Spring

This simple salad, with its lemony dressing and bitter greens, is a nice match for the fried latkes.

Neal Fraser, Executive Chef and co-owner of Grace and BLD in Los Angeles, shared the recipe for this elegant pasta dish with Epicurious: Fresh pasta shells are tossed with lobster, peas, rich Mascarpone cheese, and fresh herbs. It's one of the best-selling dishes at Grace. It's best to use fresh or thawed, frozen cavatelli, which the sauce will really cling to, but other fresh pasta shells or, in a pinch, dried pasta could be substituted.

A Sicilian combination—artichokes and beans—becomes another creative variation on crostini at Cinghiale.

Grill the vegetables once the chickens have finished cooking. Because the artichokes have been precooked, it takes just a few minutes to finish them on the grill.

Serve the compote over vanilla or strawberry ice cream, angel food cake, pancakes, or waffles.

This light spring recipe, from chef Daniel Patterson of San Francisco's Coi, is a great way to use the buttermilk left over after making Patterson's homemade butter . Strips of yuba are simmered in the buttermilk and then topped with a bright-green sauce of fresh peas, basil, and fava leaves. Yuba, also called tofu skin, is made by heating soy milk until a skin forms on the surface. Here, strips of tender, slightly chewy yuba stand in for pasta. (See the Test-Kitchen Tips, below, for more information on ingredients and substitutions.)

This is a soup that really benefits from homemade stock.

"What grows together, goes together" is a concept that often holds true, but disparate denizens of the garden sometimes need coaxing to harmonize. Ferrigno sets about the task with wise restraint—just a little butter, shallot, and fresh basil turns asparagus and peas into the best of friends.

The inner stalks of celery and fennel, plus soft chunks of mozzarella, add up to a clean, cool salad that's quite striking (the name, which refers to a "woman in white," alludes to its pale hues).

Ramps, or wild leeks, are celebrated as a sign of spring in Appalachia. This creamy soup captures the briefly flourishing vegetable's essence: Cooking the oniony bupounds brings out their sweetness, and bright green stems lend a cheerful color.

Ingredients of Sephardic cooking—dates, cardamom, and orange zest—bring a mosaic of Mediterranean scents and textures to the Passover table. The cake has a coarse crumb yet is incredibly moist and chewy, thanks to the dates. A sprinkle of our Passover version of powdered sugar dresses up the torte for a special occasion.

Rhubarb and strawberries usually meet in late-spring pies. This dessert plays on the combination's sophistication. When roasted, rhubarb becomes more intense in flavor and color while still retaining its shape. Rose water contributes a floral delicacy (use it sparingly; a little goes a long way), and strawberry sorbet imparts a cool note.

Pasta made with matzo cake meal is extremely light in texture and is no fuss to prepare when it's rolled and cut by hand into thin strips. The vegetables, in shades of green, provide a range of spring color.

There's really no trick to recipes like this: Using moist, flavorful chicken thighs and good marinated artichoke hearts will result in a simple but memorable single-pan dish.

We always look forward to fresh asparagus at the market. Roasting it with buttery Yukon Golds—and a handful of Parmigiano-Reggiano, of course—deepens the flavor.

Cicoria is a standard cooked green on menus all over Italy—it has a pleasing bitterness that's offset by the richness of the oil it's sautéed in. Sadly, it's hard to find that kind of chicory in America, but dandelion greens make a nice substitute.

Aged Gruyère gives extra-nutty flavor.