J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

“Mapo tofu is my favorite food in the world. We always have tofu at home. Like, a lot of it.”

“Over the years, I've discovered that lessons in cooking come in two forms. There are the lessons that you never fully learn; skills that you get better and better at, but never quite perfect. Then there are the lessons that you only need to learn once because the results of not following them will literally scar you for life.”

“For creamy sea urchin pasta recipes, the typical process is to saute garlic, shallots, and chilies in olive oil, then add the pasta and pour in a sauce made from raw sea urchin roe blended with softened butter or heavy cream.”

“Ten inches is a very versatile size for a skillet. It's the ideal vessel for sauteing vegetables for a small family or searing a couple of large steaks, pork chops, or pieces of fish.”

“A fridge is basically just a big, cold box with a few shelves in it, right? Well, that's true, but where you store food in the fridge can have quite an impact on its shelf life.”

“An ice cream sundae isn't complete without a crunchy element.”

“Frying is essentially a drying process. Batters and breadings are formulated to dry out in a particularly graceful way.”

“I came from a family of scientists. My father is a microbiologist and my grandfather is an organic chemist. I had a very science- and math-heavy childhood.”

“Evaporated milk is a highly concentrated source of milk protein micelles - bundles of proteins that can act as powerful emulsifying agents - which help to keep the sauce creamy and smooth.”

“Panko crumbs have tons of surface area, leading to exceptionally crisp coatings.”

“Like a good grilled cheese, a good quesadilla is one that takes its time cooking, for a thoroughly melted interior and nice, even browning.”

“One of the handiest features of crepes is that you can cook the pancakes all the way through and refrigerate them, to be reheated and stuffed later.”

“I wasn't meant to be a cook. It's a profession I accidentally fell into one summer between college semesters while looking for an easy job as a waiter. Nobody would hire me as a server, but one restaurant, in desperate need of a prep cook, told me that if I could hold a knife, I could have a job.”

“When planning a Thanksgiving menu, it's always a balancing act between representing all the classics and satisfying all the members of your family.”

“Tri-ply pans try to split this difference by sandwiching a layer of aluminum in between two layers of steel. They heat evenly and store plenty of energy. Tri-ply pans are also more sturdily constructed than disk-bottom pans, which have aluminum disks attached only to their bottoms.”

“I started freelancing for Serious Eats while I was still living in Boston. I was born there, grew up in New York City, but went back to Boston for school, and then I lived in Boston for about ten years.”

“Steel is dense, which means that, for a given volume, it can hang on to more thermal energy than aluminum can. On the other hand, aluminum is highly conductive, which means that it can transfer heat from one place to another very rapidly.”

“When I had a side-by-side-style freezer, I kept everything - soup, ground meat, steaks, cooked rice - frozen in flat packs that I filed away vertically like vinyl records.”

“But if you're from New York and you grew up here, you have it built into you - what a slice of pizza is supposed to be - in a way that people from outside of New York don't.”

“Many call for cooking pasta directly in milk, a technique that works okay, but it can lead to scorching if you're not super careful with stirring. I prefer the evaporated-milk route because it ensures a clean pan with no burnt bits on the bottom.”