Recipe Sifter

German potato salad with a hot beer dressing thickened roux-style with flour and butter, sharpened with mustard and Tabasco, finished with crispy bacon and onion.

Creamy corn chowder with bacon, potatoes, carrots, and celery thickened with flour and cornstarch. A hearty, old-fashioned bowl topped with crispy bacon.

Ground beef liver meatloaf with salt pork, onion, bread crumbs, and parsley baked until browned, served with a pan dripping gravy. A classic mid-century American liver loaf.

Louisiana seafood gumbo with shrimp, oysters, crab, okra, and a dark roux served over rice with file powder. An authentic Cajun stew loaded with Gulf seafood and smothered okra.

Milwaukee-style pork stew braised in beer and chicken broth with caraway seeds, vinegar, and brown sugar. Tender, tangy, and built for cold-weather comfort.

Pressure cooker beef pot roast turns a brisket fall-apart tender in about an hour, with potatoes, carrots, and a tangy sour cream and horseradish gravy. Sunday-roast comfort on a weeknight timeline.

Pancetta stuffed flounder baked with a crispy pancetta and bread stuffing, served over buttered new potatoes with hollandaise. An elegant dinner party fish dish ready in about an hour.

Rustic corn soup thickened with hard-boiled egg yolks from a 1936 Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook. Half the corn is grated for creamy base, half left whole for sweet bursts of texture.

Marinating the chicken in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dried thyme and tarragon add great depth to a rice sauce that's smoothed by just a hint of red currant jelly and enhanced with apricots and tawny port. Be sure to use tawny port. With its beautiful amber color and slightly dry flavor, it compliments the apricots. Save your ruby port, which is sweeter and has a deep red wine color, for after dinner.

Classic pan-fried veal piccata with floured cutlets sautéed in butter, finished with a quick lemon-butter pan sauce and fresh parsley. A five-ingredient Italian-American trattoria main.

Sauteed mushrooms, carrots, peppers, and onions folded into mashed potatoes, wrapped in homemade whole wheat dough, and baked golden. A hearty vegan loaf for Sunday dinner.

Ham and potato pancakes with chives and parsley, pan-fried until golden and crispy. A savory way to use leftover ham in crispy potato cakes.

Vegetarian falafel with a clever bake-then-fry hybrid technique: oven-baked first to set, pan-crisped in olive oil to finish. Tucked into pita with cucumber, tomato, and yogurt sauce.

Beef soup with liver balls: short ribs simmered into a rich, skimmed broth with carrots and tomatoes, then dropped with tender liver dumplings seasoned with marjoram and mace. Old-world comfort in a bowl.

Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo with a dark roux, ham, two kinds of sausage, Creole seasoning, and cayenne. A Louisiana party pot that feeds 15 to 20.

Chicken and andouille sausage gumbo with a dark lard roux, okra, the holy trinity, and a seven-spice seasoning mix. Authentic Louisiana gumbo served over rice.