Meal Prep

Yakitori means “grilled chicken,” but you can also add seasonal vegetables and boiled quail eggs to skewers for grilling.

This impressive pastry, sometimes spelled Dobos torte, is among the most famous cakes from the Austro-­Hungarian Empire.

Calling something the “world’s best cake” is quite a statement, but it’s not something taken lightly by Norwegians.

The best tsukune, or Japanese chicken meatballs, are nicely caramelized, well seasoned, and juicy—and served straight off the grill.

One of the most famous cakes in Sweden, Prinsesstårta is known for its showstopping layers of sponge cake, pastry cream, and raspberry jam.

This easy pork roast is a hands-off dinner party main thanks to your slow cooker.

Pickled tomatoes brighten up this classic breakfast casserole.

French toast meets bread pudding and cheese blintz with whispers of Danish in this breakfast bake from Vivian Howard.

One of Lisa Chang’s many specialities is her steaming bowl of Wuhan-style hot dry noodles—homemade bouncy alkaline noodles dressed in a creamy sauce made with sesame paste and two different types of soy sauce.

Crisp, golden brown youtiao is a staple at the Chinese breakfast table.

This hearty breakfast recipe is a great way to use up extra sweet potatoes.

These soft and chewy pancakes—inspired by atayef and Korean hotteok—are filled with nuts, sesame seeds, tahini, and grape molasses.

Victoria sponge cake’s simple filling of whipped cream, jam, and fruit makes it the perfect dessert for a celebration.

Using tangzhong—a technique that calls for mixing a cooked flour mixture into bread dough—produces a bread that’s unbelievably soft, sweet, and fluffy.

Masa is the essence of Mexico. It is the foundation of Mexican cooking. In Oaxaca, a lot of families still make their own nixtamal at home to supply their daily masa consumption. Nixtamal is the process of treating dried corn with an alkaline solution to make it more nutritious. Slaking lime—also known as pickling lime, a naturally occurring mineral compound—has been used for thousands of years for this process. After a night of soaking, the nixtamalized corn is ground and transformed into masa. This technique has been passed from generation to generation, especially in Oaxaca. Every night before my mom goes to bed, she nixtamalizes a batch of corn so she can make fresh masa the next morning. It’s part of her nightly routine.    The trickiest part of making masa might be grinding it, and for that I recommend a tabletop wet stone mill or a hand-cranked wet grinder. I like Premier’s Small Wonder 1.5-liter tabletop wet grinder.    Believe me, there is nothing more fulfilling than making your own masa at home.

Though the amount of salt may seem excessive, a lot of the salt will be lost when the mixture is steamed inside the tamal wrapping. You can reduce the amount somewhat, but remember that the particular flavor of masa in tamales is complemented by salt.

This smoky chipotle and tomatillo salsa is an excellent dipping sauce for crudités or tortilla chips, or you can spoon it on top of tamales. You can use more chiles for a spicier sauce.

Requesón is a salty, spreadable Mexican cheese that tastes like a creamier, more acidic version of ricotta. Making it from scratch is easy: You curdle milk with vinegar or another acid such as lime juice, and then warm it and watch the curds form. Most street vendors use it as a tlacoyo filling, but you can use requesón for all sorts of things—stirred into scrambled eggs and tomatoes, smeared into a corn tortilla with salsa, or spread onto a piece of toast with honey or mixed in a dip of fresh herbs and olive oil.

Avocado leaves are the aroma of Oaxaca, and they are the main flavor in this indispensable staple. So many things can be created out of this little bean paste flavored with anise-y avocado tree leaves. It is the base for memelas, tlayudas, molletes, enfrijoladas, and so much more. Growing up, we stopped at the market in Tlacolula—a small village located near Oaxaca City—just to buy the paste, already made, in little plastic bags. You buy some tasajo, you grill it, you get some fresh tlayudas, some salsa, and then you spread some of this paste all over your tortilla like it is a savory cake frosting.

This yeasty, coarse-textured breakfast loaf makes the best toast ever. Slather it with jam or turn it into an egg sandwich.