Keto

What makes this entrée so flavorful? Tucking garlic slices into the lamb and covering the meat with a puree made of garlic, Dijon mustard, rosemary, and lemon.

We love hash browns for their delicious contradiction—the way the outer crunch of skillet–fried potatoes gives way to an inner creaminess. Throw in some nuggets of spicy Spanish chorizo (left over from Corn–Bread and Chorizo Stuffing ) and things only get better.

Nothing could be easier than stirring together chopped scallions with a dollop of mayonnaise, and this quick coating adds considerable verve and oniony bite to meaty arctic char fillets. And it looks great, too—the green of the scallions contrasts nicely against the pink flesh of the fish. For this recipe, we use the leftover scallions from our Tuna Steak au Poivre recipe, but it would also work fine with a full bunch.

Slathering mustard on chicken is one easy way to a juicy, flavorful bird. Like its creator, Ruth Cousineau, this dish revels in simplicity without being austere: Gild the lily by making a delectably creamy, mustardy gravy from the pan juices. The gravy, in turn, begs for mashed potatoes, and by adding a salad—voilà, the perfect Sunday dinner. (Editor's note: This recipe is solely the creation of Ruth Cousineau and has not been formally tested by the test kitchen.)

Roasting the pork at a low temperature in a spiced salt mixture amps up the flavor of the meat and makes it extra-tender. After cooking the pork, the rack of bones is cut off and used to hold the roast for easy carving.

Editor's note: Serve this sauce with Lourdes Castro's Chicken Tamales
A staple on Mexican tables, do not confuse Mexican crema for sour cream. The flavor is more sour, and it's a bit saltier as well. In addition to providing flavor and texture to a dish, the cream also serves as a neutralizer for the heat of chiles. It is a good option to have around for those who don't like hot foods.

Though this unpretentious salad goes beautifully with all the other dishes, it can also bridge dinner and dessert. The toasted celery seeds add a peppery, herbaceous bite to the vinaigrette, and all those leafy greens will make you feel virtuous before you dive into pie.

When earthy greens are tossed with a walnut- and garlic-scented oil and lots of crunchy nuts, they taste delightfully new.

Look no further for a go-to recipe when making vegetarian stews and gravies. The stock here gets its deep flavor and color from roasting the vegetables and then deglazing the pan with red wine.

Texas cowboys and cowgirls dip their egg sandwiches in this stuff for breakfast, they dunk their fried onion rings in it at lunch, and they cover their broccoli with it at dinner. It's the ultimate dipping sauce for cold pizza, the perfect accompaniment to crudités, and—oh, yeah—it's also a salad dressing. Once you learn how to make your own ranch dressing, you'll save yourself a fortune on the stuff. And it's really easy. You can even use yogurt instead of sour cream to make a low-fat version. Add some minced herbs from your garden if you like. Chives are another great addition.

For a long time it seemed to me that there was more than a superficial resemblance between the white Indian cheese called paneer and tofu. When I finally made the classic Indian dish of spinach and paneer using tofu, it tasted amazingly at home in the cumin, ginger, and chile-laced sauce. There's a little going back and forth between the skillet and a food processor, but this is an easy dish to make. I serve it over rice with a sprinkling of toasted black sesame seeds.

Green beans and Brussels sprouts might seem like the Abbott and Costello of the vegetable world—lanky and straight versus roly-poly—but like so many odd couples, they go together beautifully. The key is to sautéthe vegetables so that they still have a little bite.

When you combine powdered chiles with cumin and other ingredients to make a spice mix for chili con carne, you are turning chile powder into chili powder.

Ratatouille is a vegetable stew from the south of France, traditionally made by slow cooking. By roasting the vegetables in a hot convection oven, the juices, flavors, and colors are quickly sealed in and the vegetables are succulent and remain distinguishable.

This recipe calls for a lot of greens, but they cook way down.

The French have a saying, "You must watch what you're cooking like milk on the stove," referring, of course, to the fact that milk can boil over in a flash. Case in point: Garlic chips are sweet and nutty when cooked just right, but let them go just a little too long, and they become burnt and acrid.

Gazpacho (a traditional chilled soup that originated in Spain) becomes a sauce for fish fillets.