Sauces/306 recipes

Grilled prawns with fresh coriander: quickly marinated in soy, rice wine, and sesame oil, then broiled or barbecued and served with a bright cilantro-ginger-rice vinegar dipping sauce. Clean, punchy Chinese-style shrimp in 30 minutes.

Pork stir-fry with green beans and mushrooms cooks quick in a wok with soy sauce and a cornstarch gravy. Tender shredded pork, snapping green beans, meaty mushrooms. A 30-minute Chinese-American weeknight dinner from one pan.

Turkey breast with mushrooms, snow peas, carrots, and scallions in a ginger-soy sauce, all made in the microwave and served over brown rice with toasted almonds. A 30-minute stir-fry without ever firing up the stove.

Straw and hay pasta tosses green spinach fettuccine and yellow egg fettuccine with a no-cook raw tomato sauce, warmed garlic oil, red pepper flakes, and slivered fresh basil. A summer pasta you can pull together in 30 minutes.

Sweet potato pie with bourbon cream sauce: a spiced, custardy sweet potato filling in a flaky shell, scattered with pecans and crowned with a boozy bourbon cream. The microwave does the baking, so it's table-ready in under 30 minutes.

Risotto is an Italian rice dish. It is made by briefly sautéing the rice in olive oil or butter, then adding a little bit of stock, stirring almost constantly until the rice absorbs the stock, then adding a bit more stock, stirring, adding, stirring, adding until it’s done. It usually takes between 20 and 30 minutes of stirring. When it’s done, the rice is cooked through and bound in a wonderful creamy sauce that is made as the starch leaches out of the rice grains and combines with the stock.