Lillian Chou

This is no ordinary turkey. Food editor Lillian Chou blended toasted guajillo and ancho chiles with a range of spices and aromatics to create a brick-red adobo sauce that seasons both the bird and its gravy. After a long marinate, the adobo permeates the bird's juicy meat during roasting. The resulting turkey features a savory complexity heightened by the accompanying red-chile gravy.

Albóndigas (meatballs) are often served in a soup or a sauce, but our skewered version needs only a squeeze of refreshing lime juice to bring out their meaty richness. Spicy chipotle, crumbled bacon, and a hint of cumin make them unforgettable.

We took a regular apple-pie recipe and sweetened the filling with Mexican piloncillo, an unrefined brown sugar. What a difference a sugar makes. This one has a lot of character and adds syrupy molasses notes to a blend of sweet and tart apples.

Folding fruit into guacamole is an inspired tradition in Mexican cooking. Tropical mangoes are a natural pairing, their silky flesh adding a subtle tartness to creamy avocado. To herald the holiday season, pomegranate seeds flash bright red against the guacamole's cilantro-flecked green. Head over here for our guide to how to cut a pomegranate.

Rum and apples go hand in hand, especially when the rum is in a scoop of ice cream melting over the apples in a pie.

If you've never tried chayotes, you're in for a treat. These small, pale green gourds have a light, clean sweetness; they are as juicy as summer squash and as sturdy as winter ones. Roasted with garlic, chayotes become a tender and delicious side dish.

We gave the old liver-and-onions routine a contemporary twist with mild scallions and crisp pancetta. Sherry-butter sauce adds finesse and roundness of flavor.

What started as an arepa recipe evolved into a play on traditional American corn-bread stuffing. Chorizo takes the place of fresh sausage, and garlic adds punch to a buttery base. Imagine all of the classic textures with Latino flavors—it’s that good.

Cranberries might seem out of place in a salsa, but their zesty crunch anchors this mix of roasted pineapple, onion, and cilantro. Besides, what would Thanksgiving be without cranberries?

Cumin makes this easy stir-fry exceptionally fragrant, while the last-minute addition of celery leaves creates a counterpoint of aromatic freshness.

In Mexican cuisine, rajas refers to thin strips of roasted chiles. Although they commonly spice up everything from stews to tamales, rajas are best when adding a kick to creamy dishes. Here, forest-green poblanos lend a mild, almost fruity heat to a potato gratin.

For an elegant change of pace from store-bought tortilla chips, fry thin slices of plantain at home. When slipped into hot oil, the plantains curve into beautiful, long strips. Delicately flavored and impossibly crisp, these chips are great for dipping in guacamole.

Cooking a large piece of salmon fillet couldn’t be easier and helps ensure that the fish stays flaky and moist. The crushed caraway seeds in the glaze add a subtle twist to the classic honey and mustard combination, which really complements the full flavor of the salmon.

Instead of traditional baked pasta, we broiled mozzarella-topped penne and sausage to get that bubbly melted cheese everyone loves, minus a lot of oven time.

Drawing her inspiration from the Caribbean, food editor Lillian Chou stirred lightly sweetened coconut milk into roasted sweet potatoes.

We love the cinnamon in Mexican chocolate. For this pie, we surround a smooth chocolate-pudding filling with cinnamon—a crumbly spiced graham cracker crust below and cinnamon whipped cream on top.

This substantial early-fall dish was inspired by one served at Au Vieux Chêne, in Paris. Roasting some of the mushrooms and sautéing the rest until just warmed through creates different flavors and textures. Cumin seeds—popular with today's Parisian chefs—deepen the earthiness.

Ginger and cilantro add Southeast Asian oomph to this French-style butter sauce, which lightly coats big, meaty shrimp.

Chef Christian Constant's unforgettable potatoes stuffed with pigs' trotters at Les Cocottes, in Paris, inspired this homey but adventurous take on an American favorite: the stuffed baked potato. We used breakfast sausage and a savory glaze that does double duty as a salad dressing.

A bowl of these refreshing noodles—a riff on a Japanese classic that gets topped with silky tofu—is clean and light, yet still hearty enough to make a satisfying meal.