I transcribed Chef John's twice-weekly video recipes into individual pages on Allrecipes.com, adapting blurbs from his blog, photos, and video instructions/dialogue into cohesive recipe pages for our audience to follow.
Below are the recipe descriptions and shorter, search-friendly meta-descriptions I penned. Click the recipe card to read instructions.
This flaming cheese ritual was started by restaurateurs in Chicago, who encouraged customers to yell, 'Opa!' as the plate was being ignited. You can recreate the tradition at home in minutes, whether you'd like to spark up a little romance with an old flame on date night or just try a fast and fun cheese dish on a chilly weeknight. Serve with sliced fresh or grilled bread.
These deceivingly simple, yet devastatingly delicious garlic noodles were invented back in the '70s at a restaurant in San Francisco called Thanh Long. Usually served with roasted Dungeness crab, the recipe is a very closely guarded family secret, but after lots of investigation, and even more experimentation, I think this is very close.
Home cooks will find deep-dish pizza, with its unique buttery cornmeal crust, more forgiving than its New York counterpart. No need to worry about having the hottest oven or too many toppings - just make sure your sauce is very thick and flavorful! I garnished mine with parsley and more Parmesan cheese.
This bacon-studded 'cheese corn' is a popular bar snack in Korea, made of pure bacon-y, creamy, cheesy, corny decadence. The original recipe uses a combination of mayonnaise and sweetened condensed milk, but we're going with heavy cream here for a lighter approach. This may be the first time in my career that I've 'lightened up' a recipe by adding a cup of heavy cream. Garnished with green onions, this would be amazing with a cold beer!
A few months ago I saw a pie image on Twitter so creepy and disturbing that I actually questioned whether it was too terrifying to post as a video. Usually, Halloween-themed recipes have the opposite problem, as they are almost never actually scary, but that's not an issue here. By the way, can someone get sued for giving people nightmares?
Inspired by a shrimp po'boy with crab mayo seen on 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,' I decided to do an extra spicy version and give it a 4th of July-friendly name. The result is an explosively flavored combination of hot, crunchy shrimp and cold crabby mayo. This was one of the best things I've had in a long time, and that's after eating it barely warm; for best results, though, be sure to enjoy this just as soon as it's safe to eat, in all its crunchy glory.
As much as I love a traditional beef stew, or braised beef short ribs, I like to shake things up sometimes by applying the same techniques to a few non-traditional ingredients. This melt-in-your-mouth braised beef dish is cold weather comfort food at its finest. Miso adds an extra savory element, balanced with a touch of maple syrup, which further enhances the autumnal feel. Serve over mashed potatoes, rice, or noodles.
If you're thinking about dry-aging your own prime rib of beef for the holidays, start here. After lots of research, I decided I'd have to age the beef at least 30 days for any noticeable change in flavor; it ended up going for 42 days before baking. The meat came out extremely juicy and tender but somehow never developed that funky fermented flavor I wanted. It might've tasted a bit more concentrated, though, after having lost 2 pounds of water weight.
As legend has it, Yorkshire puddings were traditionally cooked in a pan of fat, at the bottom of a hearth, underneath a large piece of roasting beef. The smoky heat from the fire, along with all the other goodness dripping into the pan from the meat, must've made for quite a delicious pastry. Though limited by modern ovens, we can still come close to the original by using real rendered beef fat, without which you're just eating a popover.
If you've never made homemade truffles before, these are way easier than you think, and make for an impressive edible gift. I ended up doing a gingerbread spice version, which is chef-speak for pumpkin spice, but the fun part is getting to flavor these any way you like! To guarantee the perfect ganache, use a scale to make sure you match 60% of the chocolate's weight in cream.
Unless you're trying to treat a friend from Southern Italy who's very proud of their cannoli, there's no reason not to enjoy this faster, lighter, "cheater" version. We trade the traditional fried dough for an easier crispy wafer cookie, which produces a different texture but very similar flavor profile. Feel free to garnish the ends with pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, or pine nuts, dress them up a bit with some drizzled chocolate, or simply dust powdered sugar over.
Since I missed the whole Instant Pot® train, I had to make at least one air fryer recipe while they're still hot. And it doesn't get more classic than French fries; the generally accepted technique is pretty, dare I say, airtight, at this point, but I do have one extra trick in store! Finally, dip them in honey mustard, spicy ketchup, garlic aioli, or all 3 mixed together, like I did.
I rarely post a trendy recipe while it's still trendy. But this 'burnt' cheesecake method deserved the hype; baking it in a very hot oven delivers a beautiful, dark exterior full of bittersweet notes that make the light, creamy cheesecake interior seem even more rich and flavorful. Plus, this method is just plain easier--just remember the parchment paper. So, if you've not had much luck with traditional cheesecake methods, you should stop trying and make this exclusively.
This spring vegetable tart only looks hard to make and would be a perfect centerpiece for any special occasion. Just put it out on the table a little bit early so everyone can get their Instagramming in. As long as you use a wide array of colorful vegetables and tuck them into a tangled base of greens, this easy cheese tart/salad can't help but look gorgeous.
If you've ever wanted to channel your inner barbarian and cook a large hunk of meat right on the coals, no grill, then this the recipe for you. The flavor of this beef lands somewhere between grilled and smoked, and I've got a great garlicky, acidic pepper sauce to go with it. Try this recipe with a more expensive cut of meat plus any sauce of choice, from chimichurri to barbeque. You can't go wrong!
Read more appetizing recipe copy on my Twitter!