Show Notes
Every couple of months at America’s Test Kitchen, an informal poll emerges among test cooks about which starch–bread, pasta, or rice–reigns supreme. It’s always a tight race, but it’s no surprise why rice is often a top contender: it’s a beloved staple across the world. In this episode, Lan, Bryan, Nik, and Lidey eat their way through 3 rice dishes and ask: What makes rice the world’s most popular dish?
Recipes Mentioned:
Hoppin’ John
Simple Fried Rice
Arroz con Pollo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from In the Test Kitchen
Pancakes can be a canvas for all kinds of flavors and textures. Lan, Bryan, Nik, and Lidey taste their way through three ATK recipes: blueberry pancakes, katayef asafiri, and crepes, to explore what makes a pancake a pancake, and how this humble dish takes on a different character around the world.
South Asian cooks were masterfully blending spices long before the Europeans arrived in India, and when Portuguese traders brought chiles from the Americas in 1498, it permanently changed the trajectory of the country’s dishes, including what we now refer to as curry. Over the next 400 years, curry took on a new form in nearly every culture it touched; in Japan, America, and beyond. Nik, Lan, Bryan, and Lidey discuss the evolution of the dish as it crossed the globe.
Store-bought snacks offer satisfaction and convenience. But what happens when you pit quick bites against their homemade counterparts? Lan, Bryan, Nik and Lidey explore which snacks are worth the bit of extra effort!
Red sauce pastas can be built dozens of ways: rich and meaty, silky and tomato-forward, or deliberately burnt and charred. Lan, Bryan, Nik, and Lidey taste their way through three ATK recipes, ragù alla bolognese, pasta alla vodka, and spaghetti all’assassina, to hash out what actually makes a red sauce irresistible.
Dumplings are made across the world and come in different shapes, sizes, forms and flavors. Despite their differences, they somehow sooth and delight in equal measure. The juicy filling of a xiao long bao. The warm center of a pierogi. The chewy exterior of a gnudi. How do dumplings achieve that comfort? Lan, Bryan, Nik and Lidey investigate.