November 2012The key to a great vegetarian chili is not finding a substitute for the meat. It’s finding substitutes for what the meat brings to the chili.
November 2012How do you get five different vegetables to cook simultaneously in the same pan and all come out perfectly? The solution starts with the right cuts.
May 2012Like its French sibling, ciambotta starts out with a slew of watery vegetables. But the right steps create a stew that’s hearty, more concentrated, and deeply satisfying.
May 2012For creamy, complex-tasting bean dips, we began by removing some of the beans.
March 2012A super-flavorful soup enriched with meatballs and tender greens? Sounds like a match made in heaven—but we didn’t want to spend all day creating it.
January 2012When we took a closer look at the way Spanish cooks make beef stew, we found a whole new approach to one of our favorite winter dishes.
January 2012Packaged ravioli are super convenient. But choose the wrong sauce and dinner will be a washout.
November 2011Richly flavored vegetable soup is no problem when you’ve fussed over homemade stock. For a weeknight version, we needed to get creative with pantry staples.
November 2011For a standout sauce, we needed to do more than just fine-tune the sweet-tart classic.
September 2011Forget cream and spices. The secret to squashier squash soup is concentration.
July 2011Usually awash in a glut of dairy, sweet corn doesn’t stand a chance in this classic summer soup. So we put the squeeze on the traditional approach.
March 2011Could we bring the ultra-rich flavor and glossy consistency of a classic French demi-glace to steak sauce without spending all day roasting bones and reducing stock?
March 2011When simply adding more broccoli did not generate enough vegetable flavor in our soup, we did some further research. And then we threw out the rule book on vegetable cookery.
January 2011We built the best basic chili from the ground up, and then entered the strange world of secret ingredients to determine what's legit and what's just laughable.
January 2011Simmering a leftover ham shank used to be a frugal way to stretch a meal. But what if you have to make do without the backbone of this soup?
July 2010With Argentine beef and a wood fire, cooking churrasco in the backyard would be easy. We were stuck with American supermarket steaks and a Weber kettle.
March 2010Unfortunately, the very thing that makes this rustic soup a snap also contributes to its downfall.
January 2010Despite hours of simmering, most beef stews fall flat. Our goal was to pack in more flavor in less time.
January 2010Italians rely on garden-ripe vegetables, but most of us need to make do with supermarket pickings. Is a soup with fresh, bright flavors still possible?
November 2009Traditionally a fish stew, we discovered the potent flavors of the Bouillabaisse worked just as well with chicken. A finishing blast from the broiler ensures the chicken skins will be nice and crisp.
