In the latest issue of Bon Appétit magazine, we're traveling far and wide. To Mexico City in search of the best gorditas, to Hong Kong to explore cha chaan tengs, and to a truck stop in Wyoming that's turning out first-rate blistered naan, biryani, and more.
"The recipes that you have as a child are very powerful, they are very visceral. They stay with you, too. I remember many recipes, but certainly one of them, when my mother used to go to the garden just before we ate, and unearthed those tiny potatoes we called grenaille in France, which are like a fingerling potato."
Few low-prep dishes satisfy and delight on busy weeknights like one-pot pastas, and one of the best ingredients to take your pasta dishes to the next level is vegetable broth. Boiling dry pasta directly in vegetable broth instead of water imparts bolder flavor as the pasta soaks it up. Plus, you'll end up with a pot full of starchy cooking liquid from the boiled pasta, which can provide a solid base for building a pan sauce.
Of the five mother sauces, velouté is extremely under-appreciated and not talked about enough. It's what we as Americans call gravy, which we know has so many various uses. Velouté, which means velvety in French, is made with a light roux (or a mixture of flour and fat, like butter), stock or broth, and some seasoning like salt and pepper, and a bay leaf.
Heavy whipping cream is one of those things that pops up in a lot of recipes, but for some reason, it's never sold in exactly the amount you need. Instead, you're always left with some odd amount of heavy cream left over and no real idea what to do with it because, well, the recipe you bought it for is done now. That's where these recipes to use up heavy cream come in handy.
Proper homemade mac and cheese, with tender noodles swimming in a creamy, cheesy sauce, is already about as good as it gets. The culinarians of the internet, however, have a simple one-ingredient change that will take your next round of baked mac and cheese to the next level: lobster base. This product, like Better Than Bouillon's Premium Lobster Base, is essentially lobster concentrate, used to whip up a quick lobster stock for things like lobster bisque.
