Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
The Paloma: Commonly found in regions where tequila is produced as well as consumed, the Paloma combines grapefruit soda and tequila, making it a great seasonal refresher.
Michelada: The michelada is a spicy beer cocktail that first became popular in northern Mexico. The cocktail's name is derived from "mi chela helada," or "my cold, light beer".
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Black Bean Tostadas with Corn Relish: The interplay between hot and cool, the balance of savory warm filling, and the spicy bite of a good salsa—all good things.
Poblano Tacos: These tacos filled with roasted poblanos contain no meat, but still pack lot of flavor.
Cinco de Mayo is a day of national pride for Mexicans around the world, commemorating Mexico’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. We join in the celebration with our favorite Mexican food and drink.
Chicken Fajitas: Grilled, marinated chicken strips on warm four tortillas provide a base for all the guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo you can pile on top.
Essentials: Easy Enchiladas: Although this recipe may not be authentically Mexican or even authentically Tex-Mex, it is consistently yummy.
It's three of your favorite ingredients in one: bacon, maple syrup, and hard liquor! Just in time for maple syrup season, New York Magazine shares Don Lee's recipe for his bacon-infused bourbon and maple syrup cocktail served at East Village bar PDT.
Make tomorrow's April Fools' Day a special night with these recipe ideas from Allrecipes. When else will you have an excuse to make a cake out of meat or a burger out of cake?
I wouldn't put cheesecake on my list of "Most Favorite Desserts," but when I saw Fanny's very vanilla cheesecake (cheesecake très vanille) on her blog Foodbeam, I got a craving. It doesn't help that Fanny's beautiful photos make me look at my own food and want to cry. After reading her description of the cake, I wanted to cry some more: "rich and thick yet feathery," "fragrant with vanilla," atop a milk chocolate crust with a "pleasing buttery aftertaste." Recreate the deliciousness in your home by following her recipe. I'll just continue to oogle her photos.
Why had I not heard about the glorious marriage of muffin and goo-filled chocolate treat before reading Nicole Weston's recipe for Cadbury Creme Egg Muffins? Weston say that while you probably wouldn't want to serve these at any regular brunch (but...but maybe I do!), they're good for Easter and may prevent you from eating a bag of Cadbury Mini Creme Eggs all at once, "since you’ll have to eat through each muffin to get to them first." I like that idea; stagger your intake of eggs by wrapping each one in a muffin.
Because everyone likes bacon and there's no reason to restrict its intake to breakfast, ice cream expert David Lebovitz experimented by making candied bacon ice cream. Considering that the resulting smoky/salty/cinnamon-tinged dessert got a thumbs up from his butcher, it seems that his recipe was a success.
I've heard of chicken soup to heal colds, but sake and egg? Tamagozake, or egg sake, is a traditional home remedy in Japan for the cold. Mix together 3/4th cup of sake, an egg, and a tablespoon of sugar and heat until just before boiling. Serve with chopsticks. And let the healing begin! [via Peter Payne]
Today marks the first day of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rat. Although the holiday marks the time for people to clean up their homes, reorganize their lives, pay respect to their ancestors, appease the Kitchen God, and conjure up enough luck to last them through the rest of the year, everyone knows that the central element to celebrating the new year is to stuff yourself with lots of food.
Foods chosen for Chinese New year tend to carry auspicious meanings. Wealth may be symbolized by whole fish, dried tofu, oranges, egg rolls, and dumplings. Long life may be represented by "long foods," such as noodles and string beans. All of the above and more relate to luck in addition to dried oysters, tangerines and turnips. As long as you eat...you know, something, you're probably going to be in good shape for the new year, whether that means adding an extra 10 years to your life, getting a raise, or giving birth to a baby boy.
Since Chinese New Year lasts from the first to the 15th day of the lunar month (new moon to full moon), that gives you two weeks to whip up some Chinese New Year-related recipes. After the jump are some recipes I've picked from the food blogosphere.
Super Bowl is looming ever closer, but we've got you covered on the food front if you want to add a little more oomph to your pigskin festivities instead of buying a family size bag of tortilla chips and salsa.
When we talked to Cook's Illustrated publisher Chris Kimball just a couple of months ago, he shared with us a recipe for foolproof pie crust. "It's a brilliant recipe," he said. "The secret ingredient in it? Vodka." The alcohol adds moistness to the dough without aiding in gluten formation, since gluten doesn't form in alcohol. Here's the recipe: Foolproof Pie Dough
Jaden launches a campaign against the concept of hiding vegetables in your kids food with a recipe for Furikake French Fries. Furikake is a Japanese seasoning based on dried fish, seaweed, and sesame seeds. Jaden suggests using it on French fries to get kids used to seaweed—"THEN switch it up on them—sprinkle Furikake on steamed broccoli, spinach, tofu...whatever!"
Check out our new recipe search! Available on every page in the Recipes section, it allows you to refine queries based on food type. It'll make it much easier to find whatever dish you happen to be looking for.
David Lebovitz discovered the easiest chocolate and banana ice cream recipe ever by accident while developing recipes for a liquor company. You don't even need an ice cream machine; the alcohol keeps the ice cream from freezing too hard. Don't miss his banana peeling instructions that come after the recipe.
Leave an egg in an oven at 220°F for 300 minutes (5 hours) and voila: you get what looks like a brown, hard boiled egg.. Is it tasty? According to François-Xavier, yes—the long baking gives the egg white a nutty flavor.
Want to bake fresh bread for Thanksgiving without expending much effort? Try this simple crusty bread recipe, which may be "the world's easiest yeast bread" according to The New York Times.
For a take on pumpkin pie that's cuter than the traditional crusted version, try filling baby pumpkins with pumpkin pie filling. Lara Ferroni shares the recipe for Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin accompanied by her beautiful photos on her food blog, Cook & Eat.
Wafuu pasuta is the name given to Italian pasta dressed with Japanese ingredients. If you're tired of tomato sauce, try these wafuu pasuta recipes from Just Hungry. Tarako and ponzu capellini, anyone?
Find out what designers are cooking up by reading In the Kitchen With, a weekly post on Design*Sponge where designers share their favorite recipes accompanied by stylized photographs and illustrations.
The Los Angeles Times tells you how to salt-roast, a cooking method that combines steaming and roasting and results in food that tastes intensely of its own natural flavors. It's easy to do in your own home; just make sure you have a bucket of salt on hand.
Labor Day weekend brings grills out in force in this country, and I'm definitely going to be cranking up my decrepit Weber Kettle on Cape Cod (Note to self: replace the Kettle next summer). Though my wife Vicky is going to be after me to grill something healthy like fish or boneless, skinless chicken breasts, I'm afraid I'm leaning toward steak, specifically my friend and sometime co-author Tom Douglas' Rib Eye Steak with Garlic Bruschetta and Aged Balsamic Vinegar. It comes from Tom's cookbook, Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen. This recipe is easy, quick, and will have your guests moaning with pleasure. Tom calls for boneless rib-eyes, but if you can find bone-in rib steaks buy them. The bone imparts a little more flavor and helps keep the meat moist and juicy. And remember, the tastiest part of the rib eye is the spinalis dorsis, that tender, super-marbled outer ridge of a ribeye usually set off from the eye by a thin layer of fat.
Melissa Clark in the New York Times gives us seven reasons to buy too many tomatoes at the farmers' market this time of year, when the tomatoes are juicy, sweet, and irresistible. I have to say they all sound great, but the one I am trying first is the instant tomato-ricotta "soup" with capers. Like Clark, I have really big eyes when I buy gorgeous farmers' market tomatoes, so I end up with more tomatoes than I can possibly use.
Here are two delicious, easy ways to deal with fresh tomato excess.
Although I love food blogs, I tend to stay away from recipe blogs because the part of my brain responsible for cooking skills is about the size of an emaciated fruit fly. But when I came across The Pioneer Woman, I couldn't look away. I mean, I could've looked away, I just wouldn't have been happy about it. My middle finger locked onto my mouse's scroll wheel as vibrant step-by-step photos of recipes for butter-laden meats and sweets (and I mean really step-by-step, like dedicating three photos to chopping up sticks of butter) and humor-laced commentary whizzed by on my monitor. Thank you, oh Pioneer Woman, for without you I wouldn't have the urge to whip up a "testosterone beef fest" sandwich.
One of the many things I like about Taming the Flame is that Elizabeth Karmel provides us with lots of easy-to-prepare grilled vegetable dishes. Here's her ingenious take on Fire-Roasted Succotash. Karmel says, "If you are phobic about lima beans, substitute edamame (fresh soybeans) for a new-age succotash."
No, not that kind of grilled cheese. We’re talking about cheese that can be cooked directly on a grill. Of course, you wouldn’t want to try this with just any cheese. Tossing a wheel of Brie on the barbecue might be a fun party trick, but grilling up slices of halloumi, a fresh, white cheese from Cyprus, is real summer magic.
Traditionally made from the mixed milks of goat and sheep, halloumi is somewhat of a cross between the flavor of feta and the texture of mozzarella, although it differs from the latter, and of course from most other cheeses, in that it doesn’t melt when cooked. You may have come across halloumi in the Greek dish saganaki, a flashy appetizer in which the cheese is fried or broiled, doused in ouzo and set aflame. Molyvos, near Carnegie Hall in New York City, serves a classic version of the dish, bright in flavor and refreshingly simple. And Michael Psilakis, chef-owner of the rustic Greek spot Kefi on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, takes the idea a little further, using the cheese as a textural accompaniment in his grilled hangar steak entrée.
Halloumi’s ability to stand up to heat without melting also makes it great for the barbecue. Cut the cheese into slices 1/4 inch thick, and brush it with olive oil. Place on a medium-hot grill, and cook two minutes per side, or until it is golden brown. Drizzle with lemon juice, and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
Clearly there are many variations on this theme. Are there any spots near you that do something interesting with this versatile cheese?
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.
Beer-Can Chicken has probably been around ever since folks started sitting around campfires or grills drinking beer, so Elizabeth Karmel wisely takes absolutely no credit for its invention. But she's also smart enough to recognize a winning recipe when she sees one. She has two versions in her book Taming the Flame, but I prefer the one with the simple salt-and-pepper spice mix. You won't believe how moist and flavorful the chicken meat gets using this method.
some fancy-pants chefs love iceberg lettuce, too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love iceberg lettuce. It's cool, it's crisp, and it's a perfect foil for blue cheese dressing.
Don't get me wrong. I love a fresh, peppery arugula salad picked that morning from somebody's garden. But I don't much care for wilted organic arugula grown 3,000 miles from my house and picked two weeks before it finds its way into my hands. I also hate iceberg lettuce that is more brown than light green with tons of droopy outer leaves. C'mon, admit it. You like iceberg lettuce, too.
Here's a great blue cheese dressing recipe from the late Jamie Shannon (and Ti Adelaide Martin) of Commander's Palace (Are there others out there? Hell, I even like Marie's, though the best commercially available blue cheese dressing is from Point Reyes Cheese.
Leche merengada, or meringued milk, is a frozen cinnamon and lemon flavored meringue from Spain. It can also serve as a beverage if you prefer not to freeze it. As as I'm not going to Spain anytime soon, I'll definitely try David Lebovitz's simple recipe from The Perfect Scoop.
I like to roast asparagus in a 450-degree oven for ten minutes, drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. I then take the asparagus out of the oven and top it with flash-fried capers. I think I first found this recipe in one of Rozanne Gold's 1-2-3 Cookbooks. But now, I've found a recipe online.
For some reason, sherbet was something I only sparingly ate as a kid, usually in the flavor "rainbow" (a random mixture of artificial flavors that somewhat resembles real fruit, but not too closely or else kids wouldn't like it) and colored with fluorescent pink, green, and orange. I'm going to attempt to make David Lebovitz's simple Lemon Sherbet recipe from The Perfect Scoop to see if the homemade stuff tastes anything like the frosty treat of my childhood. I hope David's tastes a lot better.
Speaking of sherbet, who here says sherbert instead of sherbet? I grew up with the added "r", which I only realized now is the loser of the GoogleBattle against sherbet. Eliminating the final "r" feels awkward; as I reach that second syllable my mouth almost almost refuses to do it.
Because it spoils quickly and most people store it improperly, dry vermouth has acquired an unsavory reputation over the years. With a little care, however, it can go from stand-in to starring role in recipes and drinks. The Paupered Chef duo on storage and use—including a recipe for mussels.
Matt of MattBites shares his memory of sopaipillas, a dessert that always takes him back straight to his childhood: "Made by my grandmother, the tender warm pillows of fried dough were sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with honey and always disappeared within minutes. She would encourage us to eat them immediately while they were still warm, but it was always said with a wink in her eye – she knew we couldn't keep our hands off them until there was an empty plate of grease-laden cinnamon-scented crumbs."
Wandering Chopsticks has a great post on buckwheat crêpes that starts off with a trip to a friend of a friend's favorite Parisian crêperie—the directions going something like "In the Latin Quarter by the Saint Michel metro, past the Easy Internet, look for the Tunisian bakery but don't go inside the bakery, there's a window on the outside corner where they make crepes. But you don't want the old guy, or the really young guy, but the third guy."—and ends with a short video demonstration of how to make some without a griddle or crêpe pan.
I myself prefer sweetened wheat flour crêpes (crêpes sucrées) to those made of buckwheat (the savoury crêpes salées, or galettes), but will never turn a good crêpe of any kind down. What fillings go into your favorite crêpe? [via Tastespotting]
The Houston Chronicle asked its readers to share their mother's best recipes, got over 160 responses, and then picked seven of mom's hits and six misses out of the bunch. I'd happily eat Irene Jones' Southern Smothered Potatoes for lunch today if I could, with Opal Joyce Cooke Danner's Burnt Sugar Cake for dessert!
My mom rarely spends any time in the kitchen but when she does, she makes the most amazing paella I've ever had, with seafood and chorizo, and from scratch. What's your mom's best or worst dish?
Rasa Malaysia confesses a weakness for Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits so compelling she keeps going back to have them despite her feeling very strongly that chain restaurants are wrong. Her guilt drove her to Googling recipes, and she ended up baking biscuits she says are "about 80% close to the original in terms of taste".
Not bad, but I bet she'll still end up at Red Lobster! What are your chain restaurant guilty pleasures?
Melissa Kronenthal of the always-excellent Traveler's Lunchbox, one of my all-time favorite food blogs, winds up a long piece considering how her attitude to traveling and eating has changed over the years after a trip to Morroco with a recipe for eggplant stewed in honey and spices. She says, "I love eggplant in all its forms, but this is one of the best ways I've ever eaten it - meltingly soft, sweet, sour and spicy-hot."
If you're going to be watching this weekend's Kentucky Derby but Mint Juleps aren't your drink of choice, why not pay homage to another traditional Kentucky delight? The Philadelphia Inquirer's Craig LaBan visited Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville and came away with Lynn's recipe for her Bourbon Ball Milkshake, a treat made with walnuts, bourbon and chocolate chips that's like "sipping a cold ice cream truffle through a straw, sweet but deceptively potent."
There's nothing quite like a fresh made tortilla, but if you've got to use one that's pre-made, this week's Taster's Choice panel over at the SF Chronicle's says Trader Joe's thin corn tortillas reign supreme over a field of thirteen. The judges said they "were "pliable and supple," if a little "flaky." And they had a "decent corn flavor" with "nice browning on the side." Mission's white corn and yellow corn tortillas took second and third place respectively; Trader Joe's thicker corn tortillas scored at the bottom of the pack, interestingly enough, along with Ranchero's.
Whenever I take someone out to dinner for soup dumplings who's never had them before, they can never understand why I'm so excited: "Uh, it's just dumplings in soup. Big deal?" But it is a big deal! They are wrong! The dumplings are not in the soup, the soup is in the dumplings! They've got lovely pork fillings inside them, sometimes crab too, but the star attraction is the hot, savoury broth that you suck out through a hole you've delicately nibbled.
I live within walking distance of my favorite places to get these wonders of deliciousness, but for those of you who didn't plan your habitats so strategically, this month's issue of Bon Appétit has a short piece that explains how they work as well as a recipe plus tips on where to get the various ingredients from New York chef Anita Lo, so you can make the magic happen at home. Her way is a sure path to deliciousness, but if you're lazy and want to take a shortcut, your local Chinatown grocery just might have some in the freezer!
The photo from TeamSugar's recipe for molten chocolate cakes with fresh whipped cream is killing me; the recipe itself, not so much. I do love the teeny little wax paper cups haze1nut chose to bake the cakes in, they're a great idea and I wouldn't mind it if they caught on—but if you're going to make molten chocolate cakes why not use the original recipe from Jean-Georges Vongerichten himself?
(If you're not feeling JGV, Chowhound bakers pointed to their favorite recipes on Epicurious a few months ago, they all sound just as delicious.)
Inspired by a LA-area chain called Killer Shrimp that serves nothing but the eponymous dish, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen shares her recipe for Killer Cajun Crawfish. I was planning on having just a grilled cheese sandwich and chorizo for dinner, but how can I now that I've got crawfish on the brain? Life is so hard.
Mary Vuong of the Houston Chronicle says it's time we gave the thorny, meaty artichoke a chance: "An artichoke is a work of art. Home cooks often treat it as art, too. They look but are afraid to touch. But artichokes—fancy enough to star at a dinner party, easy to pop in the microwave when you're eating alone—are worth some effort. With peak season running through May, now is the perfect time to tackle the thistle."
If you're up for the challenge, Vuong includes three recipes: one by Gaetano Ascione, chef de cuisine at Houston's Quattro, and two by Lidia Bastianich, both from her latest cookbook Lidia's Italy which was just published this month.
According to Ellen Sweets of the Denver Post, Colorado's lamb is a culinary star—the best lamb you can find anywhere. Pat Donahue of Memphis's Rendezvous, which serves barbecued lamb ribs, agrees; he says, "the flavor and texture are so much better than anything else we could find. No matter how you cook a piece of meat, the quality of the meat itself is where you start. We had to take lamb ribs off the menu for a while because we couldn't get Colorado lamb, but our customers had a fit, so we found someone who could deliver them and (the ribs) are back." But why is it so good?
"From a culinary standpoint, local lamb is important because we provide a better quality product based on genetics," says Kline, executive director of the Colorado Lamb Council. "We breed for meat production; the Australians and New Zealanders breed for wool. Meat quality is secondary.
"So what we get from imports is basically meat based on wool genetics and a smaller product. It costs less, but it's smaller and not as flavorful. We're breeding for higher quality meat."
Someone's going to be making lamb chops this weekend, and that someone is me!
Regina Schrambling in the LA Times, realizes what barbecue pit masters hold true and dear to their hearts: cooking meat slowly and at low temperatures "changes everything for the better — the texture turns more tender, the flavor becomes more concentrated". Here's one chef's take on slow cooking at home:
Chef Govind Armstrong uses sous-vide at Table 8 in Los Angeles and Miami but has developed a technique for home cooks that requires no special equipment, let alone 18 hours of simmering. (Although low temperatures might be nervous-making, Armstrong points out that anything over 140 degrees is enough to head off bacteria.) He simply places shrimp or scallops in a zippered freezer bag with a little clarified butter, and poaches the contents slowly in warm water.
While regular poaching leaches flavor into the pot, his method traps the seafood juices inside the bag and concentrates them. You could consider it the poor man's sous-vide if the results were not so astonishing with such low-tech gear.
"This is the easiest way to approximate sous-vide," Armstrong says. "And the beauty of it is that you can reuse the butter to sauté fish or make an amazing hollandaise."
Schrambling includes a recipe for Armstrong's slow-cooked shrimp with instructions on his technique, as well as two more recipes for slow-cooked salmon and chipotle ribs, if you'd like to give what she talks about a good try yourself.
According to Rosenfeld, not many consumers roast whole birds, which account for about 8 percent of chicken sales. "Most people are buying their chicken pre-marinated and pre-cooked," he says. "Old-fashioned cooking has been marginalized. I wonder if the day will come when you can't go into the market and buy a whole chicken at all." To encourage more people to begin with a whole bird, the first part of the book focuses on how to roast a chicken, the second on what to do with the cooked meat. Rosenfeld says, "You've had dinner, but you still have a bird and a half staring at you -- so now what?"
Rosenfeld is the son of Globe contributing food writer and stylist Julie Riven, so clearly culinary curiosity runs in the family. Levitt says he's still enthusiastic about roasting chicken, even after preparing about a thousand or so birds in the last few years while researching his book! Rosenfeld shares his recipe for roast chicken with shallots and fingerlings, so make sure you have a proper roaster for the job.
Today is Food Section day for newspapers that have them, so we tend to post a lot of newspaper pieces on Wednesdays, but oh, how could I possibly resist sharing this glorious Gingered Salmon Tartar with Radish and Green Apple on Prawn Crackers that Béa Peltre of La Tartine Gourmande put together after visiting her local Asian grocery?
Xanthe Clay of the Telegraph goes to Paris to learn how to make the perfect soufflé: "Depending on who you listen to, a soufflé is the riskiest dish of all to cook, or something so easy an eight-year-old could throw one together. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in between. Soufflés are simple, but they do require an under-standing of the engineering of the dish to be a success."
Clay includes five recipes, instructions on how to properly prepare the egg whites, tips on picking the right dishes as well as a short list of good things to add to either savoury or sweet soufflé bases.
Larry Gonick is one of the greatest cartoonists in the world. You might know him from his brilliant Cartoon History of the Universe series. Or if you were like me and needed as much help as you could get in Statistics class, his Cartoon Guide to Statistics might have saved you. Larry is also an excellent cook and serious eater who many moons ago had a weekly syndicated cartoon kitchen recipe. Serious Eats has unearthed these gems from deep in the recesses of Larry's files. Recipes have never been funnier. [Full disclosure: My wife is Larry Gonick's literary agent.]
Barbara Fisher of Tigers and Strawberries on Nuoc Mau, the essential Vietnamese sauce: "It is what gives depth of flavor and color to kno dishes, which are earthy, homey braises of meats, tofu or seafood. Salty with fish sauce, these dishes are meant to be eaten with plenty of rice, but the salt flavor is balanced by the smoke-tinged sweetness of this home made, darkly browned caramel sauce." She provides both a recipe for Nuoc Mao and a step-by-step walkthrough with photos, to make preparation of this "simple, but not easy staple of the Vietnamese kitchen" as painless as possible.
The director Robert Rodriguez has a new movie out, Grindhouse, which I haven't gotten around to seeing yet, but I did love 2005's Sin City, his adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book. Turns out if you get the Sin City DVD, one of the special features on it is the second episode of Rodriguez's 10-Minute Cooking School, for his Sin City Breakfast Tacos:
He makes his tortillas from scratch, and uses both lard and butter! I may have to fight his new girlfriend Rose McGowan for him.
One of my favorite fish dishes is black cod marinated in miso, as made famous by Nobu's Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, and Rasa Malaysia's just posted a recipe for it, inspired by the Nobu Cookbook. I hadn't realized it was so simple to make—the marinade is just four ingredients, and the most complicated step is leaving the fish in it overnight—but now that I know, I'm going to be giving it a try for dinner this week. You should too!
I usually hate chain-letter emails, but this idea is right up my alley, and I think it might be up your alley, too, Serious Eaters. Check it out.
OK, Culinary Adventurers:
We expect your best! You've been invited to be part of a recipe
exchange! Please send a recipe to the person whose name is listed in
the number 1 position (preferably something quick,easy, few
ingredients).
1. [redacted] 2. [redacted]
Then copy this letter into a new email, move my name to the number 1 position, and put your name in the number 2 position. Only your name and mine should appear in this list when you send out your email.
Send this to 10 friends. If you cannot do this within 7 days, please let me know so it will be fair to those participating. You should receive 36 recipes. It is fun to see where these recipes come from. Seldom does anyone drop out because we can all use new recipes.
The turnaround is fast because only 2 names are on the list.
I'm not great with math, so I'm not quite sure how this nets you a possible 36 recipes, but who knows. I went along with it and sent out a recipe. If you have ten friends who won't be too annoyed by this, just copy and paste the text into your own culinary chain letter.
No, I am not making that up, and yes, the recipe really is what it sounds like: Deep-fried. Balls. Of. Butter. You mix butter with cream cheese, shape it into balls, freeze them, and then drop them in the deep-fryer. People, she must be stopped.
At Serious Eats we love to eat and cook. Some of us here at SE world headquarters cook for therapeutic reasons at the end of a long, stress-filled day. Others, like me, cook most often when we have the luxury of time, on the weekends and on vacation.
But the point is we all like to cook, and we found out after getting our survey back that many of our fellow Serious Eaters do, too. So from now on we are going to post at least one recipe every day Monday through Friday 52 weeks a year. That's our plan, anyway. Who knows what will happen once recipes start to appear regularly on Serious Eats. All hell could break loose, and we could become one big community cookbook. That's up to you, our loyal Serious Eats community.
Some weeks, like this one, we are going to feature recipes from cookbooks we really like. Other weeks, we would be glad to feature recipes that our Serious Eats community members email us. Between the SE community and all the cookbook writers and chefs we have gotten to know, I don't believe we are ever going run short of recipes.
If you are intrigued by any of the recipes you see on Serious Eats, please cook them up and tell us what you think. Every recipe can be made better every time it's prepared. Recipes are living, breathing things, and we want our community members to share their observations about one when they prepare it.
From time to time we'll also be giving away cookbooks, cooking implements and utensils, and anything else we can get our hands on that we think will serve our community of food enthusiasts.
We want Serious Eaters all over the world to eat as much delicious food as possible, and recipes add a whole other dimension and range of possibilities to that stated goal.
I've had egg salad sandwiches foisted on me all my life at picnics despite the facts that a) I think they're gross and b) no one I know actually likes them. I mean, c'mon now—mushy cold eggs and mayo on soggy bread, what's to like? Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks hates egg salad sandwiches so much she went and made a good one, something I didn't think was possible. Add a little bit of chopped bacon, and I'll be happy to eat it!
Kitty Crider of the Austin American-Statesman recently interviewed pastry chef Dunia Borga, known in Dallas for her Cuatro Leches cake—a twist on the traditional tres leches (three milks) cake—that "begins with a vanilla sponge cake, coarser than American butter cakes but strong enough to hold up to the sauce of three milks poured over it. Then it is covered with a caramelized Swiss meringue and dotted with the arequipe [dulce de leche, or caramel sauce]."
Still not sold? Sarah Phillips of Baking911 sampled Borga's cake at her restaurant La Duni a few years ago and says, "It beats any tres leches cake on the planet, and I have eaten a lot of them! I was interested in the recipe because a few years ago I was on the best tres leche cake quest, and I think this one is the best I have EVER EVER tried in my whole life, and it still holds the title, in my mind. My friends and I must have had a dozen pieces (and then some) of this cake in two days...."
If you're nowhere near Dallas but would like to try cuatro leches, Borga's put the recipe up on her website so you can bake it yourself. Send me a slice if you do!
Austin area meat eaters and music lovers will tell you about the wonders of Stubb's, the barbecue restaurant and live music venue on Red River founded by the late chef and pitmaster C. B. Stubblefield. The recently published Stubb's Bar-B-Q Cookbook has recipes from the restaurant as well as Stubblefield's personal cookbook, as well as photos and stories from his colorful life.
The Austin American-Statesman's Kitty Crider shares the book's recipe for Korean Steak, Stubb-Style, created after Stubblefield served in Korea and "discovered that Koreans and Texans have much in common: Both love beef, chili peppers, and grilling over a charcoal pit."
If you like Thai food, you've probably had Tom Yum before, the nourishing hot and sour soup with lemongrass that's one of the staples of Thai cuisine. Tigerfish has a simple but great recipe for Tom Yum Fried Rice, a one-dish meal that can serve four or make for delicious leftovers.
Yesterday, while perusing the showcase at Buttercup, one of the bakeries in my neighborhood, I noticed a tray of peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. My first thought was Yuck!. But then I decided that in the name of PBJ research I had to try one. Guess what? The PBJ cupcake was awesome. The cupcake had little pockets of grape jelly, the cupcake itself was moist and toothsome, and the chunky peanut butter frosting was smooth and rich without being cloyingly sweet.
I asked one of the young women behind the counter if I could look at the two Buttercup Bakery cookbooks behind the counter. Sure enough, the recipe for PBJ cupcakes were in Buttercup Bakes at Home.
What's the difference between jelly and jam? Can you make a peanut butter and jam? Technically that's still PB&J, right? And what are preserves? Marmalades? And conserves? These days, when it's easy to just pick up a jar of Smucker's at the supermarket, why should we bother to try to make sense of these terms? Well, because it's National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day! And because homemade jams and jellies are easy to make and delicious to eat.
When 
The Los Angeles Times tells you 
One of the many things I like about Taming the Flame is that Elizabeth Karmel provides us with lots of easy-to-prepare grilled vegetable dishes. Here's her ingenious take on Fire-Roasted Succotash. Karmel says, "If you are phobic about lima beans, substitute edamame (fresh soybeans) for a new-age succotash."
some fancy-pants chefs love iceberg lettuce, too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love iceberg lettuce. It's cool, it's crisp, and it's a perfect foil for blue cheese dressing.
Rasa Malaysia confesses a weakness for 
series. Or if you were like me and needed as much help as you could get in Statistics class, his 
What's the difference between jelly and jam? Can you make a peanut butter and jam? Technically that's still PB&J, right? And what are preserves? Marmalades? And conserves? These days, when it's easy to just pick up a jar of Smucker's at the supermarket, why should we bother to try to make sense of these terms? Well, because it's