Starter

Pickled vegetables are great to have in the fridge as a go-with-everything condiment; try them on sandwiches or burgers, in place of olives at a cocktail party, or alongside Falafel with Tahini Sauce (page 29). A quick brine made of rice vinegar, sugar, and water gives your favorite crisp vegetables a sweet-and-sour flavor. They’ll keep for up to three months in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and the recipe can easily be doubled if you want to prepare a bigger batch. The vegetables in the recipe below are my favorites, but feel free to mix it up by adding others such as raw baby corn, zucchini, or beets. One batch of brine will be enough for any one of the suggested vegetables, below.

This gorgeous salad is the perfect balance of hot, sweet, salty, and sour that is the core of Thai cuisine. The cool mixture of mango, onion, and radish is topped with hot crunchy fried fish. This salad is downright addictive and will blow you away with its tastebud-awakening flavors and mix of textures. When cutting the fish, don’t worry if the pieces are not perfectly uniform. Take note: this salad doesn’t like to sit around, so serve it as soon as you can after you fry the fish. Leftover soy-lime vinaigrette will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to five days and is awesome tossed with chilled soba noodles or served as a dipping sauce for dumplings.

I love thinking of alternatives to your classic steak and potatoes. This main course salad is hearty without being heavy and contains all of the elements of a balanced meal—meat, starch, and vegetables. Grilled beef, crisp fennel, chewy fregola (see Note), and bright oranges are finished with a drizzle of briny green olive tapenade in this Mediterranean-inspired skirt steak salad. Varying texture and temperature play a powerful role in the makeup of this dish, adding a whole other dimension. I’m a believer that opposites do attract; hot and cold—the grilled meaty steak and the cool crunchy salad—play off each other. Tapenade is a rich olive spread popular in the Mediterranean. The salty earthiness of green olive tapenade is the perfect complement for pasta, spread for crostini, or topping for baked sweet potatoes. Visit your market’s olive bar and purchase high-quality green olives; leave the little pimento-stuffed ones for martinis.

I’ll never understand why people don’t like beets—they’re wonderfully sweet and have a dense, meaty texture. When buying beets, I focus on what the leafy tops look like. The leaves should be fresh looking and dark green, not wilted. I shy away from baby beets, which I find to be unnecessarily pricey, as much as I stay away from huge rock-size ones. Heirloom tomatoes in a rainbow of colors add to this sunny summer salad—you won’t even miss the lettuce! Like all the vinaigrettes and dressings in this book, the recipe will make a fair amount. Leftover walnut vinaigrette will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to five days. It’s pretty thick and is ideal to spoon over grilled or steamed asparagus.

This mix of lobster, avocado, and papaya is a luxurious alternative to your everyday salad. It’s sweet and creamy, perfect in the summer on a hot day. With the exception of cutting the avocado, all of the ingredients for the salad can be prepared ahead of time. Then, assembling the salad becomes a quickie. Leftover jade dressing will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to two days and is fantastic with grilled lamb chops.

This rustic salad makes a substantial starter or a light lunch, and is especially nice when it’s hot out. As with so much in Italian cuisine, the recipe is very simple; the key is the quality of the ingredients. The main attraction is featuring local heirloom tomatoes in peak season, which is summer to early fall in most places. Luckily, in Miami, we get locally grown tomatoes all winter long! It honestly doesn’t matter how many varieties of tomato you use; the most important thing is that the tomatoes are ripe, juicy, and sweet.

Let me start off by saying that this not-to-be-missed dish . . . takes several hours to make. Even though the recipe involves a time commitment, someone who enjoys cooking will take pleasure in the process, and the end result is all the more satisfying. And I promise you, when you make this dish, it will blow everyone away! The succulent pieces of pork belly are melting on the inside and crispy on the outside. Spicy kimchi is the perfect counterpoint to the unctuous belly. Sweet, spicy, hot, cold, crispy, fatty, crunchy, and chewy—this dish has got it all.

This Moroccan-inspired recipe is one of those dishes where less is more: a big, sweet onion stuffed with cinnamon- and cumin-scented ground lamb and plump apricots. While you may be tempted to put the whole spice cabinet in the lamb filling, the simple duo of cinnamon and cumin does the trick. The fruit plays off the rich gaminess of the lamb and the spices add a subtle background flavor to tie it all together. This stuffed onion is perfect for a weeknight dinner with a green salad and steamed basmati rice, or elegant enough to make as a starter for a dinner party. The best part is that you can do this all ahead of time and just pop the stuffed onions in the oven before dinner. Sweet!

I know it’s a bold statement, but this is the best damn crab cake you’re ever gonna eat! Unlike most recipes, this one doesn’t depend on bread crumbs or any other filler to hold the crab together. Sweet, succulent crab is mixed with not much more than butter and cream, which, when chilled, binds the crab cake together beautifully. When panfried, the outside gets crisp and brown while the butter melts inside, and what you bite into are warm lumps of luscious crab. When you want to pull out all the stops, this dish is impressive, elegant, and looks and tastes fantastic. The crab cake mixture is best if made ahead so it has sufficient time to chill and harden. For an hors d’oeuvre, form the crab mixture into mini cakes. The super simple carrot butter sauce adds not only a bit more richness but also a subtle sweetness and vibrant color. Try it with grilled fish, too.

In my book, bacon-wrapped anything is good. Here crisp bacon and juicy peaches strike a perfect balance of salty and sweet. It’s hard to beat a fresh-picked slurpy peach, but these little bites are a sexy way to dress up the luscious summer fruit, making for a sophisticated, beautiful small plate.

Escabeche is a classic Spanish preparation in which you sear fish or meat, then marinate it in a vinegar sauce until it’s sort of pickled. Unlike ceviche, which is raw fish “cooked” by citrus juice, escabeche is cooked first. The bracing and acidic vinegar cuts through oily fish such as kingfish (also called king mackerel), herring, or bonito just perfectly. This super simple dish makes a light, flavorful starter that wakes up the taste buds and hits the spot on a hot day.

Ceviche is a much-loved dish in Miami, with a million delicious variations. In a nutshell, it’s seafood that is prepared by marinating in citrus juice, which makes the fish more opaque and firm, just as if it had been cooked with heat. I like to keep my recipe pretty straightforward and often use grouper, a favorite local fish. If you want to play around with other kinds of seafood, snapper, striped bass, scallops, and halibut are all the right texture. Whichever you choose, it’s important to start with the freshest, cleanest fish possible. The bright, refreshing combo of orange, lemon, and lime with creamy avocado and sweet mango makes for a great balance of texture, flavor, and visual appeal. If I had to describe it, I’d say it tastes like sashimi salsa! A little of the kimchi base adds another level of pow. You can sub a good hot sauce but trust me; it’s crazy good with the kimchi! As with all cold preparations, all of the ingredients should be cold to start. Also take the time to chill your serving bowls to ensure the dish is enjoyed at the proper temperature. For a cocktail party, serve the ceviche in tablespoons or wonton spoons as single bites.

A few years ago my wife, Tamara, and I started raising chickens in our backyard in Miami. It’s been a really funexperience and today we have eleven hens! With the coop comes lots of fresh eggs, so I’m always trying to find ways to use them creatively. This hearty onion soup is absolutely transcendent with a poached egg on top. When you cut into the egg, the runny yolk oozes into the soup, making it extra luxurious.

If you’ve never tasted gnudi before, you’re missing out! Gnudi are small dumplings made with ricotta and Parmesan cheese mixed with flour and seasonings. The result is a delicate cheesy-pillowy morsel that literally melts in your mouth. They are absolutely incredible simply boiled and served with brown butter and sage, but I like to take things one step further by frying these little guys. Fried gnudi are an unusual, addictive party snack that feeds a crowd and is not at all difficult to make at home. I would describe the taste as a cross between gnocchi and a French fry. There’s nothing better than that!

Super addictive, these delicious soft breadsticks are laced with garlic, cheese, and herbs on the inside and out. They make a fun handheld snack that’s a real crowd-pleaser. Serve them with Provençal Vinaigrette (page 240) or Lemon Aïoli (page 126) or just by themselves. Feel free to get creative and play with the ingredients, adding kick with chili powder or paprika, or for a Latin twist, try using cilantro, cumin, and cinnamon.

Deviled eggs are a classic that doesn’t need to be reinvented with all sorts of fancy ingredients. When it comes to making hard-boiled eggs, the biggest problem is easily overcooking them, which produces a nasty green ring around the yolk and a rubbery texture. The explanation for boiling eggs may seem like overkill, but trust me, you will have total success for the rest of your life.

Falafel, usually tucked into pita bread with lettuce, tomato, and tahini sauce, is one of the best-known Middle Eastern street foods. At home, falafels make a rustic hot hors d’oeuvre, with a bowl of creamy tahini sauce for dipping. These fry up just right: crunchy on the outside and fluffy in the middle. The baking powder gives the falafels a little lift so they don’t sit in your stomach like belly bombs! All the fresh herbs make for a vibrant flavor and super green color. The chickpeas need to soak for a bit, so plan accordingly. The falafels are amazing with Quick Pickled Vegetables (page 235).

A good recipe for chicken liver pâté is critical. This is not your grandmother’s chopped liver; my version is supremely silky and light, with a hint of brandy. The chicken liver as well as the crostini toasts can easily be made a day ahead: refrigerate the liver, pressing plastic wrap directly on the surface, and store the crostini in an airtight container.