America's Test Kitchen

Pawpaws taste like a tropical fruit but are grown right here in America.

Mildly flavored but meaty swordfish steaks are best when cooked quickly over high heat, where they acquire a golden-brown crust. Slow cooking gives their enzymes the time to break down the proteins in these dense steaks, rendering them unappealingly mushy. To speed up cooking, we seared them in a hot skillet, flipping them frequently so that they cooked from both the bottom up and the top down. To keep each bite juicy, we made sure to remove the steaks from the heat when they reached 130 degrees and let carryover cooking bring them up to the desired temperature of 140 degrees.

Instead of sautéing whole heads of baby bok choy, a vegetable that is nearly impossible to cook evenly, we decided to treat it like two different vegetables. We started by coarsely chopping the top dark leaves and snapping off the stalks. After soaking the stalks and leaves to remove their grit, we spun them dry in a salad spinner. We then lightly charred the stalks in a ripping-hot nonstick skillet. Finally, we added the leaves along with scallion, honey, and orange zest for a sweet, savory side dish that cooks in less than 7 minutes.

A surprise ingredient—chickpeas!—adds heft, protein, and earthy flavor to these vegetarian quesadillas.

An ice cream maker works by churning a mixture (usually milk, cream, sugar, and egg yolks) as it freezes to inhibit the formation of ice crystals and to incorporate air—so that instead of a solid block of frozen milk, you have silky, creamy ice cream. But we found an easy way to ditch the ice cream maker by whipping cream in a blender. The air in the whipped cream stood in for the air normally incorporated by churning. Using two liquid sweeteners—sweetened condensed milk and corn syrup—kept the ice cream soft and scoopable. Dark chocolate, espresso powder, and a little salt (to enhance the flavor) produced an intensely chocolaty ice cream.

Does mayo need to be kept in the fridge? What about ketchup? And soy sauce?

Arroz con titoté is popular along the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It is similar to a classic pilaf, but it uses coconut oil rather than olive oil. We started ours by boiling pure coconut milk (the preservatives and emulsifiers in some products can interfere with the reducing process) in a partially covered saucepan until the water evaporated, leaving the fat behind. After browning the particles of coconut that were suspended in the fat, we added the rice, which had been rinsed to remove excess surface starch that would otherwise make the finished product sticky. Adding just enough water to hydrate and gel the starches in the rice ensured that the cooked grains would be light and fluffy. We added a small amount of sugar and raisins, which are traditional ingredients, to enhance the natural sweetness of the coconut. Finishing with a spritz of lime juice brought all the sweet, salty, nutty flavors into focus.

We focused first on a rich spice rub for the halibut that would impart flavor as it sat. An oil-based rub with coriander and paprika provided aromatic flavor and nice color, and a little bit of cayenne added just the right amount of subtle heat. We tried many accompaniments, from green beans to potatoes, to pair with this spiced fish, but our favorite turned out to be a combination of chickpeas and cherry tomatoes. The chickpeas soaked up the spiced broth, and some of the tomatoes broke down in the oven, creating a bright sauce that complemented the halibut nicely. We flavored the chickpeas and tomatoes with more coriander and paprika—plus shallots, garlic, and lemon to brighten all of the warmth. We simply nestled the halibut fillets into the chickpea-tomato mixture before baking. When the halibut was cooked through, we drizzled it with some fruity olive oil and sprinkled it with fresh cilantro for an herbal note.

In a bid to elevate the humble chicken dinner, we reached for a few shots of brandy to see if we could turn out crispy-skinned, succulent chicken in a lovely caramelized onion and brandy sauce. We began with chicken thighs (a flavorful and forgiving cut, just perfect for this comforting dish), which we placed skin side down in a 12-inch nonstick skillet to render some of the fat and give the skin a bit of crunch. With the chicken transferred to a plate, we next opted for a shortcut to caramelized onions by adding brandy to the skillet along with some sliced onions before covering the skillet so that the onions would steam in the brandy and break down more quickly. After placing the chicken back in the skillet (skin side up to keep the skin crispy), we popped the skillet into a 350-degree oven to finish cooking the chicken and allow the onions to soak up the rendered juices.

We simmer the wine until it’s nearly evaporated to soften its edge and cook off the alcohol.

Once you try these butter-fried potatoes, you won’t know how you ever lived without them. 

Tuna salad is a good go-to for a quick pantry-friendly meal. But we don’t always want the traditional creamy deli-style version; this salad shows the versatility of tuna with fresh, bright flavors and a lemon vinaigrette. We bypassed the mayo and instead opened a jar of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes. Their concentrated sweetness made the perfect enhancement to plain canned tuna, but we also used some of the oil from the jar to prepare the vinaigrette and imbue every bite of our salad with warm Mediterranean flavor. Meaty cannellini beans and briny olives over a bed of tender Bibb lettuce brought salty, savory balance to the tart dressing. And what is tuna salad without some crisp celery? For prominent celery avor we doubled up and used both the celery ribs and the leaves. 

We made this into a one-dish meal by including pasta and chickpeas. We used Greek yogurt, since it gave the soup the requisite thickness and dairy richness without leaving it overly tart. We added an egg yolk to give the soup further richness and a silky consistency. Unlike the time-consuming stuffed, spiced meatballs that are more traditional here, we opted for easy-to-make meatballs from ground beef and bulgur. Finally, we garnished the soup with cilantro and Aleppo pepper–infused melted butter.

For this recipe, we focused on finding a quick oven-drying technique that would transform the tomatoes into slightly chewy, savory-sweet morsels with deep, concentrated tomato flavor. Roasting the tomatoes in smaller pieces and at a slightly higher oven temperature than is typical of other recipes did the trick. Seasoning them first with salt and herbs as well as sugar not only bumped up their savory profile but also strengthened their sweetness. Adding sliced garlic to the quartered tomatoes before roasting them provided another dimension of flavor.

Tepary beans were first cultivated by Native Americans in the American southwest and are prized for their drought-resistant properties. The tepary bean’s tolerance of heat and water stress makes it an attractive crop for forward-thinking agriculturalists as the effects of climate change become more pronounced in the coming years. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture has begun cross-breeding tepary and common beans (think: black, red, and pinto beans) in an attempt to transfer these genetic traits to the common bean. The two main types of tepary beans are white and brown. When we cooked off a test batch of the white variety, the beans’ earthy flavor and creamy texture called out for a pureed treatment.

This recipe is inspired by Michael Solomonov’s “tehina” hummus, replacing chickpeas with tepary beans (it also works well with cannellini beans). We found that soaking the beans overnight in water with a little salt and baking soda before simmering them on the stove yielded supertender, creamy beans that are perfect for pureeing. Both salt and baking soda work to weaken cell-wall structure; the alkalinity of baking soda helps dissolve hemicelluloses, and sodium displaces magnesium, which facilitates the dissolving of cell-wall pectins. We finish the supersmooth bean hummus with a bright and briny herb and olive salad and a sprinkle of crunchy toasted seeds for a dish that can be served with some pita bread as a light lunch or dinner or as an appetizer dip for a dinner party that will win you points with vegan guests. 

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