Photograph by Erik Uecke

When chef Sarah Smith put waffles on the brunch menu at Cashion’s Eat Place eight years ago, she wanted an unconventional twist on a standard dish. A cup of masa harina—finely ground corn flour often used to make tortillas—did the trick. The ground cornmeal gives the waffles an added crunch that pairs nicely with smooth, macerated summer strawberries, maple syrup, and a dash of powered sugar.

Thankfully, you don’t need to empty your wallet for an expensive Belgian waffle maker or search hard for masa harina: Smith says she uses a machine from Target, and the corn flour is available at most supermarkets in the Hispanic-foods aisle. All that’s missing: fresh mimosas.

>>Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

Cava's eggplant caponata is incredibly easy to make. Photograph by Erik Uecke

Until recently, eggplant caponata was one of Cava’s most popular Mediterranean small plates. Fans of the dish—punched up with chopped olives, capers, and a scattering of mint—may be dismayed to see it gone from the list of vegetable mezze. But chef Dimitri Moshovitis isn’t removing it from the company's repertoire completely: The Sicilian flavors fit perfectly for the lineup of Italian dishes that the Cava owners will debut with their new restaurant, Sugo Macaroni and Pizza Bar in Rockville, scheduled to open in late summer (read more about it here). In the meantime, we secured the recipe so you can make it all summer long.

As with many Italian preparations, prime produce and good olive oil are the keys to the dish. Eggplant and mint are more abundant at farmers markets as the weather warms, and the rest of the ingredients can be found in grocery stores. The dish can be served as is or with pita for dipping.

>>Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

Pastry chef Cicely Austin's cheesecake is brightened up with lemon zest and anchored by a graham-cracker crust. Photograph by Erik Uecke.

Pastry chef Cicely Austin has influence over three dessert menus at three restaurants—the Oval Room, Bombay Club, and Ardeo + Bardeo—but when it comes to inspiration, she often looks to home. Her creamy cheesecake at Ardeo is one such example.

“Cheesecake is one of my mom’s favorite desserts,” says Austin, who grew up in Fort Washington. “When we were creating the new menu for [the recently renovated] Ardeo, I wanted something classic with a spin.”

The spin in Austin’s recipe, which she calls “really forgiving,” is a sweet-tart compote made of cassis (a fruit similar to black currant). Like the cheesecake itself, the topping should be made in advance. But if time is short, the versatile cake goes with anything from freshly cut cherries and strawberries to caramel sauce. A tip from Austin: Take care when beating the cream cheese and sugar to make sure the mixture is smooth. As she says, if you have lumps in the beginning, you’ll have lumps in the end.

Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

Chef Art Smith's lemon-yogurt pancakes, named in honor of Gayle King, Oprah's best friend. Photograph by Erik Uecke.

Chef Art Smith’s lemon-yogurt pancakes have a devoted following, from brunchgoers at Art and Soul to Oprah’s best friend, Gayle King. Talk-show host King first sampled the pillowy pancakes during Smith’s ten-year stint as Oprah’s personal chef, and she raved about them so much that Smith named the dish after her.

While twists on traditional pancakes can be overly sweet, Smith’s rendition is both lighter and brighter: Lemon-infused honey replaces slicks of syrup, and airy mascarpone butter substitutes for the traditional pat. It’s possible to make the dish richer using whole-fat yogurt and milk, but Smith—who lost more than 100 pounds after a diabetes diagnosis—says that low-fat is equally satisfying. Smith likes to add two or three slices of high-quality bacon—he’s partial to Benton’s brand—that have been cooked in a 400-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Both the lemon-honey and the mascarpone-butter recipes make more than a few servings require, but they keep covered in the fridge. Even the batter can be made a week ahead, which means you could start mixing it now for Mother’s Day brunch.

Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

Casa Nonna's meatball panini with extra sauce for dunking. Photograph by Erik Uecke.

Meatballs are often tossed into the somewhat pedestrian Italian-American category of red-sauce cookery, but don’t make that mistake around chef Amy Brandwein of the DC restaurant Casa Nonna.

“It’s my hot-button topic,” says Brandwein. “ Polpette [meatballs] and a great pomodoro [tomato] sauce are an Italian creation, and they’re beautiful when done with care.”

Brandwein’s lunchtime meatball panini—toasted bread piled with tender meatballs, tomato sauce, and melted provolone and Parmesan—are definitely made with care. Brandwein, a DC native, traveled extensively in Italy, where she picked up the three-meat formula—ground pork, veal, and beef—that she calls the “holy trinity of Emilia-Romagna cooking.”

A frequent rule is to let a sauce simmer as long as possible, but Brandwein warns against overcooking the tomato sauce: You want the flavors to develop but don’t want to lose the tomato’s natural acidity to its sweetness, which will start to happen after the 30-minute mark. She also notes that it’s important to taste both the sauce and meatballs—fry up a miniature meat patty to test them—while cooking.

You’ll have leftovers from this recipe; the sauce and meatballs can be stored together in the fridge up to four days and in the freezer up to four months. Brandwein says good options for second incarnations are a pasta or pizza topping, or stuffed into a homemade calzone.

Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

The Greek-yogurt-and-apricot parfait at Zaytinya. Photograph by Greg Powers.

One of our favorite desserts at Zaytinya in Penn Quarter is a Greek-yogurt parfait with sugar-soaked apricots and roasted pistachios. José Andrés’s deputy at the Mediterranean mezzeteria, chef Mike Costa, says the creamy confection is similar to a breakfast fruit-and-yogurt combination, but it’s kicked up a few notches to make it suitable for dessert.

As with any simple recipes, the parfait shines when the ingredients are top-notch: Costa suggests sourcing the hard-to-find Skotidakis Greek yogurt or purchasing fresh from Everona Dairy or Trickling Springs Creamery at the farmers market and letting it drain in cheesecloth for three hours (or up to 24) for a thick consistency. It’s worth a trip to a Middle Eastern market to check for dried Turkish apricots—larger and more acidic than their American counterparts—and citrusy Sicilian or Iranian pistachios. When stone fruit comes into season in late April, Costa sometimes skips rehydrating the apricots in favor of diced fresh peaches, plums, or cherries.

While expertly sourcing ingredients may sound time-consuming, the dish itself is a cinch to prepare and can be made and stored in the fridge up to five days in advance (hold the pistachios until right before serving).

>>Have a recipe you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.

Queso fundido is the ultimate party food, though you may be tempted to scoop all the melty cheese into warm corn tortillas yourself. Oyamel chef Joe Raffa punches up the Mexican appetizer with smooth agave tequila, crumbles of chorizo, and freshly roasted poblano pepper.

If you have extra sausage or pepper on hand after the dish is assembled, Raffa suggests tossing them into scrambled eggs the next morning. As for the queso? Chances are, there won’t be any left.

Have a recipe sleuth you'd like sniffed out? E-mail recipesleuth@washingtonian.com.