Cheese

This bubbly dessert gratin is a variation of the one I learned to make at Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island. We baked it to order in the infernally hot pizza oven (700-plus degrees) until the berries popped open in the cream and the top glazed to a golden brown crust. But you don't need a pizza oven yourself. Your home oven set to 450°F is just fine. It just takes a few minutes longer.

Editor's Note: This recipe was originally part of a menu by Bobby Flay for a backyard barbecue. For the complete menu and Flay's tips on throwing a party, click here. Ripe pineapple, with its plentiful natural sugars, is ideal for grilling, and it screams "tropical" like nothing else. This makes a great dessert after spicy Latin, Indian, or Caribbean food. Make sure to let the slices brown; you want lots of those caramelized, almost burnt edges. Mascarpone is a smooth Italian dairy product with a texture somewhere between whipped cream and cream cheese. It's used in tiramisù and available in many supermarkets and gourmet stores, but if you can't find it, good-quality vanilla ice cream will taste just fine.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Hollywood Dish by Akasha Richmond. When I catered Billy Bob Thornton's Christmas party one year, he whipped up some of his special soy — based pimento cheese sandwiches for all of us cooking in the kitchen. The following summer when I catered Billy's birthday, I made the sandwiches as an appetizer and served them with a cream of tomato dip — an idea that my friend Sergio Gomez gave me. When Emeril Lagasse made pimento cheese on his show, he told the audience that when you're in the South as a guest in someone's home, and they bring out the pimento cheese it's a special thing, so I was really honored when Billy made this dish for me. Note: Any leftover dip, can be thinned out a bit with more soymilk and served as soup. When I cater parties I place the dip in small shot glasses or demitasse cups, and slice the sandwiches into long strips and serve them on top of the glasses. I also like to slice a small baguette thinly and use that to make the sandwiches.

Editor's Note: This recipe was originally part of a menu by Bobby Flay for a backyard barbecue. For the complete menu and Flay's tips on throwing a party, click here. Corn is the perfect vegetable for grilling because it comes with a built-in protective wrapper — the cornhusk. The natural moisture in the green husks helps steam and smoke the corn until it's sweet, tender, and full of flavor. In Latin cooking, corn is often sprinkled with lime juice and fresh cheese — queso fresco — for contrast. I've combined that with the American love for butter, butter, and more butter on corn on the cob.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Entertaining with the Sopranos. To read more about the cookbook, click here.

My mother-in-law, Zeke Amendolara, showed me how to make these addictive little cheese turnovers. They are Greek in origin, but with the addition of a dry martini, very WASPy indeed! They freeze beautifully and will emerge golden and crispy from the oven in twenty minutes flat.

Topfenknodel A distant relative of mine, originally from the Polish-German-Czechoslovakian border area (previously part of the Austrian Empire), was an exceptional cook but refused to share her recipes, claiming that either the dish would not turn out as good as hers did, in which case she would be blamed, or it would be as good or better, in which case her own cooking skills would be diminished. Among her repertoire were light, slightly tangy cheese dumplings. No one, however, ever wrangled the real recipe from her. Fortunately, I found a number of cooperative cooks who were more than willing to share their recipes with me. These popular dumplings are called topfenknodel in Austria and Germany, turos gomboc in Hungary, syrove knedliky in Czech, and kluski in Poland. Topfen, also called quark in German, is a thick, slightly tangy central European curd cheese popular for making dumplings, spreads, and toppings. Since topfen is generally unavailable in America, a little cream cheese is added to the pot cheese to approximate the original texture and flavor. You can substitute farmer cheese for the pot cheese, but first wrap it in several layers of paper towels, then let it drain for about 10 minutes to extract some of the excess moisture. Do not use cottage cheese, which contains too much liquid and is too firm. My grandmother served savory cheese dumplings on Shavuot as an appetizer, accompanied with sour cream or browned bread crumbs (2 cups fresh bread crumbs sautéed in 6 tablespoons butter until golden), or a sweetened version as dessert.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown's Weekends. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown's Weekends. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here. You won't want to bite into these because they are so beautiful. But you will soooo be missing out because they are sooooo tasty!

Recipe from the kitchen of Felicia Gray, age 12 Many crab dip recipes call for imitation crabmeat, but there's no place for "krab" here. Only real lump crabmeat makes it taste best. Serve it while it's hot with crackers, bite-size pieces of bread, or veggie sticks. It can also be presented in a bread bowl and served with a tray of fresh broccoli, carrots, zucchini, or crackers.

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown Entertains. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here. Focaccia is a porous, nonflaky but crusty bread from Italy. It is very "in" now due to the relative ease of preparation—and you can really put anything you want on it...it can be a whole meal!

Editor's note: The recipe below is excerpted from Katie Brown Entertains. To read more about Katie Brown and to get her tips on throwing a headache-free cocktail party, click here.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Joan Nathan's book The Foods of Israel Today. Nathan also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Nathan and Israeli cuisine, click here. I remember with pleasure the Turkish Spinach burekas we ate every Friday morning when I worked in the Jerusalem municipality. The ritual was as follows: Simontov, the guard at the front door downstairs, would appear carrying a bronze tray with Turkish coffee and the heavenly, flaky pastries filled with spinach or cheese, called filikas in Ladino. It is rare today to have such delicious burekas, in Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel. Most of the dough is commercially produced puff pastry, much thicker and less flaky than the homemade phyllo used to be. A few places, like Burekas Penzo in Tel Aviv (near Levinsky Street), which has been making the pastries by hand in the Turkish style for more than thirty years, produce a close second to those I remember from my days in Jerusalem. Various Ladino names like bulemas and boyos differentiate fillings and distinguish a Jewish bureka from a Turkish one. If you can find the thick phyllo dough, that works well. Otherwise, try this. My fifteen-year-old makes and sells them for fifty cents a piece. They are great!

Modern-day Reuben sandwiches are often open-faced and broiled, which dries out the corned beef and makes the cheese rubbery. Or, under the misguided belief that more is better, they are overstuffed. The main things to remember for a great Reuben are to keep the filling under control and in balance, so when you bite into it you get a harmonious and succulent mouthful; and to grill the sandwich slowly and under some pressure, so the bread gets toasty brown and buttery crisp, the meat gets warmed through, and the cheese is just melted enough to be oozy.

Uova Ripiene di Tonno Recipes are some of my favorite souvenirs of memorable dining experiences. Whenever I make these eggs, for example, I am reminded of the first time I ate them at Belvedere, a favorite restaurant in La Morra in Piedmont. The owner told me what was in them, and at home I experimented with the proportions of the ingredients to get the flavor I remembered.

MELOPITA SANTORINIS Editor's note: This recipe is excerpted from Aglaia Kremezi's book The Foods of the Greek Islands. To read more about Kremezi and Greek Easter, click here. Individual cheese tarts similar to this one are prepared in Crete and on most of the Greek islands during Easter time. The olive-oil-and-beer pastry, based on a recipe from Paros, has a very nice flavor and texture.

ARNI GEMISTO ME HORTA KE FETA Editor's note: This recipe is excerpted from Aglaia Kremezi's book The Foods of the Greek Islands. To read more about Kremezi and Greek Easter, click here. This recipe comes from Andros, and it is one of the most delicious ways to cook a whole Easter spring lamb or kid. The various spring wild greens on the island, seasoned with fennel, mint and other aromatic herbs, together with the local slightly sour fresh cheese, are used to make the stuffing. In my version, instead of a whole tiny lamb, I use a shortened leg of lamb (shank half) partly boned, to make room for the stuffing. The result is quite different but equally enticing. Serve with Roasted Potatoes with Garlic, Lemon, and Oregano.

(Topfenstrudel) Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Rick Rodgers's book Kaffeehaus: The Best Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. Rodgers also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Austrian cooking, click here. Not every café has a full-time baker. At many, it's just Mama in the kitchen and often Mama doesn't feel like (or doesn't have enough counter space for) hand-pulling strudel dough. This classic recipe layers store-bought filo dough with a Topfen filling in a pan to make a deep-dish dessert. Thanks to Gerda Hofer for this recipe.