It’s hard to miss the fanfare (or better yet, 12th-manfare) around Seattle right now—the Space Needle glows green at night and enormous 12s can be spotted along the skylines of Seattle and Bellevue, just across Lake Washington. Whether you’re a fan of the Seahawks, Patriots, or the commercials (or biding your time until next year), there’s one thing we can all get excited about: game day snacks. This year, we’re honoring the old pigskin with . . . pig skin. Pressure-Cooked Chicharrón to be exact.

Chicharrón is pork skin that has been dehydrated, fried, and puffed into crackling. It’s an addictive snack or garnish: make plenty, or it might disappear before it gets to the table. Pork skin is available from many butchers and at many Asian and Latin American markets.

The key to good chicharrón is drying the skin by just the right amount before frying it. The dried pieces should at that point flex slightly, and then snap in half. If they are too moist or too dry, they will not puff properly in the hot oil. Proper inflation is essential to good chicharrón. A food dehydrator is the best tool for drying the skin, but if you don’t have one, preheat the oven to its lowest temperature setting, arrange the pieces on a rack set over a baking sheet, and dry them for 8–10 hours until they become leathery and flexible.

We like chicharrón with guacamole and salsa; however, if you truly want to win your Super Bowl party, make campechanas: tacos of corn tortillas filled with equal parts carnitas and chicharrón, topped with your favorite green chili salsa.

– Adapted from Modernist Cuisine at Home

Pumpkin pie is one of the most popular Thanksgiving desserts; therefore we devoted some time to analyzing what makes this pie so easy to identify. It’s typically the spices you taste, not the pumpkin, so we came up with a way to extract the true taste of pumpkin while skipping the spices, at least in the custard itself.

We decided to source one of our own recipes from Modernist Cuisine, wherein we pressure-cook carrots with baking soda. Baking soda deepens flavors and enhances caramelization of sugars, which, we concluded, would be the perfect way to accentuate the pumpkin’s essence. But it required finding the best pumpkin for the job. We settled on a type of pumpkin that comes in the shape of a can—it’s soft inside and practically pureed, with a label that says “Libby’s.” For pumpkin-flavored pumpkin, it’s our first choice.

—Francisco Migoya, Head Chef

In the 1950s, when Colonel Harland Sanders started the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, chickens enjoyed longer lives, and their muscles—particularly their legs—were tougher. Cooking these old birds fast and to order was no mean feat because their dark meat was loaded with tough collagen. The colonel knew that simply turning up the heat on the fryer wouldn’t work; higher heat at the food surface just doesn’t accelerate cooking appreciably.

Unable to find a suitable fryer, Sanders financed the development of a new kind of deep fryer, one that uses high pressure rather than high temperature to speed cooking and tenderize the dark meat. Winston Shelton—who later invented the CVap water-vapor oven—came up with the winning design. Winston Industries’ “Collectramatic” is still sold today but has since evolved to accommodate the shift in public preference for white meat. The 21^st-century Collectramatic can cook at pressures and temperatures considerably lower than those applied in Sanders’s day.

Some serious fried-chicken enthusiasts might have a Collectramatic in their kitchen, but the rest of us can still make incredible fried chicken with just a deep fryer or by combining a large pot with a stovetop. Inspired by Sanders’s ingenuity and passion for succulent poultry, we created The Colonel’s Fried Chicken recipe. Containing eleven herbs and spices, the flour mix coats the chicken in a flavorful layer of savory goodness. Once fried, the outside is crisp and golden, while the inside remains tender, juicy, and altogether delicious. Enjoy your chicken hot, just out of the fryer, or serve it cold at a picnic—there is something undeniably satisfying about cold fried chicken.

Dashi is elegantly simple yet incredibly important to Japanese cuisine. Literally translating to ‘broth’, dashi is full of umami goodness, which makes it both delicious alone and as an indispensable tool for layering and developing flavors in countless Japanese recipes. In fact, the distinct reaction of taste receptors with glutamate was first identified after slurping a bowl of dashi broth. Its ingredients happen to be full of naturally occurring, umami-rich glutamates, the flavors of which intensify as cooking progresses.

Traditionally, dashi can be made into two broths: ichiban dashi (“first broth”) and niban dashi (“second broth”). The former is a delicate, aromatic extraction that is served immediately, and the latter is a stronger extraction used for cooking. Ichiban dashi is made by soaking and then gently boiling kombu in water to extract the seaweed flavor. The addition of katsuobushi (aged, dried, and shaved bonito flakes) infuses the steeping broth with intense fish flavors. The broth is then strained and consumed. Niban dashi is made by recombining and cooking the leftover ingredients over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Our dashi recipe is equally as simple. We used The Porthole Infuser to create two delicious broths that also happen to be pleasing to the eyes. The flavors of these ingredients slowly infuse into the water, resulting in a richly flavored broth that can be heated and served as is or used in any recipe that calls for dashi.

There is something deeply inviting about a dollop of fresh butter slowly melting on top of a warm bowl of grits. Indeed, magic can be found at the bottom of that bowl. For many of us who were raised in the south, grits are a reminder of home, of nourishing breakfasts that taught us to savor food, and of meals prepared with warmth and care. No matter your locale, a bowl of well-made grits is a comforting way to start the day, which is why this recipe for Shrimp and Grits seems especially fitting for Mother’s Day.

Beyond childhood breakfasts, grits have a long history of being prepared with soul. Hominy grits were developed by Native American tribes as a thick porridge from stone-milled corn. An offering of goodwill, this simple meal was shared with early colonists in Roanoke, North Carolina, and used to greet settlers of Jamestown, Virginia. Like masa harina, hominy grits underwent nixtamalization—they were softened, hulled, and then ground after being treated with an alkaline solution. Adopted by Southerners, grits were cheap and readily available, a tasty way of feeding hungry communities. The roots of shrimp and grits can be traced to the coast’s low country, where fishermen added freshly caught shrimp to create a humble, yet satisfying breakfast.

You can make grits from course-ground cornmeal from nearly any variety: white, yellow, and blue. The kind of corn and size of the grind affect the cooking time and the amount of water needed. Traditional methods of making good grits require attention—left unattended, the cooking corn meal will stick to the pot and develop lumps. Instant grits offer shorter cooking times but at the cost of blander flavors. Instead, use a pressure cooker and enjoy the real thing, quickly and without constant stirring.

Regional and subregional variations on this dish are abundant. We intensified our Shrimp and Grits by cooking course-ground grits in Pressure-Cooked Crustacean Stock, and the addition of Redeye Gravy adds even more flavor. The soft-cooked egg seems to melt over the finished bowl of warm grits. For a more traditional take, add prawns that have been seared or cooked sous vide.

Save room for something sweet: Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnut Holes pair well with morning coffee and are the perfect way to end an incredible tribute to the mothers in our lives.

Tamales are a true comfort food. Warm pillows of ground cornmeal surround both sweet and savory fillings. The dough of these steamed bundles is made from course-ground corn flour called masa harina. Inside, a bounty of different fillings can be found: cheeses, pork, chilies, cinnamon and raisins, and roasted vegetables.

The corn husks of tamales hide another secret: science. To make masa harina, corn is boiled and then steeped in lime water, an alkaline solution, in a process called nixtamalization (from the Aztec word nixtamal). The etymology of this word reflects the ancient roots of the process, which developed across Mesoamerica over 3,000 ago. The earliest evidence of the process was discovered in Guatemala and dates back to around 1,500 BCE.

The development of nixtamalization made corn a viable ingredient for cultures throughout the Americas. The process makes it easier for humans to digest corn and extract nutrients, particularly niacin. The alkaline lime water breaks down the kernel’s cell walls, making nutrients accessible. The reaction also intensifies the cornmeal’s flavor, giving it a distinctive roasted taste.

For many tamale recipes the filling is the star; however the focus of this recipe is corn. Our fresh-corn tamales are more like a delicate steamed cornbread, good enough to eat alone. We think they make a marvelous side dish, however you can easily turn them into an entrée with fillings of shredded meat, like carnitas.

Adapted from Modernist Cuisine at Home

The term “custard” spans so many possible ingredients and techniques that it is most useful to think of a custard as simply a particular texture and mouthfeel. Custards have been made for centuries by lightly cooking a blend of eggs and heavy cream, but Modernist chefs have invented myriad ways to make custards. The techniques here offer greater consistency and more control over the texture, which can range from airy, typical of a sabayon, to dense, as in a posset.

The one constant among custards is the use of plenty of fat, which not only provides that distinctive mouthfeel but also makes custard an excellent carrier of fat-soluble flavors and aromas. Lighter varieties of custard, however, can be aerated in a whipping siphon into smooth, creamy foams.

One of the more iconic custards is crème brûlée, which has a distinctively rich, velvety texture, and, like many other custards, egg yolks and heat serve as its thickener and gelling agent, respectively. For this recipe, we gave our Coffee Crème Brûlée a twofold Modernist twist by combining the techniques of sous vide and cold infusion. Sous vide provides increased precision and temperature control over the custard, and cold infusion better preserves the aromatics and coffee flavor.

Adapted from Modernist Cuisine at Home

When it came to preparing for Passover, my mother would always buy matzo in bulk, just in case we ran out. After the holiday, my family would attempt to consume the remaining boxes of matzo, only to surrender to fatigue after a few weeks. Those boxes would then be stored in my parent’s pantry and used throughout the year for matzo brei, which, for us, is spiced and then fried, like scrambled eggs. Given my family’s tradition, I was absolutely delighted when our culinary team developed the Matzo Ramen Noodle Soup recipe, using leftover matzo from our Matzo Ice Cream.

Our Matzo Ramen Noodles are not kosher, however, because of the addition of hametz ingredients: vital wheat gluten, bread flour, and baking soda. Hametz are leavening ingredients that include wheat, spelt, oats, rye, and barley. While matzo is made of wheat, it is made under strict supervision to ensure the baking process does not exceed 18 minutes once the wet and dry ingredients have been combined—the 18-minute rule guarantees that the dough does not rise. We added baking soda to provide a wonderfully chewy mouthfeel that we attribute to ramen and Chinese noodles. Alkaline ingredients like kansui powder or in this case, baking soda, are traditionally what give these noodles their characteristic yellow color and chewiness. The hametz ingredients in this recipe might not be fit for traditional Passover observances, but Matzo Ramen is a great way to put leftovers to use after the holiday.

Similar to a matzo ball, these noodles sop up the savory, pressure-cooked chicken broth. And despite the unconventional shape, they retain that distinct matzo flavor. The addition of bright, tender vegetables to the broth is a reminder of spring. You can also pair this ramen with your family’s favorite broth for a new take on a beloved tradition.

– Caren Palevitz, Online Writer

Good Easter eggs shelter hidden surprises—plastic eggs break open to reveal jelly beans, and chocolate eggs often hide nougat, caramel, fudge, or peanut butter. We embraced this idea, but reimagined the egg’s contents in our own versions of this iconic treat. Our first egg is a tribute to our favorite candy eggs, with a bit of a twist.

Chocolate on the outside, when cracked open, another iconic Easter dish is unveiled: ham. Serrano ham to be precise. Have no fear, the center is made of chocolate as well.

Our featured recipe, however, approaches the concept of the Easter egg in a very different way. Instead of being filled with sweets, these eggs contain savory fillings of shiitake custard and shrimp foam, topped with a bit of crab dressed with chives, lemon, and chervils. The flavors and textures of this dish are quite delicate and refreshing, which contrast the sweet, rich fillings of other egg-shaped confections. This recipe is the perfect addition to any Easter celebration.

Whimsy is one of my favorite things about Modernist cuisine. When I nostalgically described my childhood seder dinners to our culinary team, two themes emerged: matzo and Manischewitz. Matzo is an incredibly humble yet important food—I like mine sandwiched with a generous portion of haroseth, which my mother made with walnuts, wine, and apples. I always looked forward to each symbolic dip and drink of Manischewitz that we would take throughout seder. But, growing up in a relatively small southern town, we didn’t have many options when it came to Passover-friendly goods and usually struggled to make it through the week despite my mother’s adept skills. I loved her apple cakes, made with matzo meal and flourless chocolate cakes, but I (very) secretly longed for something new.

When it comes to desserts, for me, good ice cream trumps all. When our head chef suggested using matzo as an ice-cream base, I knew he had stumbled upon the Passover dessert I always wanted as a kid. Here, matzo is transformed into a delicately sweet ice cream, and the sugary Manischewitz makes perfect sense as a caramel to complement the ice cream. Matzo and Manischewitz work together in a new way but still retain notes of the original ingredients, adding delightful layers of whimsy and surprise to this dessert.

—Caren Palevitz, Online Writer