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Nuoc cham, the Vietnamese condiment that dresses this crunchy noodle salad, is made with lime juice, fish sauce, chiles, and sugar. The addictive mix of spicy, sweet, sour, and salty flavors is also great as a dipping sauce for grilled meats.

For the quick pickles, try using other crisp vegetables, such as radishes, celery, or fennel.

Named for Amatrice, a town northeast of Rome, this pasta is traditionally served with a long noodle like bucatini, but we like how shorter penne captures the spicy, meaty bits of sauce inside the tube.

We love the way this recipe revamps a standard BLT.

The secret to this dish is the crunchy and creamy deep-fried avocado.

Bigger picnic? Simply roast two birds at the same time.

"As a kid, I loved frenched green beans drenched in butter! Here, in a creamy raw slaw atop barely hardboiled eggs, they're all grown up." —Allie Lewis Clapp, food editor

The lamb needs to marinate overnight, so be sure to start 1 day ahead.

Top these Tex-Mex–inspired burgers with some melted Monterey Jack and a spoonful of fresh salsa.

This also makes a great dinner for one; just cut the ingredients in half.

Warm, toasty, buttered rolls are key. If you can't find New England-style buns, trim 1/4" from both sides of standard hot dog buns to remove the crust and expose more surface area.

Go light on the salt when seasoning these chops; the marinade is fairly salty, especially after it reduces.

Grinding your own meat gives you total control over your burger. It frees you to select the cut of beef you want and lets you decide how finely or coarsely to grind. The chuck top blade has all the right characteristics for a do-it-yourself burger that's got everything going for it: It's beefy, juicy, and tender when cooked to medium (160°F). To further enhance the meat's juiciness and flavor, we recommend dry-brining the steaks overnight before you grind them. See the Cook's Note below for what to do if you don't have a meat grinder and for more about the chuck top blade as well as tips for cooking burgers, see our complete Burger Primer.

One of the secrets to this raw salmon dish from Seattle restaurant Madison Park Conservatory is an amazing Moroccan spice blend called ras el hanout. It's like a curry powder in that there are a billion unique combinations, with each cook creating his or her own, though most include Moroccan favorites like cardamom, ginger, or mace. The blend is sold in fancy grocery stores or in Middle Eastern markets like the one near us in Pike Place Market that smells like heaven. You can also buy it online. If you can't find Greek yogurt, let plain yogurt drain a bit in a colander until thick before using.

Grunts are a fish you'll probably never see on a menu and will most definitely never see at a fish market, especially on the West Coast. But as Charlie knows, they inhabit every dock, marina, pier, reef, and any other underwater structure in southern Florida. Because they are considered vastly inferior in taste to their snapper relatives, they're targeted for quick and easy meals by the fishermen in the Florida keys, where this breakfast dish originates. Considering grunt is largely unavailable (and truthfully, Charlie says, isn't very good), here we substitute small fillets of snapper or rockfish. This is an incredible dish—full or rich and spicy flavors, with a wild array of textures, from the pillow of creamy grits to searing fish to the crisp bacon. The classic accompaniment to grits and grunts is cheap beer, but coffee works, too.

This quick, easy, and delicious recipe features a seared whole piece of tuna loin that's seared on a grill and then cut into slices and slid into brioche buns. Okay, so these are also technically sandwiches. If you're wondering why these slides are here instead of in the sandwich chapter, there are two reasons. The first is that Anders thought there needed to be a tuna option in Tuesday-Night Tuna. But the other reason is less pedantic: these are easy to make on a weeknight and make a fantastic dinner for four. Anders serves these with Pike Place Fish Smoked Walla Walla Onion Tartar Sauce, but you can serve it with any tartar-style sauce.

This is another good recipe for skinless, boneless chicken breasts since the olive oil compensates for the dryness of the meat, but if you prefer, by all means, leave the skin on. For the finest flavor and texture, use chicken breasts from naturally raised free-range birds. For extra garlic flavor, serve it with Lebanese toum bi zeit (garlic sauce) . Precede it with a chilled gazpacho and serve the chicken with fresh pita bread or slices of a crusty country loaf and a massive green salad for a memorable summer Sunday lunch.

The Basic Recipe Fish steaks, cut 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick—halibut, swordfish, and tuna are all good choices—are really best for grilling. Fillets are usually too delicate, and large whole fish are tricky—too often the outside is charred before the inside is cooked. If you're lucky enough, however, to find small whole fish, such as sardines, imported red mullet, small mackerel, or bluefish, they will be exquisite cooked over charcoal or the embers of a wood fire for a real Mediterranean-style treat. Count on 1/4 pound boneless fish steaks per serving, a little more with the bone in, and add a little extra for enthusiastic appetites.

This is one time when the shrimp should be served with their shells on— messy, yes, but utterly delicious.

Jose Bengoa, Yolanda Bolivar, and Gabriel Antunez, the BBQ Freaks of San Juan, Puerto Rico developed this easy method for infusing a sweet clove and nutmeg accent into your next back of pork chops. Finished with a tamarind glaze, these chops will likely be unlike any your guests have tried before. You can buy tamarind pulp at health food stores and in Asian, Hispanic, and Indian food stores. We advise throwing in a few extra chops for guests who will want seconds. For a variation, try grilling the brined chops over charcoal or gas, followed by smoking at 250°F for 25 to 30 minutes.