Clams Casino With Bacon and Bell Pepper

Kewpie Mayonnaise is the ultimate secret ingredient to creating a perfect oven-baked battered-and-fried crunch without a deep fryer.

The clams’ natural briny sweetness serves as a surprising foil for the tender fritter batter—just be sure to pull off the tough outer coating of the siphon.

An ex-boyfriend’s mom—who emigrated from Colombia—made the best meat sauce—she would fry sofrito for the base and simply add cooked ground beef, sazón, and jarred tomato sauce. My version is a bit more bougie—it calls for caramelized tomato paste and white wine—but the result is just as good.

This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.

Berbere is a spicy chile blend that has floral and sweet notes from coriander and cardamom, and when it’s paired with a honey glaze, it sets these wings apart from anything else you’ve ever had.

Rather than breaded and fried as you might expect croquettes to be, these are something more akin to a seared chicken salad patty.

We don’t bake with grapes as often as we should. But even the most average supermarket varieties come alive when roasted with a bit of sugar and seasoning.

An espresso-and-cumin-spiked rub (or brine) gives this smoked chicken impressive flavor.