Flour

The use of countless aromatics to flavor bread lies at the center of Germany's rich whole grain baking culture. Breads are often prepared with different grains and grinds of flour to achieve distinctively textured loaves. In this 100 percent whole grain loaf, I use spelt for its pleasing mild flavor, but you can use regular whole wheat flour. Yes, this is a thick-crusted loaf, unlike any bread you will find in a U.S. supermarket or pretty much anywhere else, but the inside will be chewy and soft with seeds and spices. Give it a day, and the crust will soften from the humidity in the air. Enjoy this unusual aromatic bread with cheese and cold cuts as a simple supper, or use as a base for a nourishing sandwich. It's also delicious with a bowl of soup. This is an effortless no-knead bread made using an old technique, most recently revived by New York master baker Jim Lahey. I have taught students to make a slow-fermentation bread with minimal yeast for years, albeit in a plain old loaf pan — initially inspired by a recipe by German cookbook author Luise Brüggemann. I credit Lahey with introducing me to the use of a lidded heavy pot and a simple folding technique to get a truly spectacular artisinal bread — no wonder his method has won him cult status. If the lid of your Dutch oven has a plastic knob, be sure to wrap it in aluminum foil so it doesn't melt in the high heat of the oven.

Everyone needs a real butter cookie once in a while. I certainly do. These cookies showcase the intense nuttiness of amaranth flour. Rolling them in minuscule amaranth seeds gives them a playful touch and adds a nice crunch, but they are also delicious without. Fine sea salt retains some of its crystalline texture during baking, adding sparks of salt to contrast the natural sweetness of the whole grain flours. For best outcome allow the dough to chill thorougly and firm up, ideally overnight. If the dough balls become soft while you finish them with the walnuts, as in step 4, chill the baking sheet with the cookies for 20 minutes before baking.

These flavorful frites are not only a clever riff on a fried standard, they're also lamb's best friend. The Middle Eastern accents in the za'atar spice blend pair well with the gamey meat and intensify the eggplant’s flavor. After many experiments, Terzo Piano chef Meg Colleran Sahs discovered that a rice-flour coating resulted in the highest crunch factor.

Let’s clear something up right away: New York City isn’t the only place in the world to get decent, authentic bagels. The truth is, you can make bagels that are just as good at home, no matter where you live. They’re one of the simplest breads to make, requiring only flour, water, salt, yeast, and malt—and one secret ingredient: time (in the form of long, slow, cold fermentation). Any decent bagel shop knows this and uses an overnight method to stretch out the fermentation process, releasing all sorts of subtle flavors trapped in the flour. While bagel shops often use a type of high-protein flour not available to home cooks to achieve that distinctively chewy texture, regular, unbleached bread flour can also do the trick. The real key is to use a much lower percentage of water than is used for baguettes and other European hearth breads, producing a stiff dough that can stand up to a dunking in boiling water before going into the oven. More than any ingredient or other aspect of the method, this boiling step is what defines the uniqueness of the bagel. That said, bagels do usually feature one other distinctive ingredient: barley malt. While this may seem like an exotic, hard-to-find product, it’s actually commonly available at most supermarkets, usually labeled “barley malt syrup.” If you can’t find it, simply substitute an equal amount of honey. Your bagels might not have that malty flavor, but they’ll still be better than almost any bagel you can buy. One final note: If you like bagels but don’t want to set up the boiling operation for just six of them, feel free to double the size of the batch and bake enough to freeze for future use.

Soy Free Tabbouleh, tabouli, tabouleh, taboolee . . . however you wanna spell it, it spells YUM! It has a clean, light flavor that just tastes healthy. If you have a food processor, now is the time to use it.

Wheat Free Yep, green burgers. This recipe makes a lot, but they freeze well, so you can have green burgers all week long!

This zucchini-flecked cornbread walks a delicious line between sweet and savory.

Buttermilk and honey makes these muffins remarkably tender and indescribably delicious. We love this recipe with raspberries, but you can also use any berries you have on hand.

"I like to put these little doughnuts in a brown paper sack with a few shakes of powdered sugar and eat them straight out of the bag."—Ethan Stowell

The recipe for red velvet cake has been around since the 1920s, when the cake was the signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The cake captured my heart-and it plays hard to get. It took me forever to come up with a magical adaptation that would capture the richness of its namesake. These bars get their health benefits, velvety texture, and deep red color from a paste made of beets, red beans, cocoa powder, and red food coloring. I took a slight departure from the traditional red velvet cake flavor by adding a touch of almond extract, and that, my friends, is where the magic happened.

Graham crusts typically start with crushed graham crackers. Here, graham flour gives the crust a nutty flavor and hearty texture.

For the best flavor, marinate the chicken overnight. If you're short of time, use a 15-ounce can of cannellini or lima beans instead of the dried beans. With this rich, garlicky sauce, you need only a fresh salad to complete the meal.

Better than any store-bought energy bars, these are great for breakfast-on-the-go, brown-bag lunches, and snacks. Make a batch on the weekend to get you through the work week.

The defining aspect of Swedish pancakes is their superthin size. Make these small for a sweet Sunday morning treat. Berries appear often in Swedish food, both fresh, as atop these pancakes, and in sauces for savory dishes.

To create patisserie-perfect macaroons, Sandra Holl uses very finely ground almond flour. To remove the larger pieces, sift the flour before using.

This dish is emblematic of great home-style Southern cooking. Some say its origins are in Europe, where wiener schnitzel was invented, and there are some similarities. The connection ends, though, with the country-style sausage gravy with which we smother our pan-fried cutlets. Europeans serve their version with a humble (and lean) wedge of lemon. I retained the gravy but lightened it up dramatically—and instead of pan-frying the cutlets in bacon fat as they do in some parts of the South, I chose to bread and bake them.

Giving foods that glorious crispy- crunchy texture without a deep fryer isn't easy. The best way to healthfully approximate the deep- fried experience is to use panko breadcrumbs, a mist of cooking spray, and a hot oven. Panko is a Japanese ingredient that used to be found only in Asian supermarkets and health- food stores but is now available everywhere. The crumbs are made from crustless bread, so they're lighter and crunchier than traditional breadcrumbs.