Andrew Galarneau

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Matar Paneer

If you’re looking to make a cheese-centered center-of-the-plate dish, the combination of peas, spiced tomato gravy, and browned paneer cubes is a classic answer. Better yet, its flavors blossom overnight, making it a heat-and-eat answer to dinner. This version has just enough spices to matter, a placid antidote to the bad rap Indian cuisine has for flamethrower food.

Yogurt-Glazed Grilled Paneer (Paneer Tikka)

“Marinated” isn’t the right term for paneer tikka. Despite its spice payload, the yogurt coating’s flavors won’t penetrate fresh cheese. In the intense heat, it welds to cheese cubes, becoming a savory lacquer that only chars at the corners. This version swaps out vegetable oil for mustard oil to give it a lit flavor to match its golden hue.

Paneer Pakora

Once you learn how to rub fat into chickpea flour, whip it with water and spices, and let it rise to fluffiness, you’ll make pakoras every time you deep-fry. Crushed coriander seeds and gluten-free crunch make paneer into a cheese stick that outshines mozzarella batons. This batter also glorifies cauliflower spears and is the base for onion pakora, making sturdy fried snacks that won’t wilt on a buffet table. (Inspired by the version in Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking.)

Paneer

Whole milk works best for paneer. You can also add heavy cream to 2 percent milk at a 1-to-8 ratio for richer, firmer paneer. In either case, if you can find better-than-supermarket milk–from a single-herd dairy, for example–your investment will pay big dividends.

Get Better Garlic

Do yourself a favor and add hardneck season to your eating calendar.

Toum

If you really love garlic, you need to try toum. As glossy, rich, and savory as mayonnaise but vegan, it’s made from just five ingredients: garlic, water, lemon, oil, and salt. In a food processor, or under long traditional pestling, garlic’s natural emulsifiers deliver satisfaction you thought only eggs could provide.

Read on: Get Better Garlic

Roasted Garlic Nut Brittle

Roasted garlic, sweet and sticky, is from the same family as caramel, flavor-wise. This makes a fitting, if surprising, ingredient for buttery almond brittle with a savory backstory. Pecans, cashews, and peanuts also take well to this treatment, but walnuts can get bitter. Results shown are from an 8-by-12-inch pan. Use a bigger pan for thinner brittle. Inspired by this recipe from the Toronto Garlic Festival.

(SAFETY TIME-OUT: Boiling sugar into candy is the most dangerous kitchen technique. Molten sugar burns deeper, faster than boiling oil. Be careful. A candy thermometer clipped to the pot’s side, tip not touching bottom, can supply temperature readings without fumbling with apparatus. An instant-read with a long probe, and a steady hand, works too.)

Read on: Get Better Garlic

Skordalia

Served as a mezze, schmears of this garlic-powered nut-potato dip on toasted pita bread help Greeks make it through Lenten periods, when tzatziki is off-limits. The raw garlic at its heart means it will get stronger the next day. Russet potatoes produce a lighter texture, but waxy varieties still make a fine spread. Inspired by this Serious Eats recipe.

Read on: Get Better Garlic

If You Eat Meat, Buying Locally Will Change Everything

Find a farmer, fill a freezer, change the food system.

Caramelized Pork and Noodle Soup 

This recipe is designed to create the most flavorful broth possible, then soak it up by simmering dried pasta in it. Since the focus is broth, not meat yield, this is useful for gnarly bits. I’ve left cooking times and amount of oil loose here, to accommodate whatever amount of meat you might want to use. You can always add more meat later, or cream it out with heavy cream, sour cream, or full-fat Greek yogurt. (The cooking time offered here is for cuts about an inch thick. For thicker cuts, extend cooking time by an hour per inch, since it will take longer to reach the falling-apart stage.) – Andrew Galarneau

Chicken Tinga

Simmering whole chickens in tomato-chile sauce, letting it cool, and carefully separating the nice from not-nice before service is, admittedly, a chore. But it’s worth it for a dish enriched by patient extraction of the chicken character. Inspired by this J. Kenji Lopez-Alt recipe. – Andrew Galarneau

Beef Kofta

Frozen ground beef isn’t the best for burgers because freezing denatures the proteins, making juicy burgers more difficult to achieve. That effect doesn’t show up in kofta or similar whipped meatballs intended for the grill. Onions and fresh herbs help make ground beef grand. – Andrew Galarneau

Got a Winter CSA? Talk to the Experts.

After appreciating a summer share, doesn’t it seem odd buying megamart potatoes for your holiday dinner?

Celeriac “Lasagna”

Knobby, alien-looking celery roots are welcome after they’re transformed into this family-friendly hybrid of lasagna and vegetable gratin. Put on your cut-proof glove and use a mandolin, and you’ll have thin, uniform slices in a jiffy. Or put your knife skills to the test.

Sichuan Stir-Fried Potatoes

Crunchy potatoes are a novel sensation to eaters raised on mashed and fried spuds. Zingy with vinegar and your choice of chile heat, smoky with wok hay, plus the optional numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorn, this simple Chinese stir-fry will add another dimension to your potato canon.

Caramelized Roast Cabbage 

This simple winter dinner exploits the fact that cabbage gets sweeter as it roasts in a humid environment. The cabbage-apple-garlic trio satisfies on its own, but pork can enhance the dish for carnivores. Fennel seeds add aroma, but can be left out or exchanged for another, like anise, caraway, or cumin seeds.