This is, without a doubt, the best recipe for pizza dough I’ve ever tried. Chilled flour, ice-cold water, salt, and a small amount of yeast are mixed together and immediately refrigerated in this unique method that draws out the complex flavors locked inside the flour. This delayed fermentation process is arguably the most important, and thankfully, also the easiest, technique in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

When flour is hydrated, starch is slowly broken down into simpler sugars. Since the dough is kept very cold and immediately refrigerated, the yeast falls asleep and doesn’t snack on these carbohydrates until removed from cold storage. Compared to dough developed using conventional methods, the result is a naturally sweeter dough courtesy of the larger reserve of fermentable sugars.

More carbs for the yeast. More carbs for you. Everybody’s happy. Until the yeast meets its end on a 600ºF baking stone, that is.

View Pizza Napoletana Margherita - Neapolitan-Style Pizza Recipe »

Poke around my burgeoning list of recipes and you may notice that outright lack of knowledge and unpronounceableness haven’t deterred me in the least from trying out new foods. In keeping with the spirit of blissful ignorance, here are a handful of things I know about dal makhani, a slow-cooked lentil stew with black gram and red kidney beans.

• Julie Sahni calls it “The most exquisite of dal preparations.”
• A triple batch fits perfectly in a 7-quart dutch oven. It’s that good.
• Dal makhani is easy to prepare but takes about 8 hours to cook, much like simmering stock, which is another good reason to make a triple batch. It will be worth it.
• It has a consistency similar to chili. Even if I’m not vegetarian, I’d choose a bowl of dal makhani over chili any day.
• Calling dal makhani “buttered” is a mild understatement. See recipe below.

View Dal Makhani Recipe (Kali Dal) - Buttered Black Gram Beans »

Dongpo Pork is a minimalist recipe for braised pork belly that needs only a few Chinese pantry staples — ginger, scallions, soy sauce, and Shaoxing rice wine. Ever ordered anything “drunken” at your local Chinese restaurant? Odds are you’ve had Shaoxing. It is the most widely used rice wine in Chinese cookery so invest in a good quality bottle if you plan to fire up the wok often.

Hangzhou braised pork belly shamelessly celebrates fat as the main ingredient. There is no browning or searing in this version, a step usually called for when braising meats, presumably to prevent the fat and skin from taking on any texture other than gelatinous. As the meat simmers underneath the ebony liquid to produce a rich broth, the fat on top steams into wobbly silkiness that is neither solid nor liquid.

I realize that wasn’t the most appetizing description for something you’re supposed to put in your mouth. This is one of those “try it, you’ll like it” recipes.

It takes at least 4 hours to get the best results when making Dongpo Pork. Throw the ingredients in a pot, run errands, do laundry, work out, and come home to a kitchen redolent of ginger and soy sauce. It’s done when the fat, skin, and meat are easily pierced with blunt chopsticks.

View Braised Pork Belly Recipe - Hangzhou Dongpo Pork »

The pork adobo of choice in our quaint little household in Quezon City was made with liempo, the cut also known as pork belly, source of wonderful things such as bacon and high blood pressure. Unabashedly lardy from slowly simmering pork in soy sauce and vinegar, pork adobo requires ungodly amounts of steamed rice, lest my menacing older brothers pilfer my share and make me wait for the next batch.

Adobo is always served with rice and it’s unimaginable to have it any other way. We get nervous when our rice supply dwindles so we always kept several 50-kilogram sacks in the kitchen. Having all of those rice sacks on hand seemed to serve a dual purpose — sustenance, first and foremost, and breakwater for typhoons, in case of emergency.

Countless meals of thick-cut pork belly with a meat-to-fat ratio of 1:1 defined my childhood but it doesn’t sound as good an idea now as it was back then. Baby-back ribs adobo is not diet food by any means, but this recipe improves the ratio to, oh I don’t know, 3:1. Braising collagen-rich ribs produces a lip-smacking sauce like no other cut and it goes great with, you guessed it, steamed white rice.

View Baby-Back Pork Ribs Adobo Recipe »

Pureed red bean paste is wrapped in a thin blanket of crisp-fried crepes in this sweet Shanghai classic. Traditionally served on its own, toppings such as toasted sesame seeds and light syrups are certainly welcome. My favorite addition is Japanese kinako, an aromatic flour of roasted soybeans, adding a subtle nuttiness that always plays well with the rich sweetness of azuki bean paste.

This simple recipe is probably the best reason to own a rectangular pan (or a lame excuse for justifying impulse buys meant to appease kitchen gearheads). A few rows of uniformly-sized crepes in the morning is always a great way to start the day (or instant therapy for some undiagnosed condition).

Still not convinced to make this right now? Red bean crepes are also great for sharpening your chopstick handling skills. Using nothing but two sticks, make a few batches without tearing a single crepe and you’ll surpass Mr. Miyagi in no time.

View Shanghai Red Bean Crêpe Recipe »