Recipes from Matt and Ted Lee

By Food & Wine
Updated February 14, 2017
Brothers Matt and Ted Lee are no strangers to hosting laid-back dinners and midweek hangouts with a spread of incredible eats. Here, the cookbook duo offer up recipes for Texas chile short rib tacos, a butter bean salad with lime and mint, spicy tomato-and-watermelon gazpacho with crab and much more. These recipes are sure to please any crowd.
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Texas Chile Short Rib Tacos


Credit: John Kernick
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The sauce for these tender beef short ribs is intense. To round out the tang and heat from the tomatoes and chiles, cookbook authors Matt and Ted Lee add a little semisweet chocolate. "It's mellow and sweet," says Ted. "The chocolate puts everything in balance."

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Pan-Roasted Corn and Okra

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"This is an easy way to bring height-of-summer cookout mojo to our favorite vegetables without fussing with a charcoal or gas grill," The Lees say. Cooking the corn and okra on the stove in a heavy skillet gives them a superb char.

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Cornmeal-Crusted Fish with Green-Tomato Tartar Sauce

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When they're in South Carolina, the Lees make this recipe with wreckfish, a local, sustainable catch; striped bass works, too. They advise leaving the skin on the fish because it crisps up so nicely.

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Green-Tomato Pickles

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Most supermarkets sell pickled tomatoes, but those can't compare to these supereasy homemade ones. Slicing the tomatoes thinly allows them to really soak up the wonderfully tangy brine.

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Spicy Tomato-and-Watermelon Gazpacho with Crab

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The Lees created this gazpacho as a riff on a recipe from The Virginia Housewife, a seminal Southern cookbook first published in 1824 that is still in print. They sweeten the cold tomato soup with watermelon and make it fiery with habanero and poblano chiles.

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Squash Blossoms with Pimento Ricotta

Credit: FREDRIKA STJÄRNE
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Leigh Magar loves the fresh taste of edible flowers. For her, Matt Lee and Ted Lee created a new version of a Tuscan classic, fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta. They mix the ricotta with pimentos--an homage to pimento cheese, a Southern favorite--and serve the blossoms raw.

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Romaine Salad with Flash-Pickled Figs

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These "flash-pickled" figs need only an hour of soaking in a mixture of vinegar, salt and water. As a clever time-saver, the soaking liquid for the figs also forms the base for the salad dressing.

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Butter Bean Salad with Lime and Mint

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The secret to this delicate and refreshing butter bean salad is the dressing, made with cold, tangy buttermilk, olive oil and lime juice. The Lees call it "the flavors of a Southern summer."

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