1,165 articles
Raindrop cake
Raindrop cake, Japanese mizu shingen mochi (水信玄餅), a translucent water-and-agar jelly dessert created by Kinseiken in Yamanashi in 2013, made famous by Darren Wong at New York's Smorgasburg in 2016.
Raita
Raita (रायता, Hindi rāytā) is a cold South Asian yogurt condiment mixed with cucumber, boondi, onion, mint, or fruit, served with biryani and spicy curries to cool chili heat; distinct from tzatziki, cacık, and mast-o-khiar.
Rajma (राजमा)
Rajma (राजमा) is the Hindi name for kidney beans and for the thick bean curry that is a staple comfort food of North India, served over rice as rajma chawal.
Ramen (ラーメン)
Ramen (ラーメン) is a Japanese wheat-noodle soup of Chinese origin with tare, broth, noodles, and toppings; styles include shoyu, miso, shio, and tonkotsu. Key facts: first instant ramen (Nissin, 1958), record 124.21 billion instant servings in 2025, Japan 885.5 billion yen shop market.
Ranch dressing
Ranch dressing is an American creamy dressing and dip made from buttermilk, mayonnaise, and herbs, and the best-selling salad dressing in the United States since 1992.
Ras malai (रस मलाई)
Ras malai (रस मलाई, rosh malai) is a chilled South Asian dessert of chhena cheese patties cooked in sugar syrup and soaked in thickened cardamom-saffron milk; origin is claimed by K.C. Das of Kolkata and by Comilla's Matri Bhandar.
Rasgulla
Rasgulla (Bengali roshogolla, Odia rasagola) is a spongy chhena sweet boiled in sugar syrup. West Bengal's version is credited to Nobin Chandra Das (1868); Odisha ties its version to Puri's Jagannath Temple ritual. Both hold separate GI tags (2017, 2019).
Ravioli
Ravioli (singular raviolo) are Italian filled pasta: two sheets of dough sealed around meat, cheese, vegetable, or fish filling, then boiled or fried. Distinguished from tortellini and agnolotti by construction; documented from the medieval Liber de coquina onward.
Raw milk
Raw milk is unpasteurized milk, or milk not heat-treated to kill germs such as Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella. Also called unpasteurized milk, it caused over 2,600 illnesses in 1998–2018 US outbreaks and offers no proven nutritional advantage.
Red bean paste
Red bean paste (anko/an, dòushā, danpat/pat) is a sweetened paste of adzuki beans and sugar, the core filling of East Asian sweets: Japanese koshian and tsubuan wagashi, Chinese mooncakes, Korean patbingsu.
Red Leicester
Red Leicester, formerly Leicester or Leicestershire cheese, is an English hard cow's milk cheese from Leicestershire, dyed orange with annatto, milder and flakier than Cheddar. Raw milk clothbound farmhouse production died out in 1956 and was revived in 2005 at Sparkenhoe Farm.
Red meat
Red meat: mammalian muscle meat (beef, pork, lamb, veal, horse, goat), classified IARC Group 2A probably carcinogenic in 2015; processed meat is Group 1; 50 g/day processed meat raises colorectal cancer risk 18%.
Red velvet cake
Red velvet cake is an American layer cake with a mild cocoa flavor, slight tang from buttermilk and vinegar, and a red color from food coloring.
Red-eye gravy
Red-eye gravy, or redeye gravy, is a thin Southern US breakfast sauce of country ham pan drippings deglazed with strong black coffee; it has no thickener, separates into a red-eyed appearance in the bowl, and contrasts with thick, flour-thickened sawmill gravy.
Reduced-mineral goat whey
Reduced-mineral goat whey (RMGW), a demineralized goat cheese whey powder, GRAS Notice 1211 by Crossway Foods; FDA no-questions letter Feb 4, 2025 for infant formula use up to 40% dry weight.
Reggae Reggae Sauce
Reggae Reggae Sauce is Levi Roots' jerk BBQ sauce with Scotch bonnet and allspice, made famous by his sung 2007 Dragons' Den pitch that won £50,000 from Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh and a Sainsbury's listing.
Remoulade
Remoulade (French rémoulade) is a cold mayonnaise sauce with mustard, capers, pickles, herbs, and often anchovies; regional forms include sweet yellow Danish remoulade and red Creole remoulade of Louisiana.
Rendang
Rendang (randang) is a Minangkabau slow-cooked meat dish from West Sumatra, Indonesia, made with coconut milk and spices; dry Indonesian rendang differs from wetter Malaysian kalio-style versions, and CNN ranked it the world's most delicious food in 2011 and 2017.
Reuben sandwich
The Reuben sandwich is a grilled American deli sandwich of corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian or Thousand Island dressing on rye. Its origin is disputed between Omaha's Blackstone Hotel (1925, Reuben Kulakofsky) and Arnold Reuben's New York deli (1914); its turkey-and-coleslaw cousin is the Rachel.
Rib eye steak
Rib eye steak: beef steak from the rib primal built around the longissimus dorsi muscle, prized for heavy marbling, USDA Prime/Choice grading at the 12th rib, dry-heat cooking, and top consumer palatability scores.
Ricotta
Ricotta is a fresh Italian acid/heat-coagulated whey cheese made by heating whey (80–90 °C) with acid to recover whey proteins; 'Ricotta Romana' is a sheep-whey PDO from Lazio with at least 40% fat in dry matter.
Rijsttafel
Rijsttafel ("rice table") is a Dutch-Indonesian feast of many small Indonesian dishes served around rice, created by Dutch colonists in the Dutch East Indies, brought to the Netherlands after 1949, and now listed as Dutch intangible cultural heritage.
Risotto
Risotto, best known as risotto alla milanese with saffron, is a northern Italian dish of short-grain Arborio, Carnaroli, or Vialone Nano rice cooked with gradually added, stirred-in stock until released starch makes it creamy, first documented around 1809.
Rissole
Rissole (French rissole, from Late Latin russeola "reddish"): a small fried or baked food. In France a filled pastry turnover (meat, fish, or fruit); in English usage a minced-meat patty; variants include Portuguese rissóis, Brazilian risoles, and Indonesian risoles.
Roast chicken
Roast chicken: a whole chicken cooked by dry heat in an oven, over fire, or on a spit. Key facts: USDA safe internal temperature 165 °F, spatchcocking for even cooking, dry brining, and the British Sunday roast tradition.
Rock candy
Rock candy, also called rock sugar (冰糖, 氷砂糖, Mishri), is crystallized sucrose grown as large crystals from a supersaturated sugar solution on strings or sticks over days to weeks, used as candy and sweetener.
Rocky Mountain oysters
Rocky Mountain oysters, also called prairie oysters or calf fries (French animelles), are breaded, deep-fried bull or calf testicles, a Western North American ranching dish, not seafood, served with dipping sauce and celebrated at testicle festivals.
Rocky road (ice cream)
Rocky road ice cream: American flavor of chocolate ice cream with marshmallows and nuts (almonds standard, walnuts original), dated to 1929 Oakland with disputed Dreyer's versus Fentons origin claims; ninth most popular US flavor.
Rogan josh
Rogan josh (रोगन जोश) is a Kashmiri lamb or mutton curry brought by the Mughals, named from Persian rogan (oil) and josh (heat), colored red by Kashmiri chillies, mawal flower, or ratan jot, with distinct Pandit and Muslim versions.
Rojak
Rojak (rujak in Indonesia) is a Southeast Asian mixed fruit-and-vegetable salad with fermented prawn paste sauce, from Malay "mixture"; variants include Chinese, Malay, Indian (pasembur), and Penang rojak, attested in Java since 901 CE.