Leeks

The sweet, tender leeks here are glazed under the broiler with a light Parmesan cream.

Leeks turn sweet and luscious simmered in salted water and dressed with a simple red wine vinaigrette. Chef Armand Arnal heightens the flavor with fresh toasted walnuts and shavings of the firm farmstead sheep's-milk cheese Tomme de Brebis.

Before cooking the chicken for his lovely stew, Jamie Oliver lightly coats the pieces in flour. Not only does that help the meat brown, it also thickens the tangy mustard sauce.

"I love cooking the hell out of leeks," Jerry Traunfeld says. "They get this melty, rich quality and saucy consistency." In this luscious dish, he combines the slow-cooked leeks with meaty porcini mushrooms and cranberry beans (a.k.a. borlotti or shell beans), which can be found fresh in early autumn and taste like chestnuts. The dish can easily be adapted for carnivores by adding bits of crispy bacon or that key cassoulet ingredient, duck confit.

Leeks are low in calories and rich in phytochemicals. They're also among the sweetest members of the onion family, making them a perfect match for this tangy mustard vinaigrette.

Store-bought rotisserie chicken, with its juicy meat, makes a great topping for a fast pizza.

Marcia Kiesel knew this lush leek soup would be a great complement to left bank Bordeaux because of the wine's firm structure.

To celebrate the film Julie & Julia, starring Amy Adams as blogger Julie Powell and Meryl Streep as Julia Child, throw a cooking party featuring one of the amazing matriarch's favorite foods: quiche.

This pizza goes well with a light, spicy Oregon Pinot Noir.

Here, Hugh Acheson creates a salad based on butter-braised leeks, a French favorite.

During its first year, Essex Farm harvested 10,000 pounds of potatoes in just one day; Kristin Kimball turned some of them into potato-leek soup. If you have a blender and good chicken broth, she swears it's one of the easiest soups to make. This version has a fabulous topping of supercrispy sourdough and pancetta crumbs mixed with sage and rosemary.

When Paul Kahan develops recipes, he starts with something traditional—like leeks vinaigrette, the time-honored French dish—then adds a twist. Here he substitutes fried eggs for the standard hard-boiled-egg topping and adds crisp strips of speck, a smoked prosciutto.

Cooks usually reserve dark, tough leek greens for stock. Here, Grace Parisi sautés them until they're soft and supple, then folds them into a luscious macaroni and cheese made with nutty Manchego.

Tony Mantuano created this recipe in homage to the Calçotada in Spain. The Catalan festival celebrates the harvest of calçots, which are slender onions similar to baby leeks. After peeling the charred outer layers, festival-goers dip the softened onions in a vibrant romesco sauce, which Mantuano makes with sweet red bell peppers.

Dede Sampson prepared this frittata for the Oliveto staff when she applied for a pastry position at the restaurant. This recipe gets its extra-creamy texture from fromage blanc, an extremely soft cow's-milk cheese with a sour cream-like tang. Sampson buys hers from San Francisco's Cowgirl Creamery.

This extremely flexible recipe can be adapted to include several different kinds of seasonal vegetables. In winter and spring, Salvatore Denaro might make it with Umbria's small, violet-colored artichokes; in the fall he prefers cauliflower or broccoli. A pretty alternative is pasta con cavolfiore e broccoli siciliani, with equal parts cauliflower and broccoli; the dish is also terrific made with leeks alone.

This gratin combines blanched chard and sautéed leeks, cooked until just tender in a creamy two-cheese sauce made with both Gruyère and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

To show off a full-bodied Chardonnay, Marcia Kiesel created this simple but luxurious dish. She begins with the classic French veal and pork sausage boudin blanc, often served with a black truffle-flecked cream sauce. In her riff on the dish, she replaces the pungent truffles with smooth Dijon and grainy mustards.

The leek, like its relatives onion and garlic, is generally used to flavor other foods. José Andrés feels this is a mistake. "Listen to me: Leek is a vegetable," he says. "It can be the center of a dish." Here, he cooks leeks until tender, then pairs them with trumpet mushrooms for a sensational side dish.

Chef Jamie Malone of Grand Cafe in Minneapolis poaches leeks to remove their bite and make them incredibly silky. She serves them with a classic sauce gribiche, a French, no-cook sauce made with hard-cooked eggs, capers, cornichons, and a mess of fresh herbs.