The best things in my kitchen weren't made by a company. They were made by somebody: a family pizzeria's vodka sauce, a mother-in-law's granola out in Montauk, salt pulled out of the ocean down the road from me. So here are 25 of them, who makes each one, where to order it, and a recipe I'd cook with it tonight. Save any recipe and it lands in your recipes, laid out the way we cook. Then go buy the thing. These are real people.
From Rubirosa · Mulberry Street, New York · @rubirosa_nyc
The Pappalardos have been making pizza on Staten Island since 1960, at Joe & Pat's. Rubirosa is the family's Manhattan room, opened in 2010, and the vodka sauce is the one they put on the thin crust, the half of the famous Tie-Dye pie. Now it comes in a jar.
This is the one I'd fight you for. Tomatoes, cream, parm and a splash of vodka, the way they make it on Mulberry Street. Rigatoni, a jar, ten minutes, done.
25 min · serves 4 · The jar does the slow part. You toss it with the pasta and a splash of the pasta water until it turns glossy, then tear burrata over the top.
½ cup (40 g) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more to serve
8 oz (225 g) burrata, at room temperature
A handful of basil leaves
Good olive oil and flaky salt, to finish
Kosher salt, for the pasta water
How to make it
Bring a big pot of water to a boil and salt it well. Cook the rigatoni 2 minutes short of the time on the box.
While it cooks, melt the butter in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the shallot and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes for 30 seconds.
Pour in the vodka sauce and keep it at a gentle simmer.
Scoop out a cup of the pasta water, then drain the rigatoni and tip it into the sauce.
Add the Parmigiano and about ¼ cup of the pasta water. Toss over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until the sauce clings and shines. Add more water if it tightens.
Spoon into bowls, tear the burrata over the top, add basil, a thread of olive oil and a pinch of flaky salt.
For Rubirosa's Tie-Dye pie at home, swirl the vodka sauce and a marinara side by side on a pizza before the cheese.
Chef's own recipe, written for Vodka Sauce. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Samantha Sherman ran events for O Ya and Covina in Manhattan until Covid shut them down. She moved out to Montauk, started a grocery shopping service, and her mother-in-law Janet Perlstein's granola became the first thing she made to sell. They still make it together. In 2022 her grain-free granola won best new product at the Summer Fancy Food Show.
A mother-in-law's granola, from Montauk. Clusters you actually want to eat out of the bag. I put it on roasted pears and yogurt and call it breakfast.
1 cup (about 100 g) The Hampton Grocer Vanilla Maple with Cinnamon granola
Honey, to finish (optional)
How to make it
Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a small sheet pan with parchment.
Halve the pears and scoop out the cores with a spoon.
Toss them with the butter, maple syrup, cinnamon and salt, and lay them cut side down.
Roast for 18 to 20 minutes, until the undersides are deep gold and a knife slides in easily.
Spoon the yogurt into two bowls and set the pears on top with any juices from the pan.
Scatter the granola over just before eating, and add a little honey if you like it sweeter.
Chef's own recipe, written for Vanilla Maple with Cinnamon granola. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
From Fly By Jing · Los Angeles, by way of Chengdu · @flybyjing
Jing Gao grew up between Chengdu and the West, cooked her way through Sichuan, and in 2018 put the chili crisp she couldn't buy anywhere else on Kickstarter. It's made in Chengdu with tribute pepper and erjingtiao chilies, and it started the whole chili crisp shelf you now see in every store.
The jar that made everybody put chili crisp on everything. Five-minute noodles, a spoon of this, and you've beaten takeout.
2 tbsp Fly By Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp, plus more to serve
2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (Chinkiang)
1 tsp sugar
1 small garlic clove, finely grated
2 to 3 tbsp hot noodle water
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp roasted peanuts, chopped
A few sprigs of cilantro
How to make it
Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the noodles as the package says.
Meanwhile, in a big bowl, stir the chili crisp, peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and garlic together.
Just before draining, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the hot noodle water to the bowl and whisk until the sauce is smooth and pourable.
Drain the noodles, drop them into the bowl and toss until every strand is coated.
Top with scallions, peanuts, cilantro and another spoon of chili crisp.
Chef's own recipe, written for Original Sichuan Chili Crisp. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Salt from the Atlantic off the tip of Long Island, carried up by hand and left to dry in the sun and ocean air at a small saltworks in Amagansett. It's moderately coarse and a little sweet, and the company counts Eleven Madison Park among the kitchens that keep it close.
Our ocean, in a jar. A few crystals on anything hot out of the oven and you taste the beach in August.
2 lb (900 g) small potatoes (Yukon gold or fingerlings)
Kosher salt, for the water
¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed
3 sprigs rosemary
Black pepper
1 tsp Amagansett Sea Salt, to finish
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 lemon
How to make it
Put the potatoes in a pot, cover with cold water by an inch and salt it well. Bring to a boil and cook until a knife slides in, 15 to 20 minutes.
Drain and let them steam dry for 5 minutes. Heat the oven to 450°F (230°C).
Pour half the oil onto a sheet pan. Lay the potatoes on it and press each one flat with the bottom of a glass until it splits.
Drizzle with the rest of the oil, tuck the garlic and rosemary around and grind over some pepper.
Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, flipping once, until deep gold and crisp at the edges.
Finish with the Amagansett salt, a few crystals per potato, then the parsley and a grating of lemon zest.
Chef's own recipe, written for 100% Pure Amagansett Sea Salt. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo grew up together in Queens and opened Frankies Spuntino on Court Street in 2004. The olive oil on every table there is pressed from Nocellara del Belice olives in Selinunte, Sicily, and enough people asked to take it home that it became its own business.
The olive oil on the tables at Frankies, and the reason I go home and drink it off a spoon. It makes the best olive oil cake I know.
¾ cup (180 ml) Frankies 457 Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus a little for the pan
¾ cup (180 ml) whole milk
Zest of 1 orange and 2 tbsp of its juice
Powdered sugar, to finish
How to make it
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Oil a 9-inch round cake pan, line the bottom with parchment and oil that too.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl.
In a bigger bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick, about 3 minutes with a mixer.
Slowly beat in the olive oil, then the milk, orange zest and juice.
Fold in the dry ingredients until just combined.
Pour into the pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Cool 15 minutes in the pan, then turn out. Dust with powdered sugar and serve with a drizzle more oil.
Chef's own recipe, written for Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
From Diaspora Co. · Oakland, California · @diasporaco
Sana Javeri Kadri started Diaspora Co. in 2017 with one spice: a turmeric grown by a single farm in Andhra Pradesh, paid for at many times the commodity price. It's now a whole spice shelf sourced farm by farm, and Pragati, the first one, is still the one people fall for. It's so bright it barely looks real.
Once you've had real turmeric you can't go back to the dusty jar. This egg curry is the proof, and it's on the table in half an hour.
From Rancho Gordo · Napa, California · @rancho_gordo
Steve Sando started selling heirloom beans at the Napa farmers market because he couldn't find any worth eating. Rancho Gordo now works with growers in the US and Mexico on varieties that had nearly disappeared, and its bean club has a famously long waiting list.
Beans the size of your thumb that cook up like butter. A bowl of these with pesto made me take beans seriously.
2 hr 30 min, plus soaking · serves 6 · Big, creamy beans simmered slowly with aromatics, then tossed warm with pesto and a splash of their own cooking liquor.
½ cup (40 g) grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more to serve
½ cup (120 ml) olive oil
1 lemon
How to make it
Rinse the beans and soak them in plenty of cold water for 6 to 8 hours.
Drain, put them in a heavy pot with the onion, garlic, bay leaf and olive oil, and cover with fresh water by 2 inches.
Bring to a boil for 10 minutes, then turn down to the gentlest simmer, partly covered. Cook until creamy all the way through, 1½ to 2½ hours, adding hot water as needed. Salt well in the last 30 minutes.
For the pesto, pound or blitz the basil, pine nuts, garlic and a pinch of salt, then stir in the Parmigiano and olive oil.
Lift the beans out with a slotted spoon, keeping the liquor. Toss them warm with the pesto and a few spoonfuls of liquor until glossy.
Finish with lemon zest, a squeeze of juice and more Parmigiano.
Chef's own recipe, written for Royal Corona Beans. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Jorge Gaviria started Masienda in 2014 to get heirloom corn from small farmers in Mexico into restaurant kitchens, paying a premium for varieties that were being lost. Their masa harina is that corn, nixtamalized and milled, so you can make the real thing at home.
Once you press your own tortillas you're ruined for the bag kind. This flour makes it almost too easy.
Mix the masa harina and salt with most of the water and knead until it feels like soft Play-Doh, adding water a spoonful at a time. Cover and rest 10 minutes.
Roll into 12 balls (about 40 g each). Press each one between two pieces of plastic in a tortilla press or under a heavy pan.
Cook on a hot dry skillet for 50 seconds, flip for 1 minute, flip again for 30 seconds; it should puff.
To make tostadas, fry each tortilla in ½ inch of 350°F (175°C) oil for 1 to 2 minutes until crisp, or bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 12 minutes, flipping once.
Season the tomatoes with flaky salt and lime juice.
Top each tostada with avocado, tomatoes, onion, queso fresco and cilantro, and finish with salsa macha.
Chef's own recipe, written for Heirloom Corn Masa Harina. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Becca Millstein started Fishwife in 2020 because tinned fish in America was either fancy imports or sad tuna. The smoked salmon is wild Alaskan, smoked and packed by a small cannery in Alaska, and the tins are pretty enough that people stopped hiding them in the cupboard.
The tin that made tinned fish cool. I fold it into potato salad and nobody believes it came out of a can.
Cover the potatoes with cold water, salt it well and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender, 12 to 15 minutes, then drain.
Whisk the crème fraîche, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon zest and juice, capers, onion and most of the dill in a big bowl.
Toss the warm potatoes in the dressing and let them sit 10 minutes so they drink it up.
Break the salmon into big flakes and fold it in gently.
Taste for salt, finish with the rest of the dill and plenty of black pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Chef's own recipe, written for The Smoked Salmon Lover's Trio. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Chitra Agrawal grew up eating her grandmother's achaar and wrote the cookbook Vibrant India. Brooklyn Delhi started with a batch of pickles at a Brooklyn market; the tomato achaar is sweet, sour and garlicky, somewhere between a chutney and a hot sauce, and it goes on far more than Indian food.
A spoonful of this turns a plain pasta into something you'd order. It's my secret weapon in the fridge door.
Ethan Frisch and Ori Zohar started Burlap & Barrel in 2016 to buy spices straight from the farmers who grow them. Their Royal Cinnamon is an heirloom harvested in the mountains around Huế, in central Vietnam, and had never been sold in the US before them. It's sweeter and hotter than anything in the supermarket.
I didn't know cinnamon could taste like this. Make an apple pie with it this fall and you'll see.
For the filling: 3 lb (1.4 kg) mixed apples (about 7), peeled and sliced ¼ inch thick
⅓ cup (65 g) sugar and ⅓ cup (70 g) light brown sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp Burlap & Barrel Royal Cinnamon
¼ tsp grated nutmeg and a pinch of salt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp unsalted butter, in small pieces
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk, and demerara sugar, to finish
How to make it
Pulse the flour, sugar and salt, add the butter and pulse to pea-sized pieces. Add ice water a spoonful at a time until it just holds. Split into two discs, wrap and chill 1 hour.
Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C) with a sheet pan on the bottom rack.
Toss the apples with both sugars, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and lemon juice.
Roll one disc to a 12-inch round and fit it into a 9-inch pie dish. Pile in the apples and dot with butter.
Roll the second disc, lay it on top, trim, crimp the edges and cut 4 vents. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with demerara.
Bake on the hot sheet pan for 20 minutes, then turn down to 375°F (190°C) and bake 40 to 50 minutes more, until deep brown and bubbling through the vents.
Cool at least 3 hours before slicing so the filling sets.
Chef's own recipe, written for Royal Cinnamon. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Cuong Pham left Vietnam as a boy, built a career in Silicon Valley, and couldn't find fish sauce like his family's. In 2011 he started Red Boat on Phú Quốc island: black anchovies and sea salt, fermented in wooden barrels for a year, first press only, nothing added. Chefs took to it immediately.
Two ingredients, a year in a barrel. A splash makes everything taste more like itself. These wings are the gateway.
From Jasper Hill Farm · Greensboro, Vermont · @jasperhillfarm
Brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler bought a farm in Greensboro, Vermont, in the late 1990s and dug cheese cellars into the hillside. Harbison is their soft, bloomy cheese wrapped in a strip of spruce bark, named for Anne Harbison, the town's grandmother. Ripe, it's spoonable.
A Vermont cheese wrapped in tree bark. Bake it and it turns into fondue in its own little box. The best party trick I know.
From La Boîte · Hell's Kitchen, New York · @laboiteny
Lior Lev Sercarz cooked for Daniel Boulud before he started blending spices in a tiny shop on the far west side of Manhattan. Chefs all over the city cook with his blends. Pierre Poivre is eight peppercorns ground with a little citrus and sweetness; the New York Times Magazine said it tastes the way neon looks.
Eight peppercorns in one jar. It made me rethink pepper. Steak au poivre is the obvious move, and it's the right one.
2 strip steaks, 1 to 1¼ inches thick (about 12 oz / 340 g each)
Kosher salt
1½ tbsp La Boîte Pierre Poivre
1 tbsp neutral oil
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 shallot, minced
⅓ cup (80 ml) cognac or brandy
½ cup (120 ml) beef stock
⅓ cup (80 ml) heavy cream
1 tsp Dijon mustard
How to make it
Salt the steaks well and let them sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Pat dry and press the Pierre Poivre into both sides.
Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high until it shimmers. Sear the steaks 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium-rare (125°F / 52°C inside). Move to a plate to rest.
Turn the heat to medium, add the butter and shallot and cook 1 minute.
Off the heat, pour in the cognac, then return to the heat and let it bubble down by half (stand back; it can flare).
Add the stock and boil 2 minutes, then the cream and mustard, and simmer until it coats a spoon. Pour in any juices from the plate.
Slice the steaks and spoon the sauce over.
Chef's own recipe, written for Pierre Poivre. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Eric and Laura Sorkin tap their own sugarbush on a mountainside in northern Vermont and started playing with the syrup: smoked, infused, and aged in barrels. The bourbon barrel one, organic syrup rested in just-emptied bourbon casks, was their first experiment and is still their best seller.
Maple syrup that spent time in a bourbon barrel. Over hot feta, it's sweet, salty and a little boozy. Make this for people.
Put the feta in the middle of a small baking dish with the tomatoes and onion around it.
Drizzle everything with the olive oil and scatter over the thyme, pepper flakes and black pepper.
Bake 25 minutes, until the tomatoes burst and the feta is soft.
Drizzle the maple syrup over the feta and slide it under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes, until it's golden at the edges.
Serve hot with bread, smashing the feta into the tomatoes as you go.
Chef's own recipe, written for Bourbon Barrel-Aged Maple Syrup. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
From Yun Hai · Brooklyn, by way of Taiwan · @yunhaishop
Lisa Cheng Smith started Yun Hai to bring Taiwan's small producers to American kitchens. Amber River is brewed the old way from single-origin Taiwanese black soybeans, no wheat, aged in the sun. It's mellow and almost chocolatey, a soy sauce you spoon over things rather than cook with.
Soy sauce you finish a dish with, like good olive oil. On a silky steamed egg it's the whole show.
About 1⅓ cups (320 ml) water or unsalted stock (one and a half times the volume of the eggs)
¼ tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp Yun Hai Amber River Soy Sauce
1 scallion, thinly sliced
A few drops of toasted sesame oil
How to make it
Beat the eggs gently with the water and salt, trying not to make bubbles.
Pour through a fine sieve into a shallow heatproof bowl and skim off any foam.
Cover the bowl with a plate or foil so water can't drip in.
Set it in a steamer over simmering water and steam on medium-low for 10 to 12 minutes, until it's just set and wobbles like custard.
Spoon the soy sauce over the top, scatter the scallion and add a few drops of sesame oil. Eat with rice.
Chef's own recipe, written for Amber River Soy Sauce. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
From Seed + Mill · Chelsea Market, New York · @seedandmill
Seed + Mill is a tahini and halva counter in Chelsea Market, started by three friends who couldn't find tahini in New York as good as the kind they grew up with. They grind it fresh from sesame seeds, and it pours like silk instead of setting like cement at the bottom of the jar.
Tahini that actually pours. Put it in chocolate chip cookies once and you'll never make them without it.
Steve Gonzalez, a chef, and Scott Ketchum, a designer, started Sfoglini in Brooklyn in 2012, extruding pasta through bronze dies so it comes out rough and grabs sauce. They've since moved upstate to the Hudson Valley. The radiators are all ruffles.
A pasta shape with more nooks than a sponge. Every ruffle holds sauce. Sausage and rabe, and that's dinner.
1 bunch broccoli rabe (about 1 lb / 450 g), trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb (450 g) sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
4 garlic cloves, sliced
½ tsp red pepper flakes
½ cup (40 g) grated Pecorino or Parmigiano
1 lemon
Kosher salt
How to make it
Bring a big pot of water to a boil and salt it well. Blanch the broccoli rabe for 2 minutes, lift it out with a slotted spoon and keep the water boiling.
Cook the radiators in the same water until al dente. Keep a cup of the water.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wide pan and brown the sausage, breaking it up, about 8 minutes.
Add the garlic and pepper flakes for 1 minute, then the broccoli rabe, and cook 2 minutes more.
Add the pasta, cheese and a splash of the pasta water and toss until glossy.
Finish with lemon zest and a squeeze of juice.
Chef's own recipe, written for Radiators. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Dandelion makes bean-to-bar chocolate in San Francisco's Mission with just two ingredients, cacao and cane sugar. Each bar comes from one place; Zorzal Comunitario is cacao from the farms around the Reserva Zorzal bird sanctuary in the Dominican Republic, and it tastes of chocolate cake and tamarind.
Two ingredients and you can taste where it grew. Bake it into brownies and they taste like nothing out of a box.
Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment, leaving some hanging over the sides.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Let it cool a few minutes.
Whisk in the sugar, then the eggs and yolk one at a time, then the vanilla and salt, until glossy.
Sift in the flour and cocoa and fold until no streaks remain.
Spread in the pan and bake 25 to 28 minutes, until the top is set and a skewer comes out with moist crumbs.
Sprinkle with flaky salt and cool completely before cutting into 16.
Chef's own recipe, written for Zorzal Comunitario 70% bar. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Sahra Nguyen started Nguyen Coffee Supply in 2018 as the first specialty Vietnamese coffee importer in the US, buying from a farmer in Đà Lạt and roasting in Brooklyn. She's made the case that robusta, long written off, can be a great bean. Loyalty is half robusta, half arabica: strong, chocolatey, made for the phin.
Vietnamese coffee done right, roasted in Brooklyn. Pour it over condensed milk and ice and add a pumpkin cream for fall.
Put the condensed milk in a glass. Set a phin filter on top, add the coffee and press it down lightly with the insert.
Pour in a splash of hot water to let the coffee bloom for 30 seconds, then fill the phin and cover. Let it drip, 4 to 5 minutes.
Stir the coffee into the condensed milk and fill the glass with ice.
Shake the cream, pumpkin, maple syrup and spice in a jar until thick but still pourable, about 30 seconds.
Spoon the pumpkin cream over the coffee and dust with a little more spice.
Chef's own recipe, written for Loyalty (robusta and arabica). Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Queen Majesty has been making small-batch hot sauce in Brooklyn for more than a decade, and its sauces keep landing on Hot Ones. Sicilian Scorpion, on season 26, is Sicilian flavors (tomato, lemon, olive oil, oregano, basil) with the very serious heat of the Trinidad Moruga scorpion pepper.
A hot sauce that tastes like Sicily and then hits you like a truck. A few drops in the sauce for a Sicilian pan pizza is plenty.
3 hr, mostly rising · serves 8 · Palermo's thick, spongy pan pizza with an onion and anchovy tomato sauce and toasted breadcrumbs, with the heat stirred into the sauce.
1 to 2 tsp Queen Majesty Sicilian Scorpion Hot Sauce (it's very hot; start with 1)
½ cup (30 g) breadcrumbs toasted in 2 tbsp olive oil
½ cup (40 g) grated caciocavallo or Pecorino
How to make it
Mix the flour, water, yeast and salt into a sticky dough, then work in the 3 tablespoons of oil. Cover and rise until doubled, about 1½ hours.
Meanwhile, cook the onion in the oil over medium-low heat until soft, 12 minutes. Melt in the anchovies, add the tomatoes and oregano and simmer 25 minutes until thick. Stir in the hot sauce, tasting as you go.
Oil a 9-by-13-inch pan well. Press the dough out to the edges, cover and let it rise 45 minutes more.
Heat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Dimple the dough with your fingers and spread the sauce over it.
Scatter the cheese and then the breadcrumbs over the top and drizzle with oil.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the bottom is crisp and golden. Rest 5 minutes before cutting into squares.
Chef's own recipe, written for Sicilian Scorpion Hot Sauce. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Elias Cairo learned to cure meat as an apprentice in Switzerland and came home to Portland to open Oregon's first USDA-certified salumeria in 2009. Olympia Provisions still makes everything by hand. The Chorizo Rioja is a dry-cured Spanish-style chorizo with smoked paprika and garlic.
Real dry-cured chorizo, made by hand in Portland. Slice it for a board, or let it melt into a pot of kale and potato soup.
Tim Wilcox and Caroline Pam grow vegetables on a farm in the Connecticut River valley in western Massachusetts. Their sriracha is made from several kinds of red chilies grown right there, fermented for weeks, then cooked and puréed. It's fresher and fruitier than the rooster, and certified organic.
Sriracha from an actual farm, and you can taste the peppers. Brushed on roast chicken with honey, it's a weeknight hero.
Heat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Pat the thighs dry and season all over with the salt.
Set them skin side up on a sheet pan and roast 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk the sriracha, honey, soy sauce, lime juice and garlic together.
Brush the glaze generously over the chicken and roast 10 to 15 minutes more, until sticky and the thickest part reaches 175°F (80°C).
Spoon over any glaze from the pan, scatter scallions and sesame seeds, and serve with rice.
Chef's own recipe, written for Sriracha Chili Sauce. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
From Big Picture Farm · Townshend, Vermont · @bigpicturefarm
Louisa Conrad and Lucas Farrell, an artist and a poet, started raising goats in southern Vermont and began cooking down the milk into caramels. Every goat in the herd has a name. The fall box is drawn like a leaf-peeping postcard.
Caramels made from the milk of goats with names. Chop a few into an apple crisp and it turns into something special.
6 apples (about 2½ lb / 1.1 kg), peeled and sliced
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
A pinch of kosher salt
8 Big Picture Farm goat milk caramels, chopped
For the topping: ¾ cup (70 g) rolled oats
½ cup (65 g) all-purpose flour
½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar
½ tsp kosher salt
6 tbsp (85 g) cold unsalted butter, cubed
Vanilla ice cream, to serve
How to make it
Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Toss the apples with the lemon juice, sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt, then fold in the chopped caramels. Spread in a 2-quart baking dish.
Rub the oats, flour, brown sugar, salt and butter together with your fingers until clumpy.
Scatter the topping over the apples.
Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden and the fruit is bubbling at the edges.
Cool 10 minutes and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
Chef's own recipe, written for Goat milk caramels (Fall Foliage box). Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Aishwarya Iyer started Brightland in 2018 after finding out how much supermarket olive oil wasn't what the label said. She works with California growers on oils and vinegars; Parasol is a champagne vinegar with a bright citrus edge, gentle enough to sip.
A vinegar good enough to make a salad the main event. Bitter leaves, a pear and this, and you're set.
Stir the vinegar, shallot and salt in a jar and let it sit 10 minutes.
Add the mustard, honey and olive oil, close the jar and shake until creamy.
Put the radicchio, endive and pear in a wide bowl.
Toss with just enough dressing to coat; keep the rest in the fridge for the week.
Top with the hazelnuts, shaved cheese and black pepper.
Chef's own recipe, written for Parasol Champagne Vinegar. Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, the prep laid out and what you already have.
Somebody making one thing, really well, in small batches? Tell me at hello@chefamazing.com and I'll go taste it.
How I picked
One product per maker, all independent, all things you can order today straight from the people who make them. I went for the ones I actually cook with, then wrote a recipe for each so the jar doesn't just sit in the cupboard. Every order page, photo and Instagram handle was checked on October 29, 2026. The photos are the makers' own and say so.
Nobody on this list paid to be here, and Order goes straight to the maker's own shop (we count the taps, that's all). The recipes are Chef's own, in our words, made for each product and credited.
Chef Amazing remembers every place you ate, keeps the lists friends send you, and helps you cook it at home.