Andrews Schloss

This cassoulet is filled to the brim with white beans, lamb, garlic sausage, and smoked sausage (and breadcrumbs), but you can make yours with pork or ham, goat, or duck. Whatever you use, keep the proportions similar to those listed below, and you can’t lose.

Radiating the aromas of toasted cumin and coriander, and spiked with the salty-sour pucker of cured lemons and olives, this chicken stew produces a heady effect. If you can’t find preserved lemons in your local food markets (high-end stores usually stock them), you can order them or make them yourself.

Because ripe pineapples bruise easily and don't travel well, and because the fruit doesn't ripen after being picked, processed pineapple products like juice and canned fruit that are made from fully ripened fruit frequently taste better than the fresh pineapples available to most consumers. That's why I don't waste my time juicing my own pineapples for beverages. Strawberries are another matter. Strawberry juice, because of its low acidity, is highly perishable. In this light sparkling soda, the strawberry juice is fresh and the pineapple juice is processed—the best of both worlds.

Watermelon in its solid state is so loaded with water and sugar that it is little more than a beverage waiting to be released from captivity. This tangy, refreshing drink is the fulfillment of that promise. The addition of a little vinegar does much to expand the aroma of the watermelon, which is barely perceptible when you’re eating the fruit. Mint and watermelon are natural BFFs. If you were unaware of that relationship before tasting this recipe, afterward you will try never to serve a slice of watermelon without a mint sprig somewhere nearby.

Best with beef, pork, lamb, game meats

Guinness, the Irish stout, gives the brine for these simple barbecued lamb steaks much of its punch. Like most dark beers, Guinness has a bittersweet molasses flavor, which is great with lamb. But the hidden power of a Guinness brine is its alcohol content (about 4 percent). Alcohol accelerates the absorption of flavorful components directly into the protein structure of meat, yielding a steak that not only retains about 10 percent more moisture, but also is able to deliver a hit of seasoning with every bite. The flavors of chipotle chiles and cumin in the brine are reinforced with a smoky rub and a dark, pungent Guinness BBQ sauce. A word of warning: the sauce burns easily, so only brush it on the meat at the very end of grilling. In fact it is more flavorful served as a table sauce, although the steaks do look nice varnished with glaze.

Best with pork, chicken, turkey, rich fish, shellfish

Most folks overcook grilled chicken breast, but it's not really their fault. The cut is too lean to stand up to lengthy cooking and too thick to cook through quickly—paillard to the rescue. A paillard (which means "ribald" or "bawdy" in French) is a boneless slice of meat pounded thin enough and wide enough to practically cover the surface of a large dinner plate. Because they are so thin, paillards grill through in seconds, so they are one of the quickest grilled meals one can imagine. They also look striking, flopping across a plate like an edible doily. In this recipe the lightness of the paillards is reinforced by a spare seaweed and cucumber salad with a Japanese-style vinaigrette.

Halved grapefruits taste delicious with a kiss of smoke from the grill. But they're even better sliced to expose more of the fruit to the caramelizing fire. Pomegranate molasses, with its sweet-tart flavor and syrupy texture, makes a tasty, ruby-hued glaze. Try this recipe with oro blanco (a white-fleshed pomelo), too. If you have fresh pomegranates, scatter the seeds over the top.

This hot dog recipe is packed with tons of flavor from lime, garlic, and orange.

Once you make this beer-braised hot dog recipe, you won't make them any other way. Oh, and you might as well braise that sauerkraut while you're at it!