Flour

Offer this Italian cornmeal side dish in place of potatoes or rice. It's best served immediately out of the oven.

Team the pancakes with sausages, and offer tea, coffee and fresh juices.

Here's a creamy, low-fat dish that rivals the homey goodness of mashed potatoes. Leftovers are great with scrambled eggs for brunch.

The yogurt in this recipe adds lightness and a mild tangy flavor.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from chef Neil Perry's book Rockpool. Neil also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. For your convenience, we've converted the measures — with as much accuracy as possible — from Australian to American. For those who have metric equipment and wish to follow Neil's recipe to the milliliter, we've included the original measures too. To read more about Neil and Australian cuisine, click here. In this dish, the combination of pastry, fish, sauce, yoghurt and spinach makes a complete dish. The cardamom and tomato are a perfect match, and the fish steams gently inside as the outside of the pastry crisps up. This dish also works beautifully with the flat fish of Europe and America. It is important that the vegetables are well-seasoned and cooked until they caramelise to impart their flavour to the sauce. The depth of flavour of aromatics is so often lost when they are not allowed to do their job properly. The Tomato and Cardamom Sauce goes nicely with all seafood; its deep, rich flavour enlivens the taste buds. The tomatoes are cut up, skin, seeds and all. Slice into thin rounds, then into julienne and chop the julienne to give a uniform dice. Don't chop them as if cutting for concassé, they lose too much juice that way.

To many people living in the middle of the country, celebration cakes must be chocolate cakes — especially German chocolate cakes. This one embellishes the tradition, using unsweetened chocolate instead of sweet chocolate, a luscious caramel-coconut filling between the layers and lots of creamy chocolate frosting. (By the way, German chocolate cakes have nothing to do with the immigrants who settled in the heartland; the name actually comes from the fact that the cakes were first made with Baker's brand German's sweet baking chocolate.)

It is no coincidence that the method used to bake this bread, steaming, is similar to one used by the native Indians of New England, who taught us how to use corn as a grain for bread. The most famous of our region's breads, this wholesome blend of wheat, rye, and corn flours is suitable for our diets today as it was 300 years ago.

Crunchy hazelnut praline adds a touch of sophistication to this rich cheesecake. Begin preparing the cake a day before serving.

Called limpa in Sweden, this impressive bread is flavored with a combination of molasses, orange peel, crushed aniseed, and caraway and fennel seeds.

If I had to choose among all my cakes, this one would win first place because it is delicious by itself yet versatile enough to accommodate a wide range of buttercreams. The cake combines the soft texture of white cake with the buttery flavor of yellow cake. Using all the yolks instead of whole eggs produces a rich yellow color, fine texture and delicious flavor.

Market tip: All rainbow trout sold in markets are sustainably farm-raised.