be sure to include a few words about fruit salads—not sweet fruit cocktails in heavy syrup, but savory salads made like other composed salads. These may consist of fresh fruit alone, or fresh fruit combined with lettuces or other salad greens, with nuts and cheese often added for richness and texture. When there are no greens available and I desperately want something fresh, fruit salads are refreshing alternatives, either at the beginning or the end of a meal. Figs, apples, pears, pomegranates, persimmons, and almost all of the citrus fruits make good salads, with or without greens. All these fruits of fall and winter have an affinity for hearty chicories such as escarole, radicchio, and curly endive. Among my favorite fruit salads are an orange salad with black olives; avocado slices and grapefruit sections; persimmons or Asian pears with nuts and balsamic vinegar; and orange slices with marinated beets. Oranges and other citrus fruits need to be peeled and sectioned for a salad. When skinning the fruit, you want to remove all the outer peel and the membranes that enclose the sections, exposing the juicy fruit inside. You will need a small, sharp knife to do this. First, slice off the top and bottom of each fruit, slicing deeply enough to expose the inner flesh. Then, position your knife blade at the top where the fruit and peel meet, and carefully cut down following the contours of the fruit. Continue around the fruit, cutting from top to bottom, rotating the orange, until all the peel and membrane is removed. Trim away any remaining white bits of membrane. You can then slice the orange crosswise or cut between the membranes to free the individual sections. Apples and pears can be peeled or not, but to avoid oxidation, which turns the cut surfaces brown, they should be prepared just before serving. Persimmons must be peeled; this can be done in advance, but keep them covered so they don’t dry out. Fruit salads are usually dressed very simply, sometimes with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil or vinegar, or with a vinaigrette made of some citrus juice and a touch of vinegar, a little chopped shallot, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

For me, making a garden lettuce salad—washing beautiful fresh-picked lettuces and tossing them together with a scattering of herbs and a vinaigrette—is as much of a joy as eating one. I love the colorful variety of lettuces, bitter and sweet; the flavor and complexity of herbs such as chervil and chives; and the brightness of a simple vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and a whisper of garlic, which highlights the lettuces and herbs without overwhelming them. For a salad to have flavor and life, you have to start with fresh, just-picked lettuces. I’m fortunate to have a small kitchen garden in my backyard where I grow various lettuces and herbs for salad, but if you don’t have such a garden it can take some real dedication to find good greens. Farmers’ markets are the best places to start. When my garden is not producing, or when I’m away from home, I shop for head lettuces and try to create my own combinations of lettuces, arugula, chicories, and whatever tender herbs I can find. I generally avoid the salad mixes, especially the pre-bagged ones, which usually seem to include one or two kinds of greens that don’t belong with the others. If there is a lovely mixture from a local salad grower, fine, but otherwise try to buy the best head lettuces you can find and make your own mix. Wash the lettuce, gently but thoroughly, in a basin or bowl of cold water. First cull through the lettuces, pulling off and throwing into the compost bin any outer leaves that are tough, yellowed, or damaged. Then cut out the stem end, separating the rest of the leaves into the water. Gently swish the leaves in the water with your open hands and lift the lettuce out of the water and into a colander. If the lettuces are very dirty, change the water, and wash again. Dry the lettuces in a salad spinner, but don’t overfill it. It’s much more effective to spin-dry a few small batches than one or two large ones. Empty the water from the spinner after each batch. Any water clinging to the leaves will dilute the vinaigrette, so check the leaves and spin them again if they’re still a little wet. I spread out each batch of leaves in a single layer on a dish towel as I go. Then I gently roll up the towel and put it in the refrigerator until it’s time to serve the salad. You can do this a few hours ahead. When the time comes, put the lettuce in a bowl big enough to allow you to toss the salad. If you have some, add a small handful of chives or chervil, or both, either chopped quickly or snipped with scissors. Toss everything with the vinaigrette, using just enough sauce to coat the leaves lightly, so they glisten. Beware of overdressing small, tender lettuces: they will wilt and turn soggy. I usually toss salads with my hands. (I eat salads with my hands, too.) That way I can be gentle and precise and make sure that each leaf is evenly dressed. Taste, and if needed, finish the salad with a sprinkling of salt or brighten it with a splash of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste again and see what you think, then toss one last time and serve the salad right away.

When it comes to making bread, many things affect the outcome, some more obvious than others. Most important is the flour. You cannot make good bread from mediocre flour. Choose flour that is unbleached, untreated, and free of additives. All flours, and especially whole-grain flours, will eventually spoil and taste and smell rancid. Try to buy flour that’s relatively fresh; your best bet is to look for a local organic food retailer with a rapid turnover who sells in bulk. The water makes a difference, too; both its temperature and its quantity influence texture. The type of leavening agent and the length of time bread is allowed to sit and rise will both affect the outcome enormously: quickbreads made with baking soda or powder are tender and almost cakelike, while breads leavened with wild yeast and given repeated slow risings will be the chewiest and crustiest, with the most complex flavors. Weather also affects bread: humidity, heat, and cold each exert their influence. All this makes baking ever-changing and forever fascinating. There is a world of breads: quickbreads such as cornbread and Irish soda bread that are easy to put on the table on relatively short notice; wonderful flatbreads such as tortillas fresh off the griddle or whole-wheat-flour puris that puff up when they’re fried or pita bread grilled over a fire; and the classic yeasted breads of France and Italy—including my everyday favorite, levain bread. Levain bread is leavened with a natural starter of wild yeast and allowed a long, slow fermentation and rising period in canvas-lined baskets. Traditionally, before each batch is baked, some of the starter is held back to leaven the next batch. Rather than give a recipe for a levain-type bread (which is a little complicated to make at home), I offer instead a recipe for a dough that’s versatile enough to be formed and baked as a flat crusty focaccia or a traditional pizza. (Kids love to stretch out the dough and make their own pizzas.)

A salad of many ingredients, either all tossed together or dressed separately and arranged on a plate, is called a “composed” salad. A composed salad such as the Greek salad that follows is a hearty dish; with some crusty bread, it could be the main event of a dinner on a warm night. Or, a composed salad might be a delicate arrangement of, say, a few pieces of crabmeat, some grapefruit sections, and a little curly endive in a creamy dressing, served as an elegant first course. Almost anything can be an element in a composed salad: all the various lettuces and salad greens, of course, but also raw or cooked vegetables, chopped, diced, or cut into thin shavings; roasted meats cut into cubes or thin slices; tuna and other fish or shellfish; and hard-cooked eggs, quartered or chopped. Tasty leftovers can be delicious in a composed salad. Don’t combine too many ingredients into a single salad or it will have too many conflicting flavors. The components should be chosen thoughtfully with regard to the tastes and textures they contribute, and the dressing must complement them all. Sometimes a vinaigrette works best, when a tangy sauce is needed; sometimes mayonnaise, for mellow richness; at other times, a creamy sauce. A potato salad, for example, can be made with any of these dressings, and each will yield a distinctly different salad. When dressing a composed salad that includes both tender lettuces and heavier ingredients such as artichoke hearts or pieces of fruit, dress all the heavier elements separately and arrange them around the tossed lettuces on a platter. Otherwise the salad is hard to serve because everything ends up at the bottom and the leaves get crushed. Even salads that have no lettuce should be assembled carefully. What’s most important is that each ingredient be tasty on its own. Taste everything and season each element with a little salt or dressing as needed before adding it to the whole. When things are tossed together, don’t overmix, or the parts will start to lose their distinctiveness, muddying the flavors and spoiling the look of the salad. (You can always arrange a salad and drizzle vinaigrette over it, or even pass the vinaigrette in a pitcher.) As for what to include in such a salad and how to dress it, taste each ingredient before you decide. That is really the only rule you must follow, and while it may sound frustratingly vague, as you acquire a little salad-making experience, you’ll begin to recognize and remember the flavors you like and the ones that you like together.

A great filling for tacos or topping for any grilled meat, these creamy poblano strips (rajas) showed up on the table a few times a week while I was growing up. You can cream virtually any chile, but mild poblanos add the perfect amount of spice to any dish. My favorite pairing is with sweet Torta de Elote (page 153).

This is one of my favorite ways to eat rice: spicy and with nuts! The spice from the chiles is perfectly balanced by earthy pine nuts. To cut down on the heat, you can always use one ancho chile instead of two, but I encourage you to try it with two the first time around. You might be surprised at how well the flavors work together. Because they are picked by hand, pine nuts can be expensive. Feel free to substitute chopped or slivered almonds instead.

Couscous, made from semolina, is a staple in North African cuisine. Here it is infused with spicy chiles and cinnamon in this easy-to-whip-up salad that would pair nicely with grilled lamb or poultry.

This spicy, cheesy rice dish was served on a regular basis at my parents’ house. It’s also perfectly delicious if you prefer to omit the crema and cheese and just serve the poblano rice on its own, saving you a few calories.

Refried beans are frijoles de la olla that have been fried in a little fat. Because they are traditionally cooked in lard, they aren’t really known for their healthful qualities, but this version uses a fairly small amount of butter and olive oil instead. You still get a very rich and flavorful dish that is perfect for filling tacos or for serving alongside grilled steaks. Double or even quadruple this recipe as needed.

Sweet potatoes cooked in piloncillo (unrefined solid cane sugar, usually found in the shape of small truncated cones) are sold as candy at Mexican mercados. They are way too sweet for me, but there’s no denying the spud’s versatility. Here I highlight their savory flavor by mashing sweet potatoes with a little butter and sage in a great fall dish that works well with roasted turkey. Feel free to use skim milk instead of whole milk, if you must, but keep that stick of butter!

Every family in Mexico has its own version of this traditional soft corn bread. The classic recipe here is my favorite. Enjoy it as is, or experiment with sweet and savory versions by adding dried fruit or chopped jalapeños. Top sweeter versions with Creamed Rajas (page 188); savory versions are great with salsas. No matter how you make it, this Mexican delight is a perfect side for carne asada.

I could easily survive on beans and tortillas for days—or even weeks. In fact, that is pretty much what my diet consisted of when I worked as a food editor. I was both nostalgic and barely able to make the rent at the end of the month, and let’s face it, beans are cheap. Frijoles de la olla are just that: beans (frijoles) that come straight from the pot (olla) to your plate. No fussy seasonings, just perfectly cooked beans that are heaven in a warm tortilla with a drizzle of Mexican crema or sour cream. I always have a batch in the fridge to heat up for a hearty and very healthy dinner packed with cholesterol-lowering fiber and a good dose of protein, iron, potassium, and vitamin B1.

This dish is one of the standouts at the Valladolid Thanksgiving table. Roasting acorn squash—or any vegetable—caramelizes the flesh and brings out its natural sweetness. Your veggies will be exponentially more flavorful than they are when you boil or steam them.

The state of Veracruz is the main growing region for chayote, a gourd that is eaten throughout Mexico and was once the principal food for Mayans and Aztecs. My family often serves it steamed, with a lime wedge. Here it is paired in perfect balance with spicy chorizo for an even tastier side dish.