Meat

Love a ham sandwich with mustard on rye? Those familiar flavors are reimagined in this easily achievable dish.

Use the best quality lamb you can find. Chilling the deboned loin in the freezer for 15 minutes will make it easier to handle.

If paella escaped from Spain, sailed to China, and did some soul-searching along the way, you’d have the namesake dish at Chicago’s Fat Rice. The generous pot of aromatic rice, curry-scented chicken, and (much) more can be traced back to Macau, the former Portuguese colony in China, where it’s almost always served at home. Chefs Abraham Conlon and Adrienne Lo took inspiration from foreign-language cookbooks; their version is a blend of Portuguese and Chinese cooking that Conlon calls “the origin”…

Bringing ramen home takes a trip to an Asian market, three days of work, and your largest pot, but this low-stress (really!) labor of love might be the best soup you'll ever make.

Yes, there are a few recipes within this recipe. But they're simple enough and can be prepared ahead of time, which makes putting the dish together a (relative) breeze.

Bruising the cucumbers helps break down their flesh, which is then better able to absorb the flavor of the marinade.

Chef Philip Krajeck, Rolf and Daughters, Nashville, says the key to this dish is getting a good char on the brussels sprouts, which helps balance the richness of the porky, eggy sauce. Salt draws moisture out of the leaves, which might make them soggy, so he doesn’t season them.

As co-chefs at Hog & Hominy in Memphis, Michael Hudman and Andy Ticer see each other daily, but the old friends still cook together on days off. “Andy does the steak,” says Hudman, “and I do the pasta.”

They look unassuming, but these little jars of unctuous spiced meat served with crunchy toast and rich shallots are a decadent and satisfying treat.

Blanched garlic, which is sweet and mild, is blended with briny clam liquor and olive oil to make a creamy white sauce for this unconventional pizza.

Feel free to play with different herbs in the chimichurri recipe—that’s what Michael and Patrick Sheerin (brothers and co-chefs at Trenchermen, Chicago) have always done: “When we were younger, our mom would buy lots of herbs, but she’d never use them,” says Michael. “So we’d just blend them with garlic, oil, and vinegar.”

At Lafayette restaurant in New York City, the lamb is served with cooked quinoa that’s folded into couscous, but you could simply choose one or the other as a side dish.

To give steaks a boost, chef David Myers of Hinoki & the Bird in Los Angeles, makes an herb rub (he likes to dry the herbs himself; if you don’t have a microwave, sub in 1 tsp. of each dried herb) and pairs the meat with a tart ponzu sauce (ponzu is available at Asian markets and some supermarkets).

Thanks to two very hands-off methods for the lamb and polenta, this is an excellent choice for a dinner party.

Old (like, 140 days old--or older!) is new when it comes to the best beef you can get in a restaurant

Keep a resealable bag of leftover Parmesan rinds in the freezer for recipes like this; they add great depth to tomato sauces and vegetable-centric soups, too.

Beef brisket and a backyard smoker: It doesn't get any more "Texas" than that.

Cassy Vires, Home Wine Kitchen, St. Louis: "I like to take a classic pairing and turn it on its head."

To get the most out of your fire, cook these recipes in the order in which they appear. As for the vegetables, use them in any combination you like.

Yesterday our Web editor, Matt Gross, barbecued an entire 30-pound lamb. Here's how he did it

Serve this rich, glazed eggplant as a starter, or with rice and a simply prepared piece of fish for a main course.

In this rack of lamb recipe, the lamb needs to marinate overnight, so be sure to start 1 day ahead. But trust us: It's worth it.

Named for Amatrice, a town northeast of Rome, this pasta is traditionally served with a long noodle like bucatini, but we like how shorter penne captures the spicy, meaty bits of sauce inside the tube.