Pommes dauphine are the pinnacle of elegant party food: golden, crisp, airy, delightfully crushable. Picture the fluff of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fully-loaded-duchess-potatoes duchess potatoes], the lightness of a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/choux-pastry gougère], and the comforting, crispy embrace of a tater tot. They look fancy, they sound fancy, and they are, in fact, very fancy. But with nothing more than potatoes, butter, and salt added to our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/choux-pastry Perfect Pâte à Choux], the secret is all in the ratios. And we crank up the ratio of potato here—far higher than traditional recipes—giving us more potato flavor and more fluffiness, without sacrificing that airy texture.
Is there a more iconic patisserie item than an éclair? Elegant, refined, and infinitely customizable, these glazed, cream-filled confections are a fundamental application for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/choux-pastry pâte à choux]. For crack-free, consistent results, we’re pulling out all the pastry chef hacks: piping techniques, pre-treating the piped choux, customizable glazes, and a whole roster of options for the creamy filling. The result is a masterclass in choux architecture: a crisp, light-as-air shell, a rich, silky filling, and a snatched, picture-perfect top.
Few things are as universally appealing as chicken tenders. Kids love ’em, which is why they’re on every kid’s menu. Adults love ’em, too, which is why there are all those rules about adults ordering off the kid’s menu. But there are times when chicken tenders don’t live up to their potential as an S-tier dippable food. Sometimes, they’re just bad. The fact of the matter is that it’s challenging to make a great chicken tender. They don’t have skin and bones to insulate their lean meat from the intense heat of the fryer—the hotter the better to get the coating super-craggly and crisp and browned before the tender turns to cardboard. And getting the crust to <em>stick</em> to the dang things is crucial, as is making sure that the crust stays crisp for as long as it takes to take down a half dozen. We came up with a special starch blend for both the batter and the dredge that crisps and browns <em>fast</em> and produces a substantially craggy crust without compromising on the juiciness and tenderness of the meat within. These tenders are built for dippin’—all those crags have lots of pockets to trap sauce, and we’ve got some dipping sauce suggestions for serving—but they’re delicious dusted with seasoned salt or even straight up.
Peanuts, fish sauce, lime, and chiles are a classic Southeast Asian combo that just works—the toasty richness of the nuts, the savoriness of the fish sauce, the bright acidity from the citrus, and the fiery heat of the chiles come together to give everything they touch a thrilling boost of flavor. It’s a perfect combo for a dipping sauce. This is a super-dippable riff on [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/easy-sauces-for-your-grilled-meats the spicy peanut sauce we came up with for brushing onto grilled chicken]. The proportions of ingredients have been tweaked to give the sauce a little more viscosity so it clings a little better, maximizing the herbal-spicy-peanut hit in every dipped bite. It’s perfect for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fried-chicken-tenders chicken tenders], but also for anything that’s got nooks and crannies for grabbing onto the sauce—summer rolls, spring rolls, skewered meats, you name it!
Alabama white barbecue sauce is a tangy, mayo-based sauce designed specifically to go with smoked chicken, made famous by [link https://bigbobgibson.com/ Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q] in—you guessed it—Alabama. While its intended purpose is as a kind of mop for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-chicken smoked chicken], it also works great as a sandwich spread or a dipping sauce for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fried-chicken-tenders Ultra-Crispy Chicken Tenders].
Gung hei fat choi! (恭喜發財!) Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture. Like Lunar New Year celebrations in Korea and Vietnam, it marks the beginning of the year according to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, typically occurring from late January to mid-February. Just like new year’s holidays the world over, it’s a time for seeking blessings and giving out well-wishes for the year ahead. For many, it’s all about the money: Getting showered in cash-filled red pockets (利是, laì sih or 紅包, hóng bāo) by elders. Food also plays a central role in Chinese New Year celebrations. And all that food isn’t just about gorging yourself on delicious things to eat (even if all of it <em>is</em> delicious); the food is symbolic, and each celebratory dish carries with it a blessing and a wish: for good health, longevity, and family harmony; for great wealth, success, and good fortune. These concepts are conveyed in food through clever wordplay and symbolism of shape and color, and everything comes together in incredible feasts.
Cheung fun is a simple and delicious dish of slippery and supple wide rice noodle rolls. It basically comes in two forms; if you’ve had dim sum, you’ve probably had the more refined version, delicate rice noodle sheets wrapped around fillings of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/shrimp-cheung-fun succulent shrimp] or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-cheung-fun minced beef]. But there’s a street-food version—this one—and it might just be the best street food you’ve never had. Instead of neat rice roll parcels, street food-style cheung fun is more chaotic, with thicker rice noodle sheets gathered up in bunches, dressed with flavorful sauces, condiments, and garnishes. Both versions hinge on the quality of the rice noodle rolls, which, while similar to [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hor-fun-noodles hor fun noodles], are thinner, more delicate, more translucent, and silkier—perfect for fillings and sauces. (The street food-style cheung fun is a little thicker than the ones you’ll find in the steam carts at a dim sum parlor.) Our cheung fun batter is made with a blend of rice flour and tapioca starch, which improves elasticity, shine, and clarity. The hydration is high enough that you can pour thin sheets without the batter breaking or becoming gummy. And once you’ve got the process down, these rice rolls are infinitely customizable.
If there’s one dish at the dim sum table that is the epitome of finesse, it’s shrimp cheung fun (ha cheung). It consists of just rice batter, shrimp, and a slick of oil and soy sauce. But together they form a transcendent dish, featuring a translucent, silky rice sheet encasing just-tender, perfectly steamed shrimp. This recipe is all about managing steam to deliver consistently hot, fresh ha cheung. Professional kitchens use wide dedicated steaming trays, which allow cooks to make large batches simultaneously. We’ve adapted the process for a bamboo steamer, and with a little organization and careful timing, you can have ha cheung at home, hot and ready, perfectly executed, every time.
Beef cheung fun can either be done well—with a tender and delicate rice noodle sheet wrapped around tender minced beef, a dim sum dish that can almost rival its [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/shrimp-cheung-fun shrimp-stuffed sibling]—or it can be done badly, in which case it’s completely forgettable. There’s nothing in between. If the beef is overcooked, it becomes rubbery and releases too much moisture, making the rice rolls unpleasantly wet; if the beef filling is undermixed, the rice rolls don’t have the proper structure. While the execution of shrimp cheung fun is the typical test of a dim sum restaurant’s quality, you could argue beef cheung fun is also up there; if it’s good, you know the cooks are fire. With the right workflow and precise timing, you can turn out restaurant-quality beef cheung fun from the comfort of your own kitchen.
Seasoned soy sauce is what accentuates the restraint of delicate dim sum dishes like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/shrimp-cheung-fun shrimp] or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-cheung-fun beef] cheung fun. Fragrant, deeply savory, and a little sweet, with a smoky-singed flavor from sizzling the sauce with hot oil, this seasoned soy sauce is the perfect complement to steamed dishes of all kinds.
Here’s the blue box mac and cheese you grew up loving—just a little more grown up. If there’s one thing the boxed stuff gets right, it’s the texture: glossy, smooth, and oh-so-creamy. But it doesn’t score high in the flavor department. We’re here to fix that. Using everything we’ve learned about [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/science-of-melty-cheese melting salts] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cheddar-cheese-sauce cheese sauce] science, we’ve made a super-smooth sauce packed with sharp cheddar flavor that coats and clings to macaroni like a dream.
If cheese has a problem, it’s that it’s an unreliable melter. American cheese stays perfectly ooey-gooey in a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-make-the-ultimate-grilled-cheese-sandwich-at-home grilled cheese], and a box of Velveeta shells gets you a smooth, silky, and oh-so-creamy plate of mac. But give a couple chunks of your favorite aged Parm a blast of heat, and they’ll turn into an oily, greasy, hardened mess. Why do some cheeses melt while others turn into greasy blobs? And why do processed cheese products like Velveeta and American cheese melt even more readily than raclette? To answer these questions, you need a basic understanding of what cheese consists of, the differences between cheese varieties, and how additives called <b>melting salts</b> chemically alter cheeses to improve their ability to melt without turning into a mass of coagulated protein and leaking fat.
If you’ve made chocolate chip cookies before, you probably know the ingredients by heart—chocolate, of course, but also butter, sugar, flour, eggs, salt, vanilla, and some baking soda—and you know how to put them together. But have you ever stopped to think about why we add eggs to the cookie dough? Or what would happen if you added an extra yolk or cut the sugar by half? Would it be edible? Would it puff and spread and bake in the same way your usual cookie dough does? We asked ourselves all these questions and more as we set out to make the “ultimate chocolate chip cookie.” We scoured cookbooks and recipe sites to find the best recipes out there, and we made them all. We compared them against each other, mapped out their ingredients, and put them in a spreadsheet so we could identify any trends (check out our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-behold-the-cookie-calculator chocolate chip cookie parametric analysis!]). And then we did something crazy: We averaged out all the ingredients in all those recipes and made a kind of average cookie—but it was so amazing, we knew it was our holy grail: the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. But to keep ourselves honest, we called it the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-when-average-equals-amazing Ultimate Average Chocolate Chip Cookie]. [fetchActivity the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-behold-the-cookie-calculator] [fetchActivity the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-when-average-equals-amazing]
Some French food traditions are just certified bangers. Galette des rois is a perfect example: A golden brown [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/puff-pastry puff pastry] crust that’s glassy and so crisp it shatters, encasing a smooth and custardy [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-frangipane frangipane] filling, with a little surprise tucked inside—because who doesn’t love a little drama? Traditionally served to mark the Epiphany, galettes des rois are served up in slices for the celebration. Buried in each tart is a “fève,” or token, named after the dried fava bean that would be pushed into the filling—whoever finds the fève in their slice is paper-crowned to be king for the day. A good galette is equal parts engineering and craftsmanship. It requires careful treatment of the puff pastry—controlling dough temperature, precise assembly, and thoughtful baking—to produce an even cross-section and uniform shape. And it also hinges on delicate and deliberate scoring for its iconic, mesmerizing patisserie look.
This savory pithivier is pure French cooking at its finest: Crispy and beautifully burnished puff pastry encasing distinct layers of squab breast, foie gras torchon, poached mushrooms, and a chicken-mushroom mousseline—with a little stuffed squab leg served alongside, just for fun. Served with a rich, fat-speckled [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/madeira-jus Madeira Jus] gras and a silky [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/caramelized-cauliflower-puree Caramelized Cauliflower Purée], it’s a master class in classical French culinary technique. Whole-animal butchery (and utilization); puff-pastry wizardry; creating emulsified, stable farces; and solid sauce work are all employed to create an extravagant dish that would feel right at home on the menu of the finest restaurants. It takes time and patience; it requires some special ingredients; and there are many different processes in play that you have to coordinate just so in order to put out these gorgeous plates, but we’ve packed everything you need to know in this recipe for pulling off these incredible meat pies at home.
If you love the Cinderella meatloaf that is [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pate-en-croute pâté en croûte] and you get a little thrill when you see a knife slide through a perfectly made [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-beef-wellington beef Wellington] to reveal its glorious insides, then you’re going to love this pithivier. A pithivier is basically a French puff pastry pie. It originated as a sweet treat—layers of puff encasing something like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-frangipane frangipane], as in the iconic galette des rois, but the pie evolved to include savory variations as well. In some fine-dining French restaurants, savory pithiviers have become exercises in luxury—our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-pithivier Ultimate Pithivier] is a great example, with its layers of squab breast, foie gras torchon, and chicken-and-mushroom farce. But enjoying a pithivier doesn’t have to involve a pilgrimage to a Michelin restaurant. This level-one pithivier is a great entry point for cooks looking to dabble with fancy, layered, puff pastry pies. It demonstrates many of the core techniques of pithivier construction, and in doing so, also offers instruction on some basic operations in the French kitchen—working with puff pastry, making farce, transforming humble ingredients like ground beef and chicken thighs into a delicacy that’s both delicious and visually stunning.
When you want a “simple” side that tastes anything but boring, whip up this caramelized cauliflower purée. Cooking cauliflower in a generous amount of browned butter brings out toasty, malty notes reminiscent of a porter or roasted sunchokes. Add in a healthy dose of cream and a splash of sherry vinegar for balance, and you’ve got a rich vegetable purée that can complement everything from a simple [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/crispy-chicken-thighs-made-simple-with-sous-vide chicken dinner] to a showstopping [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-pithivier pithivier].
With any classic French dish, a sauce is super, super important, a bit of gilding the lily that really ties the <s>room</s> elements of the plate together. This Madeira jus has a welcome acidic bite from sherry vinegar that cuts through the richness of any meaty main, but it’s particularly well-suited to accompany our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-pithivier Ultimate Pithivier]. This sauce is a great example of the effort and patience that go classic French sauce work, translated for the home kitchen. Trim and byproducts from making the pithivier are used to fortify and bolster the flavor of the sauce—nothing goes to waste.
Ready for the best latkes you’ve ever had? Picture this: shatteringly crisp edges, tender-fluffy interiors, zero greasiness, and zero sogginess. We’ve dialed in all the variables—the cutting, starch regulation, moisture content, and frying technique—to give you our version of the perfect potato pancake. The bones of this recipe are traditional—just potatoes, onions, salt, and three key ingredients to bind the latkes together and produce super-crisp, golden-brown results. We’re also giving you two options for form factor: a traditional-looking grated latke and a new-school, refined version with the help of some nifty knifework. So whether you’re celebrating the holidays or just craving the ultimate crispy hash brown, this is the latke for any occasion.
If you’re looking to capture autumn in a jar, there’s no better condiment than apple butter—a super-concentrated, rich, spiced, and velvety smooth condiment that hits all the cozy notes of fall. But what if we took that idea to its logical extreme? Enter our caramelized apple ketchup. The best apple butters rely on slow, methodical cooking to gently break down and caramelize the apples. Here, we pull a couple of tricks to speed up and maximize that breakdown and caramelization, giving us a richer, more savory, and more complex result. We start the apples in a dark caramel, giving things a jump-start both in color and flavor. We also leverage the power of pH by [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tips-tricks-smooth-bright-vegetable-purees adding baking soda to accelerate the cooking], which gives us an even more caramelized, ultra-smooth condiment in less than half the time. To take this apple ketchup over the top, a hit of red miso elevates the savory flavors and richness. That sweet-savory combination, together with those deep caramel notes, makes this a stunningly versatile condiment.
For a dessert that’s seemingly so simple and rustic, tarte Tatin presents some real technical challenges even for experienced bakers. Take it from Julia Child herself, who [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1061&v=lOEzZR-s6SU&feature=youtu.be infamously unmolded a soupy catastrophe] of apples and pastry on national television. Where do cooks go wrong? Usually trouble arises when they try to rush the process. The key to success is controlling moisture and caramelization. Apples are full of water, which can loosen the caramel sauce that’s supposed to hold everything together, and, even worse, it can sog out the pastry as it bakes. We break up the cooking process, so that every element turns out perfect: tender (but not mushy) apples that soak up a perfectly balanced caramel sauce, sitting on top of a crisp, flaky [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-pie-dough-crust pie crust].
Great baked macaroni and cheese is just great mac—tender pasta coated in a thick, creamy cheese sauce—bubbling in a baking pan beneath a blanket of crunchy, golden-brown breadcrumbs. But all too often that isn’t the case. Most baked mac and cheeses are stodgy and gluey, with the pasta hammered beyond belief. It’s a shame, because it doesn’t have to be this way. Our version solves all those issues. Using everything we’ve learned about [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/melty-cheese-parametric-analysis melting salts] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cheddar-cheese-sauce cheese sauce] science, we’ve made a super-smooth sauce packed with sharp cheddar flavor that coats and clings to macaroni like a dream. And by adjusting the cook times on the pasta and bumping up the ratio of sauce to elbows to account for how much liquid they can absorb, we ensure that every spoonful is creamy, gooey, and never stodgy.
Fine-dining kitchens pride themselves on their smooth, vibrant purées, which can be used as the foundation for all kinds of sauces, soups, and emulsions. But how do they do it? How do those bright-green broccoli purées stay so green for so long? How do those carrot soups become so smooth and silky?<br> <br> The secret is hiding right in your kitchen cupboard: <b>baking soda</b>. And it all boils down to some simple chemistry.<br> <br> By adding baking soda to your vegetables, purées stay bright and become silky smooth.<br> <br> <b>WHAT YOU’LL NEED:</b><br> Green vegetables, such as broccoli, leek tops, spinach, or parsley<br> Or, root vegetables, such as carrots, rutabagas, turnips, or butternut squash<br> Baking soda<br> Blender<br> Fine-mesh strainer (optional)
What is ramen? Well, it depends on who you ask. Some might call it a miracle of industrial food production, a cheap and satisfying meal that anyone in the world can prepare in a matter of minutes. Others might call it junk food, a mix of highly processed starch and sodium designed to light up all our pleasure centers with the most delicious empty calories. And still others may say that it is the height of culinary expressions and innovation, a dish that is at once both rigidly defined and highly malleable, the perfect playground for technique-driven chefs. The funny thing about ramen is that it is all of these things. “Ramen,” like “pizza” or “hamburgers,” is a catch-all term for an overwhelming number of iterations on a seemingly simple dish. Despite the fact that there are countless kinds of ramen out there, all of them share a few defining characteristics, clearly distinguishing them from other noodle soups and placing them squarely in the “ramen” bucket. In this guide, we’ll cover the basic elements of ramen, the quiddity of its ramenness, if you will, and we’ll cover some of the more popular styles and variations. You’ll be able to order off any ramen restaurant menu with confidence because you’ll know what’s in the bowl.
Shoyu ramen is the most classic style of ramen: A clear soup, stained caramel by a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/shoyu-tare soy sauce tare], with pools of glistening fat floating over a nest of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/silky-ramen-noodles slinky and slippery noodles], crowned with a couple slices of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chashu tender roast pork chashu], a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cured-ramen-eggs-you-can-t-stop-eating marinated soft-boiled egg], and a pile of sliced onions, it is as beautiful as it is delicious. This recipe offers a refined take on shoyu ramen, cribbing from the techniques and methods used at Iida Shoten, one of the top ramen spots in Tokyo, and Cafe Mochiko, one of the top ramen restaurants in the United States. It features a complex [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-ramen-stock “super soup” stock] with clear notes of pork, chicken, katsuobushi, and aromatic vegetables that makes for an incredible bowl of ramen. It’s rich, but light enough that you won’t need a nap after polishing off a bowl (yeah, we’re looking at you, tonkotsu), and it’s so tasty you’ll wonder why you’ve never had anything quite like it before.
There are all kinds of noodles that fall under the umbrella of “ramen”—super long and crinkly, wire-thin and straight, chunky and ruffled, wide and flat. There aren’t really any rules to the noodles, except for this one: Ramen must be made with an alkalized wheat dough. That’s true of these noodles, just as it is of our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/handmade-ramen-noodles-easier-than-you-think Chewy Ramen Noodles]. This recipe produces softer, silkier noodles that are bouncy but light, thanks to the inclusion of tapioca starch and whole egg, which produce a firm starch gel when cooked, complementing the chewiness that high-gluten bread flour provides.
A good bowl of ramen starts with a good stock, and for a <em>great</em> bowl of ramen, you need a <em>great</em> stock—and, boy, do we have the stock for you! For our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-shoyu-ramen Ultimate Shoyu Ramen] we’ve created a pork-chicken double stock that’s every bit as flavorful and gelatin-rich as the stocks used in some of the best ramen shops around the world. And if you really want to go the extra mile, we give you the option of clarifying half of the stock to produce two distinct stocks—the porky and pleasantly funky double stock, and a delicate, chicken-forward clarified double stock—that you can then combine with dashi to form a “super soup” shoyu ramen.
“Chashu” is a Japanese “loan word” from the Chinese “[link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-char-siu char siu],” and while both refer to pork roasts, they’re completely different preparations. Chashu is used as an umbrella term for the sliced pork served with ramen. It can be roasted, braised, or cooked sous vide to a tender, blushing pink; it is, sometimes, simply boiled in the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-ramen-stock stock] used for making ramen. <em>This</em> roast pork belly chashu is simple but assertively seasoned. Cured overnight and roasted low and slow, it is tender but still has enough structural integrity and chew so that it doesn’t get lost in a bowl of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-shoyu-ramen shoyu ramen].
Every bowl of ramen gets its seasoning from tare. “Tare” is a general term for “sauce” in Japanese. You may have seen it used for yakitori, as in our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tsukune Tsukune] recipe, but in the context of ramen, it basically means “noodle sauce.” Tare determines the flavor of ramen, and there are essentially three flavor categories for all styles of ramen: shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce), and miso. This shoyu tare is infused with umami-rich ingredients like kombu (dried kelp), katsuobushi (bonito flakes), dried shiitake mushrooms, and fish sauce to create an ultra-savory “super soy sauce” that pairs perfectly with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-ramen-stock Super Soup Ramen Stock] to produce the [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-shoyu-ramen Ultimate Shoyu Ramen].
With a soft, tender, and crumbly crumb encased in a crisp outer shell, cake doughnuts are a deliciously affirmative answer to the question, “Would deep-fried cake be good?” What distinguishes cake doughnuts from other styles, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-make-bulletproof-fluffy-yeasted-doughnuts-at-home yeasted doughnuts] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/crullers crullers], is the way the dough is leavened: Baking soda and baking powder give the dough lift, producing a fine-grained crumb with tiny bubbles throughout. (Yeasted doughnuts use yeast, and crullers, like other [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/choux-pastry choux pastry]–based doughs, rely on steam produced by water trapped in the dough for leavening.) Toss these cake doughnuts in cinnamon sugar or give them a glaze, and you’ll be well on your way to making a doughnut display case that will put your local Dunkin’ to shame.
If you’ve ever gone apple picking, you’ve probably housed a couple of cider doughnuts—they’re a fixture of apple orchards because they’re a great way to use up apple cider. What’s funny about all that is cider doughnuts don’t really taste like apple cider! They are instead more of a celebration of autumnal warm spices—a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/cake-doughnuts cake doughnut] with cinnamon incorporated into the dough, fried and coated with cinnamon sugar. We add almond extract (for nutty, brown-butter notes) and brown sugar to the dough for hints of caramel, as well as a little malic acid to the coating to mimic the tang of a fresh, tart apple.
Crispy, craggy, and glazed on the outside, with a plush and light interior, apple fritters are one of the best doughnuts. But maybe “doughnuts” isn’t the best description for these delicious chimeras. Like those mythical beasts, they’re a mashup of different things, but in place of the lion’s claws and a serpent’s tail, apple fritters consist of an enriched yeasted dough that’s rolled up with a spiced apple filling, cut into small pieces and formed into monkey bread-like portions, and finally deep fried. Our version dials up the apple flavor with a Granny Smith filling and a cider glaze bolstered with malic acid for fresh apple tartness.
With sweet acidity from tomatoes and a pop of chile heat, amatriciana is the brightest of the “core four” Roman pastas. But don’t get it twisted—this isn’t a light and delicate tomato sauce. It’s got plenty of rich, porky funk from guanciale, background bite from black pepper, and a sharp finish of salty Pecorino Romano. The best part? It comes together in a flash and may just be the best pantry pasta of all time.
What happens when you mash together [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pasta-all-amatriciana amatriciana] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pasta-alla-carbonara carbonara]? You get pasta alla zozzona, an over-the-top, more-is-more pasta that breaks from tradition in the name of delicious decadence.
Cacio e pepe—is there a better example of a dish being greater than the sum of its parts? The simplest of the “core four” Roman pastas (gricia, amatriciana, and carbonara are the other three), with just three ingredients—pasta, pepper, and cheese—bound together with starchy pasta water to produce a punchy plate of in-your-face grownup mac and cheese.
Carbonara barely needs an introduction: It’s a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/make-ahead-bacon-egg-and-cheese bacon-egg-and-cheese] in pasta form, only better. Just like the other “core four” Roman pastas, carbonara is a simple dish that you can make or break with technique. We give the eggs and cheese the zabaglione treatment to guarantee a silky-smooth sauce that won’t ever break on you.
Pasta alla gricia is the most under-appreciated of the “core four” Roman pastas. Carbonara and cacio e pepe get all the glory, and amatriciana gets plenty of love as all tomato sauces do. But gricia is given short shrift and often defined by what it’s perceived to be missing: “carbonara without the egg,” or “white amatriciana.” That’s a shame, because gricia is every bit the equal of the other three—a silky emulsion of starchy pasta water and rendered guanciale fat, speckled with black pepper, with morsels of crispy pork, and a showering of salty Pecorino Romano. It’s time to give gricia its flowers.
Omurice may just be the most viral Japanese dish in recent memory (sorry, [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-instant-ramen ramen] and [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-sous-vide-tonkatsu tonkatsu]). At its most basic, it’s just an omelet served with rice—Japanese home cooks will serve up an omelet with fried rice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner; more enterprising home cooks might even tuck the rice into the omelet as a filling. But the version that made omurice a social media sensation was made famous by Motokichi Yukimura, the flamboyant chef of [link https://kichikichi.com/en/ Kichi Kichi Omurice] in Kyoto. It features a perfectly made omelet—pale on the outside, with a crêpe-thin exterior encasing runny curds of scrambled egg—perched atop a mound of rice that's almost identical in shape to the omelet. Just before serving, the omelet is slit open so it unfurls over the rice perfectly, after which the whole thing is doused in dark and rich demi-glace. This recipe gets you <em>that</em> version. We’ve broken down the process into manageable and repeatable steps that with a little practice will get you perfect results.
There are two parts to Japanese [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/omurice omurice]: the beautifully made omelet and the rice it’s served with. While you could serve the omelet with plain steamed white rice, it’s typically served with fried rice spiked with a little ketchup. Yup, you heard that right: ketchup. The reason for that is that the version of omurice that’s most well-known today was created for the [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgKccixIhQ cult-classic foodie flick <em>Tampopo</em>], and in the brilliant scene it’s featured in, the cook stir-fries rice with ketchup. The inclusion of ketchup squarely situates this dish in “yoshoku,” or the class of Japanese dishes with Western origins. Our version includes a little ground chicken to give it some heft, but otherwise, it’s just well-executed fried rice: distinct grains of rice, seasoned with soy sauce, a little chicken bouillon powder, toasted sesame oil, and, of course, ketchup, then tossed with scallions and finished with a knob of butter.
Chilaquiles—crisp fried tortilla chips simmered in salsa and topped with fried eggs—sit in the pantheon of great breakfast foods. When done right, they can be texturally amazing, with freshly fried tortilla chips that stay crispy even after being coated and tossed in sauce. And if that sauce uses as its base a brick-red [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/salsa-roja salsa roja] that’s made with charred tomatoes, roasted garlic, and toasted guajillo and árbol chiles? They’ll be super, super tasty. Chilaquiles are all about customization, about gilding the chip-and-salsa lily. You can use another salsa (our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/quick-salsa-verde salsa verde], say) or a combination of red and green (for some “A+ for effort” chilaquiles divorciados); you can top them with fried eggs, [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tenderize-thin-steaks-before-grilling carne asada], shredded chicken, or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-carnitas carnitas]; and you can garnish them with a shower of cilantro, sliced serrano chile, crumbled queso fresco, dollops of crema, whatever you like!