739 dark recipes

Charcoal-grilled pork loin marinated in oyster sauce, soy, and whiskey, sliced thin and piled over steamed sticky rice with fresh cilantro and chilies. A Thai street food feast worth the wait.

Crispy deep-fried dessert wontons with three tropical fillings: coconut-lemon, macadamia-ginger, and banana-honey. Hand-rolled dough twisted like candy wrappers and dusted in powdered sugar.

Sichuan pork stir-fry with chewy cloud ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts in spicy sauce. Quick, fiery, and full of texture, ready in an hour with soaking time.

Fried crawfish tails get a Louisiana upgrade: sherry-marinated, dipped in dark beer batter, and fried crisp, served with a homemade remoulade spiked with Worcestershire, Tabasco, and sherry. New Orleans seafood done right.

Macadamia rum mousse pie folds dark rum, gelatin-set zabaglione, and toasted macadamia nuts into airy whipped cream over a buttery cinnamon-macadamia crumb crust. A dinner-party showpiece.

Cucidati, the traditional Sicilian Christmas fig cookies, with a rich filling of figs, raisins, nuts, chocolate and rum wrapped in tender pastry, shaped into slashed horseshoes and dusted with sugar.

Salmagundi casserole with chili-spiced meatballs baked over a three-bean base of baked beans, kidney beans, and limas in a sweet molasses and brown sugar sauce.

Wok-fried rice stick noodles with chicken, shrimp, barbecued pork, snow peas, and dried mushrooms in a curry-soy sauce. An authentic Singapore noodle dish ready in 30 minutes.

Battered eggplant slices deep-fried until crispy and drizzled with a spicy Sichuan sauce of chili bean paste, black vinegar, ginger, and tomato paste. A vegetarian Chinese dish with serious crunch and heat.

This green-bean dish is outstanding. The green beans exude aromatic flavors and have an interesting chewy texture.

Instead of being hard, dry spice cookies, these are soft, moist spicy cookies with a medium hot disposition. Their heat is derived from ground Jamaican Scotch Bonnet peppers.

Layered banana bread pudding soaked in a rich egg custard with fresh nutmeg, baked golden, and drizzled with a buttery brown sugar rum sauce. Pure indulgence for 6.

Chocolate cherry pie with a rum-spiked chocolate custard filling, quartered maraschino cherries, and whipped cream folded in. Topped with sweetened cream and grated chocolate.

Instead of pumpkin pie, try this coconut pumpkin tart.

Two desserts in one: a baked pecan pie base topped with a silky blended chocolate filling and whipped cream. Three luxurious layers in a single pie crust.

Overnight apple-orange coffee cake: a yeast-raised cake topped with juicy apples, raisins, and orange zest, then drizzled with orange glaze. Mix the night before, bake fresh in the morning.