Recipes & Food

Cemitas are a type of Mexcian sandwich that originally hails from the State of Puebla, but they've taken on a life of their own in New York City. This recipe creates a cemita sandwich as served in the restaurants and taco trucks of New York, in particular along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. These are gently warmed sandwiches served on a griddled sesame bun with taco-meat fillings of your choice, avocado, lettuce, tomato, chipotles, refried beans, mayo, and queso Oaxaca, a Mexican string cheese, that's hand-shredded into hairlike strands. Papalo, a floral Mexican herb, adds its own sp...

In the realm of chocolate, fat is flavor—so why do most bakers keep low-fat cocoa on the shelf? For an instant upgrade to your favorite desserts, try one of these rich, full-bodied natural cocoas, and say good-bye to low-fat chocolate.

This savory French toast is inspired by my mother’s simple version made with Thai green chili and onion. It's soaked in a creamy coconut green curry for that custardy center we all recognize, but with the pungent and spicy flavors I grew up on.

This French toast recipe gets a savory twist from spicy and funky green curry paste. We amp up store-bought curry paste with fresh herbs and additional lime juice and fish sauce. Blending the curry base and soaking the bread well in advance ensures that the curry soaks all the way through, for a flavorful, custardy center. With the prep work squared away the night before, this dish is perfect for any lazy Sunday.

Leftover risotto? Take a page from the Milanese kitchen by frying it in ample butter to form a beautiful golden pancake with a crispy, crunchy crust. The dish, known as risotto al salto is usually made from the saffron-scented risotto alla milanese, or sometimes from a basic risotto al parmigiano (risotto flavored simply with butter and Parmigiano-Reggiano).

A dosa is a thin, lightly crisp crepe made from a batter of fermented rice and lentils, and it's popular throughout South Asia. We've tested all aspects of the process, from how to ferment the rice and lentils to how to grind them and in what ratios. The result is a perfect dosa every time.

Caramelizing onions the traditional way can take over an hour. Here's a rapid-fire way to get soft, sweet onions in only fifteen minutes.

For such a simple dish, French onion soup should be easy to make great. And yet, so many versions taste like a cup of burnt-onion tea with melted cheese trying its best to cover up the flaws. Here's what you need to know to get the best flavor in every steaming bowl.

How fast can you caramelize onions without the "cheaty" additions of sugar and baking soda, relying only on heat and a bit of water to prevent burning? I managed to do it in 15 minutes and 22 seconds. Not bad, considering it can take over an hour to do it the traditional way. Watch the video!

For such a simple dish, French onion soup should be easy to make great. And yet, so many versions taste like a cup of burnt-onion tea with melted cheese trying its best to cover up the flaws. Here's what you need to know to get the best flavor in every steaming bowl.

For my money, the very best classic steak sauce you can make at home, a sauce that will wow your guests with its flavor and elegance, and—most importantly—a sauce that can be made start to finish in under half an hour, is béarnaise. The catch (there's always a catch) is that made with the classic technique, it's very easy to mess up. Here is a foolproof technique that uses hot butter and a hand blender for perfect results every time.

Most of us know that Béarnaise is a derivative sauce based on Hollandaise, but how many of us know other children of that classic French mother sauce? Here's one to add to your stable: Choron sauce, made by blending tomato purée with Béarnaise. It's delicious on steak, chicken, eggs, vegetables, and more.

This pesto sauce, through rounds and rounds of testing, has been honed to the perfect ratio, ingredients, and method. And, while a mortar and pestle requires a bit of work, the superior sauce it produces compared to a food processor can't be argued with. This is the true, best pesto, but if you're using a food processor, this ratio of ingredients will still produce a great sauce.

You can spend close to $400 on a stockpot, but does spending more get you a better pot? To find out, we rounded up 14 models, ranging from around $34 to nearly $383 (at the time of testing), and put them through handling and cooking tests to find the designs that work best.

Injecting is a great way to get flavor down into the meat. It is faster, cheaper, and more efficient than brining. Here's how to do it.

Smoking a pork shoulder almost always ends up with pulled pork, but it doesn't have to! Cook it slightly less and slice it thin for amazing Kansas City style BBQ pork sandwiches. Critical temperatures included in this recipe!

It's like taking a trust fall, but it pays off every time.

Milk, lemon juice, and about a half-hour of your time — that's all you need to make a batch of fresh, creamy homemade ricotta.

The dough comes together in just a few minutes and doesn't need time to rise!

These traditional Bolivian meat pies are part empanada and part soup dumpling, featuring a buttery pastry crust filled with a saucy chicken stew. The stew is seasoned with fruity aji panca chili powder and studded with raisins, which plump in the rich broth. The crust has a touch of sweetness, offering a delicate contrast to the savory filling.

This no-cook syrup has a light and fragrant mango flavor. Strips of fresh mango peel add a hint of piney aroma, while sour lemon or lime rind cuts through the mango's natural sweetness.

A chili oil–style condiment packed with chilies, Sichuan peppercorns, spices, roasted soy nuts, fried onion, and fried garlic, this homemade chili crisp truly has everything you could ever need to complete just about any dish.

This version is inspired by the original Laoganma's Spicy Chili Crisp, but taken up a notch. It's loaded with extra-large pieces of fried shallot and garlic chips, bonus aromatics for some subtle background noise, and peanuts for a nutty crunch. This recipe can easily be adapted to suit your taste.

We tested 19 wine bottle openers, in a range of styles and price points, to find out which models are the easiest to use.

To master Biscoff cookies at home, you have to bake like a Belgian. That means ditching molasses-rich brown sugar for cassonade, a Belgian style of brown sugar that's made with caramel. Need I go on?

Follow this pita guide for awesomely puffy, chewy, and flavorful home-baked pitas every time.

So you have some harissa. Now what? The North African chili paste is excellent in a whole range of applications, from moist braises to tangy salad dressings to spicy cocktails. Here are some recipes and techniques to get you inspired.

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz] There are as many recipes for plov, the Uzbek version of rice pilaf, as there are cooks who make it. Choices of meats, vegetables, and spices are up for debate, but all plovs start with more liquid...

At a price of $2,000 to $10,000 a pound, saffron is far and away the most expensive food on earth, way more than truffles, caviar, and real balsamic vinegar. Its longstanding coveted status has borne a tradition of adulteration, embargo, and conspicuous consumption that can only be characterized as grotesque. So what's the deal with this stuff? Is it worth all the fuss? And what, at the end of the day, can you really do with it?

Avgolemono ("egg-lemon") is a Greek mixture of eggs and lemon, used to thicken soups and sauces while adding a punch of bright citrus flavor. In the United States, the word is practically synonymous with this tangy and creamy chicken soup in which the avgolemono is used. This recipe is easy as can be—the biggest change we made is adding the eggs and lemon juice separately, since there's no technical benefit to adding them together and you have more control over your final flavor and texture if you keep them separate.