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In Hawai‘i, aloha ʻāina (love of the land) is a philosophy of caring for one’s own place and for the environment. “O‘ahu is very close to not being salvageable; they should work really hard to preserve with what little natural spaces they do have there,” Hirata says. While the island of Hawai‘i is more rural than O‘ahu, commercial and residential developments have nonetheless bulldozed through acres of ancient trees and native plants. “I worry about this island,” Hirata says.During the pandemic, the lull in tourism provided an opportunity for the natural habitat of these islands to recover from overcrowded beaches, parks, and trails. It also highlighted the importance of tourists fostering the love of the land when they return. “Native Hawaiian food comes through an understanding and consciousness about place-based sourcing, and [chef Hirata] really highlights that in important ways,” Hobart says. “When tourists get to interact with and taste the ingredients, it helps them understand not only what is unique about Hawai‘i food but also its fragility. It helps them understand why it’s important to protect the environment and traditional practices.”To avoid resource depletion, Hirata never fishes from the same location or forages from the same plant more than once or twice a year. And since he’s the only person curating the wild ingredients, he can easily track the frequency he visits each site. Even with Na‘au’s rising popularity, Hirata has no intention of scaling up his business. “What we put on the plate is not designed for a large luxury hotel or restaurant,” he says. “We wouldn’t be able to sustain it because resources are so limited.” Hirata’s eventual goal is to be able to donate a percentage of Na‘au’s proceeds to fund limu `ele`ele (native Hawaiian seaweed) restoration projects. A primary food source and shelter for native fish, crabs, urchins, and sea snails, limu is essential in Hawai‘i’s fragile ecosystem and an important ingredient in its culinary heritage. He also wants to continue hunting and cooking invasive species like Axis deer, goats, and wild pigs, which damage the ground nests of endem
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It really is the most important (and our favorite) meal, so make it count.Photo by Alex Lau, Food styling by Sue LiWe take our sweet and savory healthy breakfast ideas very seriously. Why? Well, you know how, when you work out first thing in the morning, you tend to eat healthier throughout the day and drink more water and overall just feel better? We apply that idea to the first meal of the day, like setting an intention: Make it a healthy and delicious breakfast—maybe a smoothie bowl or steel-cut oats or Mexican-style scrambled eggs with tortillas—and it will be a healthy and delicious day. (And breakfast tends to be the easiest time to get in the good stuff, too. Sugary snacks may show up in the office kitchen and decadent dinner invitations may come your way, but breakfast is fully under your control.) You with us? Let's go!Photo by Emma FishmanWhole Wheat–Oat WafflesThese waffles are sugar-free and whole-grain, and to mix the batter, you just need one bowl and a whisk (read:
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I grew up watching my aunts and mother gather on a veranda at my grandparents’ home to make garam masala, the warm, heady spice blend that powers a lot of South Asian cooking. They cleaned each spice of debris, dried them in the sun with utmost care, and then finely ground them to make an aromatic blend. The process took hours, sometimes days, and turned into social events filled with conversation and catching up. Years later, my mother continued to make her own garam masala in smaller batches in her suburban Mumbai apartment. I always knew when—it was impossible not to catch a whiff of whole spices sunbathing on the balcony.Because I now live between two countries, when I can't go to India, my mother will ship it across continents so I don’t run out. In an attempt to replicate the flavor, joy, and love imbued in my memories of homemade garam masala, I developed my own garam masala recipe with a lot of guidance and wisdom from my mom so you can experience the same in your own cooking.What is garam masala?Garam masala translates to “warm spices” from Hindi. I like to think of it as a living, breathing spice blend, and it can be deeply personal to each family with variations based on region and community. Many households have their own unique mix passed down through generations. Some closely guard their blends—my uncle refuses to share his recipe with me. Even the texture can differ, from fine ground to coarse.Garam masala blends may include coriander seeds, mace, cumin seeds, cloves, whole black pepper, white poppy seeds, bay leaves, star anise, cinnamon sticks, black cardamom pods and whole nutmeg. Some versions may include sweeter notes of fennel or green cardamom—Bengali garam masala, for example, may only consist of cinnamon, cardamom, and clove.There are a few heavy hitters though, that I would consider my own garam masala blend to be incomplete without: Cinnamon adds warm sweetness; coriander seeds bring citrusy fruitiness; cumin has intense nutty, earthy notes; star anise adds licorice flavor; mace brings mild peppery-ness; and nutmeg adds warmth and woodiness. Something magical happens when this combination of spices is heated and combined with cooked vegetables or meat. It introduces a warm, layered complexity into the dish that’s almost impossible to replicate.How do you use garam masala?For the best application of garam masala, it needs to be cooked (i.e. this is not the spice blend to sprinkle raw over cucumbers or dips). Begin by sautéeing it with your aromatics at the start of cooking, add it midway to perfume the entire stew or braise, or do both. There are very few rules: It’s equally as tasty in hefty proteins like this Garam Masala Short Rib Roast With Pistachio Crust or in vegetarian applications like this Black-Eyed Pea Masala With Kale or Saucy Tofu With Garam Masala.Kick your weeknight tofu up a notch by frying it until crisp and tossing it in this tangy, spice-forward sauce.View RecipeHow do you make garam masala?Start with whole spices.For the very best homemade garam masala, start by sourcing fresh, whole, high-quality spices. They’ll act as a strong foundation for flavor and have an intensity that the pre-ground stuff just doesn’t quite have. If you’re unsure where to start, seek out online spice purveyors like Diaspora Co. or Burlap & Barrel for especially delicious, fresh, and ethically sourced spices.Go low and slow with the heat.If you’re going through the process of making garam masala at home, you want it to last. Toasting your whole spices over gentle, low heat not only helps coax a slow release of potent flavors from the spices, it also allows you to carefully control the level of roastiness and prevents the masala from going rancid quickly after it’s blended. Be patient, and resist the urge to crank up the heat at this step.Wait for the spices to cool before grinding.Remove your spices from the heat and cool completely before blending. This is important—grinding spices while they are still hot will build steam, adding moisture to the mix and making it not as shelf stable. Once your whole spices are thoroughly cool to the touch, break the cinnamon, bay leaves, and nutmeg into smaller pieces. Then add to a spice grinder and grind into a coarse powder. The consistency of the masala is adjustable: If you prefer a coarser mix (better suited for crusty dry rubs, for example) then blend for a few seconds less.Customize to your liking.Garam masala has innumerable regional variations across South Asia and is subjective by definition. This also means you can easily customize it to suit your taste. Use this recipe as a guide rather than a rigid set of rules. Want more heat? Increase the quantity of black pepper and cloves. If you love licorice flavor, then add a tablespoon of fennel seeds. If you’re chasing fruitiness, add more coriander seeds and mace. Apply your intuition and let that lead you in the right direction. Who knows? It might become a family treasure you pass on to your loved ones for years to come as well.Rise ‘n’ grindJust a sprinkle of this hot, warm, and sweet spice blend will enhance any dish—especially when you take a few minutes to make it yourself. View Recipe
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Street food is one of the things I miss most about living in India—specifically vada pav. Imagine a hearty, aromatic potato patty with a crisp chickpea flour exterior that gets served on a soft, savory bun, topped with a simple, flavorful dry coconut-garlic chutney, and served with fried green chiles. Vada here refers to the deep-fried potato patty, and pav to the bun. Serve with drizzles of cilantro and tamarind chutneys (homemade or store-bought) for a spicy, fresh kick and some sweetness. While vada pav might be a labor of love, you’ll be rewarded in flavor for the effort. —Rachel GurjarWatch Rachel make this vada pav on our YouTube channel.All products featured on Bon Appétit are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through the retail links below, we earn an affiliate commission.IngredientsCoconut-garlic Chutney½cup unsweetened shredded coconut4garlic cloves, unpeeled, smashed2tsp. Kashmiri chile powder or paprika1tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt½tsp. cayenne pepperVada and Assembly1cup chickpea flour2Tbsp. rice flour3½tsp. Diamond Crystal or 2½ tsp. Morton kosher salt, divided, plus more1tsp. ground turmeric, divided⅛tsp. cayenne pepper2lb. medium russet potatoes, peeled1Tbsp. plus 1½ tsp. vegetable oil, plus more for frying (about 8 cups)10fresh curry leaves12" piece ginger, peeled, finely chopped12green Thai chiles, 2 thinly sliced, 10 whole⅛tsp. asafetida1tsp. black mustard seeds½bunch cilantro, leaves chopped2Tbsp. fresh lime juice6kaiser rolls, splitHomemade or store-bought cilantro chutney and tamarind chutney (for serving; optional)Special EquipmentA deep-fry thermometerPreparationcoconut-garlic ChutneyStep 1Toast ½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut in a dry medium skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and let cool.Step 2Add 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled, smashed, to same skillet and cook, turning occasionally, until golden and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Transfer (skin and all) to food processor along with 2 tsp. Kashmiri chile powder or paprika, 1 tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt, and ½ tsp. cayenn
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So, how did this all happen? A confluence of alleged miscommunication, general delivery app tech glitches, and more, explained below.Why did Grubhub launch the promo?Underlying all of yesterday’s pandemonium is the fact that delivery apps are in hot water. They did record-busting business during the pandemic, when more people were ordering meals to eat at home. But as customers are increasingly dining out again, apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub are struggling with sales. (Even during the height of the covid-induced delivery spike, these cost-intensive behemoths weren’t turning a
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The only thing better than a good recipe? When something's so easy to make that you don't even need one. Welcome to It's That Simple, a column where we talk you through the process of making the dishes and drinks we can make with our eyes closed.In my family we live by a few key food rules: Chew your food, clean up after yourself, and most importantly, never, ever waste food. It’s why my mom would hover over me until I ate the last kernel of rice from my plate, or how she was able to whip up delicious meals reborn from leftover knobs of produce from the fridge. This no-waste tenet has been b
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What’s your favorite meal to eat (or make) when stoned?Anything crunchy. On 4/20, I held a kickback at home and I have this one-foot-square grill. It’s the smallest thing ever, I found it at Savers, the thrift store. I put a quarter sheet tray over it and made quesadillas. I asked everyone I invited to bring something to put in them. Also, instant noodles—I add vegetables and a really beautiful egg on top, and that’s a go-to stoney baloney meal. The last thing would be ice cream, because I’m lucky to have a bunch of talented ice cream makers as friends. Right now, I have a honey-mezcal sorbet from Chainsaw in my freezer. And my friend Michelle of Pints Creamery makes an amazing black sesame ice cream. I love eating trashy ice cream, too. I always have at the ready two pints of something that I can snack on.Who is your favorite food person to follow on Instagram?I love Mina Park, she’s @ninetynin.e on Instagram. She makes these amazing whipped cream cakes. She made an espresso-soaked sponge cake with smooth chestnut purée and cocoa-dusted mascarpone ruffles, which is really similar to something I did. They happened at different times, and we didn’t have any interaction with each other. I love the Instagram internet space for pastry information sharing.Who is your dream culinary collaborator?Brooks Headley of Superiority Burger, the vegetarian (but mostly vegan) burger joint in NYC. I’m just waiting for that call. I’ve been adding vegan recipes to my repertoire because a lot of Vietnamese desserts are naturally vegan and gluten-free. They use rice for everything. They use coconut milk for everything.What’s the most underrated ingredient for baking?Salt. It’s really hard to make something too salty. Let's say you have a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe: two eggs, half a pound of butter, and usually one to two teaspoons of salt. What if you made it a full tablespoon? Would it be delicious? Would it be too salty? Probably not. It’s worth it to make that same recipe five different times at 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35 grams of salt, to see if you hit a money spot. Realizing how to hit that ceiling, and how cause and effect works, that’s what makes you a good cook.When you need to get away for a quick vacation, where are you going?Ojai. It’s a two-hour-away oasis. I always go by myself. I don't really allow myself to do stuff by myself,
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The only thing better than a good recipe? When something's so easy to make that you don't even need one. Welcome to It's That Simple, a column where we talk you through the process of making the dishes and drinks we can make with our eyes closed.“I know gut health is very trendy nowadays,” my gastroenterologist said through a painfully forced polite grin. I had just asked her if she could somehow check on the “flora'' in my stomach, at which she seemed to internally roll her eyes. And why wouldn’t she? Maybe I have gone through a gut health TikTok rabbit hole and maybe I indulge in more dairy than my lactose-intolerant tummy can handle. But I wasn’t about to give up my love for labneh or cheddar and I was desperate for a way to soothe stomach aches without adding medication into the mix. Hence, my newest routine: putting ginger shots into ice cubes and putting them in drinks for tummy ease.Let me back up. If you’ve ever googled “stomach pain, what do,” you know as well as I that ginger tea is known for easing digestion and bloating, thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties. But now that it’s spring, I’m in the mood for a refreshing beverage; I refuse to down a warm drink on a warm day. On a whim, I turned to store-bought ginger shots and was amazed at how delicious they actually tasted: zingy, sweet, and so soothing after a hefty meal. The ingredients read: ginger, lemon juice, and apple—three extremely affordable and accessible grocery store items I could definitely blend at home.Soon I realized I couldn’t keep up with weekly ginger-blending sessions. I needed a one-and-done way to store the juice for longer than a few days. As ever, my freezer came to the rescue. I poured my blended ginger juice through a sieve and straight into an ice cube tray. First thing in the morning, I pop a cube or two into a full glass of water and wait until the cube is about half melted. The ginger-infused water is spicy-sweet and refreshing—and it gets even tastier as the ice continues to melt. It seems like my stomach almost always has an easier time digesting whatever it is I’m craving that morning.Here’s how to make it: Blend 1 cup water, 8 oz ginger root, ½ an apple, and the juice of ½ a lemon (for added sweetness, feel free to squeeze in a Tbsp of honey or maple syrup) until the mixture is smooth and cohesive. Don’t worry about peeling the ginger or apple—it’s all getting strained out anyway. Once blended, fit a fine mesh sieve over a glass measuring cup and pour the ginger mixture in. Use a spoon to press the juice out of the pieces of flesh and skin that catch onto the sieve, getting every last drop through. Pour the fresh, strained ginger juice into the cavities of an ice cube tray and let it freeze overnight. Depending on the size of your ice cube tray, you’ll have at least two weeks worth of frozen ginger shots ready to go.I love the way these make glasses of plain water sparkle, but they can zhush up all kinds of cold drinks: Add a gingery ice cube to sparkling lime-flavored water for a DIY ginger ale. Or pop an ice cube or two into your morning smoothie to boost flavor and health benefits. Whether you’re ti
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This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now.Every time a cousin, auntie, or uncle came to visit us from Malaysia, they’d bring an extra large, designated suitcase carefully stuffed to the brim with asam laksa-flavored Maggi instant noodles, vibrantly colored jelly cups, pandan extract, and other goodies we couldn’t find in suburban Minnesota in the ‘90s. Prized above all was Baba’s Meat Curry Powder, a heady and fragrant blend of ground spices including cinnamon, star anise, fennel, nutmeg, and coriander. It would be packed into their luggage, layered like lasagna sheets between snacks and clothing. As soon as our visitor landed and settled in, the ceremonial unpacking of food treasures would ensue, and the deep green packages would reveal themselves and make their way into our pantry. Every time my mom made goat curry, she would retrieve a packet and spoon out a precious portion of Baba’s curry powder, perfuming the whole house with the spice blend.How did Baba’s curry powder become such a vital part of our family’s culinary history? Back in the '60s, when my mom was a teenager, vans started making the rounds in the residential neighborhoods of Kuala Lumpur selling various pantry staples like rice and roasted, milled spice mixes to local housewives. Before this, my Didu—or maternal grandmother—and my great-aunt would have to toast and grind the spices themselves, and these mobile spice shops offered convenience and the promise of time saved. The Baba’s brand started just like those other vans, and it became so popular that the spice blends could eventually be found in conventional grocery stores. Like many Malaysian families, that’s when Baba’s became part of our family pantry too. Didu replaced her small-batch spice mixes with Baba’s to make her goat curry. Years later, when my mom moved to America, she took Didu’s recipe—and packages of Baba’s—with her. For me, the curry powder has become a pantry staple that goes beyond the meals I learned from my family. Got some chicken you want to roast? Add Baba’s to the marinade. Want to make ribs? Incorporate it into a coffee rub. Although the package says “meat curry powder” and sports images of goats and chickens, it’s great for more than just meat dishes (and it’s vegan). Coat potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, or butternut squash with a mix of Baba’s and melted ghee before roasting. You’ll get a nutty, savory, and slightly sweet taste that’s super satisfying. Because of its subtle sweetness from the fennel and star anise, I love using it as a popcorn seasoning on movie night.Experimenting with making Baba’s my own makes me feel more connected to Didu and my family in Malaysia. I used to ration every spoonful, careful to make sure my supply lasted until the next auntie resupply. Now that I've discovered that it’s just a click away on Amazon, I’m using it with reckless abandon and finding even more ways to use it in my daily cooking.
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Photograph by Isa ZapataAllow me, for a moment, to help you envision this dreamy cream puff. The first of its two fillings is a deeply roasty banana cream that tastes like if Laffy Taffy cost $100. The team at PDF turns whole roasted bananas into a thick puree by cooking the fruit down with a dry caramel and blitzing it in a food processor. “There’s not a lot of liquid, so the starch in the banana tightens it up,” explains Russell. With cream, eggs, and white chocolate, the puree becomes a custard (the fat in the chocolate helps the custard set, eliminating the need to use gelatin); when salted and folded into whipped cream, the custard becomes what’s known as creme diplomat.Sour ora
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Growing up in a Northern California suburb, California Pizza Kitchen was formative for me—a spot for birthdays, teen theater cast parties, and weird high school dates, and the site of my first bite
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The only thing better than a good recipe? When something's so easy to make that you don't even need one. Welcome to It's That Simple, a column where we talk you through the process of making the dishes and drinks we can make with our eyes closed.Born to serial entertainers, I started hosting dinner parties at 18 in my tiny basement apartment. What started simple—soups, roasted vegetables, curries—ballooned into week-long projects as my cooking personality developed. Admittedly, I’m overly ambitious and my baking follows the same pattern: It’s always a challenge and it’s always something different.In order to rein in my ambitions and whittle my dinner party prep to a half-day deligh
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Rich, dark, and dare I say, moist, nothing beats a no-frills classic chocolate cake. It’s what I turn to when I want dessert to really hit the spot. But if like me, you have been on a mission to mak
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In Cheap Tricks we’ll help you make the most out of everyday supermarket staples. Today, the easiest route to stuffed biscuits.There are some recipes I develop from a place of intellectual curiosity, through a rigorous series of empirical experiments. I tweak and I measure, I note and I weigh.And there are some recipes I develop by accident, when I am a little bit drunk and rooting around in the fridge. I’ll let you guess which route I took to come up with these “25-minute stuffed biscuits.”The truly magical thing about this recipe is that it actually works best with the store-bought stuff, due to the factory-uniform distribution of fat throughout clearly defined dough layers that always rise to their full potential. They are all flaky outsides and molten centers, dough swaddling a hidden delight.The concept of stuffing something delicious into a carb is, of course, in no way novel. Neither is the idea of stuffing something delicious into a buttery, golden-brown biscuit. My 25-minute boys are a close cousin of the kolache, the jelly donut, the hand pie, and others, to be sure. And, like their kin, they are absolutely delicious.So, grab a can of your favorite biscuit dough (I like to use Pillsbury Grands); and get ready to reap the rewards of your (very low) efforts.Here’s how to make stuffed biscuits:First, get preparedHeat an oven to 350° F, or an air fryer to 320° F. Lightly grease a high-sided baking pan—one that’s big enough to fit all of your biscuits (a 13x9" baking pan, which fits 8 biscuits with some room to spare, is ideal)—or the basket of your air fryer with vegetable oil.Then, make your filling. Here’s where you’ll have to choose: sweet or savory. For sweet stuffed biscuits, I recommend cream cheese and jam. Strawberry, guava, and raspberry work well. You could also experiment with all sorts of other fillings, like ube halaya, or honey and nut butter. For a savory take, my go to is cream cheese and finely chopped scallion, chives, or a mix of the two. Swap in labne or Greek yogurt for the cream cheese, any herb or caramelized allium for the scallion, and/or even a few crushed-up Ruffles. Live your life!In a bowl, add equal parts
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This dinner salad plays fast and loose with the elements of a steakhouse steak salad; pesto; and tagliata, the Italian combo of sliced grilled steak, arugula, lemon, and shaved Parmesan. The result is
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Before I even started the five-second video clip my husband sent of a chef’s knife plunging clean through an adorable miniature tortoise, the sight of the thumbnail already had me moaning, “No, no, no!” The animal’s beady black gaze remained unchanged as the blade descended through his squishy, polygon-patterned shell to reveal layers of spice cake and kelly-green vanilla buttercream icing. Horrified but relieved, I proceeded to watch pastry chef Natalie Sideserf’s macabre cake reveal at least another half-dozen times, wondering how on earth she pulled it off (and also, maybe, how she sleeps at night).In every corner of the Internet, I’m seeing sculptures made from food. My personal favorites lean gentler, silly even: a tiny armchair fashioned out of butter and sliced with a knife on a continuous, soothing loop. A grainy, vintage magazine photograph of a deranged-looking radish pig with toothpick legs. And a seriously convincing electric kettle that steams, made by chef Tuba Geçkil. The latter category of hyper realist bakes inspired the Netflix series Is It Cake?, which debuted in March and features skilled pastry chefs recreating everyday objects out of dough and fondant—like hardshell tacos and sewing machines—that are hidden amid decoys of the real thing to try and fool a judging panel.It’s not surprising that these playful images, which are all art imitating life, took off in a culture underpinned by Tweeters besotted by the meme-ification of, well, everything. Combine that with roughly two years of confinement to home and screens due to the pandemic, and you get a sculpted food obsession spectrum spanning from cute butter furniture to cakes mimicking a human foot wearing a strappy sandal.But what makes us so perennially fascinated by food made into lifelike objects? Psychologist Jennifer Drake says that, regardless of the medium, we humans are wired to marvel at skill. “Which is recognized when we’re surprised that an object is not what we thought it was,” says Drake, who’s an associate professor of psychology at Brooklyn University. And we especially consider art more valuable when it’s unexpected, like “when we are told a p
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I breathe easier knowing that my egg-frying pans are high-quality and heavy-duty, but that doesn't mean I’m reckless. They live by themselves in a cabinet where they will never get scratched. Stacking a nonstick skillet with other pans or cutlery beats the hell out of them, so after I'm done cooking eggs, I clean, dry, and put mine away in a place where they won’t be touched by anything else. (They're dishwasher safe, but I recommend handwashing.) Zwilling says it’s cool to use metal utensils on the nonstick surface, but I use a rubber spatula when I whip up scrambled eggs. Why run the risk? This babying prolongs their life span, and when I’m talking about the best nonstick pans there are, I want them to live as long as possible. I want them to live forever.Looking for something a bit less expensive?For about half the price of the Zwilling Madura, you can snap up a Tramontina nonstick fry pan. The stainless steel handle comes with a heat resistant silicone sheath, and the heavy-duty aluminum makes for even heat distribution whether you’re scrambling eggs or sautéing leeks for a frittata. The nonstick coating is durable and slick, and the pan itself is incredibly sturdy and can stand up well to most any task in the kitchen. And if it does start to show signs of wear, don’t worry—because it’s so affordable, you can replace it as needed.Tramontina Nonstick Fry Pan, 10-InchBut what if I just want to make one egg?If you make a lot of egg sandwiches or often fry up a single egg to top your leftovers, the best egg pan for you is the adorable Greenpan 5-inch nonstick skillet. Made of aluminum with a silicone-wrapped handle, it’s lightweight, conducts heat like a champ, and can be easily stashed in a drawer because of its petite size. Since the pan prevents the egg from spreading, commerce writer Tiffany Hopkins reaches for her mini Greenpan when she wants a neat and tidy fried egg for topping an English muffin. It also scores extra points for versatility: Hopkins says she uses her Greenpan to make silver dollar pancakes in addition to eggs.Let's scramble:This piece was originally published in 2017 and was updated in 2022 by Megan Wahn.
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What do a couple of master home cooks from Montego Bay, an instructor at the Tokyo Sushi Academy, and the heir to a restaurant dynasty in New Delhi have in common? They all host virtual Airbnb cooking classes and can teach you how to create exciting new dishes from the comfort of your own kitchen.As avid travelers hungry for local experiences, we would frequently book cooking classes through Airbnb in whatever country we were visiting. So when the world effectively shut down in 2020 due to the pandemic, putting our globetrotting on hold, we were delighted to find that the platform had brought all of those culinary experiences we loved online. And just like their IRL offerings, each class is designed and led by vetted hosts who are deeply knowledgeable about their local cuisines and culture
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In Underrated, we review the ordinary rituals we build around food. Next up: eating fish and chips with a side of sand.Eating on the beach is an impractical choice. The wind blows sand into food with ease, seagulls will not respect your boundaries, and everything feels sticky to the touch. Still, this evening my family carries our haul of fish and chips past the groups eating their meals straight-backed at real tables featuring plastic cups of Sauvignon Blanc and towards the ocean. Our fried food is swaddled in off-white paper like a newborn coming home. We stop at the border between sidewalk and sand, and even my dad, who eats pizza with a knife and fork, understands we must remove our shoes and feel the warm grains nestle snugly around our toes.Sitting cross-legged near the water sans to
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I’ve been vegan since the dark ages—2009 to be exact. Way before the proliferation of Impossible Burgers, oat milk soft serve, and certainly before plant-based sashimi. It was hard out there for us. Kids these days get to eat all the stunty burgers and deep-fried lasagna.We’ve come a long way in the veganification of the grocery aisle, but I’m most excited about all the plant-based dairy. Bye-bye weird margarine-y “buttery spread” and grainy rubber cheese, and hello fatty, creamy, unctuous nondairy ice cream. Today we have vegan butter options for baking, spreading on cinnamon toast, and even making buttercream frosting as fluffy and tangy as the real thing. Don’t know where to start? Curious if the best dairy-free butter for baking a pie crust is the same as the one you want for slathering on a warm blueberry muffin? As a veteran vegan I’ve tried over a dozen vegan spreads and buttery sticks and fancy myself a bit of an expert. Here are the best vegan butter brands for every kind of cooking scenario.For Literally Everything: Miyoko’s European Style Cultured Vegan ButterWhen Miyoko Schinner came on the scene in 2014, she really changed things for butter-loving her
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Maybe you've heard, but here at BA, we like to cook. Sometimes, though, even the easiest recipe isn't easy enough, and that’s where the best meal delivery services come in. Think curated grocery del
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As a child of suburbia, I have a special fondness for mall restaurants, the ultimate champion of which is California Pizza Kitchen. In particular, the chain’s BBQ Chicken Pizza looms large in my memory: sweeter than pizza probably should be, but savory too, with just enough cilantro sprinkled over the top to count as the inclusion of a vegetable. It was the meal I requested for at least one grade school birthday and shared with friends many times once I got my driver’s license and had the freedom to go anywhere (of course we picked…the mall).This recipe is a vegetarian twist on the CPK fan favorite. All of the heavy hitters are the same: tangy barbecue sauce, melty cheese (a combo of mozzarella and smoked Gouda for richness and to double down on smoky flavor), and sweet red onion. But instead of chopped chicken breast, the meaty component is mushrooms (I like a mix of king trumpet, maitake, and oyster), which go crispy and tender in the oven in a way that chicken never could. With store-bought pizza dough and your favorite barbecue sauce on deck, it’s a recipe that comes together in minutes, no trip to the mall required. —Kendra VaculinAll products featured on Bon Appétit are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through the retail links below, we earn an affiliate commission.IngredientsMakes one 12" pizza6oz. mixed mushrooms , cut or torn into large pieces (about 3½ cups)2Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling1lb. s
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This is our guide for how to spend the best possible day eating, drinking, and adventuring through a new-to-you city. Here, Bradley James Dry—special events chef and long-time Tulsan—shares his tips for where to eat and what to do if you happen to find yourself on Tulsa Time.Tulsa is a just-big-enough town. It’s bike-friendly and has an awesome LGBTQIA+ community; we have beautiful parks, an amazing music scene, and 9 out of 10 folks you encounter are really nice. People have a lot of preconceived notions about Oklahoma: They think it’s Southwestern, Midwestern, or Southern. It’s non
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This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now.Unlike the mini food processor and mini baking dish I use all the time, I never thought my mini ceramic egg pan made much sense. I received it as a gift, and while it quickly earned the title of Cutest Pan In My Arsenal, I couldn’t see myself reaching for a 5-inch skillet in place of my regular degular 10-inch nonstick, even for eggs. Why would I ever do that? I’d think to myself every time I would see it in the cabinet. But one night, when my totally no
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While pasta primavera can all too often seem like it’s stuck in the ’80s, the best versions highlight fresh quickly cooked spring vegetables bathed in a creamy—not claggy—sauce. And it turns out the primavera treatment is equally delicious when you swap the pasta for golden brown chicken cutlets. Think of the pearl onions, asparagus, and peas in this recipe only as a template—primavera means spring in Italian, so feel free to bring any and all of the season’s green vegetables into the mix. You can swap in fava beans, sugar snap peas, or even wild ramps. If you can’t find pearl on
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In Cheap Tricks we’ll help you make the most out of everyday supermarket staples. Today, how to make gulab jamun with pancake mix.One of the greatest delights of South Asian dessert fare is the gulab jamun. They’re syrupy, bite-sized fried treats, often gently perfumed by cardamom or rose water, and they’re a mainstay: Gulab jamun can be found sealed in sticky cans at South Asian grocery stores, at the end of Indian restaurants’ lunchtime buffets, or fresh-fried and swimming in thick sugar syrup at sweets shops. In my home, every occasion—potlucks, celebrations, family gatherings, Indian festivals—was always prefixed by my mom’s homemade gulab jamun. But the issue with making them yourself: The way it's traditionally made can be inaccessible to the home cook. Enter the Bisqui
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Everywhere I scroll, I see cake. Dried lavender and eastern hemlock branches jut out between spiny swirls of vegan lavender Prosecco buttercream. Durian cream cheese rosettes frame edible photos of the original Gossip Girl cast. And then there’s a Hobbit house constructed from vanilla, chocolate, and matcha buttercream, studded with edible pearls and dehydrated kumquats.These are just a few of the weird and wonderful cakes I’ve admired through my phone screen over the past year. And all of them are created by a cohort of independent bakers who’ve racked up tens of thousands of social media followers based entirely on their unconventional creations. From the opulently frosted to the freakily jellied, many of these cakes don’t advertise their deliciousness in the same way as those fe
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Ocean blue walls, tin ceilings, tile floors, and a profusion of live greenery make Little Sister feel like a coffee shop you might find tucked between the shops and bars of Santurce, San Juan’s vibrant creative district. Instead, it sits at the corner of Hope Street and Rochambeau Avenue, not far from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The goal at this cafe, according to Milena Pagán, its owner and head chef, is to fill a gap in a traditionally white area, and provide a taste of the Caribbean in her adopted home. Here, every element of the welcoming vibe is by design, she says.Pagán never planned to open a restaurant—let alone two. But in 2018, the MIT-trained chemical engineer from Caguas, south of San Juan, ditched a successful corporate consulting career to open Rebelle
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Every household across the South Asian diaspora has its own version of garam masala, the beloved spice blend whose name literally translates from Hindi to “warm spice.” This recipe is loosely based on the one my mother makes back in India; it’s the ingredient that makes my guests wonder why my Indian food tastes so good (the secret’s out!). This blend has my ideal balance of warming notes from cloves and nutmeg, and I come back to it time and time again.There are hundreds of recipes out there for garam masala, and that’s part of its beauty: If you like a sweeter blend, you can be generous with the cinnamon and fennel seeds; for a hotter mix, tip in more black pepper and cloves. Each variation will result in a slightly different garam masala. Use this version highlighting core ing
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Remove dark green parts from 2 scallions and thinly slice; set aside for serving. Thinly slice white and pale green parts. Set reserved pan over medium heat. Add white and pale green parts of scallions and 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped, and cook, stirring often, until translucent, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle 2 tsp. garam masala over scallions and garlic, then season with salt. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add 1 green bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, cut into 1" pieces, and cook, stirring often, until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add reserved sauce and cook, stirring occasionally, until bubbling and slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Add tofu and cook, stirring, until coated in sauce, about 45 seconds. Immediately remove from heat.
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The Bon Appétit team Slack channel is a place for big feelings, and last week, those feelings coalesced around plates. Namely, that we don’t like them! Sure, we will use them in a pinch, but most of us on staff agree that the premiere vessel for eating, the one we use in our homes for lunch and in the test kitchen for showing off our latest creations, is a pasta bowl.Pasta bowls are wide, low, and shallow—essentially plates with high walls, boasting the best that both plates and bowls have to offer. The base of a pasta bowl is flat rather than curved, giving you ample surface area for spreading a dish out rather than up. But the walls (which can be gently sloped or more perpendicular to the base, depending on your aesthetic tastes) keep the contents of your meal corralled together, wi
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This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now.If someone said to me, “Tell me you're in your 30’s without telling me you’re in your 30’s,” I would send them a link to this piece, wherein I earnestly declare my love for a “broom system” without a lick of irony. I am both lazy and obsessive about cleaning. I have a big, throaty Dyson vacuum and a quietly buzzing Roomba—but it’s Muji’s small, skinny broom I reach for multiple times a day. It has transformed my cleaning life, and I want that for you too.Given the Muji-head that I am (their pens, notebooks, and storage boxes are the only ones worth having), I’m frankly shocked I didn’t arrive at this find years earlier. Muji’s a
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Admittedly, I’ve never once thought to halve a recipe for any dessert I’m making because in my book, I’d always rather have more sweets than fewer. You, however, might not have quite the sweet tooth I do. In the case that you’re looking to halve a recipe, you might find some mathematical and logistical hurdles, like how to halve an egg or figuring which size baking pan to use. You can, in fact, still make a great baked good at half the size. Here’s a mini-primer on how to accurately downsize baking recipes.First: an obligatory PSA that you should definitely be using a baking with a scale, especially if you are a chronic recipe cutter-downer. Scaling recipes by half, quarter, or whatever else is just so easy, effortless, and accurate when you use weights; I’d be remiss if I didn
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Memorial Day food isn’t all about marinated and barbecue sauce–slathered meats. What you serve on the side matters, too. Coleslaw? A necessity. Watermelon? If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where it’s already ripe, you do have an obligation to consume. We've cobbled together 60 of the best Memorial Day sides we know. These recipes include our favorite pasta salad with romesco sauce, grilled baby artichokes, a juicy tomato salad with melon and feta, crisp cucumber wedges with a garlicky almond sauce, and plenty more. Get the recipes→Go straight to the sides you need:Our Favorite Memorial Day DessertsPhotographs by Laura Murray, food styling by Simon Andrews, prop styling by Sophie StrangioI scream, you scream, we all scream for summer to be here already! We’re also not d
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Presented by Infiniti.Sai bhaji, a kind of velvety mash made with chana dal, fresh greens, and vegetables, is the perfect baby food, my mother explained, as she prepared it for my infant daughter. “Soft, nutritious, filling,” she said. I was living in Singapore then, and my parents were visiting to spend time with their first grandchild.I hadn’t had sai bhaji in years. My mother, and my grandmothers before her, served this traditional Sindhi dish—a tangy, dal-flecked vegetable curry—in their kitchens. It represented familiarity and comfort, but it wasn’t my favorite. I dutifully ate it well into my teens, but turned away from it and other traditional foods as soon as I left home for college. Then came graduate school, many jobs, a marriage, several apartments, and an internatio
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