A couple of summers ago, Hank's Oyster Bar chef Jamie Leeds and her son Hayden helped fisherman reel in bluefish in East Hampton, New York. Inspired by the light flavors of the summer catch, Leeds created this easy dish and spruced it up with the zing of radishes, the crunch of carrots and celery, and the sweetness of juicy tomatoes. It's become a favorite of her backyard barbecue guests.

WestEnd Bistro bartender Jeremy Onesko mixes this fizzy drink at all his family cookouts. With a base of rye whiskey, it couldn’t be a better pairing for the fireworks on Independence Day: The spirit was the sip of choice for our founding fathers after they chased away the redcoats.

With Passover upon us, we thought the fear of dense matzo balls might be getting you all verklempt, so we asked three local Jewish chefs how to make a soup just like Bubbe. Here, they divulge their treasured family recipes.

Equinox pastry chef Melanie Parker changes her the flavors of her milkshakes--this version is blueberry--with the seasons. Photograph courtesy of Equinox.

Todd Gray’s Equinox (818 Connecticut Ave., NW; 202-331-8118) is just a block from the White House, so naturally the restaurant gets its share of VIPs. Diners may spy power tables receiving an off-the-menu gift from pastry chef Melanie Parker: a mini-“milkshake”—a flavored crème anglaise rather than the traditional liquefied ice cream—served in a shooter glass, complete with a tiny straw for sipping. In this upscale dining room, her take on this childhood classic is as fun as it is delicious.

Parker, a 2008 Rammy Award nominee for Pastry Chef of the Year, changes the drinks’ flavors with the seasons. Sometimes she incorporates the sippers into her on-the-menu desserts: A recent “chocolate threesome” featured a wonderfully rich chocolate-coffee-caramel version served alongside a chocolate ganache cake and coffee sorbet with cocoa nibs.

Parker shared her recipe for an upcoming strawberry-basil shake that you can whip up at home. It’s a great spring treat even if it’s a little more complicated to make than throwing some ice cream in a blender.

Photograph by Jennifer Smoose.

Thirty-minute meals and semihomemade suppers have taken over the Food Network and are big in the cookbook section at bookstores. But do you really want to smother a swordfish steak in frozen lemonade à la Sandra Lee? And how often does that half-hour recipe stretch to an hour or more once you factor in shopping, chopping, and cleanup?

In the hope of finding some really good quick and delicious recipes, we’ve created a new feature, the Ten-Minute Gourmet.

For the first installment, we turned to Inn at Little Washington chef Patrick O’Connell, who provided us with his back-pocket recipe—the one he pulls out at the end of a long day in the kitchen. Because his go-to dish is a mix of parsley, Parmesan, pine nuts, pepper, and pasta, he calls it Five-P Pasta. But his cooks have come to crave it so much that they’ve given it a new name: Spaghetti Lovin’. Whatever you call it, it’s simple, satisfying, and (really) superfast.

When Orlando Hiltzig, chef and co-owner of the Dupont Circle restaurant Mark and Orlando’s, wants to impress his wife, Sara, he heads for the kitchen to make what he calls a love roast. That’s right, lo-o-ove roast (cue the Al Green). The pork tenderloin is surprisingly quick, and Hiltzig says this preparation of caramelized Brussels sprouts will turn even ardent haters of the veggie—such as Sara—into fans. The sauce, Hiltzig says, “is the perfect sweet-and-sour flavor to go with the pork and accent the slightly sweet, salty flavor of the sprouts.”

Clara Coleman's award-winning chocolate cheesecake.

Leading up to the biggest chocolate-selling day of the year, Dupont Circle-based Divine Chocolate—the world’s first farmer-owned fair-trade chocolate brand—posted a recipe contest on its Web site. The only rule: Desserts had to incorporate Divine chocolate, which comes in flavors ranging from 70-percent-cocoa dark chocolate to milk chocolate with hazelnuts.

Divine is partially owned by the small-scale cocoa farmers in Ghana who grow the cocoa beans used in its chocolate bars, which are sold in pretty gold-accented wrappers. The company’s mission is to increase the benefits these farmers receive from the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry.

Bakers from around the country submitted recipes to the Hungry to Change the World contest, and a panel of local judges—including Rock Creek at Mazza consulting chef Ris Lacoste and DC Central Kitchen founder Robert Egger—tasted the finalist desserts last week. We also got to sample the contenders at a tasting at Rock Creek at Mazza, and can vouch for the deliciousness of Colorado resident Clara Coleman’s Divine Chocolate Velvet Cheesecake, which took the top prize.