Serves 10 to 12

Instead of drumsticks and thighs, you may use 2 whole leg quarters, 1½ to 2 pounds each. The recipe will also work with turkey breast alone; in step 1, reduce the salt and sugar to ½ cup each and the water to 4 quarts. If you are braising kosher or self-basting turkey parts, skip the brining step and instead season the turkey parts with 1½ teaspoons of salt.

Pairs with:
Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling
Riesling is complimentary to the herb, vegetable, and mushroom flavors.

Serves 6 to 8 as an entree and 8 to 10 as a side dish

Serve this recipe as a side dish or as a main course with a simple green salad. It is important to use lean—not fatty—salt pork. If you can’t find it, substitute six slices of bacon. If using bacon, decrease the cooking time in step 4 to eight minutes. For a vegetarian version of this recipe, use water instead of chicken broth, omit the salt pork, add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste with the vegetables in step 4, and increase the amount of salt in step 5 to 1½ teaspoons.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Beans and rice is a familiar combination the world over, but Cuban black beans and rice is unique in that the rice is cooked in the inky concentrated liquid left over from cooking the beans, which renders the grains just as flavorful. For our own superlative version, we reserved a portion of the sofrito (the traditional combination of garlic, bell pepper, and onion) and simmered it with our beans to infuse them with flavor. Instead of just draining off and throwing away the flavorful bean cooking liquid, we used it again to cook our rice and beans together. Lightly browning the remaining sofrito vegetables and spices with rendered salt pork added complex, meaty flavor, and baking the dish in the oven eliminated the crusty bottom that can form when the dish is cooked on the stove.

Serves 4
This recipe calls for a vertical poultry roaster. If you don’t have one, substitute a 12-ounce can of beer. Open the beer and pour out (or drink) about half of the liquid. Spray the can lightly with nonstick cooking spray and proceed with the recipe. If the top of the chicken is becoming too dark during roasting in step 3, place a 7-inch-square piece of foil over the neck and wingtips. If habanero chiles are unavailable, 1 tablespoon of minced serrano chile can be substituted. Wear gloves when working with hot chiles.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Authentic versions of Peruvian garlic-lime chicken require a wood-fired oven and hard-to-find ingredients. We wanted to replicate this robustly flavored dish using an oven and supermarket staples. A paste of salt, garlic, oil, lime zest, and cumin rubbed underneath and on top of the skin produced well-seasoned meat and a heady flavor. To this basic paste we added fresh mint (replacing the black mint paste called for in authentic recipes), oregano, pepper, and minced habanero chile for tangy spice, while a little smoked paprika subtly mimicked the smokiness we were missing from the rotisserie. Roasting the chicken vertically allowed it to cook evenly, while using two different oven temperatures helped us achieve both moist meat and well-browned skin.

MAKES TWO 13-INCH PIZZAS

Our preferred brand of whole-milk mozzarella is Dragone. You can shape the second dough ball while the first pizza bakes, but don’t top the pizza until right before you bake it. If you don’t have a baking stone, bake the pizzas on an overturned and preheated rimmed baking sheet. It is important to use ice water in the dough to prevent overheating the dough while in the food processor. Semolina flour is ideal for dusting the peel; use it in place of bread flour if you have it. The sauce will yield more than needed in the recipe; extra sauce can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen for up to a month.

Serves 4
We prefer natural to enhanced pork (pork that has been injected with a salt solution to increase moistness and flavor) for this recipe. Don’t let the chops drain on the paper towels for longer than 30 seconds, or the heat will steam the crust and make it soggy. You can substitute ¾ cup of store-bought cornflake crumbs for the whole cornflakes. If using crumbs, omit the processing step and mix the crumbs with the cornstarch, salt, and pepper.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
A breaded coating can be just the thing to give lean, bland pork chops a flavor boost—but not when it turns gummy and flakes off the meat. Using boneless chops was fast and easy. Cornstarch formed an ultra-crisp sheath. Buttermilk brought a lighter texture and tangy flavor to the breading, and minced garlic and mustard perked up the breading’s flavor. Crushed cornflakes added a craggy texture to the pork chops, especially once we added cornstarch to them before dredging the meat. Finally, to ensure our breading adhered to the chops, we gave the meat a short rest and we lightly scored the pork chops before adding them to the pan.

Serves 4
This recipe is best with almonds, but works well with any type of nut. If your chicken breasts have the tenderloin attached, remove it and save it for another use.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Adding chopped nuts to a coating is a great way to add robust flavor to otherwise lean and mild boneless, skinless chicken breasts. But nut coatings are often dense and leaden, and the rich flavor of the nuts rarely comes through. Using a combination of chopped almonds and panko bread crumbs—rather than all nuts—kept the coating light and crunchy, and the bread crumbs helped the coating adhere. Instead of frying the breaded chicken breasts, we found that baking them in the oven was not only easier, but also helped the meat stay juicy and ensured an even golden crust. But it wasn’t until we cooked the coating in browned butter prior to breading the chicken that we finally achieved the deep nutty flavor we sought.

Pairs with:
Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Chardonnay
Chardonnay matches up to the rich crust, and will highlight the lemon and herbs perfectly.

Serves 4

Sirloin steak tips are also sold as flap meat. When stirring the butter and pepper into the ground meat and shaping the patties, take care not to overwork the meat or the burgers will become dense.

Serves 6 to 8

A 4-pound chuck-eye roast, well trimmed of fat, can be substituted for the steak. Because much of the chili flavor is held in the fat of this dish, refrain from skimming fat from the surface. Wear gloves when working with both dried and fresh chiles. Dried New Mexican or guajillo chiles make a good substitute for the anchos; each dried árbol may be substituted with 1/8 teaspoon cayenne. If you prefer not to work with any whole dried chiles, the anchos and árbols can be replaced with 1/2 cup commercial chili powder and 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, though the texture of the chili will be slightly compromised. Good choices for condiments include diced avocado, chopped red onion, chopped cilantro leaves, lime wedges, sour cream, and shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese. The chili can be made up to 3 days in advance.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Our goal in creating an ultimate beef chili was to determine which of the “secret ingredients” recommended by chili experts around the world were spot-on—and which were expendable. We started with the beef—most recipes call for ground beef, but we preferred meaty blade steaks, which don’t require much trimming and stayed in big chunks in our finished chili. For complex chile flavor, we traded in the commercial chile powder in favor of ground dried ancho and de árbol chiles; for a grassy heat, we added fresh jalapeños. Dried beans, brined before cooking, stayed creamy for the duration of cooking. Beer and chicken broth outperformed red wine, coffee, and beef broth as the liquid component. To balance the sweetness of our pot, light molasses beat out other offbeat ingredients (including prunes and Coca-Cola). For the right level of thickness, flour and peanut butter didn’t perform as promised; instead, a small amount of ordinary cornmeal sealed the deal, providing just the right consistency in our ultimate beef chili.

Serves 4

Crêpes will give off steam as they cook, but if at any point the skillet begins to smoke, remove it from the heat immediately and turn down the heat. Stacking the crêpes on a wire rack allows excess steam to escape so they won’t stick together. To allow for practice, the recipe yields 10 crêpes; only eight are needed for the filling.

MAKES 22 CROISSANTS
Twelve croissants are baked first; the remaining 10 can be frozen. The croissants take at least 10 hours to make from start to finish, but the process can be spread over two days. We strongly encourage using high-protein all-purpose flour, such as King Arthur, and European-style butter (we like Plugrá). If the dough retracts or softens at any point, fold it into thirds, wrap it in plastic, and freeze it for 15 minutes. Do not make these in a room that is warmer than 80 degrees.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
The layered structure that characterizes croissants is formed through a process called lamination: A relatively lean yeasted dough is wrapped around a block of butter, and then the package is rolled out and folded repeatedly to form paper-thin layers of dough separated by even thinner layers of butter. Due to increasing gluten formation, the dough becomes more difficult to roll with every turn, so we were relieved to find that three turns was sufficient to yield a light pastry made up of hundreds of delicate layers. High-protein all-purpose flour struck the right gluten balance: enough to support all that butter but not so much that we struggled with the dough. Using the right butter was important, too. The higher water content of conventional butter caused it to break up in the dough, which meant that the dough layers stuck together, resulting in less lift. Using higher-fat European butter worked much better and was worth the extra expense. Lastly, giving the dough and butter packet a couple of intense 30-minute chills in the freezer brought the two components to a more comparable consistency, making it easier to maintain distinct layers.

http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/bake-it-better/2013/03/secrets-to-making-croissants-2/