Sauces, Dips & Spreads

This recipe originally accompanied Baja Fish Tacos. 

Creamy Thai curry sauce gives tofu a spicy, satisfying kick. You can adjust the amount of curry paste depending on your spice preference. Serve with brown basmati rice and lime wedges. 

Made with a combination of avocado and edamame, the flavor of this variation on traditional guacamole is both creamy and fresh. Serve with raw vegetables like celery, carrots and radishes for dipping or alongside tortilla chips as a healthy snack or appetizer. 

Tropical flavors of pineapple and lime combine with red onion, cilantro and serrano pepper for a salsa that's great with grilled pork, skirt steak, shrimp or tofu. It's also delicious with corn chips or tacos. Make at least a half hour ahead of time to allow flavors to mingle. 

With dips there is always something new, because if you substitute “thick purée” for “dip,” the options are limitless. A friend takes last night’s vegetable dish, purées it with whatever it takes to get his food processor working — oil, lemon juice, water — adds other flavorings if necessary, and serves it to guests with crackers or crudités. Thinking about this got me started playing with green dips, made from peas (with mint and Parmesan) and fresh edamame (with miso and ginger).

Cool soba is often served plain alongside individual portions of dipping sauce. Ready-made tsuyu is available in bottles, but its flavor pales compared with fresh, which requires just four ingredients -- soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and dashi, the traditional Japanese broth for which I make the highly unorthodox substitution of soba cooking water. Other flavors, commonly wasabi or ginger, can also be added. Bucking tradition again, I find that soba also goes well with heartier garnishes and dressings.

Fresh corn is already at some farm stands and you only have a couple of months to get your fill. This is a favorite relish to spoon beside grilled chicken or fish. There is no easy way to remove the corn from the cobs. Do it several rows at a time with a serrated knife. To make shucking painless, pull off the husks at the farm stand (unless you need the compost).

The same way bell peppers char nicely on a grill, the skin on eggplant does, too; grilling makes the skin easy to remove. Don’t light a grill specially for this because you can also char the eggplant under a broiler or over a gas burner. This dip mixes the coarsely chopped flesh of the eggplant with garlic (try using a Microplane grater to chop the cloves), parsley, olive oil, vinegar, and crushed red pepper. If you do light the grill, place the eggplant over the hottest spot. Serve the spread at room temperature, accompanied by crackers, breadsticks, or a crusty loaf.

Once you try this versatile stir-fry sauce it will become a staple in your weeknight dinner repertoire. 

Smoky grilled vegetables—not a cloying amount of meat or cheese—rule here. Instead of embellishing the enchiladas with a complex (and time-consuming) Mexican pipián (pumpkin-seed sauce), cook a few customary pipián ingredients and then purée them with cilantro for an easy enchilada that's herbaceous and fresh.

yield: Makes 4 servings
active time: 50 min
total time: 50 min