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J. Kenji López-Alt

J. Kenji López-Alt

Chief Creative Officer

I'm the the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where I like to explore the science of home cooking in my weekly column The Food Lab. My responsibilities include managing the recipe development, tasting, testing, and Video production departments, as well as new creative projects and collaborations. If it's about home cooking on Serious Eats, that's my department. Feel free to contact me any time with questions, comments, or concerns at kenji@seriouseats.com.

I did the recipes for the Serious Eats book, and I'm also the author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, to be released by W. W. Norton in two volumes in 2013.

I live in Harlem with my wife, and my two dogs, Jamón (A.K.A. Hambone, Serious Eats' Chief Financial Officer and Official Mascot), and Yuba (Hambone Understudy and Supreme Overlord-in-training).

  • Website
  • Location: Harlem, NY
  • Favorite foods: Asparagus. Ramps. Freshly made tofu. A great burger. Well-cured pork in small amounts.
  • Last bite on earth: Mapo dofu. Ramps.

Hangover Helper: House Made Merguez, Scrambled Eggs, Roasted Mushrooms, and Potato Cakes From Chez Lucienne in Harlem

Hangover Helper: House Made Merguez, Scrambled Eggs, Roasted Mushrooms, and Potato Cakes From Chez Lucienne in Harlem

I've written about Chez Lucienne in the past. They serve an excellent burger—the best in the neighborhood—and have been serving good food at a decent price with outdoor seating long before the more recent gentrification of the blocks around 125th and Lenox. Warm lazy Saturdays and Sundays are the finest time to go, when the quality of the brunch offerings are matched only by the quality of the people-watching on what I believe to be one of the most interesting intersections in the city. More

The Ultimate Memorial Day Recipe Guide

The Ultimate Memorial Day Recipe Guide

We've spent the last week putting together a series of recipe guides to help you out by the grill this weekend. Here they are, all in one place. You'll find chicken, steak, sausages (homemade and storebought), hot dogs, pork, barbecue, vegetables, and drinks, make-ahead desserts, and all manner of finger foods. All you need to provide the grill, some will, and a lawn chair with a cupholder and coozy for Uncle Jesse. More

26 Grilled Snacks, Appetizers, and Side Dishes For Your Memorial Day Grill

26 Grilled Snacks, Appetizers, and Side Dishes For Your Memorial Day Grill View Slideshow

So not everyone can be in charge of the main course. That's ok, because today we salute you, Mr. Relegated To Snack And Sides Duty On Memorial Day Weekend Man. Here are 26 recipes for snacks, appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, and side dishes so good that the family will be swarming around your little Smoky Joe instead of taking up their usual positions next to Uncle Jesse's burger station. Show'em what you got. More

The Best Inexpensive Steak For The Grill Part 4: Flap Meat (Sirloin Tip)

The Best Inexpensive Steak For The Grill Part 4: Flap Meat (Sirloin Tip) Get Recipe

I first knew flank steak by its local New England name of sirloin tip. Go to any old school dive or tavern with a menu, and you're bound to run into them, cut into cubes, stuck on a skewer, and grilled over an open coal fire, just like they do at Santarpio's over in East Boston. When grilled right, they're tender, juicy, take on marinades extremely well, and have a robust beefy flavor that a lot of other cuts-for-kebabs lack. That and they're cheap. More

Latin American Cuisine: Brazilian-style Peel And Eat Shrimp with Fried Garlic (Camarão a Alho)

Latin American Cuisine: Brazilian-style Peel And Eat Shrimp with Fried Garlic (Camarão a Alho) Get Recipe

I wanted to eat everything in Brazil. My wife was happy with just the beach and an endless pile of camarão a alho, the Brazilian version of garlic shrimp. We'd step into a shack-like restaurant, and before the first caipirinhas even landed on the table, we'd be faced with a pile of the diminutive ruby-red, briny, thin-shelled gems, complete with head and legs, glistening in olive oil and fried garlic. Here's how to make them at home. More

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

We tested the KettlePizza insert back in 2010 when it first came out and were not extremely impressed with the results. Since that early look, the inventor, Al Contarino has jumped into the conversation to let us know that he's come up with a new and improved model that should address many of the problems we had with the old one. We were all too happy to give the new model another shot. Here's how it went down. More

New York's Artichoke Basille Pizza: Why The Controversy?

New York's Artichoke Basille Pizza: Why The Controversy?

At Slice we're not ones to throw around judgement without due diligence and back up, so In the interest of TRUTH (and a opinion), I decided to revisit Artichoke to re-assess their entire pizza menu, top to bottom. In the interest of thoroughness, I visited multiple times—at 11AM when the first round pies are coming straight out of the oven, at noon when the first square pies emerge, and again in the mid-afternoon when a re-heat is necessary on your slices. More

Meet the Ribeye Cap, the Tastiest Cut on the Cow

Meet the Ribeye Cap, the Tastiest Cut on the Cow

Ribeye cap, light of my life when there's fire in my grill. My steak, my soul. Rib-eye-cap. It's deckle, plain deckle, in the kitchen, sitting one foot four when trimmed. It's calotte in France. It's Butcher's Butter in the shop. It's spinalis dorsi in the anatomist's manual. But in my tongs, it is always ribeye cap. More

Taste Test: Bottled Ranch Dressing

Taste Test: Bottled Ranch Dressing Get Recipe

I'll be honest: I didn't grow up eating ranch dressing outside of the occasional bag of Cool Ranch Doritos (this was back before they were "Cooler"), and I've personally never developed much of a taste for it. That said, there's a reason why it's the number one selling flavor of bottled dressing in America. Creamy, fatty, and tangy, it coats even the dullest-tasting leaf of iceberg lettuce or the most underdeveloped pizza crust with a salty, herbal tang. Instant flavor, just shake, squeeze, eat, and repeat. So which bottled dressing is the best? More

From The Mailbag: Thanks Miss Ellie, Love Hambone

From The Mailbag: Thanks Miss Ellie, Love Hambone

We opened up the Serious Eats Mailbag this monday to find a package addressed to Official Serious Eats Mascot and Chief Financial Officer Hambone (a.k.a. Jamón). Inside the box was the most darling pizza-shaped dog toy, complete with squeaker in the crust. The toy came to us from long time Slic'er dhorst's dog Miss Ellie, whose friend Tammy Johnson seems to be a master at creating cute things out of cloth over at Fessenden Hill Creations. More

The Food Lab: How to Grill a Steak, a Complete Guide

The Food Lab: How to Grill a Steak, a Complete Guide Get Recipe

Summer's here, so now seems like as good a time as any to re-examine some of the things we know (or think we know) about grilling beef. Sure, we can all agree on what our end goal is. The real debate is, what's the best way to get there? You've just dropped $50 on some prime aged beef, and you're rightfully nervous about screwing it all up. After all, there's a lot... ahem, wait for it... at steak. More

Hangover Helper: House Made Merguez, Scrambled Eggs, Roasted Mushrooms, and Potato Cakes From Chez Lucienne in Harlem

@ronnieshapley

Actually i live 7 blocks away on 132 and Lenox. I live there because my wife and I wanted a neighborhood where you can re ally get to know the neighbors and the people who visit the neighborhood. It's one of the friendliest, most neighborly areas of manhattan i've been in. If you want to come up, i'd be happy to buy you a drink and show you around. I'm sure i could change your mind!

Where should I go for graduation lunch?

Uh, that's Del Posto. Though that's one of the better autocorrects I've seen.

Where should I go for graduation lunch?

And what price range?

If you want to feel really special, the lunch prix fixe at Del Postoperative is $39, and you'll be treated to several extra courses in a very fancy setting. One of the best deals in town. I really like the lunch menu at Maialino too. Both places have great service, though not on the East Side, unfortunately.

Best cameras for taking food photos at restaurants

Flashes are generally a no no as it distracts other guests. On camera flashes also make food look flat and unappetizing. You're best off with a compact digital camera with a macro mode and fast shutter speed. Either that or a digital SLR with a fast lens (f/2.5 or fast is good) that can do macro and/or has a stabilizer. The office camera is a canon 60D with a Tamron lens. I personally use a canon5D mark II with a 28-105 lens or a 50mm macro lens.

Los Cuatro Milpas

Love the place! It made our list of best tacos inn the country (http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/03/taco-march-madness-the-best-tacos-west-coast-california-oregon-washington.html), but you're right-- it deserves a post of it's own. We'll have to go back with cameras!

Please Change The Fonts

We're in the process of updating the fonts again in response to user feedback. You'll see the new ones hopefully next week!

The Best Inexpensive Steak For The Grill Part 5: Tri-Tip

@Burger365

Save me a seat at the table, I'm booking a flight right now...

The Best Inexpensive Steak For The Grill Part 5: Tri-Tip

@arbeck

yep, that's basically the recipe I linked to above - low and slow with optional wood, finish on a sear. It's different from traditional barbecue, however, as even though it's "low and slow," it's still a fast cooking method, as there is no gelatinization or breakdown of connective tissue involved (you never reach temperatures or times high enough for that). All you're doing is slowly taking a piece of meat to medium rare, which is the best way to take it there!

@alex ray

That's the exact technique I use in the recipe linked to above. Great minds think alike :)

20 Grilled Pork Recipes For Your Memorial Day Grill

@doomsdaye

There are many types of slaw in this world! That one is made with apple cider vinegar and chili. In fact, looking at that photo, I don't think the slaw and sauce are the ones in the recipe. The pulled pork is the same, but I think it's one of the other sauce and slaw recipes out of the Serious Eats book.

@esjay

Ah, but the difference is:

a) we give you links to the recipe instead of having to click through a 20 page slideshow to get to the last slide. You don't even need to use the slideshow if you don't want to - it's there for people who want to look at the pretty pictures, not just as a cheap grab at pageviews at the users' expense. Not that Huff Po does that... right? ;)

b) we test and write the recipes ourselves. We take great pride in the quality of recipes we produce on the site!

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@rps

There are already built-in holders for a top grill! It seems like it would make a perfect position for a second stone.

My assumption that it should be used to emulate a WFO for neapolitan pizza might have been a false one, but it seemed to make sense, because that's the only real style of pizza I can think of that requires a wood fire and temperatures that high. Perhaps NY or NH coal-oven style.

Come to think of it, I bet this could be used to make a Best Pizza-style NY-wood-fired hybrid. That might be my next try, since it doesn't require the crazy fast cook time of a neapolitan.

Drinking the Bottom Shelf: Rebel Yell Bourbon

@Will

I see your plan. Convert your friend's gazebo into a toaster store in september to pay off the wedding. Right?

"Toaster City. We Sell Toasters, And That's All"

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@Al

Thanks so much for being as gracious as always. I've been hearing enough good stories from people that I'm planning on running a few more serious tests, some with suggested hacks, some with more of your own suggestions. I'm also planning on visiting with a couple people who've said they've had good results to see what they've come up with.

You've been such a great sport through this whole testing process. A great example to how good public relations should work!

Best,
Kenji

Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Kale Salad with Parmesan and Lemon

@ChickenDumpling

@curlykel is right. It's because grated cheese is very fluffy/voluminous from a microplane. It's really more of a to-taste thing anyway. Like lots of cheese? go for it!

Latin American Cuisine: Brazilian-style Peel And Eat Shrimp with Fried Garlic (Camarão a Alho)

@CptBuck

yep, eat'em veins and all! I actually do what angrywayne does and just eat the shells as well. But you don't have to. With small shrimp, the veins are really unnoticeable.

Recipe link should be working, btw.

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@beazzaiola

I'll give it another shot using that method you outlined. As the thermometer on the unit indicated, the air temp was getting up well above 800°F, but it was still taking my pies too long to cook. I was using the method as outlined by the inventor exactly as he said to, which I think is a reasonable standard by which to judge a product—use it as the instructions as you to. By those standards, it fell short.

In our first testing a couple years ago, we also indicated that there are ways to hack it to make it work better (I used 3 1/2 chimneys of coal to get it hot enough to produce some decent pies). Even then, the pies weren't standout.

Meredith showed me the photos on Twitter. That's a good looking pizza, though the top still looks less cooked than the bottom does, which is the problem I was having.

I'd love to see what you can work out once you get your grill set up again. Or I'll be in Boston a few times over the summer. Maybe we can make some pizza together and you can show me your technique. Would love to see it.

@jasonmolinari

That sounds great. I've seen good pies produced on a LBE setup. The holy grail is still an out-of-the-box setup that really works to produce WFO-quality pies. I haven't seen that anywhere yet.

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@scott123

That pie does look decent from the top. A couple things though:

  • he uses a massive log of wood. Much bigger than the instructions reccomend. Perhaps that's key.
  • The pie takes a little over 3 minutes to bake. Better than the almost 7 minute took, though still not quite neapolitan-fast. I can get faster in my broiler (and much faster straight on the grill)
  • He temps the stone at over 800°F and the pizza sits there for 3 minutes. I can't believe that the bottom is anything except burnt to a deep dark crisp, which you can sort of see from the edge shots (notice he never shows us the bottom). My guess is that with a super-heated stone/grill, you can cook a pizza fast, but you still don't get the right distribution of heat (that is, plenty of heat coming from the bottom and top. This is pure speculation, but I'd guess the pie took 3 minutes because of the problems I mentioned earlier (thin dome), and that in that time, the top looked great by the end, but the bottom was overdone.
I'm still not convinced you can make decent pizza in this thing, though I'm not completely dismissing it either. Maybe there are some tricks you can use. At some point you have to wonder if it's worth it though. Why not just use a cheaper hack set up if you have to hack this thing anyway? I'm not paying $140 (more than the cost of my grill) to buy something that I then have to futz around with to get it to work anyway. That doesn't make sense to me.

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@jiminholland

Not a first try, third try, makinbetween three nd a half dozen pies each time. I also haven't seen any photos or video of people using this and producing what looks to me like good pizz, including on the manufacturers website. that's not to say nobody's done it, just that I haven't seen any good evidence.

@andrew absolutely. I'm thinking just remove lid, cover whole top with a large stone.

25 Sausage and Hot Dog Recipes For Your Memorial Day Grill

@Gawker

thanks, all fixed!

The Best Inexpensive Steak for the Grill, Part 3: Short Ribs

@supercres

You mean to slow cook like brisket? Aboslutely! Check out this awesome recipe from Josh Bousel for Five Spice Short Ribs.

The Pizza Lab: We Test The New and Improved KettlePizza Grill Insert

@Texas blues

Wait, so the analogy would be that a lot of pizza making gadgets aren't made to cook pizzas, but to cook pizza men?!

Infographic: 'The New (Ab)Normal,' Today's Portion Sizes Compared to 1950s'

This chart is a little deceptive, I believe. Since when is a 12 ounce burger normal?

That said, to the people who think 3.9 ounces is small, it's not really, considering that today a McDonald's hamburger patty is 1.6 ounces. With bun and everything, I'd wager it's on the order of 3.9 ounces. So the early figure makes sense, considering McDonald's didn't even start offering bigger burgers until 1967 when the Big Mac was introduced.

Photo of the Day: The Impossible

@John

stop by the office any time! Just let me know when and I'll make sure Yuba's here.

Photo of the Day: The Impossible

@John

Hambone's actually a shar pei/pug mix (known as an ori-pei). They've been bred since around the 70's. He's from a breeder in Missouri, which is, sadly, the puppy mill capitol of the world, but he comes from a reputable breeder. Ori-peis aren't too common, but they are an attempt to solve some of the health problems of shar peis (they can breather more easily, have less wrinkly skin, etc). He's also smaller than a full shar pei (he's 41 pounds. Shar peis get up to 75 or 100).

Yuba is a rescue. She was the mother dog in an Amish-run puppy mill in Pennsylvania. She was given up because her birthing rate was going down. She basically spent her entire life up until a couple months ago in a box and has had a few health problems related to that (bad legs, splayed toes, a cloudy eye from an untreated wound, really bad teeth, fear of everything), but luckily she's getting over all of them, building up her weight, and has become much more social than she was when we first adopted her!

Photo of the Day: The Impossible

@John Wozniak

Who you calling a frou-frou purebred? Hambone is a mix!

Bottom Shelf Beer: Kingfisher, Taj Mahal, and Flying Horse

@Will

regarding the non-alcoholism: Isn't Inda the #1 market in the world for Johnny Walker? I might be totally making that up. Then again, it might just be that there are so many Indians that the relatively few who drink the whiskey are still more than the many who drink it elsewhere.

Video: Serious Eats Cooks Peking Duck At Buddakan

Video: Serious Eats Cooks Peking Duck At Buddakan View Video

Ever made a traditional Peking duck? Turns out it's a pretty involved process, requiring not only multiple steps but multiple days, cooking apparatuses, and spices. The end result: an incredibly crispy, juicy bird that's seriously delicious. Come along with Serious Eats's own Carey Jones as she learns how to make Peking Duck. Chef Brian Ray of Buddakan gives us the grand tour. More

60+ Holiday Snacks in 20 Minutes Or Less

60+ Holiday Snacks in 20 Minutes Or Less

Uh oh. The buzzer rings. Friends are coming over to spread holiday cheer and you panic. Serve frozen dumplings...again?! You can do better than that. Print out this list of easy-to-assemble, stress-free, mostly-sub-20-minutes-to-prepare munchies and paste it to the fridge. Here are 60+ dips, hors d'oeuvres, small bites, toasty snacks, sweet nibbles, appetizers, and more festive munchies to prepare in a snap. More

30 Cookie Recipes from the 2011 Serious Eats Cookie Swap

30 Cookie Recipes from the 2011 Serious Eats Cookie Swap View Slideshow

The Serious Eats Cookie Swap has become an annual tradition. We break out the Duane Reade tinsel and twinkle lights, and are forced to do a major office detox to make room for cookies. Many, many cookies. (OK, maybe a dozen doughnuts snuck in this year too). It was our third year swapping, and as per tradition, the tables were covered with butter-laden treats. Our NYC-based contributors really pulled out their ninja baking skills. Get all the recipes here. More

Serious Eats' Bacon Banh Mi

Serious Eats' Bacon Banh Mi

Our recipe for Bacon Banh Mi brings our favorite Vietnamese sandwich home, swapping out the usual array of cold cuts and charcuterie for bacon but staying true to the other elements that make this sandwich so balanced and irresistible. More

My All-Pie Thanksgiving Fantasy

My All-Pie Thanksgiving Fantasy

When you think about Thanksgiving and you think about various elements of the Thanksgiving meal, it seems like you're just waiting through the big meal to get to the pie. I really believe this, which is why I always fantasized about an all-pie Thanksgiving. (Anyone with me on this?) At an editorial meeting about a month ago, we were at the office talking about Thanksgiving coverage and I shared this fantasy with the team. Knowing how much I adore and obsess over pie, the Serious Eats editors weren't too shocked, so we did the only thing we know how to do: make it happen. More

BraveTart: Make Your Own 3 Musketeers

BraveTart: Make Your Own 3 Musketeers Get Recipe

Urban legend has it that some industrial candy snafu botched the names of 3 Musketeers and Milky Way. The tale has a certain logic. 3 Musketeers doesn't have three ingredients but Milky Way does. And the very name Milky Way recalls the smooth, uninterrupted creaminess found in 3 Musketeers. Those kinds of wonky urban legends ran amok in the eighties, but we have the internet now, so let's clear this stuff up. It's not a tasty tabloid tale of "Switched at Birth!" but rather "Murder, She Wrote." More

BraveTart: Make Your Own (Better) Soft Batch Cookies

BraveTart: Make Your Own (Better) Soft Batch Cookies Get Recipe

When you first joined me in my quest to unlock the secrets of culinary time travel, I told you it would take equal parts science and magic to make the foods that could power the flux capacitor of the mind. I said, "leave the DeLorean in the garage, preheat your oven to one point twenty one gigawatts, and rev that Kitchen Aid to eighty eight mph. We're going back to the Eighties." And we did. But while there, what if some careless action altered our timeline? Could we, like Marty McFly, inadvertently create an alternate universe? One where the Keebler Soft Batch Cookie tastes freaking delicious? Friends, this isn't speculation. I have done such a thing. More

Sauced: Memphis-Style Barbecue Sauce

Sauced: Memphis-Style Barbecue Sauce

This "Memphis-style" is my favorite to make at home—it takes the aspects of sweet tomato-based sauces I grew up on, but by dialing back the sugar and amping up the vinegar, creates a sauce where seasonings and spice are more defined and achieves a pleasing balance between the main defining aspects of a barbecue sauce. More

Boston: Fried Ipswich Clams at B&G Oysters

Boston: Fried Ipswich Clams at B&G Oysters

These are the only fancy-restaurant fried clams I think are really worth the cash ($14 half/$26 full). That they start with Ipswich bellies makes all the difference; these juicy, sweet, whole-belly behemoths are harvested from the mud flats off Ipswich, where experts claim that the particularly nutrient-rich soil gives the bivalves their superior, almost nutty flavor. More

Boston: Tamarind Bay's Lalla Musa Dal

Boston: Tamarind Bay's Lalla Musa Dal

As food aesthetics go, the murky, rust-brown, pebbly lalla musa dal at Tamarind Bay Coastal Kitchen can't compare to the restaurant's other specialties like the fennel cream-sauced cauliflower dumplings or the spiced lobster tail. But famed Indian chefs like Julie Sahni don't consider this dish "the most exquisite of all dal preparations" for nothing, and speaking in terms of decadence, it outclasses the rest by a long shot. More

Guide to Grilling: Planking

Guide to Grilling: Planking

For all that I've grilled (150-plus recipes and counting), there's always plenty of uncharted territory. One of those areas: planking. There aren't usually many planking recipes in cookbooks, save the ubiquitous planked salmon. Put simply, planking is cooking food directly on a piece of hardwood. When cooking this way, the surface of the food touching the wood picks up some of the plank's natural flavors. More

How to Make Bagels at Home

How to Make Bagels at Home View Slideshow Get Recipe

I don't use the word magical lightly, but there really is something wondrous about making bagels at home. Maybe it's the shape. I think most everyone understands a loaf of bread, but the round shape with a hole ... well, it seems like a whole lot more work than simply plopping some dough in a loaf pan. But it's not. Really. Try making just one batch of these, and I'm sure you'll have the process down pat. Put on your sorcerer's robe and follow along! More

The Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu (and Super Secret Menu!) Survival Guide

The Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu (and Super Secret Menu!) Survival Guide View Slideshow

Anybody who's been halfway around the block is aware of In-N-Out's secret menu, which allows you a few custom options other than the regular hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, shakes, and Double-Double that appear on their printed menus. But the options don't stop there. Here's a rundown of everything you can get at In-N-Out, secret menu and beyond. More

Eggs in a Hole + Grilled Cheese = Grilled Cheese Eggsplosion!

Eggs in a Hole + Grilled Cheese = Grilled Cheese Eggsplosion! View Slideshow

Like the infamous Fatty Melt (that's a burger made with two grilled cheese sandwiches as a bun, the brainchild of our own Adam Kuban), the Grilled Cheese Eggsplosion is a hybrid sandwich, combining elements from two or more sources into a single glorious dish. In this case, it's a simple grilled cheese sandwich between two eggs-in-a-hole (or bullseye eggs, eggs-in-a-basket, whatever you want to call it) replacing the plain old bread. More