The Recipe with Kenji and Deb – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Deb and Kenji are taking a break this week. Please enjoy this classic episode from our friends at Sidedoor, "America’s Unknown Celebrity Chef". 

For more information, visit Sidedoor's episode page, and subscribe to Sidedoor on your favorite podcast player.

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When Lena Richard cooked her first chicken on television, she beat Julia Child to the screen by over a decade. At a time when most African American women cooks worked behind swinging kitchen doors, Richard claimed her place as a culinary authority, broadcasting in the living rooms of New Orleans’s elite white families. She was an entrepreneur, educator, author, and an icon – and her legacy lives on in her recipes. Today: her improbable rise to prominence, and her famous gumbo.

If the only hummus you’ve ever had came from a cold tub procured at a supermarket, yeah...you haven’t really had hummus. Homemade hummus, served warm, is an experience unto itself, and 1000% a better snack than a dusty protein bar. Deb and Kenji also tell us how they really feel about flavored hummus. 

Recipes Mentioned:

• Ethereally Smooth Hummus (Smitten Kitchen)
• The Food Lab’s Science of Great Hummus (Serious Eats)
• Hummus Heaped with Tomatoes and Cucumbers (Smitten Kitchen)

Chicken soup is the universal comfort food, but there are as many versions of chicken soup as there are planets in the universe. Depending on where and how you grew up, versions as varied as “Jewish penicillin”, phở gà, stracciatella, Campbell’s condensed all mean home to someone.

Recipes mentioned:

• Chicken Noodle Soup (Smitten Kitchen)
• My Ultimate Chicken Noodle Soup (Smitten Kitchen)
• Chicken Soup: A Poem (Serious Eats)
• How to Make Chicken Noodle Soup (Kenji’s Cooking Show)

Radiotopia’s fall fundraiser is here! Donate today to help us reach our goal of 2,024 donors. Thank you!

Congratulations are in order for Deb, who released the audiobook of Smitten Kitchen Keepers earlier this month. We are proud to share with you a little excerpt.

Back in 2006, when she was just starting her food journey, she encountered a lot of dud recipes on the internet. (Haven’t we all?) This book is a collection of the ones you’ll want to return to over and over again, aka the keepers.

You can purchase a hardcover version at our page on bookshop.org, and a portion of the sale will go towards supporting our network.

The Radiotopia fundraiser is happening now! Donate today.

Things we learn in this episode: Kenji has a not-so-secret secret ingredient for can’t-miss pie crust, Deb is not allowed at Thanksgiving without her pie, the birthplace of Kenji’s love of junk food, the ideal baking apple, why American apple pie reigns supreme.

Recipes mentioned:

• Apple Pie (Smitten Kitchen)
• Even More Perfect Apple Pie (Smitten Kitchen)
• Gooey Apple Pie (Serious Eats)
• Perfect Apple Pie (Serious Eats)

Radiotopia's fall fundraiser is happening now! Visit radiotopia.fm/donate.

Deb and Kenji are taking a break this week. Please enjoy this classic episode from Home Cooking, our fellow Radiotopia show about food.

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According to our callers, a big part of Thanksgiving seems to be making food for your loved ones that you only kind of like yourself. But can we make these dishes a little better for the people cooking them?! We’re gonna try. Plus, Demi Adejuyigbe (@electrolemon), tells about his quarantine baking adventures.

For recipes, transcripts, and more, visit homecooking.show/12.

Kenji and Deb are major, MAJOR fans of popcorn — “God’s gift to snacking” (two guesses who said that). One might actually call them a miracle of science. How does a hard af, yellow pebble turn into a fluffy white edible cloud? How does movie popcorn butter smell so heavenly without any butter? This is Popcornology 101, class is now in session.

Recipes mentioned:

• Spicy Caramel Popcorn (Smitten Kitchen)
• Miso Black Sesame Caramel Corn (Smitten Kitchen)
• Late Night Popcorn with Chorizo and Pecorino (Kenji’s YouTube)
• Why I Love My Whirley Pop, the Ultimate Popcorn-Popping Product (Serious Eats)

Kids say the darndest things, and so do Deb and Kenji. “Nobody likes penne.” “Chiffonade is pretentious.” “I have honestly no idea what my recipe contains.” And they’re not the only ones. There are people out there who call baked ziti — get this — lasagna. 

While baked ziti may be universally loved as a workhorse of catered buffets, potlucks, and meal trains, Deb and Kenji’s takes on the dish are worlds apart.

Recipes mentioned:

• My Old-Scholl Baked Ziti (Smitten Kitchen)
• Easy Skillet Baked Ziti With Sausage and Ricotta Recipe (Serious Eats)
• The Food Lab's No-Boil Baked Ziti Recipe (Serious Eats)

In this episode, Deb and Kenji stop being polite and start getting real. Turns out, they weren’t born with encyclopedic knowledge of food; before each recording session, they consult…Wikipedia. (Stars, they’re just like us.)

You may think of Caesar salad as the most ubiquitous of American salads. In fact, Caesar salad was invented in Mexico. However, it was invented by an American for Americans coming across the border to drink during Prohibition. Come to think of it, that may just be the most American thing ever. Also in this episode: the secret behind Worcestershire sauce and a hack for a quick Caesar dressing. Fax, no printer.

Recipes mentioned:

• Roberta’s Roasted Garlic Caesar Salad (Smitten Kitchen)
• Chicken Caesar Salad (Smitten Kitchen)
• The Best Caesar Salad (Serious Eats)
• Kale Caesar Salad (Serious Eats)

Deb: “This is the perfect sandwich.” Kenji: “This is my favorite sandwich of all time.” In fact, Kenji has gone way beyond just admiring and ingesting the Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato; as Isaac Newton captured the physical world with his laws of motion, Kenji has bestowed us with the 11 rules of the BLT. Deb has made her own significant contributions to the field of sandwich science, with the theory of seasonal variation of the summer BLT and "off-season" BLT.

Recipes mentioned:

• Runny Egg BLT Sandwich (Smitten Kitchen under Five Egg Sandwiches)
• The Best BLT Sandwich (Serious Eats)