Dishes I am testing right now. None are orderable yet, and some will not make the cut.
The rule for getting on this list is simple: it has to be as good reheated on Wednesday as it was the day I cooked it. Most of these are things that are meant to be made ahead, so they get better sitting in your fridge, not worse. A few still have questions I am working out. When one does not pass, it comes off.
Made the menu
Dishes that were on this page once, and earned their way onto the real one.
What People Want Most
Top 10. Pick up to three below.
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Coming Soon, Maybe
Testing items. Details will change. Ask me about any of them.
Kabocha Char Siu, Shiitake-Dashi Rice, Pickles
Canton · Italy · Japan · Vegetarian
Kabocha squash roasted in wedges and lacquered with Chinese barbecue glaze, the same one that goes on char siu pork, with fennel, rosemary, and garlic worked in. Over rice cooked with a mushroom and seaweed packet, with pickles on the side to cut the sweetness. Vegetarian, and it carves and eats like a roast.
Still testing: the rice packet, and whether the lacquer holds three days in the bag.
Kare-Kare with XO Sauce
Philippines · Hong Kong · West Africa · Texas Gulf
Filipino oxtail stew in a toasted peanut sauce, thickened with ground peanuts and toasted rice, no flour or cream. The oxtail cooks down until it is glossy and falling apart. Long beans and eggplant in the pot, and a jar of XO on the side: a Hong Kong condiment of dried shrimp, ham, and chile for when you want the bowl louder. Over rice.
Contains: Peanuts, Shellfish (dried shrimp in the XO).
Khoresh-e Gheimeh, Persian Dried Lime Braise
Iran
A Persian braise of beef and yellow split peas, built around dried limes that leak a deep, funky sourness into the pot as it cooks. Not sharp like lemon, more savory and bitter, with no sweetness anywhere. The split peas melt down and round it out. Over saffron rice.
Sauerbraten Beef Cheeks, Caraway-Juniper Potatoes, Braised Red Cabbage
Germany
Beef cheeks marinated four days in vinegar and red wine, then braised until they go to silk. The sauce is thickened with gingersnaps and studded with dried sour cherries. Braised red cabbage on the side, and potatoes with caraway and juniper. The long marinade is the recipe, not a shortcut.
Contains: Gluten (gingersnaps), Dairy (butter, in the potato bag).
Nixtamal Grits, Braised Greens, Country Ham, Bottarga
Mexico · American South · Italy
Grits made from lime-treated corn, the same process behind tortillas, which makes them rounder and deeper than regular grits. Braised collards and country ham through them, with cured fish roe grated over the top like parmesan. The roe reads as salt and depth, not fish.
Contains: Fish (bottarga), Dairy (butter).
Umeboshi and Charred Preserved Lemon Chicken, Negi-Shio, Blistered Shishitos
Morocco · Japan · Sichuan
Smoked-then-seared chicken thighs with a sauce of Japanese pickled plum and Moroccan preserved lemon, the lemon charred hard in a wok until it turns dark and bitter. A burnt-lemon scallion oil over the top, blistered shishito peppers on the side, plain rice underneath.
Heads up: about one shishito in ten is genuinely hot. Fun or a problem, depending on you.
Two-Garum Pasta: Gulf Shrimp, Colatura, Fish Sauce, Garlic Confit
Amalfi · Vietnam · Rome · Texas Gulf
Shrimp, garlic, chile, and olive oil over pasta, with a sauce built on two fermented fish sauces from opposite sides of the world: Italian colatura and Vietnamese nuoc mam. It does not taste like fish. It tastes like the best garlic-and-oil pasta you have had.
Contains: Shellfish (shrimp), Fish (colatura, fish sauce), Gluten (pasta).
Shrimp and Grits: Étouffée and XO
Louisiana · Hong Kong · Japan · Texas Gulf
Shrimp and grits done two ways at once: a Louisiana etouffee, a stock-and-roux sauce off the shrimp shells, folded together with XO, the Hong Kong condiment of dried shrimp and ham. Fresh shrimp and concentrated shrimp in the same bowl. The grits are cooked in dashi, which reads as grits that taste like more than grits.
Punjabi saag made with collards instead of mustard greens, cooked down for hours with ginger, garlic, and chile until dark and silky. Seared halloumi on top instead of paneer: a brined, salty cheese you sear yourself, and it cannot melt or overcook. Over rice.
Contains: Dairy (halloumi, ghee).
Pork Tenderloin, Double Dark Vinegar Agrodolce, Seared Polenta Cakes
Sicily · Modena · Zhenjiang · France
Pork tenderloin with a dark, sweet-sour onion sauce built on two aged vinegars, Italian balsamic and Chinese black vinegar, cooked down with onions until jammy. Underneath, polenta set overnight into a slab and cut into cakes that you sear crisp on the outside and molten in the middle.
Still testing: whether the polenta slab holds three days, and whether your pan really gets that molten center.
Contains: Dairy (butter, parmesan).
Pasta alla Genovese
Naples · France
A Neapolitan onion sauce: four pounds of onions and a piece of beef cooked down most of a day until brown, sweet, and deep, closer to French onion soup than to red sauce. No tomato in it at all. The beef shreds back in, over rigatoni with a lot of cheese. Mild, start to finish.
Black lentils simmered for hours until creamy from their own starch, finished with butter, cream, and tomato. The butter and cream take a hit of stockpot smoke first, a stovetop version of the live-coal trick the dish traditionally uses. Mild, rich, deeply smoky. Over rice.
Still testing: how many minutes of smoke before the dairy tastes like an ashtray.
Contains: Dairy (butter, cream).
Smothered Turkey Yassa
Senegal · American South · France
Turkey thighs marinated overnight, then braised in a mountain of slow-cooked onions that carry both a Southern black-pepper roux and the mustard, lemon, and chile of Senegalese yassa. Green olives warm in the gravy, lime on the side. Mild by design, the chile goes in whole and comes back out. Over rice.
Wok-Smoked Flank, White Sauce Family Reunion
Lebanon · Alabama · Mexico · Texas
Wok-smoked flank steak, sliced thin, under a cold white garlic sauce that blends three that were invented separately for smoked meat: Lebanese toum, Alabama white sauce, and Mexican crema. Each is too much alone; together they balance. Blistered green beans and buttered baby gold potatoes on the side. The sauce goes on cold at the table.
Lamb Leg Steak, Burnt Honey and Black Lime Glaze, Freekeh
Oman · Vietnam · Levant · France
Lamb under a glaze of three voices: honey burned dark past sweet, Omani black lime for smoky sour, and fish sauce for a salty floor. Broiled until it lacquers. Underneath, freekeh, the green wheat that tastes faintly of fire, folded with mint. Cold lemon yogurt catches the burnt edges.
Contains: Gluten (freekeh), Dairy (yogurt), Fish (fish sauce).
Mushroom Escabeche, Seared Polenta Cakes
Spain · Italy · France · Vegetarian
Mushrooms cooked and marinated in a sharp Spanish escabeche that only improves in the fridge for a week. Over polenta set overnight into a slab, cut into cakes you sear yourself: ninety seconds a side, crisp outside, molten center. The cool sharp mushrooms go over the hot cakes. Nothing needs reheating.
Contains: Dairy (butter, parmesan).
Pick up to 3 favorites.
Why These
A lot of dishes got cut to get to this list. The ones that made it all work the same way: they are better made ahead. The fesenjan needs a couple of days to come together. The sauerbraten marinates for four. That is the whole test. If a dish is worse on Wednesday than the day it is cooked, it does not go on here, no matter how good it is fresh.
