Author: Daniel Gritzer

In the early days of the internet, hopes ran high. It would be the great equalizer. It would democratize everything. Information would flow freely in ways no human could have ever imagined. In some ways, this has been true. But judging by the fatberg of "content" that has floated to the top of news feeds and search results everywhere, it's been just as much a failure.

This, it seems, is what happens when algorithms make the behaviors of users a critical signal in the "is this valuable?" equation. Because no matter how much we might like to pretend otherwise, most of us can't resist clicking on headlines like, "I Just Tried Harry Styles' Genius Toilet Paper Hack and My Life Is Now a Guaranteed Swipe Right." The more we click, the more we see stuff like that.

Which brings me to the latest in asinine internet ideas that never should have seen the light of day: the viral roast chicken deboning hack, which involves smashing a rotisserie chicken in a plastic bag. I caught wind of it a couple weeks ago as TikTok influencers followed by traffic-thirsty food sites published breathless endorsements of what is clearly a bad idea. "I tried it!" they proclaimed. It works and I'll never do it another way ever again!!!! Sure it works—about as well as moisturizing your skin with rendered beef fat, but that doesn't mean you should throw all your CeraVe in the trash.

I decided to write about how dumb the method is, but then I remembered that Serious Eats is about actually testing things. Could I really denounce it without trying it? Actually, yeah, I'm pretty sure I could, but proof is better than my confidence. So, in the spirit of the internet as we unfortunately know it today...

I Tried the Viral Chicken-Boning Hack and It Has Not Changed My Life One Bit

Though I questioned my sanity for even bothering to test this out, I bought two rotisserie chickens, one for the method in question and the other to do what I knew would be the better way. Can you guess which method was better?

Method 1: Boning Rotisserie Chicken in a Bag

What It Is: This hack purports to be the best way to shred and bone a rotisserie chicken. It involves placing a warm rotisserie chicken in a gallon zipper-lock freezer bag, sealing the bag, and then pressing down all over the bird to separate the meat from the bones. In videos on social media, this is followed by people reaching into the bag of flattened poultry and pulling out bones in wide-eyed amazement, exclaiming that this method is much easier, quicker, and mess-free than any other.

Here's how it went:

• After sliding a chicken into the bag, I realized I needed to wash my hands before I could seal the zipper lock.
  
  Note: This purportedly easy method requires an extra hand-washing step because you probably don't want to touch the outside of the zipper-lock bag with hands that have just been holding a greasy bird.
  
  
• I then began to press down. The bag immediately popped open as my pressing forced air out of it. Even after trying to push out the air and resealing, my bag popped open a second time, at which point I gave up trying to keep the bag closed and just did the best I could to mash the bird while preventing it from spilling out onto the counter.
  
  Note: The bag popped open because of air trapped inside it, which means that you not only have to put a chicken in the bag, but you also have to fiddle with pressing out excess air around the uneven topography (and hollow cavity) of a whole chicken. This is not difficult to do, but it is a small but annoying detail that proponents of the method fail to note. Perhaps the fact that the bag popped open twice was somehow a personal failing of mine, though I suspect I won't be the only person who finds it difficult to keep the bag sealed while mashing the bird.
  
  
• As I pressed on the chicken, the bones did indeed come out easily, but I was left with a question: How, through the mess of chicken mash, skin, and bone, could I tell if I'd pressed enough?
  
  Note: There is nothing impressive about the bones coming free easily—rotisserie chicken is cooked until well done and the bones are always on the verge of falling out. This sloppy method also makes it hard to know what is happening in the bag of squashed chicken, raising the risk that your chicken is going to get over-smushed in the effort to fully debone the bird. Smushed chicken is of very limited utility.
  
  
• Once I was fairly sure I'd pressed enough, I then had to fish out all the bones. But in the process of smashing the bones out of the chicken, I'd also rearranged the bird's skeleton, distributing its pieces throughout the mash. Ribs and vertebrae that were once in order were now scattered and buried in a pile of chicken mush.
  
  Note: Mashing the bones out of the chicken in this way is disorganized and leads to the additional need to sift through the bag afterwards in the hopes that you find all the bones. I struggled to find one of my bird's needle-like fibulae that was once reliably located in the drumstick, and, upon eating my smushed chicken meat later that night, discovered I had missed several more small bones and had to spit them out onto my plate.
  
  
• When I was finished, I was left with a zipper-lock bag that was too greasy to be easily washed and reused, equally greasy bone-searching hands, an unappealing mash of chicken in an inconsistent array of shred sizes, and lingering bone fragments that I had to hope wouldn't choke me or my kids.

Total Time: 5 minutes 30 seconds from bag stuffing through to giving up on bone hunting, and as it turns out, I shouldn't have given up when I did because there were still tiny bones mixed into the mashed chicken.

Method 2: The Obviously Better Boning Method

With my second rotisserie chicken, I tore off the legs and, in a couple deft moves, pulled the meat and bones apart, separating them into neat piles as I went. The bones came out instantly, as rotisserie chicken bones do, and I was able to keep track of them because I was working through the chicken methodically. The leg meat mostly remained in nice sized pieces and I had no concerns about bones being left behind. Then I tore off the breast meat in just a few large sections, popped the tender morsels from the meaty areas of the back, and finally pulled the bones from the wings.

This method:

• was faster;
• required no extra effort to hunt for bones;
• ensured my chicken meat was truly free of all bones;
• did not waste a plastic bag;
• required no extra trips to the sink to wash my hands beyond once before and once after;
• and didn't do any unnecessary dirtying of cookware because I shredded the chicken right in the container it came in, leaving the bones in a pile to be tossed with the container and placing the meat in a mixing bowl for whatever use I had planned.
• Bonus: Because I had pulled the meat off in larger pieces, I was free to decide whether to leave as-is, shred further, or chop. Those are decisions I, as a cook, like to be able to make.
  

Total Time: 3 minutes 10 seconds.

Conclusion

The smash-in-bag method is neither fast, effective, nor environmentally friendly, whereas simply pulling the meat off the bird with your hands is easy, faster, less wasteful, and yielded chicken free of bone fragments.

I hope I've convinced you that you don't need to waste a plastic bag to pull the meat off a rotisserie chicken. But I also hope that my larger point is clear: A test performed in a vacuum and lacking any kind of control—not to mention lacking a tester with real culinary experience—is unlikely to lead to valuable insights. But of course good advice isn't really the goal, grabbing your attention is, and tomorrow's life-changing hack is already being filmed to keep it.

A recipe for how to make a pastrami on rye could start and end like this: Go to Katz's and buy one. That would work for New Yorkers, anyway. For those not in NYC, it might be, Go to Protzel's [St. Louis], Go to Langer's [Los Angeles]; Go to Zingerman's [Ann Arbor]; and on and on depending on your locale. In every case, the answer is not: Go to your local supermarket and get the plastic-wrapped pastrami in the deli case. No no no, if that's your best option, let me direct you to the bologna.

Now let's imagine that you don't want to buy a fully formed pastrami sandwich from one of these hallowed institutions of Jewish meat, that you're committed to actually assembling your own at home. Maybe you don't want to eat it right away and instead intend to fix one up later. That's understandable, the sandwich doesn't exactly get better as it sits and the bread grows weary from grease. Then the recipe might reasonably go something like this: Buy pastrami from Katz's or [insert your favorite Jewish deli here] and put it on Jewish rye with mustard. Don't forget the pickle. Still not much of a recipe.

See, on one level, there's a lot to a pastrami sandwich, but it mostly has to do with the quality of the pastrami.* A good pastrami sandwich isn't possible without good pastrami, and that's hard to come by. With roots in Romanian Jewish cooking, pastrami is a slab of beef brisket that's rich with smoke and spice and, unless you're unlucky, streaked with the melting juices of ample beef fat. When hot and sliced thinly against the grain, then piled to Tower of Babel heights on soft Jewish rye, the fat should seep into the bread, moistening it to translucence without wetting it to mush in the way only animal blubber can. A union happens in that simple construction, the fat weaving the spices and smoke of the pastrami with the bread's strong notes of caraway. A spicy brown mustard, whether spread on the sandwich or served on the side, cuts through all the richness.

*It also has to do with the quality of the rye, as I learned years ago upon my first visit to Langer's in Los Angeles. One bite of my pastrami sandwich and my eyes opened wide. "Damn, that's good rye," I remember saying as I realized the bread I'd been eating in New York my whole life was nothing close to this stuff.

Lots can be said about the pastrami, but the sandwich? Not quite as much, at least not on a technical level, unless we're talking about making the pastrami from scratch. Making your own pastrami is a serious undertaking, which means having good premade stuff shipped from a deli is still going to be the way easier option. Now, if you really are willing and able to brine and cure and soak and smoke and steam a big hunk of brisket, then head right this way to Serious Eats' tested and best-ed recipe for homemade pastrami. No matter how you procure the meat, the rest couldn't be easier.

But oh, how I don't want to end it there, because the pastrami on rye deserves more. I don't eat them often, but as a half-Jewish kid from Brooklyn, I can count pastrami on rye along with the other classic Jewish deli sandwiches as members of a small handful of foods that I consider to be part of my own otherwise fairly weak cultural identity. My mom used to take me to one or another of the city's iconic delis and we'd eat as much much of a couple sandwiches as we could manage, saving the uneaten portions for what was always the most memorable brown-bag lunches of my life. It was thrilling to unwrap a hulking tongue on rye (my personal go-to, though pastrami is a close second) in my public elementary school's cafeteria instead of the PB&Js and tuna salads that were the standards most other days.

I loved tucking into those flavors a day after the restaurant visit almost as much as I did eliciting the grossed-out reactions of my classmates: "You're eating tongue?!" they'd cry while pantomiming a barfing motion as I dramatically bit through the tender layers with a self-satisfied smile. Those kids, despite being raised in the very city that birthed this beauty, didn't know what they were missing.

The emergence of the pastrami sandwich happened roughly a century before my 1980s lunchroom antics, some time around the turn of the turn of the 20th century, when Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who'd been hawking Old World preserved meats from push carts on the Lower East Side of New York City slowly transformed their humble businesses into deli counters, and then full-fledged sit-down restaurants.

This transformation partly happened under regulatory pressure from City officials, who wanted to clean up the chaotic and dirty streets by limiting where cart vendors could work and how many would be licensed to do it; one consequence of the widespread ban on roving carts was that some shifted to brick-and-mortar operations that became the modern delicatessen. The Jewish delicatessens we know today also came to be through the natural fusion of foods as they collide in new places. "The turning point for Jewish delicatessen, which catapulted it from an obscure immigrant food to an American cuisine," writes David Sax in his book, Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen, "was the marriage of this cookery with the simultaneously emerging American obsession with the sandwich."

Exactly who first sandwiched the pastrami is unknown, though Sax relays an anecdote about a Lithuanian butcher named Sussman Volk whose great granddaughter claims was the first to have put pastrami between two slices of rye at his Lower East Side deli at some point in the years following his arrival in NYC in 1887.

Perhaps he was the first, perhaps not. But he was at the vanguard of an immigrant tradition that's getting close to 150 years old, and it's one we can keep going one pastrami sandwich at a time.

Spread the rye bread with mustard (alternatively, you can keep the mustard out of the sandwich and serve it on the side for dipping). Pile with the pastrami, close the sandwich, halve, and serve, preferably with pickles.

Notes

Exactly how much pastrami you put on the sandwich is hotly debated and totally up to you. Some delis will pack upwards of a pound of beef onto one sandwich, which I think borders on the grotesque. The half-pound suggested here is generous without being absurd; you could of course put a little less, but don't go too skimpy or it won't be quite right.

I beg your pardon, but you'll have to allow me a second to process what I'm realizing is an existential moment for me. Apparently today, right now—this second—is the point in my career when I sit down to write about how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Is this how Orson Welles felt when he had to deliver, straight-faced and in his trademark erudite tone, an endorsement for junky supermarket wine? Who am I kidding—he was compensated way better and was at least able to get drunk on that gig. Here I am, sober as a stone and (I'm willing to admit) no Orson Welles. But if Orson could buck up and do it, so can I, so let's go!

The PB&J is as American as it gets, and its story is spread across the internet from web page to web page as if by digital butter knife, each as recognizable to the next as the sandwich itself. I'll spare you too much of a regurgitation here, except in the broadest strokes: It supposedly started as a fancy-ish tea sandwich at the turn of the 20th century, but quickly became a popular lunchtime snack as an increasingly industrialized food system made sliced bread and store-bought jam and peanut butter a common and affordable option to Americans of all economic stripes.

Eventually the PB&J was the brown-bag lunch item to beat; it certainly was when I was a kid in the 80s. I have to imagine it rose in the packed-lunch ranks at least in part because none of its ingredients are prone to spoilage. Little Timmy's sandwich could sit unrefrigerated in his public schoolroom cubby until he finished his numerals, recitations, and spitball attacks for the day and finally got around to shoving the forgotten sandwich into his mouth on the way home. There's a Norman Rockwell of this scene, or at least there ought to be.

Unfortunately for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, those heights could only last so long before an eventual decline, something that Orson Welles and I understand all too well. As good as the ol' pea-bur was at not giving you a nasty case of the runny peanut-butters, it was just as good at sending unfortunately allergic kiddos into anaphylactic shock. Plus, we all became aware that a sandwich packed with that much sugar probably isn't the best to eat daily.

No matter the trend cycle, the PB&J is still a delicious sandwich, and one that brings back pleasant childhood memories for those of us lucky enough not to have been raised on SunButter. I'm sure you can guess that, as simple as the sandwich is, I still have a few things to say about what goes into making a good one. I know you all do too—we asked you, our readers, on Instagram what makes a great PB&J tick and y'all did not disappoint. Actually, I take that back. You did disappoint. Because, while the responses were numerous, they were exceedingly thin on insight. "Ratio," my friends, is not a sufficient answer. But thank you anyway.

So let's talk about PB&Js and ratios and which sides should be slathered with what in a bit more detail. I don't really think I'm going to teach you anything useful, but it'll be fun trying.

The Ingredients

This section is here because Google seems to think recipe headnotes are better with it. I tell you, I wake up every morning and say, "Thank the Lord for the how much better the tech industry has made our cultural output ! I definitely don't miss the days when people just wrote cool stuff." Anyway, you need:

• peanut butter
  -and!–
• jelly

I trust you to pick the peanut butter and jam* you prefer, and to infer that this recipe involves bread despite me not listing it. Because I still have faith in this audience.

*Did you catch that? Yeah, that little switcheroo is because the correct answer is jam. Strawberry jam, if you asked me, but...did anyone ask for any of this?

(Marginally useful tip buried at the bottom because I'm on a tear: A little sprinkling of salt in the sandwich goes a long way, don't skip it.)

The Ratios

Alright, let's actually get into something substantive: the relative amounts of substance in this sandwich. I ran a few tests, if smearing peanut butter and jam on some bread and eating it can be called a "test." I tried three ratios of peanut butter to jam: twice as much peanut butter to jam; the same amount of each; and twice as much jam as peanut butter. This can also be described using the advanced mathematical notation of: 1:2, 1:1, 2:1.

To my taste, either equal parts or more jam than peanut butter is better, though double the amount of jam to peanut butter is a bit much. My personal preference is right in the middle, about 50% more jam than peanut butter by volume, but if that's too sweet for you, a 1:1 ratio will work too. But also, please don't measure, this is a freaking PB&J.

This ratio is scaled specifically to a standard slice of supermarket sandwich bread, which takes me to my next observation: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches do not scale well. I had visions going into this of taking a beautiful loaf of shokupan and slicing gloriously thick slabs from it, smearing those with lusty amounts of peanut butter and jelly and just gettin' personal with it. Then I did it and wow was it a bad idea. The problem is that as you add to the amount of bread in the sandwich, you need to also increase the filling quantities to prevent each bite from being too bready, and that leads to adding too much peanut butter.

Too much peanut butter—as any person who's tried to silence their midnight hunger as quickly as possible with a whopping spoonful of peanut butter knows—is a very real, very serious thing. I don't just mean this on a taste level, I mean it on a medical level. Too much peanut butter will glue your mouth shut, cause you to gag as it cements your tongue to your soft palate, and eventually kill you. There is nothing pleasant, or even safe, about an oversized PB&J. For your own longevity, I urge you to stick with standard slices of sandwich bread and the appropriate quantities of peanut butter and jam that go with them.

Strategies to Ward off Sogginess

If there is one technical challenge to a peanut butter and jelly, it's the dreaded soggy bread, an issue that can turn a lovely little packed lunch into gags of revulsion. The most common solution to this is to put peanut butter on both slices of bread and the jam in the middle, so that the peanut butter acts as a buffer between the jam and the bread. Another tactic is to toast or griddle the bread to crisp the exterior and delay sogginess.

I set up another little "test" where I made sandwiches with bread that was toasted in a toaster oven, crisped lightly in oil, and crisped lightly in butter, and for each of those bread preparations I did a double-sided peanut-buttering and a single-sided peanut-buttering. I kept the sandwiches wrapped in plastic baggies, just as they might be in a packed lunch, and tasted them every 2 hours over the course of the day to see how they held up. Here's what I found:

The takeaway? Toasting/griddling bread is mostly not worth it, but putting peanut butter on both slices of bread can be.

Is any of this a shock?

K, I'm ready to leave it there. Scroll down for the recipe if you want, but don't get your hopes up. It's peanut butter and jelly. You can do this all by yourself.

Evely spread the peanut butter on both slices of bread. Evely spread the jam or jelly on one of the peanut-buttered slices.

If desired, sprinkly jam/jelly with salt, then close sandwich and serve or pack for lunch.

Notes

Toast the bread, if desired. Regular toast using a toaster oven works well if eating the sandwich right way, but in our tests, we found that it grew overly firm and stale as the day progressed, so it's less ideal for a packed lunch. Alternatively, you can lightly griddle the bread in butter or neutral oil, though again please note that bread griddled in butter is not as delicious once the bread has cooled and the butter had congealed, so not ideal for a packed lunch.

Here is something I've never heard in my life:

"I prefer my pasta deconstructed, with plain noodles next to each individual sauce component so I can assemble the perfect bite exactly as I wish."

Frankly, I'm not sure I've heard a comment like that about any dish. Yet when it comes to Niçoise salad, many remain stuck on the idea that serving all the components separately with the seasonings and dressing on the side is the best way to do it, as if such extreme customization is the logical highest priority.

This is a classic case of confirmation bias—people prefer the salad served this way because that's how they're used to seeing it. But, as I've written before, there is neither clear historic precedent nor culinary rationale for that approach. It is much better dressed, seasoned, and at least somewhat combined, just like any other good salad would be. Sure, you can artfully arrange the components in the salad bowl, but there is nothing exceptional about a Niçoise that makes it better in an unfinished state.

Why am I starting a piece about pan bagnat, the famous Niçoise tuna and tomato sandwich, with a return to my years-old polemic about the salad? Mostly because I'm a stubborn SOB who can't let go of an argument. But also because it's directly relevant here: Pan bagnat is really just a Niçoise salad sandwich. We need to agree about what a Niçoise salad can (and arguably should) be if we want to make a great sandwich out of it.

The first step to achieving that is doing exactly what I argued for in my Niçoise salad recipe—it must be seasoned, dressed, and assembled thoughtfully.

Now, I'll admit, I took some liberties in my salade Niçoise recipe. I added potatoes and green beans because they've become common in many renditions outside of Nice, even if not considered to be "authentic." I won't be adding those ingredients here, because I don't think the sandwich benefits from them.

That's just as well, because there's plenty else to add to the sandwich, and some important technical details for how to make it great. Follow these guidelines and you'll get a superlative pan bagnat that is both light and fresh thanks to the many seasonal vegetables in the filling, and also rich and satisfying with its generous serving of hearty boiled eggs, plenty of briny olives and fragrant olive oil, meaty tuna, and salty anchovies.

Pan Bagnat's Essential Ingredients and Its Optional Ones

Just as with a Niçoise salad, there are some ingredients one would expect to find in just about any pan bagnat, and some that you can add or leave out depending on your preference and the season. Please don't take this division between "required" and "optional" too rigidly, it's not an official list printed and framed by the Société Historique pour la Préservation et la Défense du Pan Bagnat Traditionnel*, but more a rough guideline intended to help you think about what the core ingredients are versus the nice-to-haves.

[*This is not real, though I would not be shocked to learn that such an organization existed.]**

[**Update: There IS a real organization because of course there is! HT to David Lebovitz for that little tidbit.]

Essential Ingredients

• Tomatoes: The key here is to use beautiful summer tomatoes—this is a peak-season sandwich, and won't be nearly as good if you try to make it in the middle of February, or with mealy supermarket tomatoes that were picked while still embryonic. Don't worry about the specific tomato variety, many can work as long as they're flavorful and ripe.
• Eggs: Traditionally hard boiled, but I happen to like a slightly jammier yolk here—roughly a nine-minute boiling time versus 11 minutes for a hard-cooked yolk (but do whichever you prefer).
• Basil: The fresh, herbal aroma of the Mediterranean. Tear the leaves by hand, scatter them throughout.
• Olive Oil: Get some decent extra-virgin olive oil and don't hold back, glug it on, then glug it on some more. Your hands should become greasy when you hold this sandwich, which is great because it's good for your skin anyway.
• Tuna: Use silkier oil-packed, not dry water-packed—it'll matter here in texture and flavor. Even better, get ventresca tuna, which is a buttery, fatty belly cut. It'll cost more, but the upgrade in texture is undeniable.
• Anchovies: Once again, oil-packed anchovy fillets are best, and quality matters. Better ones, such as from Angostino Recca, are plump and flavorful without being painfully salty (don't get me wrong, they're plenty salty, just not at the scrape this off my tongue right now! level). One ongoing debate in the land of Niçoise salads and related dishes like pan bagnat is whether tuna and anchovies belong together or whether it's more of an either/or situation. Some argue one should only use one and the preference should be given to anchovies, but I love both, I see no reason not to use both—I don't think they compete with each other—but you can decide for yourself.

• Olives: Small Niçoise olives that are brown to deep plumy black in color are the classic choice, but any similar olive from the Mediterranean can work. For the sake of your teeth, get them pitted or remove the pits first.
• Garlic: The idea here is to run a clove all over the cut sides of the bread so that the sandwich is perfumed with garlic without being rank with garlic, but if you want a bigger garlic hit, feel free to mince it up and add it to the sandwich filling.
• Scallions: Based on my research, scallions or the similar but slightly more bulbous white spring onions seem to be the most common choices, but you could also use a thinly sliced white onion, which is another common ingredient in traditional Niçoise salads.
• Bread Rolls: It's a sandwich, hence you need bread. If you don't live in France, you're probably not going to be able to get the exact type of roll they use there, but any generously sized white sandwich roll with a moderate crust and dense yet tender crumb will work. Be sure to scoop out some of that crumb so you can pack in more of the ample fillings without the whole thing falling apart or becoming preposterously tall.

Optional Ingredients

• Fava Beans: Where I live, favas tend to peak in the spring and disappear from the market by the time good tomatoes show up, but in other places you may find there's more seasonal overlap (or maybe you just have a source for favas even when they're not growing locally). If you can get favas, they're a popular choice. Just remove the beans from the large pods, blanch, peel off the outer skin of each bean, and add to the mix.

• Green Pepper: I went back and forth on whether green peppers should be listed as optional or required—they're definitely an extremely common component, so much so that they're borderline essential. The peppers I've seen used in France are not the same as a green bell pepper, but bell peppers can work in a pinch. Even better, a Cubanelle pepper, which is narrower than a bell pepper and thus yields smaller rounds once sliced, works well.
• Radish: Preferably French breakfast radishes, sliced very thinly on a mandoline.
• Artichokes: I messed around during my recipe development with artichokes I cooked myself, but ultimately decided it was more delicious and much, much easier to just use a marinated artichoke heart from a jar or a market's antipasto bar. They're tender, they're flavorful thanks to their vinegar and olive oil marinade and—bonus—they're often flavored with herbs. The great chef Paul Bocuse used thin slices of raw small purple artichoke hearts from Provence in his Niçoise salad recipe, so something like that could work here too if you want to go the raw route.

• Cucumbers: Sometimes found in a Niçoise salad, and surely a welcome addition here.
• Vinegar: Most classic recipes do not include a source of acidity like vinegar, relying solely on the olive oil and salt to dress the vegetables and proteins. Still, we all know how good a touch of acidity is in a vinaigrette and how well it brightens up a fresh salad, so it's hardly a crazy idea to add a touch here. I'll leave it up to you if you want to stick more to tradition or go wild with a jolt of extra flavor, but if you do, feel free to just use a splash of wine vinegar or go all in with an actual vinaigrette.
• Knock Yourself Out: Have an idea for something else you think would be good in a pan bagnat? Go for it. This is clearly a sandwich that is adaptable and open to interpretation.
  

The Key Techniques for Pan Bagnat Success

Some of my tips, like making sure to use very ripe, in-season tomatoes, seeking high-quality oil-packed tuna (ventresca in particular) and anchovies, and scooping out some of the tender crumb from the rolls to pack in more of the fillings are in the ingredients rundown above. There are a few more technical details that will make a big difference in your results, and they include:

• Don't Mix Everything: As much as I'm in favor of seasoning and dressing salad ingredients and mixing them together so that the're flavorful and evenly seasoned, some ingredients are best left out until they're layered directly into the sandwich. More specifically, I recommend not tossing the boiled eggs, the tuna, or the anchovies with the other ingredients. This is to avoid breakup up the tuna and eggs, which would muddy the mixture. As for the anchovies, they're strongly flavored, so it's better to control exactly how many go into each sandwich.

• Maximize the Tomato: Pan bagnat translates to "bathed bread," which describes just how wonderfully oil- and tomato juice–soaked the bread should be. To make sure to really get the tomatoes infused into the bread, I borrowed a technique from Kenji's old pan con tomate recipe by grating a portion of the tomatoes to make a quick puree and spooning a bit of that onto the cut sides of the rolls. The rest of the tomatoes are then sliced and added as part of the filling.
• Season Thoroughly: There are a lot of components to a sandwich like this, and if you don't lightly season them all with salt you risk the sandwich tasting bland. That means not only adding salt to the filling ingredients that get tossed together with olive oil, but also the boiled egg quarters, the sliced tomatoes, and the grated tomato puree. The goal isn't to over-salt, but to ensure no part of the sandwich tastes bland. A bit of fresh black pepper doesn't hurt either.

• Make Full Use of Your Oils: The oil that comes in a jar of high-quality tuna, anchovies, or marinated artichokes isn't always the best stuff, but it's often infused with flavor from the fish or vegetable. I wouldn't use it entirely in place of good, fresh extra-virgin olive oil, but it's not the worst idea to drizzle a bit of it onto the sandwiches if you think it has some worthwhile flavor to add to the mix.
• Wrap and Rest: There are many sandwiches that benefit from being wrapped up and allowed to sit for a while before being eaten. Many of those are hot sandwiches like chicken and eggplant parm hoagies, or a good old bacon, egg, and cheese, with the steam of the hot fillings helping to soften the bread and glue the sandwich together. But a pan bagnat is a great example of a cold sandwich that also benefits from a rest, allowing the juices to soak into the bread, the filling to settle and compress (some people even put a weight on top of the wrapped sandwiches to help this along), and give all the flavors a chance to infuse and mingle. Don't skip it.
  

Bring 3 quarts (2.8L) water to a boil in a large pot and prepare an ice bath. Carefully lower eggs into pot and continue to boil for 30 seconds. Cover tightly, reduce heat to low (water should maintain a bare simmer), and continue cooking for 9 minutes for jammy yolks or 11 minutes for hard-cooked yolks. Immediately transfer eggs to ice water and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes, then peel under cool running water. Quarter eggs lengthwise and set aside.

Meanwhile, if using fava beans, open up fava bean pods and remove individual beans. Discard pods. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil and prepare an ice bath. Add fava beans to pot and cook until just tender, about 2 minutes. Transfer fava beans to ice bath and allow to chill for 1 minute. Carefully peel off and discard the outer skin from each bean and set aside.

Core and slice 3/4 pound (340g) of tomatoes into 1/4-inch-thick wedges; set aside. Split remaining 1/2 pound (230g) tomatoes in half horizontally. Set a box grater into a large bowl. Rub cut faces of split tomatoes over the large holes of a box grater, using the flattened palm of your hand to move the tomatoes back and forth. The flesh should be grated off, while the skin remains intact in your hand. Discard skin and season tomato pulp with kosher salt to taste.

In a large mixing bowl, combine fava beans (if using), green pepper rings, artichoke heart (if using), breakfast radish (if using), olives, scallions, and basil leaves. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season with salt to taste, and toss to coat evenly (if desired, you can also mix in a light splash of red wine vinegar).

Split rolls in half horizontally and, using your fingers, scoop out and discard some of the tender crumb from both the top and bottom halves. Rub smashed garlic cloves all over cut sides of top and bottom halves of each roll to infuse the bread with garlic flavor. Discard any remaining garlic,. Spoon grated tomatoes all over cut sides of rolls and drizzle with olive oil (you may not need to use all the grated tomatoes).

Lightly season sliced tomatoes with salt, then layer the sliced tomatoes, boiled egg quarters, flaked tuna, anchovy fillets, and dressed vegetables onto the bottom halves of each roll. Drizzle generously with additional olive oil, season with pepper (if desired), then close sandwiches, wrap tightly in parchment, foil, or reusable wrappers and let stand at least 20 minutes or up to 1 hour. Serve.

Notes

Depending on where you live, fresh fava beans may not be available at the same time that tomatoes are at their best. If you can find them and want to include them, please do; if not, it's okay to skip.

This is a sandwich meant to highlight the best of what's in season, most importantly the tomatoes, along with high-quality canned or jarred tuna and eggs. Much of the rest is optional and up to what your local shopping conditions and personal preferences support. Fava beans come in large pods, but how many beans are in each pod and how large those beans is variable, making it difficult to offer an exact volume.

You can use many types of tomato in this sandwich, including plum tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, garden tomatoes, and more. What is most important is that they are high-quality summer tomatoes at the peak of ripeness. This sandwich will suffer from under-ripe supermarket tomatoes or ones that are out of season.

While canned tuna often comes in a 5-ounce can size, not all tuna comes in that size. Ventresca tuna, which is the fattier belly cut that I highly recommend in this sandwich, is sold in a wide range of sizes, from 4.5-ounce tins to 7-ounce jars. Any of these will work as even the smaller size packaging will have enough tuna for the sandwiches.

Just how many ways are there to roast a chicken? I can think of a lot of skinned cats that might have a good guess. So while it may not be possible to go over every conceivable way to roast a chicken, this article and recipe will review the essential steps that apply to all roasting techniques as well as my three favorite methods: the absolute easiest "no-recipe" way, spatchcocking, and, finally, what I can only describe as the platonic ideal of roast chicken. That last method, which produces a bird as perfectly cooked, evenly browned, and magazine-cover-worthy as could ever be imagined, is the recipe I'm sharing below.

Our goals for a roast chicken are simple, but achieving those results isn't quite as easy. We want both the white and dark meat to be juicy, even though they cook at different rates and reach their respective stages of perfection at different temperatures. We want skin that's well browned all over, even though the three-dimensional geometry of a bird makes that difficult. And we want it evenly and deeply seasoned, despite it being a whole bird with a lot of meat that's hard to access prior to carving.

Let's start by looking at all the techniques we can and should use to help deliver those results no matter the cooking method, then we can move on to a breakdown of my three preferred ways.

A Matter of Temperature: Knowing When The Bird Is Done

The most common question food writers like me receive about any large roast is, "How long does it take to cook?" It's an understandable question, but also the wrong one. Sure, there are ballpark ranges one can offer to give the cook a general sense of timing—no, your roast chicken will not be done in 15 minutes, nor will it take 3 hours—but cooking by time is far more likely to lead to bad results, not good ones.

This is because there are too many variables to make answering the time question accurate enough. Chickens come in different sizes, different weights, and different body shapes. An industrially-bred, six-pound "oven stuffer" with a massive amount of breast meat will not cook in the same time as a three-and-a-half pound bird from the farmers' market. And that doesn't even taken into account how hot the oven is, both in terms of the actual setting chosen by the cook as well as whatever temperature the oven is actually running at (because lord knows, many are poorly calibrated and not cooking at the selected temp).

None of this should be news to even the most casual Serious Eats reader—it's why we've prioritized internal temperature over time for years. If you want to know when your bird is properly cooked, the question isn't how long, but how hot.

While the USDA recommends cooking chicken to an internal temperature of 165°F, which pretty much instantly eliminates any risk of foodborne pathogens like salmonella, we advise most home cooks to not go that high, at least not for the breast meat. The white meat is most juicy and tender when it reaches 150°F, a good 15 degrees lower than the USDA recommendation. It's also a good 15 degrees lower than the ideal doneness on the legs, which is around 165°F. The dark meat has more fat and connective tissue, which means it not only remains juicier at higher temps, but also develops a better, more tender, less chewy and slimy texture.

Let's start with the first part: Why do we recommend cooking the breast to a lower temperature than the official guidance? Well, as Kenji explained to Serious Eats readers long ago, 165°F is the temperature at which unwanted bacteria die almost instantly. But you can safely cook your meat to a lower temperature and still achieve the same bacteria-killing effect as long as you hold it at that temperature long enough. Chicken cooked to 150°F, for example, is safe to eat after the meat has remained at that temperature for just under three minutes, which is more or less guaranteed given the size of the bird—pull a chicken out of the oven when the breast meat is 150°F in the center of its thickest part, and it will actually get hotter as it rests, a phenomenon known as carry-over cooking. By the time you carve and eat it, the bird will be safe.*

* That said, your health is your responsibility so if you have any concerns, or are feeding a person who may have specific health risks, please err on the side of caution. Remaining healthy is more important than perfect chicken breast.

The one lingering issue is how to cook the bird such that the breast reaches its desired internal temperature of 150°F while the legs have had a chance to get even hotter for their ideal doneness. There's no one way to deal with this, though, as each method I describe below approaches it from a different angle. So more on that later.

How Hot Should You Set Your Oven?

When it comes to cooking a roast so that the meat is tender and juicy throughout, we often turn to techniques like the reverse-sear, where a longer period of low-and-slow cooking gets the meat to its ideal internal temperature as gently as possible before a final high-heat cooking step slaps a roasty browned exterior on the whole thing. This can be done with chicken, but experience has taught me that with chicken you're best off just going with a fairly hot oven, somewhere between 400 and 425°F.

A roast chicken is a bit of an outlier compared to, say, a prime rib or even a larger bird like a turkey. It's a small enough roast that it really doesn't take long at all for the meat to cook through. At the same time, the skin takes time to brown properly, which is inhibited at lower temperatures. Spend too much time cooking the chicken in a lower oven, and you risk overcooking it in an attempt to rapidly brown the skin at the very end. While some recipes flip this sequence, calling for a high-heat stage to kick off the skin browning and then a longer cook at a lower temperature to finish it off, I've found that all this really accomplishes is extending the cooking time without much reward in terms of texture, juiciness, or browning.

A roast chicken comes out great simply by letting it ride in that higher temperature zone from start to finish. And it happens quickly too: You can have your bird on the table in under an hour, including the time it takes to rest it.

The Secrets to Crisp, Brown Roast Chicken Skin

I'll start with an acknowledgment: "Crisp" is a relative term. Roast chicken skin, even the best roast chicken skin, is not crisp in the way the golden batter on fried chicken is, or even as crisp as the skin on pan-roasted chicken can be. Pan-roasted and fried chicken both take advantage of the much higher heat possible via convection and conduction when in contact with hot oil and/or hot metal, and the result is something one could describe as truly crisp. Roast chicken skin is a little different. Crisp, yes, in a way, and to a point, but it won't shatter and crunch quite so dramatically. That's okay, it's still one of the most delicious things on this planet.

The key to perfect chicken skin? Well, the main one is heat, as I described above. Even if you do nothing else, simply cooking the chicken in a nice hot oven will yield a beautifully browned bird.

But we can do things to help further improve browning, if we have the time. One of the most effective techniques is to "dry-brine" the bird, which describes a process in which the chicken is salted all over and then left to sit, in the refrigerator and exposed to the air, until the salt penetrates into the meat and the skin dries out. This does two important things. First, it ensures more juicy, well-seasoned results, thanks to a little magic the salt works on the chicken's muscle proteins (it lessens the degree to which the meat contracts during cooking, ensuring more juice retention). Second, it gives the skin time to dry out, and water, as we all know, is the enemy of browning any food.

Another trick you can throw at the chicken skin is to add a little baking powder to the dry brine. Baking powder helps create micro-bubbles in the chicken skin as it roasts, which further enhance browning and crisping. Plus, it's alkaline, which speeds up the browning process known as the Maillard reaction.

Should You Baste the Bird?

No...and yes. Well, kinda. It depends.

Here's what you should not baste the bird with: Any drippings that contain water, whether liquid exuded by the chicken as it cooks, or any other water-based fluids that have found their way into your roasting pan. Wetting the skin will only serve to slow down browning and lead to a less golden, more flabby result.

Fat, though, is another story. You can brush the chicken with oil or clarified butter (remember: regular butter contains water, so you don't want to use that), or rendered chicken fat, or any other fat you have available. But actual basting throughout cooking isn't necessary and it may actually impede the roasting process. Every time you open the oven to baste your bird, the oven is rapidly loosing heat, which will slow down to cooking process. The chicken will end up roasting at a lower temperature than intended, and have a greater risk of drying or overcooking before it browns evenly.

Giving the skin a good rubdown with oil or another fat before or shortly after popping it in the oven will help the skin to glisten and will improve how evenly it browns, since fat conducts high heat so well, without needing to open the oven during cooking to baste the bird.

This is also why mayonnaise can be an effective ingredient to lightly rub all over a bird before roasting, since it's almost entirely oil with just a touch of egg, vinegar, and seasonings.

So, to review: Oiling the skin (which is partially a thing basting does) is good, but actually basting during cooking is potentially bad both due to the risk of unwanted water on the skin and also dropping the oven temperature too much.

Adding Flavor: Ideas and Variations That Go Beyond the Basic

I have long contended that a roast chicken, like so many other roasts, needs no more than salt to be dazzlingly delicious (as long as you make sure to salt it generously all over, inside and out). I stand by that claim, but that doesn't mean it isn't nice to do just a little more, if you're so inclined. Here are some good options:

• Stuff the Cavity: I don't mean with stuffing, as one might with a turkey, though that is an option (as with turkey, it just complicates things from a food safety perspective, since the meat will overcook by the time the stuffing is properly heated through, unless you take certain precautions). What I'm really referring to here are aromatics that can shoved into the chicken cavity before cooking to delicately season the meat, especially the parts closest to the cavity itself. I love jamming a bird full of fresh tarragon springs, for example, but rosemary, sage, and thyme are all great in their own way. Cloves of garlic never hurt a roast chicken, nor has sliced or quartered lemon.
• Spice it Up: While salt is all you really need, spices won't hurt. Black pepper is the most obvious of all, but you could reach for funkier white pepper, or rub the chicken down in any number of ground spices or spice mixes. Smoked paprika, ground coriander, cumin, and a slew of other possibilities, alone or in combination, are great. The only thing to watch out for is that you don't scorch the dry spices; this is easily avoided by giving the bird a good rub with oil in addition to the spices, which will help protect them from the dry heat of the oven.
• Rub With Herbs (Under the Skin): Rubbing the chicken down with a rough or smooth paste of herbs (which can also include oil, spices, and other flavorings) is another great direction for roast chicken. In this case, I recommend taking the slightly fiddlier road of pushing the minces herbs under the chicken skin and not just rubbing them on the exterior, since I've too often seen an herb rub burn when applied to the exterior of the bird. Some may wonder why you can't just rub an herb paste on later in the cooking process, but I'd warn against that as well, as the cool, water-rich mixture of herbs risks to impede browning at a critical moment in the chicken's path to perfect.

Roasting Method 1: The Easiest

This method is so basic, it doesn't even warrant a recipe, and yet I want to include it because the truth is that even if you do nothing special at all—no dry-brining, no trussing, no spatchcocking—you can still make a delicious roast chicken. All this method requires is seasoning the bird with salt inside and out and tossing it in the oven until done.

There have been plenty of nights in my life when I've done exactly this because I've been tight on time, or just not in the mood to do anything more than the bare minimum, and I've never regretted it. I want you to know that there's no shame in doing this at home too.

The biggest downside to this method is it does nothing to address the classic roast chicken dilemma, leaving you trying to split the difference between lightly overcooked breast meat or slightly undercooked leg meat (I mean, it'd still be safe to eat, just not quite as well done as most of us like it). That doesn't make this a method unwelcome, since I think you can absolutely hit a sweet spot that's really not bad—between 155 and 160°F for both the breast and legs gets you to a place that is not overly dried out for the white meat nor overly pinkish for the dark meat.

The other downside of this method is that it will likely leave you with under-browned skin on the thighs, due to their lower position on the bird, where steam tends to build and juices run down.

It's not perfect, but it can certainly be good enough.

Roasting Method 2: Spatchcocking

Spatchcocking the bird has long been Serious Eats' preferred method, and I continue to recommend it wholeheartedly. By cutting out the backbone and pressing the chicken into a flat shape with the legs splayed out and the breast in the center, a spatchcocked bird cooks quickly and browns evenly all over. Since the legs are positioned on the outer sides, they get exposed to more heat compared to the breast in the center, which helps even out cooking.

Another huge benefit to this method is that you can then use the cut-out spine, along with wing tips and any other trimmings to make a quick jus while the chicken roasts.

All in all, it's a wonderful way to cook a bird.

As for downsides, the main one I can think of is presentation. A spatchcocked bird can be a beautiful sight, but it doesn't quite hit that textbook image of a roast-bird. I also find a spatchcocked chicken to be marginally more difficult to carve, since the flattened position means you have to work at more acute angles when slicing the breast meat off the breastbone and rib cage. It's not difficult, just a little more awkward.There's also a bit more labor involved with the spatchcocking process than the other cooking methods. Cutting through the spine does take a bit more arm strength and effort.

For a more in-depth look at why spatchcocking is such a great method, read Kenji's article and recipe here.

Roasting Method 3: The Picture-Perfect Classic Bird

This method is the main reason I wanted to write this article and recipe, because until today, we didn't have a rock-solid way to cook a chicken that wasn't spatchcocked. I get it folks, sometimes you just want a classic roast bird, the kind of thing French chefs spend careers trying to perfect. I know I do. And the truth is that while spatchcocking is one great way to address the challenges of roasting chicken, it's not the only way.

Just look at the bird in the picture above and tell me it's not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Some of you are probably thinking your newborn child was the most beautiful thing you ever saw, but let's be real, only parents can't see how funny looking their kids are at first (I'm proud to say my dad's first words upon seeing me were, "Not too pretty, is he?" I appreciate the honesty).

This method is the most time-consuming of the three, with the added step taking place on the stovetop to drive heat into the legs ahead of roasting in the oven. Earlier, I had written that a whole roast chicken doesn't develop skin as crisp as, say, a pan-roasted piece of chicken, since the latter has the advantage of more extreme browning and crisping thanks to direct contact with the hot pan. Well that's exactly what we're going to take advantage of here.

The first step, though, is to truss the bird. Trussing does a couple things: First, it turns the chicken into a tidy little package that's easier to handle, which is useful when you're trying to pan-roast it before putting it in the oven. That tidy little package is also a key to the bird's aesthetic appeal: It looks a lot nicer than the easiest-version bird above with its legs hanging out to the sides.

Trussing also helps compress and plump up the breast, which some claim slows down the time it takes the breast meat to cook and thus helps even out the cooking. I don't know if I buy that, I've seen plenty of other equally compelling arguments that by pressing the legs tightly into the body of the bird, they cook more slowly, and honestly, that aligns more with my own experience. But it doesn't matter, because we're going to counteract that anyway.

As you can see in these photos, the cool trick with this method is to set the bird on its side in the pan so that a leg is in contact with the metal (the wing will be too). This drives heat into the legs without significantly warming the breast, getting a jump start on their cooking so that they'll hit their ideal final temperature more or less at the same time as the breast. Once you brown one side, you simply flip the bird and cook the other side the same way, then position the chicken upright and pop it in the oven to fully roast.

This searing step also browns and crisps the skin on the chicken legs enough that when the finished bird comes out of the oven, it will be perfect all around, even in the spots that typically don't brown well in a more basic roasted bird.

The Setup: The Gear for the Best Roast Chicken

You don't need much to roast a chicken, but the following equipment is all essential for some or all of the methods described here:

• Rimmed baking sheet: A basic rimmed half-sheet pan is our go-to piece of gear for roasting most things, including chicken. Its low walls ensure steam isn't trapped, which leads to better browning all over the roast, plus it's an affordable and durable piece of gear. If you want to upgrade, don't buy a classic roasting pan. Instead, I specifically recommend the roasting pan made by Misen, which addresses most of the complaints we've ever had about traditional roasting pans. You can read more about that in my article here.
• Wire Rack: Air circulation is key when roasting a chicken, whether during the dry-brining stage, or in the oven. A wire rack that fits a half-sheet pan is therefore a must-have.
• Stainless-steel skillet: When I'm cooking chicken following my "most perfect" method, I usually just do the whole thing in a skillet, since I start by browning the chicken in a skillet on the stovetop. At that point, there's no harm in just tossing the chicken into the oven in the same skillet, as long as the skillet is oven-safe. If you switch to a baking sheet and wire rack before going into the oven, you'll just have more washing up to do later, with little to no benefit (the skillet is so hot that even the underside of the bird will brown and crisp in the oven, negating the need for a wire rack, though it's still useful to have that rack and baking sheet for the dry-brining step).
  
• Instant-read thermometer: This is the tool you need to spot-check doneness on anything you're cooking. Just stick the thermometer probe into the middle of the thickest part of your roast, making sure not to let it touch bone, which will throw off your reading, and see what it says.
• Probe thermometer: While you can do just fine with an instant-read thermometer alone, a leave-in probe thermometer is a real pleasure to use when roasting a chicken. Stick the probe into the bird, making sure to position it near the middle of the thickest part and then monitor the chicken's internal temperature as it slowly climbs to your ideal doneness. Some probe thermometers come with additional ambient probes that can be used to simultaneously track the oven temperature, which is very useful for determining whether your oven is running properly on temp or not.
  

In a small bowl, thoroughly mix the salt with black pepper and baking powder (if using). Season chicken all over, inside and out, with salt mixture (or just plain salt if not using pepper and baking powder).

Set chicken, breast side up, on work surface and tuck wings behind back. Using butcher's twine, run the center of the twine under the tip of the tail end and truss chicken by tying drumsticks together at their bony ends, securing the legs and the tip of the tail together in a bundle. Criss-cross the twine and pass along the crevasse where the legs meet the breast; pass twine over wings to hold them into place, then tie securely around the stump of the neck. Place chicken, back side down, on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 425°F (220°C). In a 10- or 12-inch stainless steel skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Rub chicken lightly with oil, set set it on its side in the skillet so that the full thigh and drumstick are in contact with the pan; the wing will also be touching, but the breast should have little to no contact with the skillet. Cook until leg is well browned, 8 to 10 minutes, then flip bird so other leg is touching pan and repeat; lower heat at any point if chicken skin begins to burn.

Using hands and spatula if needed, rotate chicken so it is breast side up in the skillet and transfer to oven. Roast until breast registers 150°F (65°C) in the center of its thickest part and thighs register 165°F (75°C) near (but not touching) the bone, about 40 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer chicken to a carving board. Let rest 10 to 20 minutes, then carve and serve.

There is a common trope about making risotto that goes something like this: Mamma mia! It's such an awful pain, standing and stirring forever and ever and ever. Well, folks, that's a bunch of nonsense. I'm not sure when the idea that risotto is such a laborious process started, but we have to put it to rest.

Here's the truth: Risotto is relatively easy, and it's relatively quick, and while it does require some time spent stirring by the stove, it is neither excessive nor difficult. I can think of a million kitchen tasks I dislike way more than making risotto. Peeling cloves of garlic is right at the top, but all anyone says about that is, "you can never have too much garlic." Oh yes you can, just ask the person who has to peel it.

I'm going to walk you through the essential techniques of making perfect risotto, we will go over the proper doneness and consistency of the rice, and I will show you a restaurant shortcut for preparing it in advance so that it's easy to serve it to guests without getting stuck in the kitchen for more than a few minutes. Hopefully once we're done, word will spread, and one day no one will gripe about risotto again because we will all understand that it's one of the easiest things to make.

I'm going to use the classic risotto al parmigiano as my example. It's the perfect recipe for focusing more generally on risotto technique because of its simplicity, calling for what are essentially risotto's most basic ingredients: fat, onion, rice, broth, and cheese. The result is a very simple, yet very delicious risotto rich with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

What Are the Defining Elements of Great Risotto?

In classic French cuisine, the test of a good cook is how well they can prepare a French omelette. If I want to know how skilled a cook is at Italian food, risotto is one easy benchmark by which to measure. The strange thing about risotto is despite its fundamental ease, very few know how to do it well—not most professional cooks, not many food stylists, and not the majority of food writers and bloggers who seem to think they have recipes worth sharing for it. Want proof? Just Google "risotto" and review the image results. Count how many show the rice in a sloping pile that's thick and lumpy, not fluid. Those are all examples of subpar risotto technique. And they abound.

While personal preference plays an important role in assessing what "good" means—there's not one universal standard that all will agree to—risotto should, generally speaking, feature grains of rice in a thickened and creamy sauce that readily flows, settling into a shallow, flattened pool with little more than a shake of the plate. We're talking something a bit thicker than most cream of mushroom soups but thinner than most bowls of oatmeal.

The secret to nailing this consistency almost entirely comes down to managing heat, moisture, and time.

• Heat, because the natural starches in risotto thicken the sauce as it cools; this is why you want to serve risotto on warmed plates and also why you want to plate it when it's even thinner than seems right—because it will thicken up, and quickly.
• Moisture, because risotto requires constant adjustment in its final phases, allowing excess liquid to cook off or be absorbed, or possibly adding liquid at any point if the risotto suddenly seems too thick and dry, especially after cheese has been worked in.
• Time, because the rice will continue to drink up the liquid, so once you have your risotto at its moment of perfection just before serving, you must not wait.

The other thing a well-made risotto requires are al dente grains of rice, and my experience is that many cooks don't quite understand what that means. There isn't one correct opinion on just how firm the grains of rice should be, but at the very least, each grain of rice should have a discernible bite in its center, a remnant firmness that will strike some as being extremely undercooked compared to almost any other rice dish they've ever eaten. For many risotto lovers, a truly raw core of crunchy rice is an absolute requirement—I don't personally like it quite that underdone, but many Italian food experts I respect do.

If I had to guess, I'd say overcooking the rice may be one of the things that has led so many people to believe risotto takes forever to cook. It sure does take long if you're standing there waiting for the rice to fully soften! But don't wait that long. It shouldn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes or so to cook the rice in the liquid. Hardly a slog.

Getting that perfect al dente texture is largely a question of technique, but it's also influenced by the type of rice. The most common varieties of rice for risotto are arborio, carnaroli, and vialone nano, but of the three, arborio is by far the most common. That's too bad, because arborio is the most prone to turning mushy and producing an overly thick result.

This has to do with each variety's relative amounts of the starches amylose and amylopectin. All three are types of short- to medium-grain rice, but arborio has almost no amylose, which has a more linear molecular structure that provides structure and stability. Amylopectin, which is basically the only starch arborio has to offer, is a more twisting and branched starch molecule, giving it enhanced thickening power along with a tendency towards excessive softness. If you can find them, you're better off with carnaroli or vialone nano, which have higher levels of amylose.

Risotto Technique: A Closer Look

We've long relied on a no-stir technique developed by Kenji for almost all risotto recipes on Serious Eats, including some of mine. It's a cool and unorthodox method that starts by rinsing the rice with stock to wash off its surface starches. The rice is then sautéed in oil, and after that most of the starchy stock used for rinsing the rice is added to the pan all at once. The pan is covered and left to simmer until the rice is nearly done. The final steps involve finishing the risotto with additional stock, cheese, and whatever else the recipe might call for.

The logic of rinsing the rice has to do with the fact that starches lose their thickening power when exposed to high heat. In the case of risotto, that means the surface starches on rice don't thicken as well after the obligatory toasting step, which is important for developing the rice's flavor. This is the same phenomenon we see with roux: The more deeply you toast the flour, the less well it acts as a thickener. So, by rinsing the rice of its surface starches before toasting, you allow those starches to retain their maximum thickening ability once they're added back to the pan.

But here's where I admit something: Despite writing some of my own risotto recipes using this technique, I never actually use the method at home. Not because it doesn't work, I just don't find it solves any problems I have with risotto. For one thing, while I know it's technically true that the starches thicken less well when toasted—you can see as much in side-by-side tests—I don't think it matters in practice. With all the agitation of the rice during cooking, and with the additions of cheese and other ingredients that further thicken the liquid, excessive thinness is not something I have ever found in a classically prepared risotto.

I also don't mind the brief period of stirring the classic method requires. I honestly like it. It's meditative, and it allows me to pay attention to the food as it's cooking. Risotto is all about managing moisture, heat, and time, and so I like to watch it transform and develop. Since it only takes about 15 minutes, it's not much of a time investment, and it saves me having to do the no-stirring method's additional steps of rinsing and draining the rice at the beginning of the process. There's gonna be time spent doing something extra no matter what—you're either washing and draining the rice first, or you're stirring a little more. Not a big deal either way.

Over time, I've come to re-embrace the classic technique. Both methods have their value, but I'd encourage home cooks reading this to at least sometimes follow the classic method, because it is the best way to develop a sense of how the rice cooks, how it continuously dries out and thickens during that time, and to assess just how far along the road to doneness it is. In light of how poorly so many people cook risotto, any method that encourages paying more attention and adjusting as you go is a good method in my book.

Step 1: Sauté the Onion

Risotto starts with sweating a minced onion (or a shallot, or maybe even a leek if you want to change the allium up) in fat until translucent and tender, but generally not browned. I like to mince my onion finely enough that the pieces are roughly the size of the rice grains, just to avoid big chunks in the finished dish. As for the fat, oil, whether olive oil or a neutral oil, is a good choice since it's less likely to scorch, but butter is an option too.

Step 2: Toast the Rice

As soon as the onion has softened sufficiently, it's time to stir in the rice and toast it in the oil. This toasting step develops a nuttier flavor in the rice, for a more complex risotto. As I mentioned above, while it does technically lessen the ability of surface starches to thicken the risotto, in practice the effect is negligible—there is no difficulty getting toasted rice to produce a beautifully creamy final dish.

The visual indicator of doneness I've always used when toasting the rice is to stop when each grain becomes translucent around its exterior; the best way I've ever seen it described is that the rice grains should look like tiny ice cubes with a cloudy center. Other indicators you've toasted it enough: The rice smells toasty and you begin to see signs that browning is imminent.

Step 3: Add the Liquids in Increments

Adding liquid is how we stop the toasting rice and onion from browning and get on with actually hydrating and cooking the rice. In most cases, I like the first addition to be wine, usually white though it depends on the recipe, which I cook while stirring until the pan has gone almost totally dry and the wine's raw alcohol aroma has mostly cooked off. Otherwise you risk risotto that tastes boozy.

After adding wine, I switch to stock. What kind of stock has to do with two things: the specific risotto recipe and also what you happen to have available. Some risotto is best with a deeper, meatier flavor, which could mean using chicken stock or beef stock. Others, especially seafood risotto, benefit from a fish or shellfish stock. And others still work best when the stock is kept as mild as possible, such as a very basic vegetable stock.

Keep in mind that the flavor of your stock or broth will concentrate as you add it to the rice. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but there could be a point where you'll want to switch from a more full-flavored stock to plain water.

There are two common details in most risotto recipes that are worth addressing: One is to heat your stock before adding it to the rice, and the other is to add it in a series of small additions, cooking the liquid down each time between additions. You don't really need to do either of these things. You could add your stock cold, it'll just take a little longer since each addition will drop the temperature in the pan, requiting longer to heat back up. Some claim that it's therefore not necessary since pre-heating the stock adds time. But that forgets an important point: You're already spending time doing other things before the stock is called for in the recipe, like mincing the onion and sautéing it and the rice. That's the perfect time to have the stock sitting on a flame in a pot, and it will shave off time later in the process.

As for adding the stock in multiple small increments, it's true that you don't have to, you could dump a large volume in and let the risotto cook and thicken in more or less one go, with just a few finishing steps at the end. But once again, I fail to see what the harm is of smaller additions: They're useful in that they make it much easier to dial in the rice's final al dente texture and to nail the proper consistency of the sauce at the same time, which, based on all available evidence, most people are pretty bad at. Why disadvantage them further? Better to add the stock bit by bit so you have total control over coordinating the risotto's final stages.

Step 4: Finish and Serve

The final step in the risotto process is critically important. This is what will determine whether the risotto has reached its ideal form or not. It involves making final adjustments to the seasonings and consistency of the risotto, and then working in fat and flavor in the form of grated cheese and/or cold fat like butter to form the creamiest, silkiest, glossiest sauce. As always, the finished risotto should be spooned onto warmed plates to prevent it from cooling down rapidly and thickening prematurely.

This is such an important step that I'm going to talk about it more in the next section, dedicated entirely to the art of finishing risotto.

All'Onda and Mantecatura: The Art of Finishing Risotto

Italians speak of cooking risotto "all'onda," which means like a wave. It describes the finishing process of a great risotto, in which the rice is rapidly tossed in the pan. It should be loose enough to flip over itself in a dramatic wave-like motion, which enhances creaminess by making the rice grains rub against each other over and over while, some claim, incorporating air for a lighter result. I used to rely on a restaurant trick of folding whipped cream into a risotto to finish, but cooking risotto all'onda is the truer way to make a risotto that's silky and creamy, with a deeper and more concentrated flavor of both the rice and its flavorings that isn't diluted and overshadowed by excessive amounts of dairy.

This gets us to the second thing that's happening when you're finishing risotto all'onda: a process called mantecatura. This describes the emulsification of additional fat into the risotto at the end, adding a final glaze of richness and creaminess (without drowning the risotto in whipped cream). Grated cheese, usually Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano and cold butter are the fats I turn to the most for the mantecatura, but they aren't the only options. To perform the mantecatura, you simply add the cheese and cubed butter to the risotto and work it completely in while flipping the risotto on itself all'onda. This should all be done off the heat, but you should be prepared to add another small ladleful or two of hot broth if the risotto becomes too thick after this process. Remember: You're making tiny adjustments to texture and consistency right up until the risotto hits the warmed plates.

If you want to toss your risotto all'onda, you will need the right kind of pan. It should be broad and wide, with sloping sides. The "pasta pan" I have written about before is perfect; a 5-quart saucier will work very well; a 3-quart saucier will also work but be a bit less spacious and therefore more difficult to use without making a mess.

If you don't have any of those pieces of cookware, don't fret: You can still approximate cooking risotto all'onda with some vigorous stirring with a spoon while using something larger and heavier like a Dutch oven; its heaviness and vertical sides will make tossing inadvisable, but just stir, stir, stir. The effect will be similar enough. You could also use a large sauté pan, but its lower sides will run a higher risk of a slosh-over unless you stir very carefully and delicately, which isn't ideal.

Restaurant Trick: How to Make Risotto in Advance

Okay, so I've gone on at length about how risotto is both easy and quick. I stand by that. But there's no doubt that if you have guests over, the roughly 30 minutes from start to finish that it does require can be inconvenient. Luckily, there's a solution and it's one restaurants have been using for ages, because guess what—they don't have time to cook risotto from start to finish every time an order comes in either.

It's this simple: Cook your risotto, starting with the onion cooking step, followed by the rice toasting step, and on the the wine and broth steps. Just stop when the rice as about half to three-quarters of the way cooked. Then scrape the rice out onto a rimmed baking sheet or two and spread it in a thin, even layer. This is important because if you pile it up too high, the rice trapped underneath will stay hot and continue to cook for longer than the rice on top, and we don't want that. Let it cool completely, then transfer the rice to an airtight container and refrigerate it.

When it's time to eat, simple scoop the par-cooked risotto back into the pan and continue on with the process of adding broth in small increments until the risotto has reached its proper al dente stage and is ready to be finished all'onda.

Set serving plates in a very low over or other warm location to keep warm until serving time. In a 3- or 5-quart saucier or medium Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion, season lightly with salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent and soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.

Increase heat to medium-high, add rice, and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until rice is evenly coated in oil and toasted but not browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Rice should smell nutty and grains should start to look like tiny ice cubes: translucent around the edges and cloudy in the center.

Add white wine and cook until wine is almost completely evaporated, about 30 seconds. Add 1/2 cup of stock and season lightly with salt. Cook, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, until liquid is mostly absorbed, 1 to 2 minutes. Continue to cook, adding stock in 1/2-cup increments while stirring constantly, until rice is almost fully softened but still retains a noticeable al dente bite in the center, 15 to 20 minutes. Add enough stock so that there is enough liquid in the pot for the rice flow like lava when you stir it. Remove from heat.

Add cheese and butter and stir or toss vigorously until cheese and butter are fully melted and emulsified and a creamy, satiny glaze coats each grain of rice. Keep in mind that the risotto will tighten up in the time it takes to plate and serve it, so adjust with more stock as needed to achieve a free-flowing consistency, leaving it looser than you think it should be. Season with additional salt, if needed.

Spoon risotto onto warmed plates (plates are more traditional than bowls), shaking gently to spread risotto out over each plate in an even layer. Serve right away.

Special Equipment

3- or 5-quart saucier or medium Dutch oven

Make-Ahead and Storage

See section above on the restaurant trick for making risotto in advance. Once finished, risotto is best eaten right away, though leftovers can be fried into a pancake in a preparation called risotto al salto.

Simple syrup tells you everything you need to know right in its name: It's simple. Just combine equal volumes of sugar and water, mix or heat to dissolve the sugar, and boom, you're done. Perhaps to some ears "lavender syrup" sounds slightly more complicated, but I assure you it's not. It is the exact same process as making simple syrup, just with some dried lavender flowers tossed in. It couldn't be easier.

Since the goal of an infused syrup like this is to transfer the flavor of the lavender into the syrup before straining the flowers out, we need to use heat—simply stirring without heat until the sugar dissolves makes perfect simple syrup, but not one that has picked up enough of the lavender flavor. It only takes about ten minutes of simmering to pull that flavor-transfer off, and then it's time to strain and store the syrup until ready to use.

And how might you use it? Well, lavender syrup works great in cocktails like this Lavender French 75, and any other cocktail or nonalcoholic drink where you might desire adding a floral twist. The syrup would also be a welcome addition to some desserts—you could use it to moisten cake, candy fruits, drizzle over ice cream, or add a dash to your favorite cookie batter for a subtle lavender essence.

This recipe offers a range of 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of lavender relative to the batch of syrup, with the lower amount producing a more subtle (though still very noticeable) lavender flavor while the 1 teaspoon punches it up to something a little more assertive, but still pleasant. Feel free to go in whichever direction appeals more, though do keep in mind that even a stronger syrup can be diluted with plain simple syrup or other sweeteners to allow for exactly the amount of lavender flavor you want; there's no need to go all-in if the result is too potpourri-like for your taste.

In a small saucepan, combine sugar and water. Add lavender, using 1/2 teaspoon for a more mild lavender flavor or 1 teaspoon for a stronger one. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat as needed to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Strain lavender syrup through a fine-mesh strainer set over a small heatproof bowl or container; discard lavender flowers. Let cool, then use as desired.

Special Equipment

Small saucepan, fine-mesh strainer

Make-Ahead and Storage

Lavender syrup can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Churrasco is a word that can describe a variety of cooked meat dishes throughout Latin America, Brazil, Spain, and Portugal. Some of those dishes are not practical to make at home—I eat at Brazilian churrascarias fairly regularly, and as much as I love it, it'd be hard to imagine setting up the multiple spits of meat required for the proper Brazilian experience. In other instances, though, it doesn't have to be quite so elaborate.

Take this simple recipe for churrasco steak, which is quickly grilled or seared, then bathed with some chimichurri sauce, as one might see it done in Argentina or Uruguay. This style of churrasco recipe often calls for skirt steak, but not always. You can use other thin, quick-cooking steaks as well. For instance, while developing this recipe, I butterflied a boneless short rib to turn it into something roughly the same thickness as a skirt steak (you'll see it in some of the photos in this recipe), just as an example of how to make this work for other varieties of steak. You can see the butterflying technique in the photo below.

There's honestly relatively little to say about this recipe given its ease and simplicity. We start with the steak, which should be cut into sections for easier handling and serving. We then salt it all over and let it sit, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes. This minimum half-hour dry-brine is important, as it gives the salt enough time to draw out moisture from the meat, dissolve into it, and then be absorbed. Once inside the meat, the salt dissolves some muscle proteins, which—long story short—leads to juicier, more flavorful results.

You can let the meat dry-brine even longer, which gives even more time for moisture on the surface of the meat to dry out. The drier it gets, the more deep of a sear you'll achieve once the steak goes on the heat.

As for the heat, you want it high. Skirt steak is a thin steak and it runs the risk of overcooking in the time it takes to get a good sear on it, so don't be afraid to really crank it. Flipping the meat often will minimize the development of an inner gradient of overcooked grey meat, and on a steak this thin, that can really make a meaningful difference in the results. That way, you'll get a good sear on the outside and not too severe of a grey band within.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that chimichurri sauce is synonymous with churrasco—that really depends on where you are and who's cooking—but it's certainly a common condiment. You can read more about chimichurri at the linked recipe, but in short, it delivers punchy herbal and garlicky flavor to everything it touches, with a bright pop of vinegar to really light things up. I like to brush a little on the steak shortly before it's done cooking (don't do it too early or you'll just burn the sauce onto the meat), then serve the rest alongside the thinly sliced steak to be spooned on top at the table.

Season steak all over with salt and pepper. Set steak on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes and up to 8 hours before cooking.

To Grill the Steak: Open bottom vent of a charcoal grill completely. Light chimney starter filled with charcoal briquettes (6 quarts). Once top coals are partially covered with ash, pour into a steeply banked pile against 1 side of the grill; set cooking grate in place, cover grill, and allow to preheat for 5 minutes. Alternatively, turn all burners of a gas grill to high, cover, and heat grill until hot (500°F; 260°C), about 15 minutes. Clean and oil grill grate.

Transfer steaks to hot side of grill. Cover and cook for 1 minute. Flip steaks, cover, and cook for another minute. Continue cooking in this manner, flipping and covering, until steaks are well charred and an instant-read thermometer inserted into their center registers 110 to 115°F for medium-rare or 115 to 120°F for medium, 6 to 8 minutes; brush steaks all over with a small amount of chichurri for the last minute of cooking. Transfer steaks to a large plate and allow to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

To Cook on a Plancha or in a Skillet: In a large cast iron skillet or on a large plancha or cast iron griddle, heat 2 tablespoons oil (30ml) over high heat until lightly smoking. Add steaks in a single layer and cook, turning frequently, until well browned on both sides and center of steak registers 110 to 115°F for medium-rare or 115 to 120°F for medium, 6 to 8 minutes; brush steaks all over with a small amount of chichurri for the last minute of cooking. (If you own a cooking or grilling weight, you can use it to press down on the meat and improve the sear.) Transfer steaks to a large plate and allow to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

Cut steaks crosswise into 5- or 6-inch sections, then slice thinly against the grain and serve with chimichurri sauce spoon on top.

Notes

A cut like boneless beef short rib is usually thicker than we want for this style of rapid grilling or searing. The solution is to butterfly it, which you can see being demonstrated in a photo above in the recipe headnote.

Fun fact: Cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kale, and kohlrabi are all the exact same plant—Brassica oleracea. That's right, they're not just closely related members of the same botanical family or genus, they are literally all the same species, each a variant cultivated for one specific trait. In the case of cauliflower (and broccoli), the plant was bred to have pronounced flower buds, which is what make up the florets we enjoy so much.

Cutting up cauliflower into florets is easy, especially if you can visualize the branching structure of the buds that all grow off one central stalk; that stalk is often referred to as the "core" when discussing cauliflower.

Here is how to easily break cauliflower down into florets, as well as tips on making cauliflower "steaks."

To Cut Cauliflower Into Florets

Using a paring knife, trim away any leaves from around the base of the cauliflower. Then cut the head into quarters.

Cut out the central "core" from each quarter. Note: The core can be cut up and used in many recipes, do not discard it unless you're certain you don't need or want it.

Once the core is removed, using your hands and/or a knife, break off large florets following their natural divisions. In some recipes, you may want to stop there and use the large florets as-is.

For smaller florets, use a knife to cut each floret into smaller portions. If you want a more natural division without a perfectly flat cut side on each floret, you can use a knife to split the branch that holds the flower buds together, then use your hands to pull the flower buds apart; they will break apart more naturally and unevenly this way, which is sometimes desirable. Use as desired.

To Cut Cauliflower Steaks

The key to cauliflower "steaks" is to keep the core intact and attached to each steak: It is needed to hold the steak together. Begin by trimming away any green leaves growing from the base of the cauliflower head, then cut it vertically into slabs about 1/2 to 1 inch thick. You will inevitably create some trimmings with this, since the outer florets will not be attached to the core once cut (this, in all honesty, makes cauliflower steaks a much better idea for restaurants and a less good one for homes, since restaurants can collect enough of the trimmings to turn them into another menu item, while home cooks can't as easily).

There's only one thing slightly difficult about cutting carrots: Some cuts, like julienne and brunoise, can be tricky with small- to medium-size carrots. So before you even begin, consider how you will need to cut your carrots and shop accordingly. Seek the largest carrots you can for (counterintuitively) the smallest cuts. Otherwise, just about any carrot aside from snack packs of baby carrots will work.

To Trim and Peel

Using a vegetable peeler (preferably Y-peeler, which we find works best), peel carrots all around.

Using a knife, trim off the top and bottom ends.

To Cut Rounds

Using a sharp knife, simply crosscut each carrot into rounds of whatever thickness is desired. This is a good option for salads and simple carrots side dishes (for side dishes, it's best to cut the rounds thicker so the carrots don't snap in half easily once cooked).

To Cut Sticks/Batons

For carrot sticks/batons, which are great for dips and crudités platters, cut the peeled carrot into roughly 3- or 4-inch lengthwise segments, then halve the carrots. The carrot halves can then be cut lengthwise into whatever size sticks you want. If using very large, thick carrots, instead of halving and then cutting into sticks, cut them into thick lengthwise planks first, then cut those planks lengthwise into sticks.

To Rough-Cut or Dice

For rough-cut carrots to be used in stocks and to flavor soups and stews, smaller carrots can simply be left whole and cut crosswise into large chunks. Large carrots should be split in half or quartered lengthwise first, then crosscut into large chunks.

For smaller dice, cut the carrot lengthwise into roughly 1/4-inch sticks, then crosscut those sticks into 1/4-inch dice.

To Cut Matchsticks/Julienne

Carrot matchsticks, or julienne, can be cut by first dividing each peeled whole carrot into 3- to 5-inch lengths. Then cut off one thin slice of each carrot segment lengthwise; this will create a flat side that can then be used as a stable base for the subsequent cuts without the carrot rolling around on you.

With the carrot sitting on its new flat side, cut it lengthwise into thin, even planks; the thinness of the planks will determine the thinness of your matchsticks.

Cut each plank lengthwise into matchsticks of your desired thickness.

To Cut Brunoise

Follow the instructions above for creating matchsticks/julienne. Then line up a small pile of matchsticks and crosscut them to form a very tiny, uniform dice (brunoise).