This quick soup, one of Chris’s go-tos on a snowy day, uses a genius shortcut ingredient: tomato sauce, but a few plum tomatoes keep the flavor fresh. Chris’s favorite mini pasta, ditalini, adds the umph to make it a meal.
honey
Miso-Butter Roast Chicken and Potatoes
Slow-cooking a “roast” chicken yields moist, juicy meat but flabby skin—the easy fix is to run the carved chicken under the broiler to crisp the skin before serving. The miso-honey mixture that’s drizzled on before broiling helps the skin get deep caramelization, and it also reinforces the salty-sweet miso flavor you added in the beginning, which will have mellowed.
Lidia Bastianich’s Roasted Guinea Hen with Balsamic Glaze
The blend of balsamic vinegar and honey to baste the guinea hen gives the bird a beautiful mahogany glaze and a delicious sweet-tart taste. These hens make an impressive holiday meal.
Pulled Pork Sliders
There are not a lot of fair foods that can actually work for a family dinner, but these pulled pork sliders are can. They’re made in a slow cooker, so there’s a built-in ease. Anyone can make these.
Pineapple Avocado Salsa for Caribbean Black Bean Burgers
Oh, your burger is about to get 1000 times better, thanks to this Cuban-inspired salsa.
Steven Raichlen’s Sweet-and-Smoky Barbecue Sauce
Ask most Americans to describe the perfect barbecue sauce and they’ll invoke a thick sweet red ketchup-based sauce with a zing of vinegar and a whiff of liquid smoke. In short, the sort of sauce Kansas City barbecue buffs have slathered on ribs and briskets for decades.
