Baste it.
Spooning sizzling butter over hot steaks or chops while they cook in the oven creates an exceptional crust.
Recipe to Try: Rib Eye and Radishes in Bagna Cauda Butter
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Poach it.
Chefs take the extra step of gently simmering meat in milk, cream, wine or stock before roasting because this method keeps meat supremely juicy in the dry heat of an oven.
Recipe to Try: Pork Roast with Garlic-Parmesan Cream
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Rub it.
Before roasting, chefs massage poultry with a mix of salt, sugar and spices. The salt enhances the meat’s flavor and keeps it moist; the sugar helps create exceptionally crisp skin.
Recipe to Try: Ancho-Rubbed Turkey Breast with Vegetables
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Butter it.
There’s one important and semisecret reason that roast chicken at restaurants tastes so good: the butter that chefs rub under the skin before roasting, which bastes the bird as it cooks.
Recipe to Try: Butter-Roasted Chicken with Soy-Garlic Glaze
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Salt-crust it.
Mixed with egg whites and patted on whole fish, kosher salt hardens in the oven to become a crust that protects food from dry heat. Other options for salt-crust roasting include potatoes, beet—anything, really, with a removable skin or peel.
Recipe to Try: Pimenton-Roasted Red Snapper with Herb Salad
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Wrap it.
Chefs use all sorts of wraps for fish, from seaweed and grape leaves to banana leaves and cabbage. There are two benefits—the fish takes on the delicate flavor of the wrap and also comes out of the oven fantastically moist, almost as if it has been steamed.
Recipe to Try: Grape Leaf-Wrapped Salmon with Serano-Scallion Sauce
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Marinate it.
The acidity of yogurt gives it an amazing ability to tenderize meat; the flavor is especially good with lamb.
Recipe to Try: Cumin-Spiced Lamb Tacos
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Roast it whole.
A few years back, chefs launched a new vegetable trend: whole-roasting. Roasted whole cauliflower, broccoli and mushrooms look heroic and taste delicious—tender in the middle, crisp and browned at the edges.
Recipe to Try: Roasted Maitake Mushrooms with Seaweed Butter
Quick-pickle it.
Chefs are obsessed with pickling every vegetable imaginable. Now they’re roasting those pickles, which emerge from the oven with an extra layer of caramelized flavor.
Recipe to Try: Giardiniera-Style Roasted Vegetables
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Toss it.
Tossing fruit with sugar helps it caramelize, plus the sugar and fruit juices combine to form a sweet and sticky glaze.
Recipe to Try: Roasted Fruit and Cheese Plate
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