This tomato-free lasagna gets its nutty, toasty depth from ground perilla seeds (deulkkae) stirred into the white sauce, and that flavor pairs with the earthy browned mushrooms. Button and oyster mushrooms are browned in batches so they taste roasted rather than steamed. Mozzarella binds the layers and Parmigiano browns the top, and a short rest after baking lets the slices hold their shape.
Like risotto, orzo stirred through vegetable stock turns creamy and spoonable, all in one pot. The clams are added near the end and open right in the pot, letting their briny juice mix with doenjang, the Korean fermented soybean paste that seasons it all.
There is no cream here and no added salt; the butter sauce is seasoned with doenjang, a Korean fermented soybean paste, and Parmesan. Most of the flavor comes from button mushrooms left alone in the pan until their edges brown.
Duck legs braise on the bone for 90 minutes and are then pulled into shreds, which gives a coarser, meatier texture than a ground-meat ragu. The flavor starts with the sear: left alone in the pan rather than nudged around, the skin turns deep brown, and the red wine later dissolves that browned layer into the sauce. Wide pappardelle is the right shape to hold those strands. The ragu tastes deeper after a night in the fridge, which makes it easy to cook a day ahead and boil only the pasta on the day you serve it.
The Roman original binds butter, Parmigiano and pasta water with no cream at all; this version adds a small amount of heavy cream. The sauce still depends on finely grated cheese, and adding it to a pan that is too hot makes it clump or split into grease. Plenty of freshly ground black pepper cuts through the richness of the butter and cheese.
Short noodles take the place of rice in this Spanish pan dish, a close cousin of paella. Toasting them in oil until the tips turn golden gives a nutty note, and leaving the pan mostly unstirred after the stock goes in lets a thin crust form underneath. The shrimp and squid are only seared at first and go back on top near the end, so they stay tender. Serve with aioli if you have some.
The soy sauce and pear marinade of galbijjim, Korea's braised short ribs, goes into a thick ragu made from short rib meat cut into small dice instead of being braised on the bone. Between the layers, béchamel and mozzarella soften the sweet and salty soy flavor, and the Parmesan on top browns in the oven. It rests for 10 minutes before cutting, because slices taken straight from the oven slump before the layers set.
Crumbled gamtae, a fine Korean seaweed, gives a butter and lemon sauce the smell of the sea. Scallops are seared hard one side at a time and set aside, then white wine lifts the browned bits they leave in the pan into the sauce. The scallops never simmer; they go back on top of the noodles at the end.
The beef first braises in tomato with a cinnamon stick, and orzo joins this Greek bake only once the meat yields easily to a fork. Stretching the oven time to rescue tough beef leaves the pasta swollen and mushy.
Unlike boiled potato gnocchi, these are rounds cut from semolina cooked in milk, chilled flat and baked under butter and cheese. The tops go golden and crisp under the grill. The one real hazard is impatience: cut before the slab has fully set and the rounds tear with ragged edges.
Eight minutes in a hot oven is all this dish gets, just long enough for the mozzarella to melt and stretch over tomato-coated gnocchi. Because of that short bake, the gnocchi come out of the water the moment they float. Extra time in the pot would leave them soft and swollen after baking. Half the basil goes into the sauce and half on top after baking.
There is no extra cooking oil: garlic and anchovies cook in the olive oil from the tuna can, spiked with chili oil, and that fat already carries the taste of tuna and heat. Capers, black olives and anchovies bring the briny, salty edge of a puttanesca, while the tuna flesh is added late and left in big flakes you can actually bite into.
Anchovy fillets melt into garlicky olive oil until they disappear, leaving salt and savor with no fishy edge, and gochugaru, Korean chili flakes, adds a warm heat to that oil. Broccolini cooks in the pasta pot during the last minutes so it stays crisp and slightly bitter, and pan-toasted breadcrumbs give the soft, ear-shaped orecchiette something crunchy to play against. The crumbs are kept aside and scattered on just before serving so they stay crisp.
Italian sausage, slipped out of its casing and torn into rough pieces, browns in the pan and leaves behind fat that becomes the base of a tomato and cream rosé sauce. Tearing rather than slicing gives the meat more ragged surface to brown. When the sausage throws off a lot of fat, blotting some away keeps the finished sauce from turning greasy once the cream is in. Gochugaru, Korean chili flakes, gets only about 20 seconds in the oil, enough for a mild warmth without a burnt edge, and the grooves of the fusilli catch both sauce and crumbled sausage.
Gochujang, Korean red chili paste, is fried briefly first so its sweet, fermented heat sits underneath the tomato in this beef ragu. The flavor base comes from ground beef left untouched until it browns and sticks, then red wine scraped across the pan to dissolve those browned bits. Wide rigatoni tubes fill with the thick sauce and carry bits of meat inside each piece.
Sweet corn sautéed in butter takes the edge off the gochujang, so the cream sauce leans sweet and mellow rather than fiery. Gochujang and cheese already carry salt, so any extra salt waits until the sauce has been tasted. Cavatappi, the corkscrew pasta, traps corn kernels in its coils, and the noodles and corn end up in the same bite.
Gochujang cream pasta combines Korean fermented chili paste with an Italian-style cream sauce. Gochujang adds sweetness and heat, Parmesan contributes salt and aged cheese flavor, and bacon provides a crisp contrast. Onion and minced garlic cook in the fat left by the bacon. In this formula the chili paste is mixed directly with cream, rather than fried alone for a long time. Bacon, gochujang and cheese supply the seasoning, so the pasta water is left unsalted. The reserved water gives control over the sauce thickness; it is a supply for adjustment, not a quantity that must all go into the pan.
Each lasagna sheet is spread with filling and rolled up rather than stacked, and the rolls come out of the oven as neat single portions. The eggplant is roasted first to drive off moisture that would otherwise thin the ricotta, then split between the filling and the top, while a tomato sauce seasoned with gochujang gives the mild cheese some heat.
Gochujang stirred into cream and milk, with no tomato involved, makes an orange sauce where the heat arrives slowly behind the cream. Brands of gochujang differ in saltiness, so start small and taste before adding more.
Clams open in white wine, and the briny liquid they release becomes the sauce base for a spoonful of gochujang, the Korean fermented chili paste. The result tastes like vongole with an extra layer of savory heat rather than a red chili sauce. A small knob of butter at the end rounds off the spice and gives the sauce its gloss. Because that clam liquor goes straight into the sauce, the clams soak for 30 minutes first to purge any sand.
Pear slices warmed in butter meet sharp, salty Gorgonzola melted into cream, with sweet and salty trading places from bite to bite. The pear gets just 1 minute over medium-low heat, enough to turn its edges slightly translucent while the center stays crisp. Boiling would split the cheese sauce, so the Gorgonzola melts slowly over low heat. Walnuts toasted in a dry pan add crunch against soft potato gnocchi, and a little lemon juice and black pepper cut the weight of the blue cheese. The gnocchi come out as soon as they float, before they turn soft, and start to finish the dish takes about 15 minutes.
Onion, carrot, celery and zucchini are all cut to about 1 cm so a single spoonful catches vegetables, kidney beans and small pasta together. Size matters more than it looks: an oversized carrot stays firm while smaller zucchini pieces collapse in the same simmer.
Rice-shaped orzo, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, parsley and mint come together in a cold lemon and olive oil salad that holds up well when made ahead for lunch. Orzo keeps softening as it soaks up the dressing, so it comes out of the water 1 minute early to stay pleasantly firm. Feta is crumbled in large pieces by hand, leaving salty pockets rather than an even coating.
A roux-and-milk cheddar sauce made on the stovetop, with the macaroni stirred straight in, keeps this loose and creamy rather than baked and set. Well-fermented kimchi brings sourness and heat, crisped bacon adds salt, and together they cut through the weight of the cheese. The kimchi is fried with the bacon first so its moisture cooks off before it meets the sauce.