Recipes with bay leaves

No-bean chili with a veal, beef, and pork blend simmered in canned tomatoes with chili powder, cumin, and a splash of red wine vinegar. Texas-style heat in 80 minutes.

Kedgeree is a traditional British breakfast food originating in India. Made with smoked haddock, a lean white fish high in protein, it is subtly spiced. Consider using unsmoked fish and substituting brown rice for the traditional white basmati.

Homestyle chicken noodle soup loaded with egg noodles, tender chicken, carrots, celery, and onion in a savory broth. One pot, 40 minutes, and pure comfort in every spoonful.

A hearty, full-scale borsch loaded with beef, bacon, kielbasa, beets, cabbage, potatoes, and navy beans. This is the real deal: slow-simmered, sweet-sour balanced, and crowned with sour cream. Feeds 10.

A succulent dish made with Hito fish that's simmered to perfection in a tasty sauce.

Louisiana crawfish boil with liquid crab boil, cayenne, bay leaves, honey, and citrus: 50 pounds of live crawfish cooked for 7 minutes, then soaked an hour to absorb spicy-sweet brine.

Fish fillets and potatoes baked in a slow-simmered tomato sauce with onions, garlic, green peppers, and bay leaves. A hearty one-pan Italian-American dinner basted to golden, saucy goodness.

The sauce was too much like spagetti sauce. I cooked the pork chops in the sauce for hours and it was tender, but the pork flavor was diminished; I would prefer to taste the pork more.

Scallops poached in white wine with mushrooms, thickened with egg yolks and served on butter-fried bread. A classic French-style seafood dish with a rich wine sauce.

Mediterranean garlic soup made with five whole heads of garlic, white wine, and a silky egg-yolk-and-olive-oil emulsion finish. A French aigo bouido style soup that's pure aromatic comfort.

Hy's Georgia chain-gang chili: a three-meat marathon chili with burgundy-marinated beef, ground pork, and poached chicken, simmered three hours with three kinds of chiles, beer, and Sauterne.

Hearty oven-baked lentil stew loaded with Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, carrots, and fresh ginger. A cozy, plant-based one-dish meal with serious comfort-food warmth.

Cajun file gumbo built on homemade chicken stock with a dark butter roux, andouille sausage, and the holy trinity. Thickened with file powder and served over rice.

Haricot beef casserole: an old-school British braise of beef chuck and skirt with haricot (white navy) beans, tomatoes, garlic, and a fresh-herb bouquet of parsley, bay, thyme, and marjoram. Slow-baked in the oven for fork-tender meat.

Lamb Creole gumbo with browned lamb riblets, okra, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, and white wine simmered low and slow. A hearty Louisiana-style pot that serves eight and freezes well.

Chicken Alejandro simmers boneless breasts in salsa spiked with cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaf, then thickens into a glossy sauce finished with fresh orange segments. Mole-adjacent flavors over rice.