SERVES 4

Serve the salad with the crisp inner leaves of romaine lettuce and wedges of pita bread.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
To keep our tabbouleh from becoming too soggy, we salted the tomatoes to rid them of their excess moisture. But to make sure that our tabbouleh recipe still guaranteed the fresh flavor we wanted, we soaked the bulgur wheat in some of the tomato liquid and lemon juice instead of in the flavor-robbing water found in most tabbouleh recipes.

Serves 4 to 6

If the carrots have very narrow tips, trim the thin ends; they scorch easily.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Roasting is one of the best approaches to maximize the sweet, earthy flavor of carrots. The high heat caramelizes the carrots’ sugars and browns the exteriors, ideally leaving the interiors tender and moist. For the best approach to roasting carrots, we cooked the carrots hot and fast. The intense heat promoted rapid caramelization, which, in turn, kept the interiors moist.

Serves 4 to 6

If the carrots have very narrow tips, trim the thin ends; they scorch easily.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Roasting is one of the best approaches to maximize the sweet, earthy flavor of carrots. The high heat caramelizes the carrots’ sugars and browns the exteriors, ideally leaving the interiors tender and moist. For the best approach to roasting carrots, we cooked the carrots hot and fast. The intense heat promoted rapid caramelization, which, in turn, kept the interiors moist.

Serves 4 to 6

If the carrots have very narrow tips, trim the thin ends; they scorch easily.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Roasting is one of the best approaches to maximize the sweet, earthy flavor of carrots. The high heat caramelizes the carrots’ sugars and browns the exteriors, ideally leaving the interiors tender and moist. For the best approach to roasting carrots, we cooked the carrots hot and fast. The intense heat promoted rapid caramelization, which, in turn, kept the interiors moist.

Rich and buttery, with the optimal crumbly, evenly browned texture.

Makes 16 wedges

Do not substitute granulated sugar for the confectioners’ sugar in the dough or the cookies will be tough; granulated sugar, however, is the best choice for sprinkling on the shortbread just before it goes into the oven. Although baking the shortbread on a double layer of parchment isn’t necessary, we found it helps absorb some of the grease the dough gives off during baking and cooling.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS: Our approachable shortbread recipe relies on two ingredients—confectioners’ sugar and lots of butter—to give us the ultimate version of the sandy, sweet, buttery cookie. The small grains of the confectioners’ sugar melt easily into the dough, resulting in a finer texture than those recipes made with granulated sugar.

http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/bake-it-better/2012/12/secrets-to-shortbread-cookies/

Serves 6

Sweet onions, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla, will make this recipe overly sweet. Be patient when caramelizing the onions in step 2; the entire process takes 45 to 60 minutes. Use broiler-safe crocks and keep the rim of the bowls 4 to 5 inches from the heating element to obtain a proper gratinée of melted, bubbly cheese. If using ordinary soup bowls, sprinkle the toasted bread slices with Gruyère and return them to the broiler until the cheese melts, then float them on top of the soup. We prefer Swanson Certified Organic Free Range Chicken Broth and Pacific Beef Broth. For the best flavor, make the soup a day or 2 in advance. Alternatively, the onions can be prepared through step 1, cooled in the pot, and refrigerated for up to 3 days before proceeding with the recipe.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
With too many onion soups, digging through a layer of congealed cheese unearths a disappointing broth that just doesn’t taste like onions. The ideal French onion soup combines a satisfying broth redolent of sweet caramelized onions with a slice of toasted baguette and melted cheese. We wanted a foolproof method for achieving extraordinarily deep flavor from the humble onion—the star of this classic soup.

The secret to a rich broth was to caramelize the onions fully. The good news is that caramelizing the onions, deglazing the pot, and then repeating this process dozens of times will keep ratcheting up the flavor. The bad news is what a laborious, hands-on process this proved to be. Fortunately, we found that if we first cooked the onions covered in a hot oven for two and a half hours, we only needed to deglaze the onions on the stovetop three or four times. Just one type of onion (yellow) was sufficient, but a combination of three different liquids (water, chicken broth, and beef broth) added maximum flavor. For the topping, we toasted the bread before floating it on the soup to ward off sogginess and added only a modest sprinkling of nutty Gruyère so the broth wasn’t overpowered.

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies

Nutella is a chocolate-hazelnut spread that can be found near the peanut butter in most grocery stores; you will need one 13-ounce jar for this recipe. These cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Instant espresso powder in this recipe for Hazelnut Chewies deepened the chocolate flavor without calling attention to itself. We used the creaming method to mix the dough—beating the fats and sugar together until light and fluffy before adding the liquid ingredients, and finally, the dry ingredients. Creaming ensured the best spread and rise. When we used cold butter, it didn’t mix nearly as well with the sugar as softened butter and, consequently, the cookies turned out flat.

Serves 4 to 6
Look for salt pork that is roughly 70 percent fat and 30 percent lean meat; leaner salt pork may not render enough fat. If it is difficult to slice, put the salt pork in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up. Use high-quality imported Pecorino Romano—not the bland domestic cheese labeled “Romano.”

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
To create an authentic-tasting version of Pasta All’Amatriciana we needed an alternative to hard-to-find guanciale, or cured pork jowl. Humble salt pork, though an unlikely solution, provided the rich, clean meatiness we were after. To ensure tender bites of pork throughout, we first simmered it in water to gently cook it and render fat, a step that allowed the meat to quickly turn golden once the water evaporated. Finally, to ensure the grated Pecorino Romano didn’t clump in the hot sauce, we first mixed it with a little cooled rendered pork fat. Now the flavor of pork, tomato, chili flake, and Pecorino shine through in each bite.

Makes 80 1½-inch cookies
For the best results, use fresh spices. For efficiency, form the second batch of cookies while the first batch bakes. And no, the 2 teaspoons of baking soda is not a mistake; it’s essential to getting the right texture.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
We wanted to put the “snap” back in Gingersnap cookies. This meant creating a cookie that not only breaks cleanly in half and crunches satisfyingly with every bite but also has an assertive ginger flavor and heat. The key to texture was reducing the moisture in the final baked cookie. We achieved this by reducing the amount of sugar (which holds on to moisture), increasing the baking soda (which created cracks in the dough where more moisture could escape), and lowering the oven temperature (which increased the baking time.) For flavor we doubled the normal amount of dried ginger but also added fresh ginger, black pepper, and cayenne to ensure our cookie had real “snap.”

Serves 4
Light coconut milk can be substituted for regular coconut milk. Serve this dish over rice.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Adobo is the national dish of the Philippines, and chicken adobo is among the most popular. The dish consists of chicken simmered in a mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves, and black pepper. The problem with most recipes we found was that they were aggressively tart and salty. Our secret to taming both of these elements was coconut milk. The coconut milk’s richness tempered the bracing acidity of the vinegar and masked the briny soy sauce, bringing the sauce into balance.