Sauce

This recipe originally accompanied Baja Fish Tacos .

This recipe originally accompanied Baja Fish Tacos .

This satisfyingly viscous, tomatoey condiment is richer and more rustic in flavor than commercial brands. It is absolutely delicious.

Pat: My brother Tony has a terrific palate, and his true genius is in having developed the right "tempo" for our barbecue sauce—and, boy oh boy, he never lets us forget it! This recipe, which includes Neely's Barbecue Seasoning and eleven other ingredients, became one of the keys to our success as restauranteurs. Now it can be the base of your own kitchen success. Memphis Barbecue sauce is known for its sweet and tangy tomato base. Ours keeps true to that tradition, striking a perfect balance between the sweet (we use brown and white sugar), the tangy (cider vinegar), and the tomato base (good ole ketchup!). Any self respecting Memphis pit master will tell you that the sauce must complement the meat without overpowering it, and ours does just that. At the restaurant we simmer the sauce for five hours, and we always taste the blend before cooking it, making sure we've got all the ingredients working. Over the years, we've learned that if it tastes good before it cooks, it's gonna be outstanding after a long, slow simmer. The end result: an insanely thick, rich, and sweet sauce, and the perfect adornment for any rack anywhere.

Well, here it is, the bane of North Carolina barbecue. I don't know if it's the addition of mustard that brings frowns to the faces of North Carolina barbecue purists or the fact that this is a South Carolina sauce, but this sauce certainly illustrates the diverging tastes and traditions of barbecue in the Carolinas. Throughout the 1700s, South Carolina drew a large contingent of immigrant German families. These new settlers brought with them ideas and advancements on ways to farm, as well as an affinity for the flavor of mustard. Even today, many of the families that produce mustard barbecue sauce have a German heritage, most notably the Bessinger family.

This recipe originally accompanied Fritto Misto .

Perfect barbecue sauce? That sounds pretty arrogant. With all the brands and homemade recipes out in the world, can one really be that good? Well, put it this way: If you can get a bunch of vinegar-loving good ol' boys from North Carolina to go gaga over a sauce, then I think it has some validity. Now, Virginia Pruitt, of Bonner Springs, Kansas, is way too modest to proclaim this sauce much beyond just "good." This is a family recipe that has roots in several states, with a little experimentation over 50 years. Ms. Pruitt got the recipe from her aunt-in-law, Ruth Reed, who lives in Denver. The original version came from Ruth's mother, who was reared in Kentucky. The sauce is a great blend of sweet, tart, tang, and clingability. I have tried it on ribs, brisket, smoked pork butt, and grilled chicken with fabulous results. IF you want a one-stop barbecue sauce, this may be the one.

Good for Slathering: Pork; chicken, turkey, duck; beef; lamb: It doesn't get any easier than this! And this mop is probably what 90 percent of the competition barbecuers use—with maybe a little beer mixed in for good measure!

Good for Slathering: Pork; beef; duck; ribs My students make this barbecue sauce every month in my Southern-barbecue classes. It is the only red sauce that we make in the class, and we always double the recipe because the class slathers it on everything! This sauce has been printed in many places and thousands of students have the recipe, but I couldn't write a sauce chapter and not include it here. The Dr. Pepper gives this sauce an edge over most basic sweet barbecue sauces.

This recipe yields enough sauce to glaze three pounds of meat. We doubled it for the chicken and ribs at our barbecue party. You'll use about half to marinate and glaze the meat while cooking, and the rest as a condiment on the buffet for those who like it really saucy.

In Philippine cuisine, dark, fairly harsh soy sauce is favored, but it's often combined with sugar to create a syrupy dressing for vegetables. The added garlic gives this sweet and salty sauce a pleasant kick. This recipe originally accompanied Lumpia Rolls .

Soundtrack: "Hot Lava" by Kudu from Death of the Party This is my attempt to replicate the oh-so-slammin' hot sauce at the Senegalese restaurant Joloff, my favorite eatery in New York City. This version is only slightly hot, but if you really want that fire add one more habanero chile.

Spread the pesto over the dough , then add toppings. Roasted asparagus, well-drained cooked spinach, and crumbled feta would be delicious.

This sauce goes with almost any topping. Three to try: slices of fresh mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, and roasted eggplant. This recipe originally accompanied the <epi:recipelink id="352109">Overnight Pizza Dough recipe</epi:recipelink>

A Provençal barigoule is almost always applied to artichokes, but why limit yourself? Nutty-sweet Brussels sprouts take beautifully to the wine-lemon broth.

Common ingredients create a Moroccan meal.

Latin-food authority Maricel Presilla describes sofrito—the sautéed mix of aromatic vegetables that is the bedrock of this vegetarian soup—as the DNA of the Latin kitchen because it carries a basic flavor code. There's onion and garlic, to be sure, but also tomatoes and various herbs, spices, and chiles, depending on the region. For this red-bean soup, we were inspired specifically by Puerto Rico, as evidenced by recao (an herb similar to cilantro) and by chiles that are fruity rather than hot. Just for fun, we included a last-minute sprinkling of Italian gremolata for brightness.

A generous drizzle of parsley-oregano oil brings a wave of herbal freshness to slender stalks of simply cooked Broccolini.