Steam

These pillowy steamed buns are delicious in all the same ways as Parker House rolls, with the sweet flavor of cornmeal.

Rasam, as prepared in most homes in Southern India, uses either tamarind or tomatoes as the base. It is a piquant broth poured over steaming hot rice. In our home—both in Kerala and America—rasam was a staple part of everyday meals. One night when I was a teenager, I was out to dinner with my brother Tom in New York City’s Little Italy and ate mussels cooked in a light tomato broth very reminiscent of rasam. I couldn’t wait to get home, buy fresh mussels, and cook them in rasam. This dish has made its rounds in my kitchens for close to three decades now. Make sure to have some fresh crusty bread to soak up the tomato-mussel broth.

Steam, fluff; steam, fluff. This couscous recipe is time-consuming but worth it.

When you think of one-pot meals, hearty dishes like chili probably come to mind. Nothing wrong with chili, but this quick fish dinner is a great change of pace when you're in the mood for something that seems a bit fancier. Add a baguette to complete the meal.

Because the crème fraîche melts into the potatoes, this dish has the virtue of tasting lush without appearing overly so. For an even more sumptuous look, give the salad a generous dollop on top.

Mussels steam in the same saucepan as chili-and-fennel-spiced tomato sauce in this effortless supper.

A toasted bun and steamed lobster—tossed first in melted butter and then in a mayonnaise-based dressing—makes for a sandwich that no one will argue with.

This couscous salad is just right for a late summer barbecue.

The freshest corn is so delicious that you don’t need to bother cooking it. Simply toss the kernels with vinaigrette, tiny heirloom tomatoes, and steamed lobster. What’s not to love? It’s no question.

An elegant Mediterranean-inspired fish dinner with green beans, tomatoes, and olives is just a push of the microwave button away.

Juicy chicken cutlets with all the bright, briny flavors of classic piccata are possible without a stove—all you need is a microwave.

De Laurentiis uses Peroni, an Italian beer, for this 20-minute dish, but any light-bodied lager will work and make a perfect drink pairing as well.

Light, creamy, warm, and slightly-sweet egg-based dressing is the perfect companion to zesty watercress. This is adapted from a recipe in "Valentine Dinner for Two" from the February 1977 issue of Glamour magazine, which we updated for our 2016 Epi Valentine's Menu.

The secret to juicy, tender, delicately steamed white-meat chicken and squash? Going slow.

This recipe comes from New York chef Deuki Hong's father and has origins in North Korea, the ancestral home of mandu. (Sharing a border with China, it is no coincidence that mandu sounds a lot like the Chinese word for steamed bread, mantou.) Unlike versions stuffed with finely chopped kimchi, Deuki grew up eating mandu with kimchi on the side. The star in this recipe is the very generous quantity of butter, which is mixed in with the pork, garlic and ginger and adds a real-deal richness to each bite. Not typically used in East Asian cooking, butter is a fully Americanized, fully awesome way to rethink the mandu.