Pasta & Noodles

Add chicken or pork to turn this side dish into a satisfying main course. Chopped roasted peanuts are a nice garnish.

My reason for disliking this dish as a child was more about what it lacked than what it delivered — it wasn't savory enough to be lasagna or sweet enough for dessert, so why bother eating it? I do, however, remember the first few times I watched my mother prepare kugel — the thrill of all those noodles, and the seductive smell of cinnamon and butter as it baked, which only set the stage for my letdown when I tasted this bland noodle square on my plate.

From Daniel Boulud and Alex Lee, the former executive chef at Daniel in New York.

Serve with: Spinach salad topped with toasted almonds, and sesame breadsticks.

A hearty stew-like soup inspired by Vietnamese pho. The hot and sour elements are great paired with Asian beer. Start preparing this soup one day before serving.

At the restaurant, the gnocchi are shaped in a time-honored manner that includes pressing each short dough piece against the tines of a fork. Home cooks may find it simpler to roll the dough along the wires of a whisk, as outlined here. Also, if you can't get ground chuck, buy a boneless chuck roast, and ask the butcher to grind it for you.

Good as a side dish or meatless entráe.

This Russian dish has been around for several centuries, but it wasn’t until the fifties that it became all the rage in the United States (despite our fear of Communism). Here is a delicious rendition that pays tribute to the "gourmet" chafing-dish dinner party. Now, as then, beef stroganoff is a good thing to cook in front of a small crowd.

Buckwheat noodles give this classic spring pasta dish a nifty twist. Uncork your favorite Chardonnay.

For this traditional Asian fondue, raw strips of chicken are cooked quickly at the table in a pot of boiling broth. Guests then place the cooked chicken strips on lettuce leaves, add noodles and whatever garnishes they choose, roll up the leaves and complete the packages with a bit of the Sweet-and-Spicy Dipping Sauce. When all of the chicken has been eaten, divide the remaining broth among the guests.

Offer a salad of snow peas and sliced radishes in a ginger vinaigrette. End with oranges and almond cookies. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Noodles-which are staples in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Myanmar (formerly Burma)-are showing up everywhere these days. Cutting vegetables in julienne style is a Western technique.

Some cooks may prefer to substitute more readily available angel's-hair pasta for the rice noodles called for in this recipe.

The follow recipe is an adoption of "chicken long rice," a frequent accompaniment to roast pig at a luau. Although Chinese in origin, this dish has been enthusiastically adopted by all Hawaiians. "Long rice" refers to bean-thread noodles that are cut into short lengths. We eliminated the chicken traditionally included in this recipe to make it a lighter side dish for our Grilled Teriyaki Pork Chops with Pineapple Papaya Relish . Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This was a recipe that came from my mother, Rae Horowitz. She told me it was from my Grandma Sade Lyon's recipe and she learned to make it from her.

(Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Shrimp) Paad Thai, with its signature fettuccine-width rice noodles, is available in myriad variations throughout Thailand. In its country of origin the dish is often made with dried shrimp; for a milder flavor fresh shrimp is specified here.