Rice

I could eat a simple bowl of rice, black beans, salsa, and cheddar cheese any day, but this recipe takes that concept to the next level. Taco Rice gives this casserole an ultra-flavorful base to build upon and a mélange of vegetables provides more texture and flavor than you can shake a maraca at. A little cheddar cheese thrown on top is like icing on the cake to this yummy Southwest casserole. So come on, get your veggie on!

EFFORT: NOT MUCH
PREP TIME: 15 MINUTES
COOK TIME: 6 HOURS
KEEPS ON WARM: 1 HOUR The ingredient list is designed for use in a medium (4- to 5 1/2-quart) slow cooker. See the cook's notes for ingredient lists for small (2- to 3 1/2-quart) and large (6- to 8-quart) models.

Shrimp absorbs the flavors of a marinade rapidly, making this quick entrée ideal for a busy weeknight. Steaming gently cooks the shrimp and reduces the likelihood of overcooking. Regular coconut milk offers the best flavor for this dish, as the taste of light coconut milk is too subtle. I often serve it over brown rice or whole wheat noodles.

Fiery chipotle gives a kick, and the iron in shrimp keeps you high-energy.

Our mini-burgers have exotic spices and herbs to make sports day gourmet.

They pack almost all your daily vitamin C.

Tex-Mex ingredients like Monterey Jack, cilantro, corn and lime combine with rice to create an awesome salad. Wrap it in lettuce for a cool, crunchy and fun meal.

Hot, hearty and, yes, sloppy. This flavorful favorite is a meal in a bun. Serve it up and watch your family run to the dinner table.

My Mom, Veronica, is pretty much a vegetarian these days. When she invites us over for "meatloaf," this is what we get—and I like it a lot; in fact, even Todd does. The lentils and the brown rice make it hearty while at the same time kind of fluffy and light. My favorite part about it is the fresh tomato sauce, which is almost like a salsa. Checca is a Southern Italian term for this fresh sauce, which is called by different names in different regions. Some of it goes into the lentil loaf and the rest is served alongside.

Often the last thing people in the North and Northeast of Thailand do before bed is put raw grains of sticky rice in a pot, cover them with water, and leave them to soak. This is sticky rice country, and a day without sticky rice is almost unthinkable. Also called glutinous rice, it has a different starch composition than varieties like jasmine. I'm not qualified to explain the world of amylopectin and amylose starches, so suffice it to say that the glossy cooked grains of sticky rice are particularly chewy and stick to one another in clumps, yet still remain distinct. It's a magical thing. Served in baskets, either one per person or as a mountainous mound to be passed around, the grains of sticky rice form moldable masses. Practiced diners snatch off a gumball-size piece, reflexively fashion it into a sort of spoon shape, and use it to grab a taste of whatever else is on the table. In these baskets or in bamboo tubes, workers carry this rice with them into the fields and forests, a portable, edible eating implement. While you could argue that so-called "steamed jasmine rice" isn't steamed at all but rather boiled, sticky rice is actually steamed. In the Northeast, it typically goes into a bamboo basket; in the North, it's traditionally prepared in a clay pot with a perforated bottom, though today the pot is often aluminum. The basket or pot is set over a pot-bellied vessel filled with boiling water and the steam cooks the grains, already swollen from soaking, in just 15 minutes or so. The process is easy enough for uninitiated cooks. It just takes a little practice to get right.

Editor's Note: Use this broth to make Andy Ricker's Het Paa Naam Tok (Isaan-style Forest Mushroom Salad) . Flavor Profile: Aromatic This powder, made from toasted uncooked sticky rice, is used primarily in Northeastern food to add a toasty quality and subtle texture to salads, and occasionally in Northern food as a thickening agent. Its contribution is initially hard to pin down, but it's one you'd actively miss if it weren't there. Making it at home is beyond simple: it just takes patience and stirring. The only way to screw it up is to try to rush the process with high heat so the outside burns before inside fully toasts. The truly committed will toast over a low charcoal fire so the rice picks up a little smokiness. Flavor Profile: Aromatic

Fresh herbs, such as parsley and cilantro, can be subbed for the microgreens.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Chef David Chang's Bo Ssäm. Japanese short-grain white rice is the only rice we make. We, like all restaurants and many home cooks, use a rice cooker to prepare it—it's just that much easier and more reliable than cooking rice on the stove. Here are directions for both methods.

Our bo ssäm was a long time in the making before it showed up on the menu. I'd had an inkling for years it would be a good idea—bo ssäm is a supercommon dish in Korean restaurants, though the ingredients and cooking that go into it are frequently an afterthought. The oysters are usually Gulf oysters from a bucket, the kind that are really only suited to frying; the pork is belly that's been boiled into submission. Almost every time I ate it at a restaurant, I'd think about how much better it would be if all the ingredients were awesome. The first time we made one was for family meal back when we'd just started serving kimchi puree on our oysters at Noodle Bar. One of the new cooks was fucking up oysters left and right, so I made him shuck a few dozen perfectly, and then we ate them ssäm-style: wrapped up in lettuce with rice, kimchi, and some shredded pork shoulder that was otherwise destined for the ramen bowl. (The shoulder in our bo ssäm is, essentially, the same shoulder we put in the soup at Noodle Bar, except that we add more sugar in the last step to make the crust even more delicious—it's like a shoulder encrusted in pig candy.) So there, in the cramped, dark subterranean kitchen of Noodle Bar, I ate the best bo ssäm of my life. I think that experience and our take on the bo ssäm are typical of the way we approach "traditional" dishes: with one foot rooted in tradition and the other foot kicking it forward. There is a great line from Emerson that sums up my perspective perfectly: "Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books."

One pepper has nearly a day's worth of vitamin A, an antioxidant key to healthy skin and teeth.

For seven centuries, Moors and Christians fought one another in Spain, but in the guise of black beans and rice they surrendered to each other's charms within the all-embracing New World pot. Like the hybrid culture that flourished in medieval Spain, the rice dish known as moros y cristianos is an exemplar of exchange between civilizations. It is feast food in Cuba, where you'll find it in the western provinces. Considering that there is a Veracruzan version of this dish and that Cuba always imported black beans from Mexico, we are left in doubt as to which version came first. Regardless of its place of birth, it is one of the most felicitous rice and bean combinations I have ever tasted. The flavors of all the other ingredients are absorbed seamlessly by the rice, the vinegar providing point and counterpoint to the mealy beans, the aroma of cumin and oregano a subtle backdrop for the meaty smoked bacon, which in turn joins forces with the olive oil to add aroma and sheen to the rice. And then the color, a dark brown or hybrid of white and black.

Forget the British way of serving rice pudding with a dollop of jam and go for the French way of topping it with a drizzle of caramel sauce.

Toss cooked grains with sweet-tart tangerines for a side dish that only gets better with age—lunch tomorrow, anyone?

This sammie-side combo fulfills all your midday-meal needs.