Fruit

When iced, these carrot-filled cupcakes make heavenly desserts or snacks. Unfrosted, they are perfect for breakfast on the run or a lunch-box treat. Use the large holes of a box grater, or the shredding disk of a food processor, to shred the carrots.

Baking the desserts in a hot-water bath keeps them creamy and custardy beneath their golden, cakey tops. Lining the roasting pan with a dish towel helps the water circulate under the cups for even cooking.

Rhubarb is a vegetable, although it is typically used in jams and desserts; its tart flavor makes it the perfect companion for fresh strawberries, or in this case, strawberry ice cream.

These treats aren’t fancy; they’re just plain good and full of memories. You can prepare the strawberries up to a day ahead, but wait until just before serving the dessert to assemble it.

The combination of lemon zest, raisins, and pine nuts was inspired by condiments popular in Southern Italian cooking. Try the lemon relish on chicken or pork, or even as a topping for steamed broccoli.

The rhubarb sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Try it with chicken or drizzled over toasted bread or crackers topped with goat cheese. The cherries can be replaced with other dried fruit, such as golden raisins.

This salad works best with baby spinach; if you want to substitute regular spinach, tear it into small pieces before tossing with other ingredients. You can use tart or sweet cherries.

These turnovers are delicious! Plus, they’re quick to make and everyone loves them. When you’re making them, be sure to put only a few cherries and a little bit of sauce in each one; otherwise, they’ll be really hard to close and they’ll leak all over the place.

Okay, this isn’t really fried (which is a good thing), but the crunchy cinnamon crust with cold, creamy ice cream inside does a good job of imitating fried ice cream. It’s so delicious that everyone will be asking for seconds. Make it to share with friends, and keep it in your freezer in a covered container to eat whenever you get sick of boring, plain old ice cream out of the carton. To make a vegan version, use margarine and nondairy ice cream.

We can’t write a cookbook without including something with a crumble topping; they’re just too good. That’s why we came up with this vegan version of crumble, which wasn’t even really that hard (all we had to do was change the butter to margarine—so if you want to make a dairy version, switch back to butter). Serve a nice warm slice with a scoop of ice cream (vegan if you like) and you’ll be in heaven!

I love bread pudding, but making it without any dairy was a bit of a challenge. After quite a few attempts, we finally got it. This version is not too sweet, and the combination of almond milk and raspberries gives it an excellent flavor.

I used to be very apprehensive about different ethnic foods until I studied abroad. The first time I had a tagine was in France and I wondered where it had been all my life! That first tagine was the furthest thing from being vegetarian-friendly, as it came with every kind of meat you can imagine, but an all-vegetable version is just as good. This is a great meal for when you have friends coming over or to take to a potluck.

This recipe was inspired by an amazing salad I had at an organic restaurant near my house. I love all of the fun stuff in it. The sweetness of the pineapple and the crunch of the chow mein noodles and almonds are a fabulous combination. And the dressing is light, so it doesn’t weigh down the salad. It’s a perfect hot weather dish. You can get dried pineapple in the bulk food section of a supermarket, or you can usually find them by the other dried fruits.

A classic southern kho, this combination of pork and eggs spotlights the importance of texture in Vietnamese cooking. The cut used here is pork leg (fresh ham), purchased and cooked with the skin (rind) attached. The meat is slowly simmered until tender, with a slight dryness off set by the unctuous skin and fat. The eggs develop an interesting contrast of chewy white and buttery yolk, while the sauce made from coconut juice is softly sweet. You may need to abandon your fear of fat when preparing this dish. It is important to use a piece of pork leg with its fat and skin intact, or the meat will be dry and lack richness. The cut is widely available at Viet and Chinese markets and sometimes at regular supermarkets. The meatier upper butt of the leg (the portion typically used for smoked hams) is best, rather than the lower shank. At the table, you may eat just the meat, using chopsticks to detach and set aside the unwanted bits. Crunchy Pickled Bean Sprout Salad (page 193) is a traditional accompaniment, along with plenty of rice. Viet cooks vary the size and type (duck or chicken) of eggs they use. I prefer medium chicken eggs. Canned coconut juice works in place of the liquid inside a fresh, young coconut. Choose a brand with the least amount of sugar for the best flavor.

I appreciate the convenience of canned coconut milk, but I admit that freshly made coconut milk has a bright flavor and soft, luscious mouthfeel that no canned product can ever match. And although you may opt for the ease of canned coconut milk most of the time, making your own milk at least once will prove rewarding. Coconut milk is extracted from the meat of mature coconuts, which have a dried brown husk (as opposed to the green husk of young coconuts). Look for one that is heavy for its size, an indication that it has lots of meat, the source of the rich milk. Give the coconut a shake to make sure there is liquid inside, a sign that the flesh has not fermented. Traditionally, the meat is grated, steeped in hot water, and then strained to yield the milk. The grating is done with a special round serrated blade, or the cook grates the meat while seated on a squat wooden stool to which a blade is attached. The food processor method given here is a great time-saver and yields excellent results.

Every time I make this easy dipping sauce, I am amazed at how good it is, especially when paired with such simple dishes as grilled chicken, fish, squid, shrimp, or summer squash or with Poached Chicken with Lime Leaves (page 84). Depending on how you tilt its balance, the sauce may hit your palate with pungency, saltiness, tartness, and/or heat. Kosher salt is the best type to use for this recipe. It is coarse, less assertive than iodized salt, and a little sweet. Assembling this sauce is fun, fast, and up to each individual. As the cook, all you have to do is set out individual dishes filled with the ingredients.

This sauce is intensely flavored by lots of lime juice, which rounds out the edges of the shrimp sauce (mam tom), a salty, pungent fermented staple of the Viet kitchen. The fish sauce lends savoriness, the chiles add heat, and the sugar softens everything. Although the rice vinegar is optional, it helps smooth out all the flavors. This sauce is the traditional condiment with turmeric catfish with rice noodles (page 226).

Used sparingly to coat food lightly, this sublime sauce goes well with seafood, chicken, and even boiled green vegetables. If you are portioning it for your guests, serve it in small, shallow dishes, as a little of it goes a long way. This sauce is so good that a family friend drank his serving. While an electric mini-chopper makes quick work of mincing ginger (cut it into 1/2-inch chunks and use a little lime juice to move things along), a sharp knife will allow you to hone your knife skills. For the best flavor, select a heavy knob of ginger with smooth, thin skin.

Every Vietnamese cook makes this dipping sauce, with the differences among them reflecting personal preferences and regional variations. In general, as you move south the sauce gets sweeter, hotter, and more garlicky. Yet no matter exactly how it is made, its role is always the same: to enhance and unify all the elements of a dish. As with much of Viet cooking, parameters apply more than rules. This recipe will help you develop your own version. Sensing subtle distinctions between sour, sweet, salty, and spicy requires practice. Plus, fish sauces differ, and even lime juice can be inconsistent. To deal with these variables, I don’t mix everything together at once, but rather break up the process to simplify matters for the taste buds. This allows for adjustments along the way. While you may omit the rice vinegar, it actually brightens the flavors and softens any harsh or bitter edges contributed by the lime juice. The garlic is optional; some recipes will suggest including or excluding it.