Chicken

You can soak toasted mustard seeds for this recipe, but you'll get a similar pop of texture simply by using whole grain mustard.

Koji—a type of fermented rice used as seasoning in Japan—makes the meat in this roast chicken more tender, crisps up the chicken skin, and lends both sweet and savory notes.

Sorghum is a gluten-free grain, with a texture similar to wheat berries, barley, and millet—so feel free to substitute those for this chicken recipe instead.

Deconstructed with fresh tomatoes and by quickly hand-pounding chicken into cutlets then broiling, this becomes a fresh, modern alternative to a time-consuming classic.

Everyone should know how to roast a chicken. It's a life skill that should be taught to small children at school. The ability to properly prepare a moist yet thoroughly cooked bird, with nicely crisp skin, should be a hallmark of good citizenry—an obligation to your fellow man. Everyone walking down the street should be reasonably confident that the random person next to them is prepared, if called upon, to roast a chicken.

My Tater Tot hotdish has the body of a chicken pot pie, a dish that I loved growing up, long before I knew the existence of Tater Tot hotdish. But a close examination reveals that the only real differences are the subbing of chicken for ground beef and the use of a homemade cream of chicken soup instead of mushroom soup. I don’t think this will offend a hotdish purist.