New York City Chef Recipes Made Easy

This is Daniel Boulud’s take on Wiener schnitzel, a breaded and fried veal cutlet. He lightens the dish by making it with thinly pounded monkfish fillets, breaded on only one side. He serves it with a mix of asparagus, zucchini and butternut squash.

Michael Psilakis feels strongly about using dried Greek oregano to make this vinegary, feta-packed salad. Greek oregano, he claims, has a lovely floral fragrance that ordinary dried oregano doesn’t. Look for it at specialty food markets.

Addictively tangy and salty-sweet, these skewers by Jean-Georges Vongerichten are also delicious when made with chicken breast or pork tenderloin.

Pilar Sanchez, an elderly home cook who lives in Asturias, taught Mario Batali and Mark Bittman how to make pollo casero, a luscious chicken in rich white wine and pepper sauce. When they asked where she buys her poultry, Sanchez told them to go to her yard and listen for the “singing in the field” from the chickens she raises.

“If you don’t stew it, you can’t eat it,” says Eric Ripert about cooking Brazil’s tough but flavorful chickens. Here, he lightens a traditional chicken stew with lemongrass and ginger.

Sorrel is a leafy green that gives dishes a tart, almost sour flavor. For this salad, Paul Liebrandt likes using red ribbon sorrel—a European variety with bright green leaves and intense red veins—because it’s so pretty with the beets and because its tang is so nice with the nutty pistachio sauce.

“Give mackerel a chance,” begs Michael White. The Spanish fish he imports from Europe is grilled, which makes the skin enticingly crisp, then topped with a refreshing tomato-caper salsa.

The quality of the seafood is key in this lemony, piquant dish. April Bloomfield recommends seeking out day-boat scallops, caught by fishermen who return from a day at sea with supremely fresh scallops that haven’t been treated with any kind of preservative. Instead of being milky white, they’re almost coral-colored.

This simple dish by Psilakis uses lemony vinaigrette in two smart ways: as a quick marinade for chicken and as a dressing for crispy slices of zucchini and squash.

Convenience-store wasabi-coated peas, a fiery, crunchy snack, inspired this vibrant summer dish from David Chang. Chang decided to echo the flavor of the peas by tossing some of his favorite crisp vegetables from the farmers’ market (including snow peas and sugar snaps) with fresh horseradish. Be sure to grate the horseradish at the very last minute, he advises, since it loses potency quickly as it sits.