American Recipes75 authentic family recipes

American food, properly understood, isn't fast food — it's a regional patchwork: New Orleans Creole, Carolina barbecue, New England seafood, California-Mediterranean, Southwestern Tex-Mex, and the Midwestern hot-dish tradition that nobody outside Minnesota writes about but everyone with a slow cooker eats.

Our American section focuses on dishes that hit hard at home — pulled pork (or pulled jackfruit, for the vegetarians), buttermilk-fried chicken, mac and cheese, Cajun shrimp, baked ziti, and the grain bowls that have come to define modern American casual eating. The portions are American, but the flavour calibration leans Indian: more spice, more acid, less sugar.

Our American recipes pair well with rice or roti as easily as with cornbread, and most can be made ahead and frozen — which is exactly how an actual American home kitchen has always run. About a third are vegetarian; the rest split between chicken, beef, and seafood.