1,165 articles
Romesco
Romesco is a cold Catalan sauce from Tarragona's Serrallo fishermen, made with nyora peppers, roasted tomato, garlic, almonds, hazelnuts, bread, oil, and vinegar; also a fish dish, kin to salvitxada and xató sauce.
Ropa vieja
Ropa vieja, "old clothes" in Spanish, is Cuba's national dish of shredded beef braised in tomato sofrito with peppers, onions, olives, and capers, tracing to Canary Island and Sephardic Spanish cooking.
Roquefort
Roquefort: French blue-veined PDO cheese from raw Lacaune sheep's milk, ripened in the Combalou caves at Roquefort-sur-Soulzon with Penicillium roqueforti; France's first cheese appellation (1925), distinct mold population from all other blue cheeses.
Roti (रोटी)
Roti (रोटी), also called chapati or phulka, is an unleavened whole wheat flatbread cooked on a tawa and eaten across South Asia with dal and curries; distinct from layered paratha and leavened tandoor naan, with 30-plus regional varieties and diaspora forms.
Roti canai
Roti canai, called roti prata in Singapore, is a Malaysian flaky griddled flatbread descended from South Indian parotta, brought by Indian-Muslim migrants to Penang in the 19th century, ranked first bread in the world by TasteAtlas in 2023.
Round steak
Round steak is lean beef cut from the round (hind-leg) primal, covering top round (IMPS 1169), bottom round (1170A), eye of round, and sirloin tip steaks. Shear force 9.7 to 11.7 pounds, best cooked moist or low-and-slow, and cooked to 145 degrees F with a 3-minute rest.
Roux
Roux is a cooked paste of equal parts flour and fat used to thicken sauces, soups, and stews; white, blond, brown, and Cajun-dark versions underpin béchamel, velouté, espagnole, and gumbo.
Rugbrød
Rugbrød (Danish rye bread) is Denmark's dense sourdough rye loaf, the daily bread for over 1000 years and the base of smørrebrød open sandwiches; baked about 75 minutes to a 98 °C core, traditionally unsweetened.
Rugelach
Rugelach (Yiddish for "little twists") is an Ashkenazi Jewish filled pastry descended from Central European kipfel. American versions use cream cheese dough (from the 1930s-1950s); Israeli versions stay yeasted.
Rum baba
Rum baba (baba au rhum, babà) is a yeast cake soaked in rum syrup, attributed to Stanisław Leszczyński's pastry chef Nicolas Stohrer, adopted in Paris and perfected in Naples; savarin is its ring-shaped variant.
Rusk
Rusk is twice-baked bread, dried until hard and crisp; known as beschuit, zwieback, biscotti, or beskuit, historically ship's provisions, now a tea-time snack and sausage ingredient.
Russian dressing
Russian dressing is an American mayonnaise-ketchup condiment with horseradish, Worcestershire, and paprika; spicier and less sweet than Thousand Island, credited to Nashua, New Hampshire grocer James E. Colburn, and classic on the Reuben sandwich.
Rye bread
Rye bread is bread made from rye flour (Secale cereale), often blended with wheat in North America (about 20% rye) but often 100% rye in Europe; dense, sourdough-fermented, high in fiber (~10 g/100 g), with a lower insulin response than wheat bread.
S'more
S'more: North American campfire dessert of toasted marshmallow, chocolate, and graham crackers; contraction of "some more"; first printed 1925-1927 in Girl Scout publications, not by the mythical Loretta Scott Crew.
Sachertorte
Sachertorte: Viennese chocolate torte created in 1832 by Franz Sacher for Prince Metternich; apricot jam and chocolate glaze; subject of the 1950s-60s Sacher-Demel cake war over the 'Original Sacher-Torte' name.
Saffron
Saffron, from Crocus sativus stigmas, is the world's most expensive spice; key compounds crocin, picrocrocin, safranal; graded by ISO 3632; Iran produces about 90%; frequently adulterated.
Saimin
Saimin is Hawaii's own noodle soup, created in the plantation era from Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and other immigrant foodways. Thin egg noodles in light dashi broth with char siu, kamaboko, and Spam distinguish it from ramen.
Salad
Salad: cold dish of mixed vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, eggs, or grains served with a dressing, from Latin herba salata (salted herb); a ready-to-eat food whose safety depends on refrigeration and low-pH dressings (pH ≤4.1).
Salade niçoise
Salade niçoise (salada nissarda), a composed salad from Nice with tomatoes, black olives, anchovies or tuna, eggs, and olive oil. Purists reject boiled potatoes and green beans; the Cuisine Nissarde label, created in 1998, certifies authentic versions.
Salami
Salami: cured, fermented sausage (Italian salame, plural salami) of minced pork, salted, fermented to low pH, dried, and eaten uncooked; distinguished from cooked sausages, with Genoa, pepperoni, and Felino variants and E. coli O157:H7 safety rules.
Salisbury steak
Salisbury steak is an American ground-beef patty with binders and seasonings, pan-fried and served in mushroom-onion gravy, named for physician James Henry Salisbury, whose Civil War-era 'muscle pulp of beef' health diet it descends from.
Salo (сало) (food)
Salo (сало), also called slanina or slonina, is salt-cured pork back fat eaten across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and the Baltics; cured 3–14 days with salt, garlic, and pepper, it provides 770–870 kcal per 100 g and keeps without refrigeration.
Salsa macha
Salsa macha, a Mexican oil-based chili condiment from Veracruz (Orizaba), made of fried dried chilies, garlic, peanuts, sesame, and often vinegar; nuttier and tangier than Chinese chili crisp, with which it is often compared.
Salt bread
Salt bread (shio pan/sogeum-ppang) is a yeast roll developed in Japan in 2003 and first sold in 2004, known for its buttery hollow center and popular in South Korea.
Saltimbocca
Saltimbocca, or saltimbocca alla romana, is a Roman dish of thin veal cutlets topped with sage and prosciutto, floured and cooked in butter with white wine; first recorded by Artusi in 1871, its origin is disputed with Brescia.
Saltine cracker
Saltine cracker (also soda cracker, soda biscuit): thin, square, perforated US cracker of white flour, baking soda and/or yeast, shortening, coarse salt topping; first made by F.L. Sommer in 1876, part of Nabisco from 1898.
Salty liquorice
Salty liquorice, also known as salmiakki, is a candy popular in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, flavored with ammonium chloride for a sharp, salty, slightly sour taste over a sweet licorice base.
Sambal
Sambal (sambel) is a Southeast Asian chili paste or relish family from the Indonesian-Malay world, pounded with aromatics like shallot, garlic, and shrimp paste, with over 110 named Indonesian varieties and contested origins.
Sambar (சாம்பார்) (dish)
Sambar (சாம்பார்), a South Indian lentil-vegetable stew of toor dal, tamarind, sambar powder and tempering, served with rice, idli, dosa, and vada; its Thanjavur Maratha origin legend is disputed.
Samgyeopsal (삼겹살)
Samgyeopsal (삼겹살), "three-layer meat," is unmarinated pork belly grilled at the table, the default Korean barbecue meal eaten as ssam wraps. Key figures: ₩21,321 per 200 g Seoul restaurant average (Aug 2026), 33.2% of chilled pork consumption in 2022, Samgyeopsal Day March 3.