Chocolate Banana Bread

One of the most loved recipes on the site is our banana bread, and one thing people seem to like to do to change it up is to add chocolate chips to it. That’s sort of a no-brainer, right?
Dear banana bread lovers, putting chocolate chips in your banana bread is like having your bananas and chocolate go on a date. Lovely and sweet, yet still separate and distinct. After a while both want something more—a merging of wills, a commitment!
Well, if chocolate and banana were going to do the deed, this would be the result—a richly chocolate banana bread, infused with cocoa, speckled with chocolate chips, with warm hints of butter, vanilla, and allspice.

Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour
• Yield: Makes one 9x5-inch loaf

Do not use Dutch processed cocoa for this recipe, only natural unsweetened.
Melted coconut oil can be used in place of the butter. The flavor will change a little and you may get a hint of coconut in the result.
There is only 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of baking soda in this recipe for leavening, so make sure your baking soda is still good! (See more info on baking soda and baking powder.)

Ingredients

• 3 large ripe bananas (easily mashable)
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed, light or dark)
• 1 teaspoon salt (1/2 a teaspoon if using salted butter)
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1 5x9-inch loaf pan

Read More: Chocolate Banana Bread

Quinoa con Queso

One of my favorite foods is quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah), a grain-like seed native of South America. It’s a lot like couscous, but nuttier in flavor, and smoother on the tongue. It’s also high in protein and completely gluten-free. You can make a pilaf with it, or use it for stuffing, or just eat it plain. I recently stumbled upon a recipe for quinoa with queso fresco in this book, and then found many other variations online. As I played around and experimented with this recipe I had two revelations. The first is that quinoa tastes great with milk poured over it. The second is quinoa tastes great with cheese (queso).

Who knew?

If you’ve never had quinoa, I urge you to try it. It’s incredibly easy to make. If you like quinoa, but have never had it with milk or cheese, trust me, this is good. Here we are using queso fresco, a Mexican fresh farmers cheese, but you could also use Cotija, feta, or mozzarella. You can keep it simple with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and cheese, or dress it up with zucchini, roasted chiles, or potatoes.

Quinoa con Queso Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 30 minutes
• Yield: Serves 3-4.

If you want, you can add more vegetables up front to this dish, for example, sauté some chopped zucchini along with the onions. And/or serve with new potatoes, either chopped and mixed in (cooked of course), or served alongside.

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
• 2 cups water
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 large fresh tomato, cored, chopped (about 1 1/4 cups)
• 1 roasted, peeled, seeded, and chopped large green chile, either Anaheim or Poblano (optional)*
• 2 teaspoons tomato paste
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano (or 1/2 teaspoon fresh, finely chopped)
• 1/4 pound (4 ounces) fresh farmer's cheese, or queso fresco, cut into small cubes
• 1 cup milk
• Fresh basil, cilantro, or chives for garnish (optional)

*See How to roast chile peppers over a gas flame.

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Rabbit Stew with Mushrooms

I have been bugging Hank Shaw for years for a good rabbit stew recipe and he’s finally delivered. Thanks Hank! ~Elise

Years ago, I asked Michelin-starred Chef Dominique Crenn what dish she was most proud of. She said rabbit with mushrooms, the way her mother made it. I never did get her recipe, but I love rabbit, and love mushrooms, so here is my take on a dish I imagine Chef Crenn might like.

This dish celebrates the onset of cooler weather. The combination of rabbit (you can easily substitute chicken if you are unable to find rabbit) mushrooms, butter, stock and roasted garlic are as wonderful as that first crisp day, when leaves are falling, schools are back in session, and football is on the TV.

Mushrooms come into their own in fall, and I highly recommend you use as many varieties of fresh mushrooms as you can get your hands on. Most supermarkets will have at least a couple kinds, and the more varieties the better.

Dried porcini mushrooms are readily available, and they add a lot to the flavor of this stew, as does their soaking water. You need to strain that water to get out any bits of dirt or grit, but it’s easily done with a paper towel or coffee filter.

Rabbit Stew with Mushrooms Recipe

• Prep time: 45 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
• Yield: Serves 4

Rabbit are often available at specialty markets, fresh or frozen, or can be ordered by your local butcher. If you can find fresh rabbit, have your butcher piece it out for you. Otherwise, see How to Cut Up a Rabbit.

Alternatively, you can simply brown the whole rabbit, and put it into the stew whole. Then remove it later and pick off the meat.

There is an optional step to making this stew taken from classic French cooking (Antonin Careme) that transforms a good dish into a great one. Mash the rabbit or chicken’s liver, mix it with crème fraiche or sour cream, then push it through a fine sieve.

The result is a pink slurry that will thicken and enrich your sauce. If you choose to take this step, do not let your stew boil once the liver-crème fraiche mixture is in it or it will curdle. If you want to go halfway with this final step, mix in a large dollop of crème fraiche or sour cream in at the end.

Ingredients

• 1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 heads of garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 rabbit
• 3 large shallots, chopped
• 1 cup sherry or white wine
• 1-2 cups mushroom soaking water
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme, or 2 teaspoons dried
• 1 large parsnip, peeled and chopped into large pieces
• Salt
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Read More: Rabbit Stew with Mushrooms

Radicchio Salad with Green Olives, Chickpeas, and Parmesan

This recipe is brought to you in partnership with The California Olive Committee.
Radicchio is such a beautiful vegetable on the table, but those vibrant purple leaves are so bitter that it can be tricky to figure out how to work them into a recipe.
Here’s one idea: a light, but satisfying salad full of buttery California green ripe olives, nutty chickpeas, salty Parmesan cheese, and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.
All these flavors and textures balance the radicchio, making a colorful, elegant – and quick! – seasonal salad for your dinner table.

Radicchio is a member of the chicory family along with endive, escarole, and puntarelle. It looks similar to a small head of purple cabbage and can range from fist-sized to soft-ball-sized. Look for it near the cabbages and leafy greens at the grocery store.
Buy heads of radicchio that feel very firm and tight when gently squeezed and that feel heavy for their size. Avoid heads that look like they’ve been battered about or that feel soft or wilted — this is a sign that the radicchio is old or has been poorly handled during transit.
Back home, store your radicchio in the crisper drawer. Individual heads will keep well for several weeks.

The California green ripe olives are a key player in this salad. Not only do they look oh-so-lovely against the purple of the radicchio, but they add a sweet, buttery flavor that makes a nice counterpoint to the leaves themselves. Plus, they come already pitted, which makes prepping them for this salad a breeze.
Did you know that California produces over 95% of the olives grown in the United States? What’s neat is that California Ripe Olives are not grown on mechanically run, industrial farms. In fact, multi-generation farming families work hard to bring high-quality olives from the grove to your pantry.
When it comes time to grate your Parmesan cheese, use a Microplane grater or the finest holes on your cheese grater. This creates thin, airy strands of cheese that melt into the salad and help flavor every bite.

Radicchio Salad with Green Olives, Chickpeas, and Parmesan Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Resting time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 4 to 6 servings

This recipe works best with finely-grated parmesan cheese, grated on a microplane or on the finest holes of your cheese grater.
If you can't find radicchio, substitute frisee, endive, or another bitter green.
During the summer, try grilling the quartered heads of radicchio before slicing them into pieces for the salad. Grilling brings out sweetness in the radicchio!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 large or 2 small heads radicchio (10 to 12 ounces)
• 1 16-ounce can California green ripe olives, drained, rinsed, and roughly chopped (6 ounces or 1 1/3 cup dry olives)
• 1 16-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper, plus more to taste

Read More: Radicchio Salad with Green Olives, Chickpeas, and Parmesan

Ramp and Parsley Pesto

Please welcome Hank as he shares one of his favorite things to make with wild foraged ramps, ramp and parsley pesto. Outstanding with pasta, though I ate half of this straight with a spoon. So good. ~Elise

Ramps arrive in the East Coast well before good basil can be found, so I’ve adapted a classic cool-weather pesto from Liguria, in Northern Italy, that uses walnuts and parsley instead of basil and pine nuts.

Only in this case I am substituting the garlic in that pesto for fresh ramps, which are a kind of wild onion that has a pronounced garlic flavor.

I blanch the greens first to keep them vivid; if you don’t do this, your pesto will oxidize and turn brown in a few hours unless you cover it in olive oil.

If you can’t find ramps, use green garlic. Both are available at farmer’s markets in spring, although ramps are tough to locate west of Minnesota.

Ramp and Parsley Pesto Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Yield: About 1 1/3 cups

Serve this pesto like you would any other: With pasta or in risotto, on crusty bread or as a dollop in soup.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmiggiano-reggiano cheese (you could also use pecorino)
• 1 small bunch parsley
• 1 small bunch ramps or thin green garlic
• Pinch of salt

Read More: Ramp and Parsley Pesto

Berry Tart

Buttery crust, rich creamy filling, and juicy ripe berries—this is what you want in a berry tart, right?

Look no further. This is the tart. As my father says, “don’t change a thing.”

It’s actually much easier to make than it looks!

First the crust. It needs to be firm enough to hold the tart, but not so firm that it is tough and chewy. (Who wants a chewy crust? Yikes!)

The perfect tart crust is similar to a butter pie crust, but with the addition of powdered sugar, and little vanilla, and an egg.

No need to roll it out. You can just press the crumbly dough mixture directly into the pan. Then you pre-bake the crust until golden brown.

Then comes the filling. We are whipping up mascarpone cheese (a slightly acidic Italian cream cheese) with whipping cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a touch of orange zest for sparkle.

(By the way, if you’re in a crust free mood, this filling is so good just put it in a bowl, top it with berries, and add a splash of Amaretto.)

Finally, the berries. I admit my decorating chops aren’t quite Martha level, but whatever. Arrange the berries on top of the mascarpone filled crust and top with some melted jelly to make them glisten. Gorgeous!

Berry Tart Recipe

• Prep time: 40 minutes
• Cook time: 40 minutes
• Crust freezing time: 1 hour
• Yield: Serves 8 to 10

The crust will have more flavor if it is browned, than blond.

Ingredients

Tart Crust

• 1 1/2 cup (200 g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (50 g) powdered sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp (10 Tbsp or 140 g) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 egg, lightly beaten with a fork
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling

• 1 cup (8 oz) mascarpone cheese
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) cold heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (43 g) powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 oz (85 g) raspberries
• 8 oz (225 g) blueberries
• 8 oz (225 g) strawberries - stems removed and halved or quartered
• 4 Tbsp (60 ml) apricot jelly or orange marmalade
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar or lemon juice

• Equipment needed: Food processor, a 10-inch wide, 1-inch high fluted tart pan with a removable bottom

Read More: Berry Tart

Refried Black Beans

So, when it’s finally your turn in line to order at the taqueria, and the nice lady behind the counter asks, “what kind of beans?,” (to go with your burrito, taco, carnitas platter, etc.) and you gaze upon your choices of pinto beans or black beans, refried or whole, what do you say?

For me, it’s always a struggle. Must. Make. Up. My. Mind. They all look so appealing. I was raised on refried pinto beans, which mom still makes at home at least once a week. But black beans? They’re so good! There’s something about them, almost a smoky quality.

And then there’s the “whole” or “refried” question to be answered. If the beans are for a burrito, then naturally I’ll want them refried. They’ll stick to the tortilla better and won’t spill out as I eat the beast. (Burritos around here tend to be on the hefty side.) Actually, usually I’ll want them refried, which by the way, isn’t really “re” fried, but just fried and smashed, with more oil and seasonings, after the beans are first cooked in water.

Here is our recipe for refried black beans, or frijoles negros refritos, a Mexican and Southwestern staple. Consider it a base. You could easily add some jalapeños to it, more chili or chipotle. You can garnish with cilantro, green onions, cotija or queso fresco, or just serve naked. Once made, the beans will last several days in the refrigerator. Use them as a dip, to spread on tortillas for tacos or burritos, or as a side with steak and salsa.

Refried Black Beans Recipe

• Prep time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
• Cook time: 3 hours
• Yield: Serves 6

This recipe gives instructions for making refried beans from scratch, starting with dry beans which must first be cooked. You can also start with a couple cans of whole black beans, in which case, skip the first two steps, rinse and drain the beans and add to the pan with a little water in step 3.

Ingredients

Ingredients for cooking the dry beans:

• 1 lb dry black beans
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 large white onion, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (leaves and tender stems)

Additional ingredients for frying the beans after they've been cooked:

• 1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 large white onion, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Green onion
• Cilantro
• Crumbled cotija or queso fresco cheese
• Tortilla chips or corn tortillas

Read More: Refried Black Beans

Cranberry Relish

One of my favorite things to make for Thanksgiving and the holidays is raw cranberry relish. There’s no cooking involved, just using a grinder or a food processor to grind up and mix together raw cranberries, tart green apples, a large seedless orange, and sugar.

It’s amazing how good it is! Great with roast turkey, or for leftovers on turkey sandwiches.

The sugar balances the natural tartness of the raw cranberries, and helps the mixture macerate, releasing juices that bind everything together. The recipe is as sweet as you want it to be. 2 cups of sugar will yield a very sweet result. 1 cup much less so.

Cranberry Relish Recipe

• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Yield: Makes about 3 cups

You can use either a grinder (an old fashioned one or a KitchenAid attachment) or a food processor to grind up the relish. We prefer using a grinder to a food processor because a grinder does a better job smooshing the cranberries, orange, and apples together while it cuts them up. But either way will work.

Ingredients

• 2 cups rinsed raw cranberries
• 2 skinned and cored tart green apples, cut into thick slices
• 1 large, whole (peel ON) seedless orange, cut into sections
• 1 to 2 cups granulated sugar (depending on how sweet you would like your relish to be)

Read More: Cranberry Relish

Rhubarb Fool

There’s no fool like a rhubarb fool, and now is the time for it. The arrival of rhubarb in the market always cheers me. Spring is here!

This British dessert goes way back — we’re talking about a few hundred years — and it was originally made with custard and pureed fruits, most notably gooseberries.

I’ve lightened it up with whipped cream instead of the custard and swapped the gooseberries for seasonal rhubarb. It’s an easy-peasy dessert for a weeknight dinner or a spring party!

I like to add a little sour cream to the whipped cream in my fools — it gives the dessert some tang and also helps stabilize the cream to keep it from weeping.

Cream always whips better in a chilled bowl, but if you forget to chill it, just swirl some ice cubes and cold water in a metal bowl and then dry thoroughly before whipping the cream.

Too often rhubarb’s bright pink washes out in a profusion of juice and turns a disappointing gingery brown in the cooking process, but I think I finally solved that problem.

To preserve its rosy color, cook the rhubarb very briefly in a wide pan to facilitate evaporation, and immediately transfer it to a bowl to finish cooking off the heat.

Rosewater, available in Middle Eastern and Indian grocery stores and online, adds a romantic touch. But it’s fine to skip it if you don’t have any in your kitchen or have trouble finding it.

Rhubarb Fool Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 8 minutes
• Chilling time: 2 hours

Look for bright magenta-red stalks of rhubarb for this recipe and avoid thin, green ones, which are often more tart.

Shop for rosewater at Middle Eastern and Indian grocery stores, or online.

Ingredients

For the rhubarb sauce:

• 1/2 cup sugar, or more, to taste
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1 pound rhubarb stalks, ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths (to make about 4 cups)
• 1/2 teaspoon rosewater, optional

For the whipped cream:

• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sour cream, stirred

Read More: Rhubarb Fool

Memphis-Style Pork Ribs

Got your grill going? Join Hank for some Memphis ribs! ~Elise

There are wet ribs, sticky with a succulent, spicy barbecue sauce, and there are dry ribs, where the flavor is all in the dried mixture of herbs and spices, melded into something greater than the sum of their parts by time, smoke and pork fat.

This is what they do in Memphis, Tennessee, and it’s why Memphis-style ribs are some of the best in the world.

What goes into a Memphis rib rub is up to you, but most recipes rely on paprika, brown sugar, black pepper, cayenne, garlic and onion powder.

All sorts of other ingredients find their way into everyone’s “secret recipe,” but the most common are cumin, dry mustard, celery salt or celery seed, dried oregano or rosemary, chili powder, ginger, allspice or even white pepper.

Serious pit masters spend years perfecting the exact ratio of spices for their own personal styles.

Cooking these ribs is simple: Rub the spice mix all over the ribs and cook them slowly over low heat until they’re done. Sounds easy, right? It is, sorta.

We prefer to let the spice mix sit on the ribs overnight before we cook them, but you don’t have to. We also prefer to cook our ribs over a hardwood fire, but you can use charcoal or even a gas grill if you need to. Just don’t use an oven.

In all cases, cook the ribs away from the heat source. If you use a grill, have the fire going slowly on one side of the grill and cook the ribs on the other side.

Again, slow is good. I’ve cooked ribs for 12 hours before, and I’ve never had good ribs cooked less than 3 hours.

Use our rib rub as a guide, and play with it to your own taste. What are your favorite ingredients in your barbecue rubs?

Memphis-Style Pork Ribs Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 5 hours
• Yield: Serves 4

Try to get St. Louis-cut ribs for this recipe, not baby back ribs. Regular spare ribs are fine, too.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sweet paprika
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp black pepper
• 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons cayenne
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 St. Louis-cut or spare rib racks

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Spanish Rice

My mother’s Spanish rice (aka Mexican rice) is a mandatory accompaniment to any Mexican dish we serve at our house, whether it’s with enchiladas or tostadas, or with steak and black beans.

This rice is our family’s comfort food. My mom always makes a big batch when she makes it, because we can’t get enough!

Spanish rice is essentially a rice pilaf, but with southwestern flavorings. To make it you brown the raw rice first with onions and garlic, and then cook the rice in chicken broth with added tomatoes.

The browning is essential to the nutty, almost toasty flavor of the rice. And although bouillon can be substituted for the chicken stock, nothing beats homemade chicken stock, whose rich flavor is absorbed by the rice as it cooks.

Mom has perfected the art of preparing the rice quickly. She heats the tomato-y stock in a separate pot while the rice is browning, and then combines the two to cook while she prepares the rest of the meal. You could easily make it one pot if you wanted.

Spanish Rice Recipe

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 30 minutes
• Yield: Serves 4 to 6

My mother browns the rice in a separate pan from the pot she uses to heat the stock. This is just to save time. You could easily brown the rice and onions, and add cold stock and tomatoes to it, bring to a simmer, cover and cook, all in one pot.

If you have homemade stock, use it! That's what will take this Spanish rice from good to great.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (can use up to 1/4 cup)
• 1 onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups of medium or long-grain white rice
• 3 cups* chicken stock (or vegetable stock if vegetarian)
• 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste or 1 cup of diced fresh or cooked tomatoes, strained
• Pinch of oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt

*Check the instructions on the rice package for the proportions of liquid to rice. They can range from 1:1 to 2:1. If your rice calls for 2 cups of water for every cup of rice, then for this recipe, use 4 cups of stock for 2 cups of rice.

Read More: Spanish Rice

How To Make Fast, No-Soak Beans in the Pressure Cooker

I think that a warm pot of beans whenever you want them is at least half the reason for owning a pressure cooker.

Forget pre-soaking. Forget hours of gentle simmering.

With a pressure cooker, you can go from opening a bag of dried legumes to plump, tender beans in under an hour. How’s that for a sales pitch?!

You’ll need a 6- to 8-quart pressure cooker to make a batch of beans. I use a 6-quart Instant Pot, but you can follow this basic method for other electric pressure cookers and stovetop pressure cookers as well.

I normally cook a pound of beans at a time in the pressure cooker. This makes about five cups of cooked beans, which is plenty to make several meals throughout the week. I also often freeze half of the batch for future meals if I don’t think I’ll use them up during the week.

And no, I don’t soak my beans ahead of time. I admit that my first forays into no-soak beans were entirely due to a lack of pre-planning on my part. (I so rarely manage to coordinate my desire and my readiness when it comes to beans.)

But then I found that I didn’t really need to. The beans cooked up just fine without the overnight soak. They are evenly cooked, tender and creamy, and well suited for everything from tacos to quick bean soup!

This said, you do make a few concessions when you skip the soak. The biggest one is the beans’ appearance: You tend to get more split skins and “blow-out” beans (the ones that burst like popcorn) when they’re not pre-soaked.

For my everyday cooking, I’m fine with beans that are a bit rough around the edges. If you’re preparing a bean dish for your in-laws or the Pope, however, you might want to plan ahead and set aside the time for a long, careful soak.

Secondly, some people feel that soaking their beans helps makes them easier to digest (though others disagree). Personally, I haven’t noticed a huge difference with my own digestion between soaked or un-soaked beans, but if you find soaking helpful in this regard, then by all means carry on.

If you’d like to soak your beans (and you’re better at pre-planning your bean cookery than I am), then go for it! The pressure cooking time is generally about half the time as unsoaked.

One last point to discuss: the pressure release. I think it’s worth it to let your pressure cooker release naturally, or at least for as long as possible before you open the pot. This helps offset some of the appearance problems, resulting in fewer blow-out beans — though you’ll still get some.

I usually let the pot release pressure naturally until the point when I need the beans, then I hit the pressure valve to release it the rest of the way.

Tips for Success

Add a tablespoon of oil: This helps reduce foaming as the beans cook, which can sometimes clog up the pressure valve and interfere with cooking.

Add a teaspoon or two of salt: This is your only opportunity to season the beans on the inside, so be sure to add some salt to the pot. Start with one teaspoon with your first batch and see how you like the flavor. I usually add two teaspoons to my beans.

Add flavoring ingredients! Flavorful add-ins like garlic, onions, and bay leaves make beans even tastier. Add them at the start of cooking along with the oil and salt.

Always use enough liquid to cover your beans by a few inches: Beans absorb a lot of liquid during cooking. For one pound of beans, eight cups of water is usually plenty. You can experiment with reducing the amount of liquid, if you like, but be careful of reducing it too much or your beans won’t cook properly.

Don’t fill the pot more than halfway full with liquid: This is a precaution against overflow due to foaming during cooking.

Adjust the cooking time as needed: Think of the cooking times I give below as a starting point, then adjust the time in subsequent batches to suit your particular taste. Try the lower end of the time range if you want firm beans for things like salads and tacos, or cook for more time if you want softer beans for things like hummus, refried beans, or soup.

Also, consult the manual that came with your pressure cooker. The times I give below are based on my testing with an Instant Pot (which I found to be consistent with the cooking times recommended in the Instant Pot manual); cooking times may be slightly different for your particular model.

Using beans in a recipe: One 15-ounce can of beans holds about 1 3/4 cups cooked beans, so substitute accordingly in your recipes. For reference, one pound of dried beans makes about five cups of cooked beans.

How To Make Fast, No-Soak Beans in the Pressure Cooker

• Cook time: 30 minutes
• Yield: about 5 cups cooked beans

Don't skip the olive oil. This helps reduce foam during cooking, which could clog the pressure valve on the pressure cooker.

Ingredients

• 1 pound dried beans (see below for cooking times for specific beans)
• 8 cups water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 to 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 o 3 cloves peeled garlic, optional
• 1 bay leaf, optional

Special equipment:

• 6- to 8-quart pressure cooker (I use a 6-quart Instant Pot)

Read More: How To Make Fast, No-Soak Beans in the Pressure Cooker

Okra Pilaf

Okra love. Okay, I admit it, I have a mad crush on this vegetable. From okra pickles to okra and tomato stir-fry, I’m finding every excuse to make something with okra.

It just tastes so good!

Sort of like the best tasting green bean, but even better. And the okra plants, new to my garden this year, are thriving, putting forth pods to pick every other day.

This okra rice pilaf recipe, also known as okra pilau, perloo, or purloo, is a southern staple, particularly of South Carolina, in whose swampy lands rice has been cultivated since colonial days.

It’s simple; you just render bacon fat, cook chopped onions, peppers, and okra briefly in it, add rice, stock, and cook until done. Stir in chopped cooked bacon at the end.

Whatever sliminess the famously slimy okra produces while cooking gets absorbed by the rice, and what you’re left with is just lovely okra, and okra and bacon infused rice.

Ever make something that you don’t want to share because you just want to keep it all for yourself? Yeah. This is one of those.

From what I understand (if there are any South Carolinians out there, please advise me if I’m off base here) shrimp, sausage, and/or black eyed peas are often added to the pilau, making for a more substantial meal than what I’m presenting here.

The dish is also curiously known as “Limpin’ Susan”, but I can find no reference to the etymology of that name.

If you love bacon and rice and have been sitting on the fence about okra, this is the recipe to try. I think you will be pleased.

Okra Pilaf Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 35 minutes
• Yield: Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Ingredients

• 4 slices of bacon (about 5 ounces), chopped
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 2 cups okra, sliced into disks, 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick (fresh or frozen, thawed)
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt (use less salt if using seasoned broth)
• 1 cup long-grain rice
• 1 3/4 cup chicken stock*

*Review the instructions on your package of rice for how much liquid is needed for your particular brand of rice. Some rice calls for a 1:1 1/2 ratio, some 1:2 ratio, rice to liquid. Use whatever ratio is indicated by your rice package.

Read More: Okra Pilaf

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Please welcome author, pastry chef, and delightful raconteur David Lebovitz of DavidLebovitz.com who shares with us his way of making homemade ricotta cheese. ~Elise

With so many fabulous cheeses made in France (where I live) I guess there’s not the need to import more from elsewhere.

But for those of us that occasionally make recipes calling for a large amount of ricotta, there aren’t any 2-pound tubs available, just tiny plastic containers in the supermarket.

You can find very good ricotta by taking a trip to an Italian épicerie, although if you need a large quantity, you’ll quickly find yourself headed for the maison des pauvres. (The Poor House.)

Making ricotta really is easy and for the price of a quart or two of milk, you can have a lovely mound of freshly-made, still-warm ricotta with very little effort.

Homemade ricotta makes a wonderful base for Italian cheesecakes, ravioli fillings, and lasagna. I like to serve a spoonful of this with sliced fresh fruit; peaches, nectarines, or berries are lovely, along with a drizzle of honey.

It also make a nice accompaniment to a stewed apricot compote, fresh or ripe figs, or poached dried fruits in the winter.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese Recipe

• Yield: Makes 2 cups

I always use whole milk yogurt, but if you do try it with low-fat yogurt, please let me know in the comments how it works out. I don't recommend non-fat yogurt for this recipe. This recipe can easily be halved or doubled.

Ingredients

• 2 quarts whole milk
• 1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
• Optional: 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Read More: Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Asparagus Risotto

In California winter can transition to spring in a flash. It seems like yesterday we were beset by chilly storms while the forecast for this week is all sunny and 70s.

Daffodils are blooming, as are cherry trees, and the truest test of spring, asparagus in the market can be found for less than $2 a pound.

I just couldn’t resist these at the market today, and cooked them up into a creamy risotto. This recipe is a classic asparagus risotto recipe.

You can easily dress it up with some lemon zest, lump crab meat, green onions, truffle salt, fresh thyme or chopped mint.

This risotto we’ve made on the loose side, which is why we are serving it in a bowl. When making risotto you get to decide how loose you want it. Just stop adding liquid when the risotto gets to the consistency you like!

Asparagus Risotto Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 35 minutes
• Yield: Serves 2-3 as a main course, or 4 as a side

If you want to make this a vegetarian dish, use vegetable stock or water instead of the chicken stock.

Ingredients

• About 4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock for vegetarian option)
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided
• 1/2 cup chopped shallots
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1/4 cup dry white wine (or 1 Tbsp lemon juice and 3 Tbsp water)
• 1/2 pound asparagus, trimmed, tips cut off, tough skins of the spears peeled (if working with thick apparatus spears), and the spears cut into thin disks
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper

If cooking gluten-free, use gluten-free stock.

Read More: Asparagus Risotto

Mom’s Roast Turkey

When it comes to holiday cooking, my father and I spend weeks deciding who is making the various side dishes. But when it comes to roasting the turkey, there’s no discussion. Of course that task falls to my mother.

Why? True, she has cooked our Thanksgiving turkey for over 50 years, so she knows what she’s doing.

But the real reason is that her roast turkey is always perfectly done, the breast never dried out, but tender and full of flavor.

How does she do it? She cooks the turkey breast-side down. While the turkey roasts, the juices fall down towards the breast, resulting in the most succulent meat. The breast is also more protected from the heat, which helps keep it getting too dried out.

She also uses a meat thermometer to take out any guess work of when the turkey is done.

Breast down roast turkey

My mother cooks the turkey stuffing separately, not in the cavity, which makes it easier to cook the turkey more evenly.

In the years since we first posted this recipe, my mother still cooks her turkeys breast-side down, and they’re still wonderful. When I’m cooking a turkey, if it is small enough, sometimes I’ll flip it over near the end to get the breast side browned, but usually like my mom, I’ll just roast it the whole time breast-down.

Not much has changed with our approach over the years, other than the USDA has finally officially lowered the recommended temperature for cooked poultry (it’s now 165°F), which means we don’t need to cook the turkey as long.

Cooking a turkey is pretty straightforward, but you do need to plan ahead, given that it can take several hours to roast, and needs time (days if you need to defrost) beforehand to lose the chill from the refrigerator.

If you don’t have a meat thermometer, please get one! Using one will make your life a lot easier, otherwise there’s just too much guesswork.

Breast-side up roast turkey, after the turkey has been turned over and broiled a few minutes to brown the breast

Recipe from the recipe archive for Thanksgiving, enjoy!

Mom’s Roast Turkey Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 4 hours

Handle raw turkey the way you would raw chicken, with care. Use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating other foods.

Wash your hands with soap and water after touching raw turkey and before you touch anything else in the kitchen. Wipe down surfaces with dampened paper towels.

Ingredients

• 1 turkey, approx. 15 lbs.*
• Juice of a lemon
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil or melted butter
• 1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
• Tops and bottoms of a bunch of celery
• 1 to 2 carrots
• 1 bunch of parsley
• Several sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme

* Need help figuring out how big a turkey to get? Butterball has a turkey calculator that helps you figure out just how many pounds you need. In general, plan for:

12-15 lb turkey for 10-12 people
15-18 lb turkey for 14-16 people
18-22 lb turkey for 20-22 people

Read More: Mom’s Roast Turkey

Turkey Stew with Root Vegetables

One of my father’s favorite dishes to make in the winter is a hearty turkey stew with lots of root vegetables like rutabagas, turnips, and carrots. It’s warming, filling, and a big batch will last all week for several meals of leftovers.

It’s also very easy on the budget, which is probably why we had it so much growing up. You make it with turkey thighs (or legs), which, in addition to being the tastier dark meat, you can usually get for $1.50 per pound or less.

Slow cooking the turkey thighs bone-in, you get all of the healthy goodness and flavor from the bone marrow. Cooking them with skin on also coats the turkey with flavor. Turnips and rutabagas, which can be rather strong tasting, hold up beautifully with the also strong-tasting dark turkey meat.

Updated from the recipe archive, first posted in 2005.

Turkey Stew with Root Vegetables Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
• Yield: Serves 6 to 8.

Save time by prepping the root vegetables during the first stage of the stew's oven cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 lbs turkey thighs (preferred) or legs (skin on, bone in)
• 1 medium-large yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 quart (4 cups) chicken, turkey, or vegetable stock
• 2 medium carrots, peeled, 1/4 inch slices (about 1 1 /4 cups)
• 1-2 medium turnips, peeled, 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 medium rutabaga, peeled, halved, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 teaspoon herbes de provence*
• Freshly ground black pepper

*Herbes de Provence is a delightful French blend of herbs - Winter savory, thyme, basil, tarragon, and lavender flowers. If you don't have herbes de provence, you can substitute with an Italian herb mix.

Read More: Turkey Stew with Root Vegetables

Peach Galette

Have you seen the peaches in the market? They’re beautiful this season. As we skid into the official end of summer I’m happy we can still find them. One of my favorite summer desserts is a rustic tart, or galette, because it’s just so easy to put together.

As I have an almost unreasonable love of homemade crusts, I make several batches of dough in advance, and just wrap them in plastic wrap and keep them in the freezer until needed.

This is a simple peach galette, with fresh yellow peaches tossed with a little sugar, flour, and vanilla. You can play around with it a bit. Before laying down the peaches I dotted the bottom of the crust with a little almond paste.

You could add blueberries, or toss in a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg. Sprinkle with lemon juice if the peaches are too sweet.

Speaking of sweetness, it’s best to use yellow peaches for this baked dessert. The flavor of sweet white peaches is delicate and doesn’t hold up well to cooking.

Peach Galette Recipe

• Prep time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
• Cook time: 20 minutes
• Yield: Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 oz (1/2 cup, 1 stick, 8 Tbsp) butter, cut into small (1/2-inch) cubes, chilled in freezer at least 15 minutes, preferably an hour
• 4 to 6 Tbsp ice water

Filling:

• 2 large, not-overly-ripe yellow peaches (about 3/4 pound total), pitted, sliced into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch slices
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp almond paste (optional)
• 1 teaspoon butter

• 1 egg
• A sprinkling of coarse sugar (optional)

Read More: Peach Galette

Green Goddess Dressing

Do you remember green goddess dressing? It used to be pretty popular in the 70s and 80s when I first encountered it. If I’m not mistaken it was one of the usual dressings for a typical California salad with mixed greens, alfalfa sprouts and sunflower seeds, that one could order at the aptly named Good Earth restaurant in Palo Alto.

It sounds like a dressing right out of Marin County central casting, but apparently it was invented in the 20s, by the chef at the Palace Hotel (beautiful hotel, still there) in San Francisco, to commemorate the actor George Arliss and his play, The Green Goddess.

Pre-Internet, not knowing the provenance of this dressing, all I cared about was that it tasted good, good enough to mask the taste of alfalfa sprouts which thankfully people don’t eat much of any more, and it was called “green” and “goddess” which appealed to this Birkenstock-wearing hippie wanna-be.

Italian parsley and garlic chives

Fast forward to now, and you know what? This dressing is a gardener’s dream. I just picked some herbs from the garden, puréed them with some anchovy paste (essential), lemon juice, garlic, sour cream and mayo.

Instant awesome!

By the way, this recipe makes the kind of dressing that sort of glops on, so you want to toss it in with the lettuce greens, to just lightly coat the salad before serving. Or you can serve it as a dip. It’s great spread on crackers or with crudités.

Green Goddess Dressing Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Yield: Makes about 2 cups

Vary the proportions of the herbs to suit your taste. If you want, add some ripe avocado to the mix.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons anchovy paste or 2-4 canned anchovies
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 1/4 cup chopped tarragon
• 3 Tbsp chopped chives
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Read More: Green Goddess Dressing

Honey Mustard Baked Salmon

Take one part honey, one part Dijon mustard, mix, and now you have one of the most versatile sauces possible, for chicken, ham, corned beef, and in this case, honey mustard salmon.

It’s one of those couldn’t-be-easier, how-to-impress-without-doing-much recipes. Takes 10 minute to prep, and 10 minutes to cook. 

There are only two things to remember.

First, use good quality salmon. That cheapest fillet at the fish counter that looks like it’s seen better days, has seen better days. There is nothing you can do to improve old fish. How do you tell? The best way is to smell it. If it smells strongly of fish (or something worse), don’t buy it. I’ve actually taken fish back to the market that didn’t smell right when I took it out of the package. Trust me, you don’t want to eat it.

Second, don’t overcook the salmon! It’s so easy to do. Do not cook the salmon until it is completely flaking apart, that’s overdone. When the fillets come out of the oven they should still be just a little bit rare in the center. They’ll continue to cook in the residual heat and be perfect when you go to eat them.

Honey Mustard Baked Salmon Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 10 minutes
• Yield: Serves 4

If you don't have already prepared honey mustard, just combine equal amounts of honey and Dijon mustard.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds (680 to 900g) salmon fillets
• 3 Tbsp honey mustard (1 1/2 Tbsp honey plus 1 1/2 Tbsp Dijon mustard)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (about 3 teaspoons)
• 3 Tbsp olive oil (divided 2 T and 1 T)
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
• Pinch of salt

Read More: Honey Mustard Baked Salmon

Turkey Chile Verde

We have an abundance of tomatillos in our garden this year. Whereas the tomatoes have been suffering from too much water early in the season, too little heat, nematodes and wilt, the tomatillos we planted are vigorous. A couple volunteers from last year’s crop that are having a good time of it as well.

Are you familiar with tomatillos? They look like small-ish green tomatoes, but surrounded by a papery husk. It’s best to pick them while they are still green, if you wait too long, they can lose their distinctive tartness. The best thing to make with them is salsa verde, or green salsa, which you can then use in all sorts of dishes.

With this weeks bounty we decided to make a Mexican chile verde, but instead of using pork which is traditional, using turkey thighs instead. By the way, chile verde made in state of New Mexico is made with Hatch green chiles. Chile verde made in most of Mexico is made with tomatillos. It’s the tomatillo salsa verde that makes the dish green. So, same name, different dish. The dish we’re working on today is the tomatillo variety.

I have found that turkey needs more help, when it comes to seasoning, than pork. It also greatly benefits from a little smoky flavor. So, I’ve added more spice than I would normally with a pork chile verde, and also included some chipotle chile powder for a touch of smoky flavor. But the amounts are just guidelines, and depend so much on your specific ingredients, and taste.

By the way, my dad says “let your readers know that this food critic gives it 5 stars.” My mom just brought over a huge bowl of tomatillos from her garden (as if I don’t have enough) and wants me to make it again. Enjoy!

Turkey Chile Verde Recipe

• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 4 hours
• Yield: Serves 8.

Ingredients

Salsa verde:

• 1 1/2 lbs fresh green tomatillos
• 5 cloves garlic, peel ON
• 1 jalapeno, stems and seeds removed, chopped*
• 2 poblano chiles
• 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed, roughly chopped, including stems
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• Pinch sugar

Turkey:

• 3 lbs boneless, skinless turkey thighs**
• Salt and pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 yellow onions, coarsely chopped (about 3 cups)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 2 Tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Pinch of ground cloves

* You can moderate the heat of this dish with the seeds from the jalapenos. Taste the tomatillo sauce after you blend it. If it needs more heat, blend in some of the jalapeno seeds.

** If you can only get bone-in, skin-on, that's okay. Remove the skin and discard or save it to use it to make turkey bacon. Cut as much meat as you easily can away from the bone, and then cook the meaty bone with the turkey chunks. Remove the bone when the meat is cooked and shred the meat from the bone.

Read More: Turkey Chile Verde

Sous Vide French Dip Sandwiches

This recipe is brought to you in partnership with ChefSteps.

It seems like a magic trick: take a cheap, tough cut of beef, like a top round roast or a chuck roast, cook it for twenty-four hours without peeking, and Abracadabra! Now it’s suddenly filet mignon.

But it’s not magic — this is sous vide cooking!

For the past few months, I’ve been playing around with Joule, an immersion circulator from ChefSteps used for sous vide cooking, and I have slowly found myself won over by this new way of cooking. Have you ever heard of sous vide cooking? Or tried it yourself?

What is sous vide cooking?

Before we get too far into it, let’s discuss this whole concept of cooking sous vide. “Sous vide” (pronounced sue veed) literally means “under vacuum” or “under pressure.” The method involves sealing ingredients in food- and temperature-safe resealable plastic bags, pushing out as much air as possible (no vacuum sealer required), and then submerging the ingredients in a pot of heated water to cook.

It sounds a little crazy — like something the Jetson family might do — but bear with me!

When cooking sous vide, food is cooked extremely gently. It’s like poaching, except with a barrier between the food and the water. The temperature is carefully controlled with an immersion circulator, so cooking is efficient and safe.

Sous vide cooking also requires much less oil than regular cooking, and it takes out a lot of the guesswork of knowing when your food is fully cooked and ready to eat. Since the food never gets hotter than the temperature of the water, there’s very little risk of over-cooking!

What’s an immersion circulator?

An immersion circulator is the tool that controls the temperature of the water as the food cooks. You can use it in any pot or pan you own as long as the pot is big enough to hold both the immersion circulator and the food. Just clip it to the side of the pan, or in the case of Joule, a magnet on the bottom lets you stand it upright in most pots and pans. The immersion circulator will pull the water through its internal heating element, circulating the water in the pot and keeping it at a precise and steady temperature.

What’s so great about cooking sous vide?

Using an immersion circulator to cook sous vide is another “set it and forget it” way of cooking, just like the slow cooker and the pressure cooker. The biggest difference with cooking sous vide is the level of control you have over the temperature and the flexibility in the cooking time.

Unlike slow cookers and pressure cookers, which cook at one temperature, you get to choose and modify your cooking temperature with sous vide. Sous vide recipes typically provide a range of cooking temperatures and times so that you can cook your food to the exact level of doneness that you prefer, like a medium-rare steak or a safely-cooked fish fillet.

Not sure what temperature your food should be or how long it should cook? I used the Visual Cooking Guides on the Joule smartphone app or this cooking guide from the ChefSteps website whenever I wasn’t sure of how to cook something. Both resources are great for taking the guesswork out of cooking sous vide. (They’re intended for use with ChefStep’s Joule immersion circulator, but the times and temperatures are universal for all sous vide cooking.)

Another advantage that I can see for sous vide cooking is flexibility. Since this cooking method is so gentle, you have a pretty big window in which your food will be ready. This means that you can start your food cooking, go run some errands or watch your kid’s soccer game, decide to swing by the post office on the way home, get stuck in traffic, or do any number of non-cooking activities — and all this time, you never have to worry about your food.

If you’re not back right when the timer goes off, no big deal.

Is it safe to cook in plastic?

Cooking in plastic is weird. And it feels kind of wrong. I totally get that, and it’s been a big hurdle for me, as well.

In addition to the worries that many of us have about contact between food and plastic, there’s also just the oddness of cooking food in plastic. It’s definitely not something your great-grandmother did, and it feels about as far from throwing meat on fire as you can get.

For the first concern — the safety of cooking food in plastic — I offer two thoughts: 1) the safety of plastic has come a long way in the past decade or so, particularly when using name-brand resealable plastic freezer bags, and 2) when you cook sous vide, the water never reaches the boiling point so there isn’t much of a risk that the bag will overheat and melt.

Almost all name-brand resealable freezer bags are safe for sous vide cooking. They are typically made of food-safe plastic and rated to temperatures well above boiling. Double-check the package before cooking sous vide to be sure. I’ve been using Ziploc brand gallon-sized freezer bags for all my sous vide experiments.

For the second concern — the weirdness of cooking food in plastic — this is honestly just something that takes some getting used to. I’ve been cooking professionally for almost 10 years, and even for me, cooking sous vide was not intuitive. But after a few months of playing around with the cooking technique, it doesn’t feel nearly so strange to me anymore.

I should also mention that there are some sous vide recipes that can be made in glass canning jars, like yogurt and egg bites. If you’re nervous about cooking in plastic, these kinds of recipes are a great way to give sous vide cooking a try.

All this said, if cooking in plastic is just too odd or off-putting for you, then no worries. I think that sous vide cooking is great for some people, but isn’t necessarily for everyone. It’s all about finding what works for you in the kitchen, and sous vide is just another option available to us as home cooks – just another way of getting food on the table and knowing that you’ve made something delicious.

My Experience Cooking Sous Vide

As I’ve said, this whole idea of cooking sous vide has been a slow process for me. It took some time, patience, and trial and error before I started seeing the role that sous vide might play in my day-to-day cooking.

The universal advice for first-time sous vide users is to cook a steak. “Sous vide steak is life-changing,” I heard again and again. I heeded this advice and took my Joule for its first spin with a thick porterhouse. I cooked it for an hour to a nice medium-rare. I removed it from the plastic bag and gave it a good sear in my cast iron pan on the stovetop. There was much anticipation among those hovering nearby with plates in hand.

Tasting it, my husband and I both thought it was… fine. Not extraordinary. Not bad. Just…a solidly good steak. Certainly not so much better than our regular stovetop steaks that I needed a special tool to cook it.

Undeterred, I carried on. I made bacon. I made halibut. I made potatoes.

Here’s where I’ll mention that I think there is a definite learning curve with sous vide cooking. The temperature of your water is obviously important, but it’s not always clear what that temperature should be. When making these first recipes, I followed the basic recipes from the Joule app, the ChefSteps website, and from the sous vide pros at Serious Eats.

Cooking time is also a component, and is just as important as temperature. Grant Crilly, co-creator of Joule, explained to me, “Temperature is about the doneness of the food. Time is about the texture.”

In other words, the longer the food cooks, the more tender it will become. This is desirable for some foods, like chuck roast, which just get better the more tender they become. But you need to be a little more careful with something like fish where tenderness can lead to mushiness. You always have a large window in which any meal you cook will be delicious, but there is definitely an upper-limit for some foods. Again, for the most part, I followed the recipes on the Joule app, the ChefSteps website, and Serious Eats to guide my cooking decisions.

Sous vide cooking definitely becomes more intuitive with time. But for your first forays into sous vide cooking, I recommend following trusted recipes.

My “Oh, Wow!” Sous Vide Moment

My first big breakthrough with sous vide cooking was with salmon. I cooked two individual-sized fillets at 122-degrees F for 40 minutes, and this was absolutely the best salmon I have ever had in my life.

The salmon was silky and soft, but still flaked apart under my fork. The flavor was deeply salmon-y, but with none of that fishy flavor that can come when you overcook the edges on the stovetop. Also, because I’d cooked the fish entirely sous vide and plated it straight from the bag, there was zero fish aroma in my kitchen.

This was definitely the moment when I felt like I finally understood what made sous vide cooking so incredible. This salmon was cooked perfectly, I had zero anxiety about under- or over-cooking, I made it on a timeline that worked for my schedule that evening (I went for a run and took a shower as it cooked), and it was better than any salmon I’ve ever had at a restaurant.

My next breakthrough was cooking a top round roast. It was the cheapest cut at the market, and after cooking it for 24 hours, it was as tender and delicious as filet mignon. Unlike when I cook filet mignon, however, I wasn’t worried about messing it up. Also, for about $20, I had enough roast beef to invite friends over for dinner and still had plenty left for sandwiches the next week.

About This French Dip Recipe

I had a hard time deciding whether to share a salmon recipe or a roast beef recipe. Both were so pivotal to my falling in love with sous vide cooking!

I decided to do French Dip Sandwiches with top round roast for a few different reasons:

1. Sous vide was made for cheap, tough cuts: This is where you can really see how temperature and time both play pivotal roles in cooking food sous vide. I tested this roast at 140-degrees F (medium doneness) for 16 hours, 18 hours, and 24 hours. The doneness was the same for all three batches — they were all a perfect, rosy-pink inside — but the tenderness was remarkably different.

At 16 hours, the roast was cooked, but a little on the chewy side. At 18 hours, it cut easily and was notably less chewy. At the 24-hour mark, it was so tender that you could cut it with a fork, but yet still had enough texture that you knew you were eating steak. This ain’t no baby food.

2. Versatile cooking time: I would happily serve this recipe anywhere from 18 hours to 24 hours of cooking. I didn’t try cooking it for longer, but I imagine the upper limit on the cooking window would be around 30 hours.

You can also make the roast ahead and warm it up whenever you want to serve it. This makes the recipe even more flexible for your schedule.

3. The double-sear method: Double-searing is a technique that I picked up early on in my sous vide experiments. The idea is to sear the meat once before it goes into the sous vide bath and then again when it comes out.

The first sear adds incredible flavor to the finished roast — the meat will be cooking in all those roasty, caramelized juices for a few hours, after all. The second sear is for that crispy, crusty texture on the outside. The difference in both flavor and texture with this double-sear technique is astounding and well worth trying!

Final Thoughts on Sous Vide

There is way more to discuss about sous vide cooking than I can possibly cover in a single article. We’ve really just scratched the surface, and if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming that you are both intrigued and also probably have a bunch of questions! Please ask your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

I also want to say that I really enjoyed cooking with my Joule! The device itself is slim enough to fit in all but my smallest pots and also stores easily in a kitchen drawer. Unlike other immersion circulators, you set the temperature of Joule, and turn the device on and off, using an app on your smart phone (the folks at ChefSteps told me this helps them cut down on the physical bulk of the tool). This way of using a kitchen tool felt a little strange at first, but quickly became familiar. I used Joule for several 24-hour recipe tests, and it just kept right on ticking the whole time!

Now I’m curious to hear from you — Have you done any sous vide cooking? What recipes do you love and how do you think sous vide cooking fits into your life? And if this is the first time you’ve heard of sous vide cooking, what questions do you have? What do you want to know more about? What recipes or tutorials would you like to see?

A Few Good Links

ChefSteps has a bunch of fantastic guides in the Joule app and on their website, as well as great general information on sous vide cooking on their website. These have been very useful to me as I’ve learned my way around this new cooking technique. They cover not only basic recipes, but also which kinds of plastic bags to use, making sure food is cooked safely, and tips for getting the best flavor. Take a look!

• All About Sous Vide Cooking
• Time and Temperature Guide
• A Complete Guide to Sous Vide Packaging – Including a great discussion on cooking with plastic.

Sous Vide French Dip Sandwiches Recipe

• Prep time: 45 minutes
• Cook time:
• Cook time: 18 to 24 hours
• Yield: 6 to 8 sandwiches

Look for top or bottom round roast for this recipe since these cuts are less fatty and easier to cut into thin slices. Use chuck roast if round roast can't be found and cut thicker slices.

The roast from this recipe is also fantastic for lunch sandwiches, tacos, salads, and any other recipe calling for tender slices of steak or beef.

Instead of doing the second sear on the stovetop, try grilling it! This gives the meat a nice smoky flavor.

Make-ahead instructions: Cook the roast as per the recipe through the end of the sous vide cook time. Lift the roast from the water and transfer it to a bowl of cold water to cool it down. Once cooled, refrigerate until ready to serve. Re-warm in a 140F sous vide bath for an hour or so, then continue with searing the roast and assembling the sandwiches.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds boneless beef top or bottom round roast
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
• 1 to 3 tablespoons cooking oil, like canola or grapeseed
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 2 cups low-sodium beef broth or stock
• 1 bay leaf

To serve:

• 1 large yellow onion, or 2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced (1 to 1 1/4 pounds)
• 6 to 8 French rolls or hoagie buns
• Sliced provolone cheese, optional

Special equipment:

• Joule immersion circulator, or other immersion circulator
• Large (8-quart or more) stock pot
• Name-brand 1-gallon resealable plastic freezer bag, such as Ziploc

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