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Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

The secret to making a great spaghetti and meat sauce is to build layers of flavor (beyond the meat and tomatoes), and to allow them to meld together in a balanced way. It’s a fairly simple thing to do when you’re including dozens of ingredients and simmering them together for hours, but I wanted to [...]

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Best Meatloaf

33 comments

It’s not your grandma’s meatloaf, it’s better… there, I said it! I know, some of you are thinking “them’s fightin’ words” and hitting unsubscribe right now. But in all seriousness, I don’t go labeling recipes as being “best” willy-nilly. As a mater of fact, out of nearly 600 recipes, there have so far only been [...]

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Nikujaga (Meat and Potatoes)

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If Japan had burly roughnecks and lumberjacks, Nikujaga (肉じゃが) would be their meal. It’s a real work horse of the Japanese home kitchen and quite literally translates to “meat and potatoes”. Being high in energy, low on prep time and very tasty, it’s no surprise why. Nikujaga is one of those dishes that anyone could [...]

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Coq au Vin

18 comments

Cooking inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes a stroll through a verdant farmers market on a warm spring day sets the gears of creativity in motion. Other times, it’s a six pound bag of Costco chicken, a half-full bottle of Côtes du Rhône, and some odds-and-ends lurking in the dark recesses of my [...]

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Spring Roll

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Like their thicker skinned cousin the egg roll, spring rolls are a popular staple at Chinese-American restaurants. As a kid, I never much cared for either variety because there was often more wrapper than filling and what meager filling they held tasted more like tired fryer oil than anything else. All that changed while I [...]

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Best Nikuman (Baozi)

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Nikuman (肉まん), also known as Bāozi in China, are the Asian equivalent to sandwiches in the West. With a savory meat and vegetable filling wrapped in dough and steamed, they make a complete meal that can be eaten on the go without utensils. While convenient, I’ve always been a little weary of the mystery-meat filled [...]

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Spaghetti and Meatballs

27 comments

With the mercury falling faster than the stock market, I decided to bridge the gap between summer salad and winter braise using the last batch of tomatoes ripened under the waning summer sun to make spaghetti and meatballs. As usual when I’m making an old favorite, I went searching through my archives to see how [...]

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