TASTElist

A pre-Prohibition cocktail with a kick, the Frisco turns two ingredients into classic cocktail-lounge glamour. Bénédictine D.O.M., an ancient herbal liqueur originally made by monks and infused with a long, secret formula of aromatics, tempers rye whiskey with just the right amount of sweetness and mystery. The lemon-peel garnish adds a subtle blast of freshness. If you add a squeeze of lemon juice, too, this becomes a Frisco Sour.

This suave blend of bourbon, fresh grapefruit juice, and honey was invented at the Vendôme bar in Hollywood in 1930. If you’re into brunch cocktails, the Brown Derby is perfect: tart enough to wake up the palate, but not tangy enough to jolt you. The bourbon, naturally, softens the edges of even a harsh start to the day. For more, check out our Whiskey Sour, Sazerac, and Vieux Carré.

Super-healthy antioxidant açaí berries are the beautifully purple center of this delicious breakfast bowl or afternoon after-yoga pick-me-up. It’s actually a two-part recipe. First, you blend up a straight-up smoothie, with unsweetened açaí purée (we like the one from Sambazon), frozen banana and peach slices, apple, honey, coconut milk, and—for extra body and protein—a bit of natural almond butter. The second part is what goes on top, a freestyle mix of whatever texture.

A home-churned frozen dessert is the most comforting of simple pleasures. Here, things get a healthy twist with peanut butter–flavored frozen yogurt. All you do is whisk together some plain yogurt, a bit of heavy cream for body, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. Scrape it into the bowl of your ice cream maker and churn about 20 minutes. Like all frozen desserts you make yourself, you need to let this recipe set up in the freezer.

Nothing says satisfying comfort meal like fajitas, that Tex-Mex dish of seared meat and vegetables served family style, so everyone can scoop up exactly what they want. Here, salmon stands in for the usual chicken, beef, or shrimp. You start by getting the oven hot, then slathering a single chunk of salmon fillet with a mixture of olive oil, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, chile flakes, and salt.

Inspired by Abby Sciuto, Chief Forensic Scientist on the CBS series NCIS, this milkshake cocktail has something dark lurking in its depths. In this case that’s bourbon: half an ounce blended with vanilla-bean ice cream and cream stout beer. It’s sweet, cold, and indulgent enough for dessert, adult enough for after-dinner sipping. Milkshake cocktails are also a great choice for an afternoon around the pool, or that grown-up burger barbecue for anyone who wants something thicker.

The classic rendition of this dish is traditionally made with chicken, but we wanted to change up our poultry routine, so we swapped out the conventional choice with hearty and heathy turkey. What’s with the name? Story goes that the recipe is named after an opera singer, Luisa Tetrazzini, though there is still a debate about the dish’s true origins: whether they trace back to San Francisco’s Palace Hotel or New York’s Knickerbocker Hotel.

For a creamy, naturally sweet, healthy, easy frozen dessert that can satisfy your ice cream cravings, we recommend this two-ingredient ice “cream.” There isn’t any cream in this recipe, or much of anything else besides bananas. But the fruit is full of natural sugars and has a creamy texture that works well when frozen and blended. After you master this basic recipe, you can play around with adding other ingredients to it, such as nut butter, cinnamon, or cocoa powder.

Martin Cate of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco uses a Collins glass for this tropical classic, and garnishes it with a sprig of mint and a wheel of lime. Like the many maligned Mai Tai recipes floating about in the cocktail ether, the originator of this tiki classic has been muddied, with accounts naming Don the Beachcomber and others fingering his rival, Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron. Either way, Vic’s version is the one that lingers as the canonical formula.

Who doesn’t love a big bowl of fried rice? Unfortunately, the traditional fried rice recipe can be high in sodium and saturated with greasy cooking oils, making it a far from healthy dinner option. If saying no to fat-filled take out, and yes to adding more vegetables into your diet, is on your list of cooking priorities, this is the recipe for you. Cauliflower Rice is a popular Paleo alternative to carb-heavy grains.

At Grand Army Bar in Brooklyn, New York, Damon Boelte’s clever twist on the Americano turns the traditional aperitivo into a Franco-Italian shandy. Where the standard Americano pairs equal parts bitter Campari with sweet vermouth, the Perfecto splits the sweet in half with two different vermouths — brutish Carpano and the fruitier French Dolin Rouge — to create a more nuanced sweetness. The traditional topper of soda water is then replaced with pilsner beer.

The first vestige of spritz ancestry, the white spritz, or spritz liscio, was likely — as the Italian mythos goes — born in Hapsburg-occupied northern Italy in the 19th century. This version, with soda water, emerged in the first years of the 20th century, and is a malleable blueprint created to suit each drinker’s palate. Simply add a splash of homemade syrup or fruit liqueur to a base of white wine and soda, and garnish with abandon.