Melissa Clark

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever by Melissa Clark and Robin Aronson.

Dressed with roasted red peppers, olive oil, mustard, and garlic instead of the usual bland mayonnaise, this chicken salad packs a punch. It's great made into a sandwich for lunch at the office. Or if bread isn't on your menu, serve the chicken salad on a bed of greens tossed with a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

Long, slow cooking is the key to these tender, juicy birds, braised in an autumnal mix of apples, cider, and caramelized onion. If pheasant is hard to come by, you can substitute chicken.

This succulent cut, made from two pork loins bound together, makes a princely vessel for spicy corn bread poblano stuffing. To prevent your pork from cooking unevenly, cook the stuffing separately, and fill the crown just before serving.

Why not rabbit for Thanksgiving? The combination of a tangy mustard spread and an herbed-panko crust give the meat intense flavor, while keeping it ultramoist. And a cooking time of less than 30 minutes allows extra time for relaxing and socializing with your guests.

These tiny birds, stuffed with creamy goat cheese, make fun yet elegant turkey stand-ins. Since the quail are small and there's not much meat on each one, plan on serving guests two to three per person, and encourage them to chew the meat off the bones rather than trying to cut it off with a knife and fork.

Slow-roasting a duck may take hours, but the result is velvety meat covered by a layer of gloriously crisp and salty skin. The herbed garlic and fennel filling melts into an aromatic confit during cooking.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.

To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here.

Spätzle are tiny dumplings that you make by passing a thin batter through a colander (or a spätzle maker) into a pot of boiling water. You can serve them simply boiled and drained, topped with melted butter and poppy seeds, or fried with onions and cheese as we do here. This is a rich mountain-style skiers' dish that will really keep you going.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.

To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here.

David Bouley: Mario and I wanted to put fresh herring on the menu, but we couldn't find a consistent source for the best product from the North Sea. So we came up with this dish using mackerel, an underused fish in this country. When you marinate the raw mackerel, it becomes very mellow in flavor. It's a clean-tasting fish, not a bit "fishy" or strong. We marinate the mackerel in Bibb lettuce and cucumber juices, then mix it with beet and apple for sweetness and a little crunch. It's both light and refreshing.

(Kavalierspitz)

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from David Bouley, Mario Lohninger, and Melissa Clark's book East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube. Lohninger also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.

To read more about Lohninger and Austrian cooking, click here.