The main problems with cooked ground turkey are, one, it doesn't taste like much, and, two, it's dry.

Usually, turkey burger recipes result in something so lifeless and tasteless that drowning one in ketchup (that most perfect and delicious of condiments) doesn't help much. Part of the problem is calling this food a 'burger' at all, because it's never going to satisfy the way juicy, salty, medium-rare beef will.

Turkey burgers receive a fair amount of disparagement, and it's not unfounded.

Cassoulet requires a few ingredients you won't find in the typical supermarket.

I have made cassoulet more times than is advisable - first in culinary school, once with a friend for a dinner party, and at least half a dozen times in the BA Test Kitchen.

Depending on when vegetables are picked, they might take different lengths of time to cook.

When I'm desperate for spring produce but nothing has hit the farmstand yet, frozen green peas are a godsend.

Pate a choux is a mixture of simple ingredients - flour, water, milk, eggs - but the proper technique is essential. Unlike other doughs, the pastry is pre-cooked on the stovetop before being enriched with eggs, piped, and baked.

If soggy, baked choux can be re-crisped in a hot oven for several minutes.

The problem with traditional pie weights is you never have enough and they're expensive. Common substitutes like dried beans just aren't heavy enough to do the job. Our genius solution? Small steel balls that fit inside ball bearings and that can be purchased at any hardware store.

Whipped ganache is a great gateway icing if you're working your way slowly into the vast world of egg-based buttercreams. It's just a few ingredients and far superior in flavor to the basic butter/sugar/milk frosting.

Poached quince are so tender, aromatic, and rosy that you'd hardly believe the raw fruit is white, fibrous, and hard as a rock.

Quince may resemble pears and apples, but unlike their fruit brethren, raw quince are inedibly tannic and sour. This means you do have to cook them, but the transformation is dramatic, and well worth your efforts.

Press-in crusts are a supposedly easy alternative to the rolled kind, but achieving an even, compacted layer all over isn't a no-brainer.

Caramelized white chocolate is a mind-blowingly simple and delicious technique that will silence all the alleged white-chocolate haters out there.

Holiday eating is a study in paradox. You're surrounded by food, but you're so busy shopping and cooking that you don't have time to eat. Then, when your blood sugar dips to the point of derangement, you make a desperate lunge for the closest foodstuff - and the next thing you know, you've eaten an entire box of regifted peppermint bark.

Like turning potatoes or making a bearnaise sauce by hand, forming a cornet - essentially a DIY pastry bag - from parchment paper feels like one of those things culinary students do once or twice and then never again.

Why crown your own rack of pork when a butcher could do it for you? To start, it's way easier to brine two individual racks than a giant round crown (and yes, you definitely want to brine the meat).

Cooking for a crowd during the holidays takes a lot of time and effort, so we understand the desire to outsource as much of the work as possible.

Of all the quirky, inexplicable, reindeer-embellished holiday traditions out there, making your own Yule log might take the cake.

You don't need a specialty lame (French for 'blade') to make professional-level bread at home, but it certainly helps in creating those telltale slash marks. You need a truly razor-sharp edge to make a clean cut; even a sharp paring knife will drag as it moves through the wet dough.

Ever crack an egg into simmering water only to watch the white spread out and form wispy tentacles? It happened to me until I came across this game-changing fix: Break the egg into a sieve set over a bowl. The watery outer edge of the white will drain through, leaving the thicker white and yolk intact.

Turmeric or cinnamon? Nuts or raisins? The players may change, but the fundamentals of fluffy, fragrant pilaf are always the same.

When making tartare, keep everything chilled as you go, including the mixing bowl and plates. Presentation matters, too: The meat should be fridge-cold when served and cut as precisely and neatly as possible.