12 smothered recipes

Cod or any similar white fish simply prepared smothered in tender flavorful leeks.

Smother your chicken with this succulent recipe that will become one of your favorite recipes!

Southern smothered steak with flour-dredged round steak browned in bacon drippings, then simmered in its own gravy until fork-tender. Four ingredients, pure country cooking.

Quick sautéed mushrooms and kale cooked under a smothering lid with garlic, butter, and sherry. This easy vegetarian side dish is ready in just 15 minutes.

These are better than ordinary sugar cookies because of the flavoring.

Louisiana-style roasted duck rubbed with a vinegar-salt-pepper paste, stuffed with aromatics, and slow-roasted until tender. A Cajun family recipe with old-school technique and deep flavor.

Mother's fruit cake is a brandy-soaked holiday classic with cherries, apricots, pineapple, peel, raisins, and currants bound in a spiced chocolate-scented batter. Baked slow and aged for two months.

Old-school Italian tomato sauce simmered with onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and basil, then strained smooth through a food mill. The Sunday-gravy base every cook should know.

No-bake rum balls made with crushed vanilla wafers, pecans, cocoa, powdered sugar, and real rum. A classic Christmas cookie tin staple rolled in powdered sugar.

Mother's Christmas cheese cakes: cream cheese pastry tartlets with two fillings, one pecan-brown sugar and one coconut-vanilla. A classic holiday cookie tin stalwart.

Strawberry, melon, and avocado salad fans avocado and cantaloupe over baby spinach, tops with berries, and drizzles with honey-sherry-mint dressing. A stunning brunch salad.

Smoked trout crackers with lemon-dill mayonnaise top thin whole-grain crackers with sliced smoked trout and a bright lemon-dill aioli. A five-ingredient elegant appetizer.