Dairy Free

If you leave this on the thicker side, it's a great crudités dip. Or, thin it and pour onto salad.

As the pork cooks, the fat will gradually render, basting the roast.

A spoonful of this sweet, earthy condiment perks up eggs, grain dishes, and simply prepared proteins.

A steak sauce good enough to rival the most popular brand makes this steak (or any, really) even more delicious.

If the idea of cooking skin-on fish makes you nervous, do this in an ovenproof nonstick pan. The skin won't get quite as crisp, but you won't have to worry about it sticking.

Harissa is a great shortcut ingredient to flavor, but no two jars (or tubes) are the same. Taste first—if it seems very spicy, use a bit less. You can always stir more into the chickpeas when the dish is finished.

This salad's secret? Combining raw and roasted beets delivers two textures from one ingredient.

Cook the chickpea mixture until it resembles wet concrete; it won't set up if it's undercooked.

The mushrooms are not salted as they cook—this is intentional. The teriyaki sauce they're tossed in adds plenty.

This is a great bitter-sweet combo. Dip peel in melted chocolate for an after-dinner treat.

Preserved lemons add a wonderful salty-sweet hit to these simple potatoes, but if you don't have them on hand, you can use regular lemons instead. Thinly slice the peel of one lemon, then toss with the potatoes before roasting.

The salty-sweet-sour umeboshi complement the earthy notes in the beets.

My elementary school grapefruit, all grown up. I like the low notes of the dried chiles and rosemary against the sweet-tart citrus.

Our bo ssäm was a long time in the making before it showed up on the menu. I'd had an inkling for years it would be a good idea—bo ssäm is a supercommon dish in Korean restaurants, though the ingredients and cooking that go into it are frequently an afterthought. The oysters are usually Gulf oysters from a bucket, the kind that are really only suited to frying; the pork is belly that's been boiled into submission. Almost every time I ate it at a restaurant, I'd think about how much better it would be if all the ingredients were awesome. The first time we made one was for family meal back when we'd just started serving kimchi puree on our oysters at Noodle Bar. One of the new cooks was fucking up oysters left and right, so I made him shuck a few dozen perfectly, and then we ate them ssäm-style: wrapped up in lettuce with rice, kimchi, and some shredded pork shoulder that was otherwise destined for the ramen bowl. (The shoulder in our bo ssäm is, essentially, the same shoulder we put in the soup at Noodle Bar, except that we add more sugar in the last step to make the crust even more delicious—it's like a shoulder encrusted in pig candy.) So there, in the cramped, dark subterranean kitchen of Noodle Bar, I ate the best bo ssäm of my life. I think that experience and our take on the bo ssäm are typical of the way we approach "traditional" dishes: with one foot rooted in tradition and the other foot kicking it forward. There is a great line from Emerson that sums up my perspective perfectly: "Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books."

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Chef David Chang's Bo Ssäm. Japanese short-grain white rice is the only rice we make. We, like all restaurants and many home cooks, use a rice cooker to prepare it—it's just that much easier and more reliable than cooking rice on the stove. Here are directions for both methods.

At first glance, this might look like a simple lamb stew, but you will be delighted by its finesse when you remove the lamb from the bone, return it to the pot, and toss with your favorite pasta. The secret to this deep and succulent sauce is the Basic Fond de Veau , a reduced veal stock whose unctuousness is well worth the extra preparation. The lamb can be made ahead, to concentrate the flavors. This ragout makes a surprisingly satisfying dish for entertaining.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Chef John Besh's Basic Fond de Veau. I never make a strong beef stock, preferring instead the viscosity, collagen, and more delicate flavor that comes from using veal bones. This Veal Stock is based on veal shanks.