Make Ahead

These plums nicely complement pork or lamb chops. You can slip off the skins before eating if you like.

Flavored vinegars can be used to enliven dressings and marinades, finish pan sauces, or pickle vegetables--and they make wonderful gifts. Once the steeping is completed, these vinegars keep for several months. (Garnishes and other solids left in the jar, however, may discolor or break down.)

Criolla is traditionally served as a sauce for grilled meats, but we tossed it with bell peppers as an accompaniment or side dish. If you're making this with the Spinach and Carrot Stuffed Flank Steak, grill the bell peppers before you start cooking the steak.

Sweet Butter Pastries This recipe is based on the version of the Breton classic found in Anne Willan's L'Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne. The butter-rich dough gives a result akin to Danish pastry but more rustic.

Begin making these frozen treats at least one day before serving.

Candida Sportiello writes: "As owner and chef of Il Giardino restaurant, on the tiny island of Ventotene off the coast of Naples, I've been cooking professionally for twenty-five years — but I've been cooking for pleasure for a good fifty years. As is the Italian way, most of my favorite recipes were handed down from my mother and grandmother, so they date from the early 1900s." This rich dessert is called a semifreddo ("half frozen") in Italian.

Makes 12 to 16 servings.

Mocha custards are the "coffee" part of this whimsical "coffee and doughnuts" dessert.

This recipe is an accompaniment for Coffee and Turrón Ice Cream Torte with Honey-Brandy Oranges .

This recipe is an accompaniment for Russian Walnut-Cherry Latkes with Cherry-Apple Sauce. Also delicious over Cornish game hens.

This beautiful tart features a pastry the Italians call pasta frolla — the texture of the dough is more like cookie dough than traditional French-style pastry. The lattice crust is surprisingly easy to make because it doesn't require weaving the strips. Active time: 1 1/2 hr Start to finish: 5 hr

Purchased wonton wrappers stand in for fresh pasta in this easy recipe.

Giant beans in some form or another are never absent from Greek meze menus. The key to making this dish taste as good as possible is to use high-quality roasted sweet peppers preserved in extra virgin olive oil. I usually make my own oil, and have them on hand. All you need to do is roast the peppers whole under the broiler, let them cool, peel them, and store them in a container in the fridge covered with good olive oil. You can pour a few tablespoons of the pepper-infused oil into the baking dish for added flavor. As for the beans themselves, the trick is to get the texture right. Giant beans need first to be soaked, then boiled, and finally baked. Once done, they should be soft, almost buttery, without being baked to the point that they fall apart.