December 2022 - Page 30 of 31

December 2, 2022

7 kitchen gadgets to streamline your Christmas dinner

Christmas dinner ~~may arguably be~~ is definitely the best meal of the year. It’s not exactly a relaxing one to cook, though. There’s a million and one things to roast, bake, boil, flambé, blend and baste. And after all that work the veggies are usually soggy, the turkey is blackened and cooking times previously written in stone are thrown out under the crippling weight of pressure.

But Christmas dinner doesn’t have to be the ultimate test of the human endurance. There is a better way with our pick of the must have gadgets to streamline your Christmas dinner. Trust us, you deserve better.

Instant Pot Pro Plus at Amazon
Lenovo Smart Clock 2 at Currys
Thermapen Classic at Amazon
Stirr at Amazon
Japanese Mandoline at Sous Chef
Kenwood Autograph collection
Coolskin 375 GTX at Amazon

Best for multitasking: Instant Pot Pro Plus: £170

The Instant Pot Pro Plus is a 10-in-one jack of all trades, master of most of them. It’s a pressure cooker, steamer, rice maker, yogurt maker, warmer, sauté-er and probably a few more things we’re yet to discover. The Instant Pot Pro Plus is wirelessly controlled through the Instant Brands Connect app. Open the app, select from one of over 800 recipes and the app will program the pot to cook whatever you want to perfection – all hands free. Yes, that includes crispy roast potatoes and slow cooked meats, ideal for out of sight out of mind cooking.

Best for timings: Lenovo Smart Clock 2: £26

For the Christmas day chef who simply can’t get their timings right, the Lenovo Smart Clock 2 with Google Assistant is the gadget for you. Multiple reminders and alarms can be set using your voice, a 4in LED display is easy to read, and it also doubles as a nightlight and charging unit. As a bonus, three front-firing 3W speakers lets you listen to music while you cook and blissfully ignore the family members arguing in the living room.

Best for temperatures: Thermapen Classic: £48

There are a number of smart thermometers out there that’ll give you a perfectly cooked Christmas roast (or BBQ in the summer). The MEATER is a wireless smart meat thermometer that tells you when your food is cooked to perfection via an app. But, at £99, the MEATER is far too pricey for what is a relatively simple task. Not all things need to be ‘smart’, either. For something a little more humble, the Thermapen Classic does everything a thermometer needs to do – that is, to accurately take the temperature – for a much more reasonable £48. The Thermapen Classic is hard wearing, takes the temperature within three seconds to an accuracy of ±0.4 degrees and is water resistant for easy cleaning. What more do you want?

Best for gravy: Stirr: £25

üutensil may sound like it’s a piece of Swedish furniture, but üutensil is a British company who create a whole host of smart and reasonably priced kitchen gadgets. Take the Spudnik for example, a rotating potato masher that should be in the kitchens of everyone who knows that mashed potato IS traditional at a Christmas dinner table. The Stirr is our personal favourite though, a battery powered device that rotates and stirs your sauces and gravies that’s heat resistant up to 120 degrees.

Best for chopping: Japanese Mandoline: £40

Japanese metal doesn’t have to break the bank. This Japanese Mandoline from Sous Chef will slice your veggies and make perfectly thin potatoes for dauphinois for £40. The mandoline from Sous Chef comes with three blade types for all manner of veggie slicing. A fine tooth blade is meant for fruits and salad chopping. The medium tooth is great for shredding carrots and cabbage (and is great for homemade kimchi). A larger blade works well with tougher vegetables, too. Be sure to use a cut resistant glove to safeguard your digits, though.

Best for baking: Kenwood Autograph collection: From £45

If you’re really pushing the boat out this Christmas by making your own dessert, as opposed to panic buying a soggy cheesecake on Christmas Eve, then the Kenwood Autograph collection will be your best friend this holiday season.

The three piece range includes a stand mixer, multi-purpose food processor and electric hand whisk, and lands in moody matte black and stainless steel. The £45 Autograph Collection QuickMix+ promises 650w of egg-beating power, while the MultiPro XL Weigh+ food processor (£200) combines in-bowl weighing and food blitzing. The Titanium Chef Baker mixer (£600) has 3.5-litre and 5-litre nesting bowls and four stainless steel baking tools. Everything is dishwasher safe, too, making for headache free post-dinner cleaning.

Best for avoiding burns: Coolskin 375 GTX: £27

Everyone has at least one war story from Christmas dinner, with the literal scars to prove it. When there’s pandemonium in the kitchen it’s easy to burn yourself on a discarded baking tray or hot pan, so we suggest investing in a pair of industrial grade Coolskin 375 GTX oven gloves. The Coolskin 375 GTX gloves are made from flame-resistant aramid fibres that can withstand temperatures up to 250 degrees. Added wrist protection provides some extra safety, although the gloves aren’t resistant against steam or hot liquid spillage. They’re not exactly aesthetically pleasing either, looking more suited to a building site than a kitchen, but the Coolskin 375 GTX offers high-grade roast dinner protection at a reasonable price.

December 2, 2022

The Purple Jesus Recipe Gets a Makeover

It goes by many different names: Jungle Juice. Spodie. Trash Can Juice. Grain-alcohol punch. But if you’re in the American South, says Alex Pincus, you’re more likely to know it as Purple Jesus.

“When you threw up, it would be purple,” he explains of the hard-hitting party drink. “And you’d look up from the toilet, saying, ‘Jesus.’”

Yet, from this inelegant memory rises one of the top-selling drinks at Holywater, a playful New Orleans–inspired restaurant in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. Co-owned by Pincus and his brother Miles, the restaurant draws on maritime themes and offers a $300 “omakase” seafood tower. (The brothers also co-own Grand Banks, an oyster bar located on a wooden schooner docked in the Hudson River, as well as waterfront restaurants Island Oyster and Pilot.)

Arguably, it wouldn’t take much to elevate a drink that’s often hastily mixed in an Igloo cooler. But from the memory of the plastic trough ascends a tall, two-tone highball crowned with a paper umbrella, a high-low whimsy ideal for washing down an order of tater tots topped with caviar.

“It’s nostalgic. We thought of it as celebrating our youth, in a slightly more responsible but still joyful way,” says Pincus of the drink, reinvented with vodka and “purple Kool-Aid syrup,” then topped up with Miller High Life.

The first adjustment was to switch out the base spirit, subbing vodka (they use Tenmile Distillery’s Sinpatch vodka) for the original Everclear. “It’s very hard-core,” Pincus notes of the original formula, “and Everclear’s not legal in New York state.” From there, it was a natural choice to lengthen the drink with the unfussy “Champagne of beers,” which gives the drink a little effervescence and a slight hoppy bitterness.

Although he experimented with a few different colors, he settled on purple Kool-Aid to pay homage to the drink name, which is incorporated by combining the unsweetened drink mix with simple syrup. “The color is nice, and you get the flavor without it being intense.” An ounce of lime juice adds the right amount of tartness.

While the components came together swiftly, it took several iterations to nail the right format, Pincus recalls; overall, it took about 10 iterations.

“We started in a coupe, served up,” he remembers. “It was kind of funny, but it was hard to get the proportions to work in a drink that size. And it really needs ice to drink properly.” The next stop was a rocks glass, but the drink, at the time still a solid mass of purple, “didn’t feel like a slow-sipping cocktail” in that presentation.

A Collins glass proved to be the right vessel, but the fine-tuning continued. Crushed ice was swapped out for Kold-Draft cubes, for instance, but the real “aha!” moment came when bartender Eric Trickett floated the beer as a topper instead of mixing it in, giving the drink its distinctive two-tone visual appeal.

“Eric, our bartender, did the float and put the High Life down next to it, half empty,” recalls Pincus. “We all collectively understood that’s how it should be done.” At Holywater, the drink is still served with the half-empty pony on the side, intended as a chaser.

The end result is an upscale version of a decidedly down-market party drink, and one that’s proved immensely popular with guests. Pincus hazards a few guesses why:

“It’s purple, it’s not too complicated,” he says. Plus, he notes, “people just like the name.”

December 2, 2022

Tips for cooking in a van, bus, RV or small kitchen

Living in a small space seems daunting, let alone cooking in one.

But Virginia Beach native A.J. Forget does both and has written his debut cookbook, “The Buslife Kitchen: Cuisine for the Modern Nomad.”

He, his girlfriend, Ayana Otteman, and their puggle live in a 2001 converted school bus (Sweet Bea) that gives them 90 square feet.

Forget worked as a wildland firefighter for the National Park Service in his 20s but his body couldn’t handle it anymore, he said.

In 2017, Forget started the next adventure: writing, cooking and building Sweet Bea with Otteman. He uses funds from the sale of his book, savings and odd jobs to make this dream a reality.

Forget grew up in a family where cooking was important to the men and he learned by watching his father. He also had a passion for writing and the desire to explore places he read about in novels. Forget attended the Virginia Beach Friends School and went to the College of William & Mary where he studied psychology and environmental science.

Ayana Otteman, A. J. Forget and a puggle (not pictured) live full-time and travel in a 2001 converted school bus named Sweet Bea. (Lisa Siciliano)

Since 2020, the bus lifers have wandered to places such as national parks where they set up camp for a week. Forget uses his three-burner propane cooktop to whip up pad thai and green chile, shrimp and corn chowder. He puts leftovers in the 70-liter refrigerator or shares them with other nomads.

Forget admits cooking in a bus is difficult.

“It makes you a better cook in the end because you have to be focused,” he said in a phone interview from Stewarts Point campground in Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada.

Forget suggests preplanning and organizing the cooking steps. Cooks need to consider the size of their workspace and how to utilize what’s in the kitchen already — a grocery store isn’t always nearby.

“Once you do this enough times,” he said,” it makes you a more efficient cook.”

Let’s Eat

Weekly

We’re serving up restaurant reviews and news about the local food scene every week.

He recommends recipes that don’t rely on equipment like a food processor or oven. Omit and modify recipes that have lots of ingredients and extra steps.

For example, “If there are 10 spices for a recipe, you probably don’t need them all,” he said. “I don’t think it impacts the quality of the food.”

He “bakes” on the stovetop but it takes practice and learning how heat works with different pans.

“We’ve got it pretty much down to a science,” he said, bragging about the pumpkin cookies Otteman made earlier in the day.

His cookbook features over 100 recipes from huli-huli chicken with Hawaiian mac salad, to Vietnamese pesto pasta with clay pot pork. He even has a stove-roasted turkey that looks appetizing.

Forget includes a salsa blanca recipe similar to the white sauce at Plaza Azteca — a Mexican restaurant chain — as an ode to living in Hampton Roads.

Rekaya Gibson, 757-295-8809, rekaya.gibson@virginiamedia.com; on Twitter @gibsonrekaya

Sweet Bea is a 2001 converted school bus driven by A.J. Forget, author of “The Buslife Kitchen: Cuisine for the Modern Nomad.” (A. J. Forget)

December 2, 2022

How to Add Them to Your Diet

A woman holds a round loaf of whole grain bread — Experts say whole grain breads are a simple way to improve your diet. Ellie Baygulov/Stocksy

Researchers say Americans are eating more whole grain foods but still not enough to meet daily dietary guidelines.
Experts say whole grain foods can improve overall health as well as help with weight loss.
They say you can increase the whole grain foods in your diet by grocery shopping more carefully and adding foods such as whole grain breads and pastas to family meals.

A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests people in the United States are eating more whole grains than ever.

However, researchers say it’s still not enough to meet minimum daily requirements.

The study reports the increase over the past two decades in whole-grain intake could be anywhere from 39{d2b09b03d44633acb673e8080360919f91e60962656af8ade0305d5d8b7e4889} to 61{d2b09b03d44633acb673e8080360919f91e60962656af8ade0305d5d8b7e4889}, depending on the exact definition of whole grain being used.

The wide-range estimate is due to the definition of whole grain being more strict across some studies than others. For example, some definitions include burritos, nachos, and tacos. Others do not.

The researchers applied varying definitions of whole grains to the dietary patterns of nearly 40,000 adults participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2003 and 2018.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

The study looked at definitions of whole grains from across major organizations, including:

Dietary Guidelines for Americans
Food and Drug Administration
American Heart Association
American Association of Cereal Chemists International
Whole Grains Council

The researchers reported that consumption of whole grain foods remained far below the recommended consumption of at least three ounces each day and varied considerably by each definition.

“We can’t say which is the best definition yet as we need to assess the nutrient profiles of each and how these different definitions are associated with health outcomes,” said Fang Fang Zhang, PhD, the senior study author and interim chair of the Division of Nutrition Epidemiology and Data Science at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

Amy Bragagnini, MS, RD, CSO, an oncology nutrition specialist at Trinity Health Lacks Cancer Center in Michigan and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, told Healthline that many clients ask her what exactly a “whole grain” is and why they are important for them to eat.

Simply put, whole grains contain all the important parts of the entire grain seed, says Bragagnini.

Amy Gorin, MS, RDN, an inclusive plant-based dietitian in Stamford, Connecticut, and owner of “Plant Based with Amy,” added that whole grains contain all essential and naturally occurring parts — the bran, germ, and endosperm— in their original proportions.

“This definition may include processed grains, but the processed product must deliver the same balance of nutrients present in the original grain seed,” she told Healthline.

“Once any of these components is stripped, it is no longer a ‘whole’ grain,” said Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RDN, the lead dietitian and manager of Wellness Nutrition Services at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness & Preventive Medicine in Ohio.

This depends, says Gorin.

As a general rule, she explained, “If a burrito has a flour tortilla made with whole grains as the first ingredient, then that would count.”

“If the nacho chips are made with whole cornmeal, then that would count as a whole grain,” she added.

There is one exception, though.

“While corn is considered a whole grain, it may be milled to the impact of taking out components of it which could render it more stripped based on how it is used,” Kirkpatrick told Healthline.

This is typically what you’d find in eateries, she said.

Julie Cunningham, RDN, LDN, is an expert diabetes dietitian and author of 30 Days to Tame Type 2 Diabetes.

“A burrito made from a whole grain tortilla definitely counts as a whole grain in my view,” she told Healthline. “But even though some tortilla chips may be technically made with whole grains, that doesn’t necessarily make them a healthy choice.”

For example, she says, a food can be made from whole grains, but if it’s deep fried and loaded with calories (as chips are), then it’s not going to be healthy to consume that on a regular basis.

“The benefits of whole grains don’t outweigh the negatives of super high calorie, salty, addictive chips,” she added.

“Eating 2 to 3 servings of whole grains each day may lower the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer,” says Cunningham, who points to research on the health benefits of whole grains.

Bragagnini agrees, adding that consistent intake of whole grain foods can help us:

Feel fuller longer
Feel more satisfied at each meal, which may help you to avoid overeating (which may lead to unwanted weight gain)
Lower risk of heart disease and high blood pressure
Lower blood sugar
Decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes
Decrease the risk of colorectal cancer

At the grocery store

First, look for the “100{d2b09b03d44633acb673e8080360919f91e60962656af8ade0305d5d8b7e4889} Whole Grain” stamp from the Whole Grains Council, which certifies that all the grain is whole and that a product contains at least 16 grams of whole grains per serving, says Bragagnini.

And if you don’t see this stamp, take a look at the ingredients.

“When you’re shopping for a whole grain product, such as bread, pasta, or crackers, look for the first ingredient to be a whole grain ingredient such as whole-grain flour or whole-wheat flour,” suggests Gorin.

“Many whole-grain products are made with whole grains but don’t contain them as a primary ingredient—and this makes things confusing,” she adds. “Also, aim for a variety of whole grains and experiment by trying different grains.”

Bragagnini says to look for whole grain keywords such as:

whole wheat
whole rye
wheat berries
brown rice
oats
quinoa
bulgur
Barley
buckwheat
wild rice
amaranth

At home

Next, slowly start to substitute whole grain products for the products you would typically serve at home, says Bragagnini.

“For example, if your family loves burritos, choose a tortilla wrap that is considered whole grain,” she suggests. “Then fill it with lean meat, beans, onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, etc., and you have a delicious whole grain/high fiber meal.”

Amy Reed, MS, RD, CSP, LD, is a pediatric dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She says to start with simple swaps such as changing white bread with whole wheat bread.

For example, “families are taught to slowly increase their intake of whole grains to work toward the goal of having at least 1/2 of their grains be from whole grains,” Reed told Healthline.

Bragagnini also suggests the following:

Skip the white rice and use brown rice for stir fry meals.
Use whole grain spaghetti noodles along with your favorite pasta sauce.
Top your favorite salad greens with quinoa to add a great texture to the side dish.
Combine quinoa with your favorite cut veggies, feta cheese, lemon, herbs and olive oil for a delicious main meal.

December 2, 2022

Sara Moulton’s Long-Overdue Autopsy of 1990s Food Culture

If you were a cooking show fan in the 1990s, you no doubt remember the characters. One hour, Emeril Lagasse was lighting a rum sauce on fire, while the next, Ming Tsai would be explaining the difference between spring rolls and egg rolls on East Meets West. But arguably the decade’s most skilled food TV star—the one whose show introduced the world to Michael Lomonaco, Aaron Sanchez, Anthony Bourdain, and umpteen other famous chefs—was Sara Moulton.

When I think about Moulton’s call-in show, Cooking Live, I remember the chef’s gentle demeanor, incisive cooking tips, and—of course—her signature blonde ponytail. Yet many viewers (myself included) didn’t realize that the Food Network gig was just another feather in Moulton’s already plumy cap. The chef graduated at the top of her class at the Culinary Institute of America, apprenticed at a Michelin-starred restaurant in France, worked the line at fine dining restaurants in Boston and New York City, and cooked professionally for Julia Child and Good Morning America. And decades before test kitchens were cool, she headed up the country’s most prestigious one, at the (defunct) Gourmet magazine. Translation? For more than half a century, Moulton has been a walking encyclopedia of cooking and food culture.

But you know what? I bet kids these days don’t know much about Moulton. Not that she isn’t busy—she hosts Sara’s Weeknight Meals on PBS, writes for various publications, and co-hosts a podcast on Milk Street Radio—she’s just not opening flashy restaurants or killing it on TikTok. Yet with ‘90s dishes suddenly trending in the form of Caesar salad wraps, pizza bagels, and espresso martinis, who better than Moulton, I thought, to weigh in on that decade’s food culture—and the lessons we might learn from it?

That’s how I found myself sitting across from the legend herself at a Manhattan cafe last month. We talked for two hours; she nursed a cappuccino while I typed. For the first time in my career, my interview subject showed up with more notes than I—pages and pages of bulleted anecdotes, which she flipped through as she spoke. Here are the highlights of our conversation.

Benjamin Kemper: When people say “‘90s food,” what comes to mind?

Sara Moulton: We learned so much in the ‘90s. That chiles have flavor and that chipotle is amazing. That there were many, many types of lettuces … Mesclun was king. There was both the rise of cilantro and the hatred of cilantro. Fruit salsas on fish. Lobster rolls. Penne alla vodka. And so many new cheeses. Until the ‘90s, most people knew only cheddar, brie, and boursin, but that changed with California cheesemakers like Laura Chenel. Avocados went mainstream, barbecue and grilling became more elevated, and finally some women were doing the grilling. Finally there were some women, period!

BK: What was new in the restaurant world?

SM: In the ‘80s, the hero of the food world was the writer, but in the ‘90s, it was solidly the chef. And they weren’t just cooking French food at New York restaurants—there were major players around the country. “Farm to table” was getting bigger. Alice [Waters] had done it from a French point of view, but people were finally celebrating American regional cuisine. We were also beginning to appreciate that every cuisine was regional through the work of people like Rick Bayless, Zarela Martínez, Josefina Howard, Mary Sue Milliken, and Diana Kennedy. We realized: There was no one French, Italian, or Thai cuisine.

BK: How did those trends translate into actual dishes?

SM: I wrote a few down. There was Anne Rosenzwieg and her chocolate bread pudding. Éric Ripert—his dishes were so fresh they popped—was putting warm vinaigrettes on fish. It was so unusual at the time! Nobu Matsuhisa made black cod trendy, and chiles had their moment in part thanks to Mark Miller and Stephan Pyles. Not many people know that George Germon and Johanne Killeen brought grilled pizza to the U.S. at their restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island. One thing I think about a lot is how Charlie Trotter was experimenting with and thinking about vegetables in ways that were way ahead of his time.

BK: How was cooking at home in the ‘90s different from today?

SM: This is obvious, but you couldn’t get ingredients on the internet yet, and that was a big handicap. When I was at Gourmet, if we listed an ingredient like sesame oil in a recipe, we had to add an asterisk to note that it was “available at specialty food shops.” But certain specialty ingredients were becoming mainstream, like balsamic vinegar, fresh fennel, and fresh herbs.

BK: What do you miss from that era? What has been lost?

SM: The idea that the ambiance is as important as the food. I don’t want to be jammed in, unable to hear a conversation, to be forced to eat standing up. That’s why I’m not a food truck person, even though I know they’re making some fantastic food. Wow, I just sounded old, didn’t I?

BK: Food Network was brand new in the ‘90s. What was it like working there?

SM: I came on board in ‘96. You have to remember, none of us had TV experience. We were petrified. Nervous wrecks. Even Emeril’s first tries were terrible. What I came to understand was, it’s one thing to be on TV with a host and another to be alone. This is going to sound strange, but to me it seemed vulgar, like too much attention on me. For my pilot I cooked fish meunière and asparagus—and never once smiled. When I held the asparagus up to the camera, it was shaking. But I limped along and got better over time. By 1999 I had two live shows on the network.

BK: What did you aim to achieve with your shows?

SM: At the time, more and more women were working, and it was hard to get dinner on the table. So I made it my mission to make people comfortable cooking during the workweek. Both my husband and I grew up with dinner on the table every night. It’s my religion. I trained at CIA, and when I graduated, I was a real snob and thought there was only one way to do things. Boy, was I wrong—I fell in love with home cooks taking their calls. Home cooks are no different from chefs, really: If you cook a recipe over and over again, you get to be damn good! A lot of times, callers taught me something.

BK: I remember there being a real gender divide. Emeril and Bobby Flay were doing their macho thing, grilling and lighting stuff on fire, and then there were shows like yours that were more geared toward busy moms.

SM: They didn’t really want women at Food Network. Every male chef had his own set, graphics, music, and tools. Not me. I had no oven, and the counter came up so high I had to stand on a riser. I remember recommending Michael Lomonaco for a show, and he got his own set.

Emeril and I were pretty good friends. He was a big talent. The next Jesus Christ. And it had to be a man—couldn’t be me. He had cars to drive him anywhere he wanted, while I had to get everywhere myself. I am grateful—I ended up on Food Network, and I did ultimately get my own set, but that’s how they were.

BK: There wasn’t much diversity, either, right? I’ve always wondered how many of the network’s higher-ups at the time were women and people of color.

SM: The executives were mostly men. And everybody was white.

BK: Wow. I guess that was the ‘90s.

SM: It was such a different time. Yesterday I was flipping through some ‘90s Gourmet magazines. I came across the word “Oriental” a few times—and I was like, really?

Another thing that makes me cringe is the whole fat police thing. It was a scam by the sugar lobby. It really impacted people. Everyone was looking at grams of fat and calories, and I created recipes with those things in mind.

BK: Can you leave us with a piece of advice?

SM: Nobody should ever stop learning, and if they do, they’re an idiot.

This interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.

December 2, 2022

Our Best ‘90s Recipes | Saveur

The 1990s were pivotal in American food culture. The decade’s most influential dishes departed from rigid Continental cooking in favor of globally inspired fare: “Fusion” and “authentic” were the buzzwords of the era. Not that folks were giving up their deep-fried bar snacks or down-home cooking—there was simply more room on the table for hot sauces and spice blends, achaars and salsas, avocados and kiwis, and—of course—a glut of low-fat and processed foods.

The ‘90s seem like a century ago in restaurant years. Anthony Bourdain was still slinging steak frites at Les Halles, Marcus Samuelsson was a humble apprentice at Aquavit, and Thomas Keller had just become chef of a little-known restaurant in a former laundry, where he began creating flights of culinary fancy (think: Baskin-Robbins-inspired cones reimagined as silver cornets scooped with salmon tartare) and helped launch the careers of such crew members as Grant Achatz, René Redzepi, and Corey Lee.

Food was also becoming part of pop culture like never before. A group of Friends started hanging out in a fictional coffee shop called Central Perk, a testament to the second-wave coffee revolution, while the Soup Nazi—”No soup for you!”—had his memorable turn on Seinfeld. Around that time, a fictional sex columnist and her three besties sipped cosmos and appletinis in the City’s sleekest bars while, across the Hudson River, Jersey convenience store clerks overcooked coffee at the Quick Stop.

The decade that gave us Food Network, Emeril, and Iron Chef showed us there was more to food TV than stand-and-stir cooking shows. And food lovers (not “foodies” just yet) were devouring a new genre of food writing, too. Saveur debuted in the summer of 1994 with a 13-page cover story on the moles of Oaxaca, a culinary deep dive that set a new bar for reporting on food with its culture of origin front and center. The rest, as they say, is history.

So the next time you feel some nostalgia coming on (or want to party like it’s 1999), whip up one of these 14 quintessential ‘90s dishes.

Invented by a French-trained Japanese chef in Beverly Hills, this dish epitomized American fine dining in the ‘90s. Sushi-grade tuna combined with ripe avocado (a novelty at the time) signaled the trendiness of “Asian fusion.” Get the recipe >

The chilled tomato soup native to the Iberian Peninsula became a summer dinner party staple, even if the chunky, crunchy American adaptation (inspired by a mid-century recipe from M.F.K. Fisher in How to Cook a Wolf) departed from the silky soup Spaniards were spooning up across the pond. Get the recipe >

The sauce that Ligurians have been making for centuries—combining sweet Genovese basil and the freshest-possible garlic (to avoid bitterness)—turned into a global hit in the ‘90s. Get the recipe >

The Aztecs called it āhuacamōlli. Traditional guacamole is still blended using a volcanic stone molcajete, which inspired the tableside preparations that swept Mexican American restaurants in the ‘90s. Add garlic at your own risk. Get the recipe >

Zany, unorthodox flatbreads inspired by experimental California chefs came into their own at the turn of the millennium. This recipe is a ‘90s twofer that combines pizza bianco and the garlicky romaine salad that was all the rage at the time. Get the recipe >

Once a go-to for ladies who lunched, this updated version of the Cobb à la Snoop Dogg adds homemade croutons and strips of chicken smothered in Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. Get the recipe >

With the publication of her masterwork Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking in 1992, Marcella Hazan introduced a new generation of Americans to traditional Italian recipes such as this aromatic flatbread topped with lemon slices and rosemary sprigs. Get the recipe >

Every gumbo starts with a rich, dark roux and the blend of onion, celery, and bell peppers that Cajuns call the Holy Trinity. This version is thickened with herbaceous filé, the ground sassafras powder favored by TV cooking host Justin Wilson, who influenced a whole generation of Louisiana chefs. Get the recipe >

Oozing with spicy, cheesy filling, these crumb-coated, deep-fried peppers were a non-negotiable appetizer at ‘90s Super Bowl parties. Get the recipe >

Popularized by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, this distinctly ‘90s restaurant dessert, which is still ubiquitous today, has a runny chocolate core that erupts like a volcano upon digging in. Get the recipe >

This Chinese American fusion dish may have started at Madame Wu’s in Santa Monica, California, but it has evolved over time with the addition of instant ramen noodles and fried wonton wrappers. Get the recipe >

After Samantha ordered a sour, citrusy cosmo in the second season of Sex and the City, the whole country started sipping along. Get the recipe >

One part vodka, one part cultural phenom, this acid-green, apple-flavored “martini” was invented in 1996 at Lola’s West Hollywood. Get the recipe >

This recipe inspired by the Subcontinent pays respect to the battered-and-fried steakhouse side popularized by a certain Australian-themed fast-casual chain. Crikey, you really can make a bang-up version at home. Get the recipe >