The best recipes of 2013

Quince season in California is relatively short, but Food Editor Russ Parsons always tries to make the most of it by preparing seemingly endless batches of this recipe from cookbook writer Deborah Madison. With a bowl of sweet, spicy nearly candied quince in the refrigerator, you’re never stuck for a dessert.

Recipe: Nearly candied quince  (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Hazelnut brown butter torte with bittersweet chocolate. Read the recipe

Making tamales is family cooking at its best. It takes a small army to prepare them. But Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter found there is more to family cooking than an efficient division of labor when she cooked with Salvadoran poet Cynthia Gonzalez and her mother, Dora. There is also the passing on of tradition.

Recipe: Salvadoran chicken tamales  (Doriane Raiman / Los Angeles Times)

Spicy, numbing Sichuan dandan noodles are one of those seemingly simple dishes that can take years to perfect. Particularly when you’re as obsessed as Father’s Office and Lukshon chef Sang Yoon. You can adapt this recipe to make it as simple or as complicated as you’d like. But you really owe it to yourself to try the full version at least once.

Recipe: Dandan noodles   (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Every once in a while, we need to be reminded that cooking really is magical. German pancakes, or Dutch babies, are a good way to do that. In this recipe by Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter, you beat some eggs with a little flour and sugar and pop it in the oven, and what starts out as a loose batter puffs and billows and turns into a light, golden wonder -- good by itself but even better when topped with sautéed apples.

Recipe: German pancake with sauteed apples  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

There’s a new passion for old-time biscuits. Chefs all over Southern California are adding them to menus, and not just as anonymous accompaniments but as starring attractions. Bake these biscuits from Willie Jane chef Govind Armstrong and you’ll see why. They’re even better when served with the intriguing burnt orange honey butter.

Recipe: Buttermilk biscuits and burnt orange honey butter  (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Olive oil is used almost as much in our kitchens today as salt. And just like salt, it’s almost always used for savory dishes. But (again, just like salt), it has a place on the sweet side too. And leave it to Mozza chef Nancy Silverton to find one of the most delicious uses. This dessert is her adaptation of one served by Dario Cecchini, the Tuscan who is probably the most famous butcher in the world. It’s not too sweet and is utterly complex with raisins, oranges, pine nuts and rosemary. Oh, yes, and lots of olive oil.

Recipe: Dario’s olive oil cake   (Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times)

The mark of a great clam chowder is not whether your spoon will stand straight up in it. It’s whether it delivers the clean, fresh taste of great shellfish. And who knows more about clams than Michael Cimarusti, chef at notable seafood restaurants Providence and Connie and Ted’s? This is chowder stripped to its essentials: clams, salt pork and potatoes. And it’s absolutely delicious.

Recipe: Clear chowder  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

San Francisco chef Charles Phan, of the Ferry Building’s Slanted Door, has made a study of Vietnamese cooking and of pairing wine with his dishes. In this recipe, from a wine column by Times staff writer S. Irene Virbila, he elevates what is often a standard salad by mixing different types of sour and adding crunchy fried shallots and roasted peanuts, then he takes it to the next level by serving it with a crisp Austrian white, such as Gemischter Satz.

Recipe: Green papaya salad with rau ram, peanuts and crispy shallots  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Buttermilk soup with radishes and peppery green oil  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

No doubt about it: 2013 was the year of Sriracha. Not only was the Southeast Asian chile-garlic sauce one of the year’s hottest seasonings, showing up in everything from vodka to potato chips, it was also one of the year’s hottest stories, as the giant Huy Fong plant in Irwindale was the subject of legal action that threatened to shut down production. Not to worry, should the worst happen, Times Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter has come up with a recipe for making your own.

Recipe: Sriracha-style hot sauce   (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)