The 10 best things I ate in May

May was everything from the best lemon bars of my life, to unfamiliar crustaceans with José Andrés in the Test Kitchen. Read all the way to the end for a special gift link to that taco recipe!

For this month’s Bon Appétit Bake Club, Senior Test Kitchen editor Jesse Szewczyk pulled off the impossible. Firm enough to slice cleanly, plush enough to bite effortlessly, these bars are the best I have ever tasted. Too many lemon bars are thickened only with flour or starch and bake into a claggy mess that rides on pale shortbread. Jesse’s version blends two whole lemons into the curd, and brilliantly uses sweetened condensed milk. Better still, there’s no need to pre-cook the curd on the stove before baking it. The curd sets in the oven into a creamy-bright layer that radiates citrus flavor. If you feel like getting extra credit, you can even brulée the top.

The fact that this name translates to “Raisin Bread” is hilarious. In what world is raisin bread a shimmering, coiled whisper of buttery dough, raisins, air, and joy? In Philadelphia actually, at Loretta’s, a cafe from the same folks who run Bloomsday restaurant next-door. Both spots share a world-class pastry program developed by the incomparable Sofiane Bellal.

Stir-fried tofu crumbles festooned with the one-two punch of chile flakes and ground cumin. During development, Test Kitchen senior editor Shilpa Uskokovic tried two forms of cumin and coriander: pre-ground vs. toasted whole seeds crushed in a spice mill. The extra five minutes of effort involved in toasting and grinding your own really makes a difference, as Shilpa reveled in pointing out to me and I graciously concurred:) The version with pre-ground cumin wasn’t bad, just less vibrant and the heady power of aromatic spices is really the star of the dish.

This dessert showcased such finesse, with layers of textures and temperatures that stunned me. It starts with a bruléed base of guava panna cotta, topped with chunks of tart, fermented pineapple, followed by pineapple granita and a dusting of feuilletine. It came out of nowhere, laid us low, and disappeared just as quickly.

This dinner in Philadelphia, hosted by Nok Suntaranon of Kalaya restaurant, featured Evan Ehlers of Sharing Excess, a non-profit that partners with food businesses to re-distribute excess food to those in need. This dinner alone generated enough revenue to donate 1 million meals via his organization. Evan’s pitch would have sold me on its own, but this rice cracker, filled with chile jam, crab, and lemongrass, was spectacular—a two-bite reminder of the power of food to bring people together to find common purpose.

All I can say is that associate cooking editor Nina Moskowitz baked something so impressively big and fun and garlicky and you are going to love it.

Sort of a restaurant, sort of a bar, and unequivocally fantastic, Post-Haste has a unique focus on reducing food waste through upcycling kitchen scraps into new ingredients for their food and bar programs. Case in point is this gorgeous slab of breaded and fried spinach lasagna, split to reveal its coiled layers. The creamy sauce uses cherry tomato pulp leftover from making the tomato-tarragon brine that features in their Farmer’s Dirty Martini.

The Bon Appétit staff recently had a chat with chef Andrés to talk about his latest cookbook, Spain My Way. (Check out his epic paella we filmed in his backyard last month as well!) We turned Andrés loose in the Test Kitchen afterwards, challenging him to make a dish in under 30 minutes. Okay, so, maybe we planted a few choice ingredients in advance, like sea scallops still in the shell, but the wildcard was the gooseneck barnacles he gleefully discovered, a crazy-looking crustacean that looks more extraterrestrial than aquatic. His finished dish, a tight composition of citrus segments, barely cooked scallop, fennel, caper, olive oil, and a few barnacles, set into a scallop shell, was an inspiring performance. And he had it plated with a minute to spare.

Neapolitan, the combination of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla, became an underwhelming mass-market staple years ago and lost the right to be taken seriously. Yet Cuzzy’s, our local ice cream spot in Philadelphia, doesn’t kid around with any of their flavors. Ordinarily I would expect that fusing three strong flavors might diminish each, yet my experience was the opposite. Each one shone thanks to their fantastic ingredients (those strawberries are from Harry’s Berries!) and just-right temperature (don’t get me started on ice cream that is too cold).

To paraphrase Test Kitchen editor Rebecca Firkser in her Substack Nickel and Dine, sometimes it is worth jumping on a trend if you figure out a way to do it even better. She had seen many creators make their versions of ground meat flattened against tortillas and seared until fused into crisp, flat, craveable tacos. But cooking them in a skillet means doing one at a time. (Fine for one person, annoying for a group.) Instead Rebecca lays out a baking sheet full of meat-coated tortillas and broils them to achieve the same glorious effect with much less work. You can access this recipe for free by using this special gift link.

To access ALL of our recipes, please consider subscribing to Bon Appétit, so you have full access to our archive and app. Our team puts a huge amount of care into every single recipe and story, and we’d love to help you get dinner on the table every day. Also, this week I will have office hours on Thursday, June 4 at 1:30 p.m. EST so pop in with any cooking questions you have!