A spicy-sweet new favorite.
Beefy in flavor and size, brisket has the potential to be the ultimate braised dish for company. The trick is turning this notoriously tough cut both moist and tender. For braised brisket that would be both tender and moist, we started by salting the meat (halved lengthwise for quicker cooking and easier slicing and poked all over with a paring knife to allow the salt to penetrate) and letting it sit for at least 16 hours, which helped it retain moisture as it cooked; the salt also seasoned it. From there, we brought the meat to 180 degrees—the sweet spot for the collagen breakdown that is necessary for the meat to turn tender—relatively quickly in a 325-degree oven and then lowered the oven temperature to 250 degrees so that the brisket finished cooking gently and retained as much moisture as possible. Instead of searing the meat (a messy, unwieldy step), we removed it and then reduced the braising liquid (chicken broth, red wine, lots of onions and garlic, anchovies, tomato paste, herbs, and spices) in the pan to achieve rich flavor. Reducing the sauce also built body, which we enhanced with flour and gelatin for a velvety consistency.
Equal parts rustic vegetable stew and bright, sheer, meaty broth, borscht is the universal, infinitely adaptable heart of Ukrainian cuisine. The markers of classic Ukrainian borscht include beets for their earthy sweetness and vivid color, as well as green cabbage, carrots, onions, and potatoes—staple crops that grow abundantly in Ukrainian soil. Pork is the cuisine's default protein, for building up a meaty backbone. And a souring agent such as vinegar, lemon juice, or tomatoes invigorates the broth. Slowly cooking collagen-rich pork butt yielded a full-bodied broth with succulent meat for chopping and adding back to the soup. Shredding the beets and carrots helped the hard roots cook as efficiently and varied their texture from the chunkier potatoes. We also separately sautéed the beets and carrots before simmering them so that the high heat helped them soften quickly and intensified their savory sweetness. Loads of tomato paste, briefly sautéed with the beets to deepen its flavor, plus a last-minute shot of lemon juice, brightened the earthy, meaty broth. Letting the soup rest as long as possible before serving gave the flavors time to meld.
Porcini mushrooms and tomato paste give this stew depth of flavor. Quick-cooking sirloin steak tips have a beefy flavor and tender texture, so they were perfect for this speedy stew. Cutting the meat into small pieces allowed it to get tender even faster.
Fudgy chocolate cookies often pack in the sugar to get the perfect chew; we set out to use less sugar but still achieve the same big chocolate flavor and chewy texture. Since traditional recipes called for both brown sugar and sweetened chocolate, we had to change the type of sugar as well as the type of chocolate to sweeten these cookies naturally. Unsurprisingly, our first attempts using Sucanat and unsweetened chocolate were unacceptable: They lacked good chocolate flavor and had a pronounced bitter taste; plus, they were overly tender and cakey. The key to perfectly balanced chocolate flavor turned out to be doubling up on chocolate: Cocoa powder gave the cookies a bold hit of chocolate flavor, while the unsweetened chocolate, which contains cocoa butter, prevented the cookies from drying out. Next, we set our sights on improving the structure. Switching from all-purpose flour to higher-protein bread flour gave the cookies better chew, but didn't solve all our issues. The fat in the butter was making the cookies crumbly, but decreasing the butter resulted in cookies that lacked richness. In the end, adding a small amount of heavy cream provided moisture and richness without the high fat content of butter.
The things I do for you people! Well, okay, I do them for me, and rather transparently most of the time, but sometimes, sometimes like perhaps during season in which one is upping the ante on outpu…
There's no clearer snapshot of Jamaican Chinese cooking than pepper steak: the beef-and–bell pepper stir-fry lavished with heady seasonings and brown gravy. There's no clearer snapshot of Jamaican Chinese cooking than pepper steak: the beef-and–bell pepper stir-fry lavished with heady seasonings and brown gravy. Briefly soaking the meat in a baking soda solution raised its pH, which helped it hold on to moisture during cooking. Adding a little cornstarch to the soy sauce marinade loosely mimicked Chinese velveting, sheathing the meat in a thin, protective coating. Stir-frying in batches—first the steak in two portions, followed by the peppers, then the scallions, and finally the aromatics—cooked everything to its precise ideal doneness. The beef browned; the vegetables charred lightly but retained their crisp bite; and the aromatics toasted just enough to turn fragrant. Deglazing the steak fond with a splash of rum released those savory bits for the sauce. Marinating the meat in full-bodied, faintly sweet dark, rather than all-purpose, soy sauce and stirring oyster and Worcestershire sauces in the beef broth captured the savory depth and color that traditional Jamaican browning sauce lends to gravies. Coarsely grinding allspice berries added far more of the spice's warm, woodsy fragrance than commercial preground allspice does, and the small, well-distributed bits weren't as jarring to bite into as whole berries.
Chicken cutlets napped with a silky mushroom-Marsala sauce are a restaurant standard. So why doesn’t anyone cook them at home? In our recipe for chicken Marsala, we take a new approach to fabricating and cooking chicken cutlets. First, we cut each chicken breast in half crosswise. Then, we cut the thicker half in half horizontally to make three identically sized pieces that can easily be pounded into cutlets. We salt the cutlets briefly to boost their ability to retain moisture and then dredge them in a light coating of flour, which accelerates browning and helps prevent the meat from overcooking. We sear the cutlets quickly on both sides and set them aside while making the sauce. Our Marsala sauce uses reduced dry Marsala and chicken broth, along with cremini and dried porcini mushrooms for rich flavor and gelatin for a silky texture. Once the Marsala and mushroom sauce is complete, we return the cutlets to the pan to cook them through and wash any excess starch into the sauce, eliminating gumminess.
This easy appetizer is a riff on the venerable French nibble of radishes smeared with sweet butter and sprinkled with sea salt. When radish cells are cut, an enzyme called myrosinase breaks down mild glucosinolate molecules in the vegetable, creating sharp, pungent compounds called isothiocyanates. We used this to our advantage in our radish butter, a riff on the venerable French appetizer of radishes served with sweet butter and sea salt. By finely chopping the radishes, we maximized their sharpness. We then folded in creamy softened butter for a sweet and spicy spread for rye bread or celery sticks.
We use a pantry staple to shorten the time required to make barbecue sauce—without sacrificing flavor.
Char siu is usually bought from stores and restaurants that specialize in such meat dishes, but our version is actually "barbecued" in the oven, making these lacquered strips of pork easier to make at home than they might seem.
Very simple and very moist. Be sure to use Dutch-processed cocoa and not anything else. I used Hershey's Special Dark, and it didn't have as much chocolate flavor as I would have liked. I think this might be good with some dark or white chocolate chips folded in.
Mafe, a Senegalese peanut-based stew, is a beautiful blend of rich, creamy peanut butter; tomato; and hearty vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and cabbage.
This skillet supper comes together quickly and doesn't skimp on flavor. Our version of cashew chicken features crunchy, golden-brown, buttery cashews and tender morsels of juicy stir-fried chicken in a salty-sweet sauce. To ensure that the chunks of chicken were flavorful and remained tender and juicy, we gave them a quick soak in a mixture of soy sauce, dry sherry, toasted sesame oil, and cornstarch. The cornstarch not only coated the lean chicken and protected its exterior from becoming dry and tough but also thickened the stir-fry sauce, giving it an attractive glossy sheen. For cashew chicken that treated the cashews as more than just a garnish, we deeply toasted them in the same oil we later used for the stir-fry, so their flavor permeated the whole dish.
If you are a silencer geek/nerd/groupie, Gary Hughes and Mike Pappas of Dead Air Armament need no introduction. With decades of experience in the firearms industry between them, both Pappas and Hughes have built and sold some of the most popular modern suppressors in the United States. And with the announcement of the Wolverine PBS-1, … Read More …
These fluffy sweet rolls boast lemon poppyseed flavor three ways: in the dough, in the filling, and in the tangy cream cheese glaze.
The best fruit pie you've never made starts with fresh plums and whole-wheat flour. For a new type of summer fruit pie, we piled ginger-scented fresh plums into a buttery whole-wheat crust. Leaving the skins on the plums kept the slices intact during baking; we thickened the plum juice with cornstarch to make a translucent, sliceable gel. For a whole-wheat crust that was both flaky and tender, we waterproofed some of the flour with butter so it couldn't form gluten and therefore remained tender. The remaining flour was hydrated with water, so it formed plenty of gluten and baked up flaky.
Paprika gets its time in the spotlight in this rich, comforting dish. This recipe was inspired by our visit to Balaton restaurant in Shaker Square on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio. To allow vibrant paprika to shine in this comforting Hungarian chicken stew, we added it with the chicken broth (blooming it in hot oil burned it and turned it bitter almost instantly). We used skinless chicken thighs for tender meat without the grease and added sweetness to the stew with softened bell pepper and onion. A bit of cayenne added warmth and enhanced the paprika's earthy flavor. Finishing the dish with a mixture of sour cream and flour thickened and enriched the rust-hued stew.
Crisply breaded and packed with herb butter, this Russian transplant was a star of the 1960s American restaurant scene. Can a home kitchen do it justice? For our chicken kyiv recipe, we focused on the biggest problem first: getting the butter to survive cooking without leaking. The answer was to butterfly the chicken breast—slicing it lengthwise, almost in half, and then opening it up to create a single, flat cutlet. We then placed a slab of herb butter on the cutlet and rolled it up like a burrito. Chilling the rolled cutlets for an hour in the refrigerator further sealed the seams, improving our chicken kyiv recipe immensely.
Both Guinness and beef stew have deep, roasted, delicious flavor. So why should putting them together lead to bitter disappointment? Dark Irish beer seemed like the perfect match for hearty beef stew—if we could lose the bitterness and keep the deep, roasty flavor. We added dark brown sugar, which balanced some of the bitterness with sweetness and bolstered flavor with its molasses-y notes. Cooked beer can be especially bitter; introducing some of the beer before cooking created a restrained bitter background, and adding the rest just before serving gave us robust stout flavor. We managed to bypass the step of searing the meat by cooking the stew uncovered in the oven. This not only helped brown the exposed meat but also let the sauce evaporate, concentrating its flavor.
Unlike its cousins smoked salmon, lox, and nova, which are all usually brined and then smoked, gravlax relies on a one-step process. Unlike its cousins smoked salmon, lox, and nova, which are all usually brined and then smoked, gravlax relies on a one-step process. The name, derived from gravad lax (Swedish for “buried salmon”), alludes to covering the fish with a salt-and-sugar cure (and typically dill). We call for skin-on salmon because it makes slicing the cured fish easier. A splash of booze (we use brandy) adds flavor, helps the cure adhere, and assists in the preserving process. Most recipes use granulated sugar, but we opt for brown sugar because its flavor complements the salmon. Pressing the salmon under the weight of a few cans helps it release moisture and gives the fillet a firmer, more sliceable texture. We baste the salmon with the released liquid once a day to help speed up the curing process and to keep it from drying out. Serve it sliced thin on its own or on our Deli Rye Bread with cream cheese, shallot, or other accoutrements.
This comforting pasta dish is basically a Persian take on spaghetti Bolognese.
Make this ultrapopular, ultraflavorful Thai street food in your home kitchen. Pad gra prow—a spicy, sweet, and savory stir-fry loaded with emerald-green holy basil leaves—is an incredibly flavorful, ultrapopular Thai street food that's increasingly found elsewhere around the globe. For expert advice on creating our version for American home cooks, we reached out to Nuit Regular, executive chef and co-owner of PAI and Kiin in Toronto, Canada, and author of Kiin: Recipes and Stories from Northern Thailand (2020). Regular schooled us on the essentials of good pad gra prow: an aromatic base of finely chopped garlic, shallot, and fiery Thai chiles; a stir-fry sauce made of Thai fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sweet and thin soy sauces; a chopped or ground protein (commonly ground pork); and a small mountain of peppery, aromatic holy basil leaves. With these ingredients in hand, a wok or nonstick skillet (our recipe gives options for both) makes quick work of the stir-fry.
What’s the secret to achieving a tender, custardy base and a crispy, puffy rim? Ignoring one of the cardinal principles of baking. Our German Pancake achieves its dramatic appearance and contrasting textures thanks to a few test kitchen tricks. First, we mixed up a simple batter containing just the right amounts of eggs, flour, and milk to produce a pancake with crispy yet tender edges and a custardy center. To produce a tall, puffy rim and an even, substantial center, we started the pancake in a cold oven and then turned the oven to 375 degrees. This allowed the center of the pancake to begin to set up before the rim got hot enough to puff up substantially. Finally, we put fruit and other ingredients on as a topping rather than baking them into the pancake. Without fruit to weigh things down, the pancake puffed dramatically and its texture remained delicate and uniform.
A thorough review for America's Test Kitchen's cookbook, 'Vegan for Everybody'! I tried seven different recipes from this cookbook to give it a fair review!
These are the only waffles I'll make from now on.
Disregard vindaloo's reputation for extreme heat. The original Goan vindaloo—tender, juicy pork in a thick, tangy sauce that's aromatic with spices—is milder and more nuanced.
Part pastry, part confection, baklava often combines the downfalls of both: too soggy and too sweet. We made more than three dozen baklava to uncover its secrets.
What’s the secret to achieving a tender, custardy base and a crispy, puffy rim? Ignoring one of the cardinal principles of baking.
This sour, complex pork-and-vegetable soup helped one chef embrace her Filipino culture. Sinigang is a tangy meat and vegetable soup from the Philippines. This version is based on a dish by Janice Dulce, chef and owner of FOB Kitchen in Oakland, California; you can read more about our visit with Janice here. Following her lead, we used a 3-pound rack of St. Louis–style spareribs, cut in half through the bones. The soup got its signature flavor from softened tamarind paste, fish sauce, and lemon juice. While Janice included more vegetables at FOB Kitchen, we narrowed it down to daikon radishes, Japanese eggplant, and green beans, which we cooked directly in the soup until tender. This savory, complex, and sour dish is meant to be served over rice with a simple sauce made of fish sauce and Thai chiles.
Here's an easy method for wet-brining salmon fillets that ensures even, never salty curing. We wanted an easy gravlax recipe for evenly moist and tender salmon that was consistently salted throughout. A wet brine in red onion juice ensured that the salt and other curing ingredients were evenly distributed throughout the salmon fillet, producing a moist gravlax recipe with great texture. The procedure was simple enough: We skinned the salmon and placed the fillet and curing ingredients in a zipper-lock bag, thereby maximizing brine penetration and eliminating the need to flip the fillet. All the fish needed was to be weighted down and refrigerated for 12 to 18 hours (depending on thickness).
