Bon Appétit

To make this pasta sing, use the freshest, best-quality crab available, such as jumbo lump crabmeat, Dungeness, or king crab. Adjust the heat from the chiles and the amount of lemon juice to your liking.

This is the definition of minimalist Thai cooking. The steam not only gently cooks the fish until just tender but also creates an instant, complex sauce from a handful of basic ingredients. Scoring the fish's flesh allows more of the flavor to season the fish and facilitates faster steaming. The fish is cooked on a plate that fits inside the steamer, to catch the juices.

Thai salads are full of crisp vegetables and fruits mixed with intense condiments. "It's not about just tossing the ingredients together," says Ricker. "It's about working them into the dressing," which can also be used to dress green-papaya and cabbage slaws.

If you can only find regular coconut milk, buy 2 cans and use the thick cream that's floating at the top. The coconut cream will caramelize during cooking, leaving sweet brown flecks in the rice.

Virtue Feed & Grain in Alexandria, VA, serves this take on an Old Fashioned, just one of their signature "hoptails."

Rustic yellow pea soup goes upscale with a foie gras garnish.

Sip this beefy, faintly sweet broth as is, or, to make it even heartier, simmer diced root vegetables and/or little pastas in it.

Letting the hot steak rest over a platter of frisée serves to gently wilt the greens.

Our microwave polenta technique puts an end to nonstop stirring.

Use this dressing to add zip to broccolini, also sold as baby broccoli or Asparation.

There are two categories of entrée in Thailand: dishes served with rice, and noodle dishes, which are presented as one-pot meals and often eaten on the go. Rice noodles cook more quickly than wheat pasta and are the perfect neutral vehicle for intense Thai flavors. This Pad Thai is not the dish from the neighborhood take-out joint. "It ain't made with chicken," says Ricker, whose traditional take—pleasantly funky with fish sauce and preserved radish and a touch sour from tamarind—is meant to be eaten in the evening as a stand-alone dish.

We've fallen hard for Scotch eggs—the gastropub staple— cooked eggs swaddled in sausage meat, then breaded and fried. Sorry, doc, now we're making them at home.

Gently poach shrimp, then marinate them in the rémoulade for at least 2 hours or overnight to allow the flavors to meld.

Our fresh take on the classic Moroccan salad pairs shaved fennel and red onion with assorted beets and oranges for color contrast.

Duck fat makes for a special treat; you can also use clarified butter or ghee, available at specialty foods stores.

All Thai curries start with a handful of aromatic ingredients (chiles, galangal, lemongrass, turmeric, etc.) pounded into a paste with a granite mortar and pestle. The paste is then stirred into soups or stews (often with coconut milk) or used as the basis of sautéed dishes. Use a mini-processor to make the curry paste if you'd like, although this incendiary stew will take on a deeper flavor if you use a granite mortar and pestle.

Boneless chicken breasts team up with chewy nutrient-packed grains, lentils, and greens in this sweet and zesty weeknight meal.

The secret to Sticky Toffee Pudding sweetness is dates, baked into a dense cake that's drizzled with caramel—special enough to be served for company and simple enough to be enjoyed after a weeknight dinner.

Use very soft, ripe, heartshaped Hachiya persimmons rather than the smaller, firmer Fuyu variety. If you can't find Hachiyas, substitute 1 cup of canned pumpkin. Stir any leftover purée into yogurt for a sweet breakfast.