Chocolate Olive Oil Cake and More Recipes We Made This Week

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It’s no secret that Bon Appétit editors cook a lot for work. So it should come as no surprise that we cook a lot during our off hours too. Here are the recipes we’re whipping up this month to get dinner on the table, entertain our friends, satisfy a sweet tooth, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here.

Recipes April 4

Veggie frito pie

One of my goals for the year has been to save my meat eating for restaurants and cook vegetarian at home. It’s going well so far, but every now and then a craving hits. This week it was Southern barbecue. I considered ordering some burnt ends and pulled pork, but in the end I decided to cook through it. Frito pie, for the uninitiated, is a staple side dish at smokehouses, featuring baked beans, chili, and cheddar cheese poured over a bag of corn chips and usually topped with your meat of choice. Our veggie version opts instead for shiitake mushrooms for heft and a pour of soy sauce for depth. Rest assured, I stuck to my goal and felt nice and full doing it. —Alma Avalle, editorial operations associate

Delightful mushroom pasta

My husband and I could eat mushrooms every week and often do. So when I stumbled upon this mushroom pasta from deputy food editor Hana Asbrink, I knew I had to make it immediately. This wafu (Japanese-style) dish has a simple sauce—butter, soy sauce, and pasta water—with loads of earthy umami. I used Sfoglini’s new bigoli, a shape that dubs itself “bigger and better than spaghetti,” and an utter delight to twirl around a fork. Hana has you top the bowls with sliced nori and scallion. We ended up grating some parm on top too. —Emma Laperruque, associate director of cooking

Salsa for taco night

I took this tomatillo salsa to a taco night at a friend’s house last week because I needed something extremely easy and fast to contribute. My one tweak: roasting all the vegetables together first, then blitzing them in a food processor with a ton of lime and cilantro. —Kendra Vaculin, test kitchen editor

Pork belly noodles

I bought a slab of pork belly online a few weeks back, not realizing it would be barely bigger than my palm. (I was not paying attention; food writers, they’re just like the rest of us!) Far too small for its intended purpose, I stuck the belly in my freezer and made something else for my dinner party. Cut to the present, when I excavated that pork from my freezer to make the pancit canton recipe from Alvin Cailan’s Amboy. A stir-fry of egg noodles in a sweet-savory sauce made of oyster sauce, soy sauce, and chicken stock (store-bought is fine), Cailan’s recipe is ripe for interpretation. I usually add a splash of patis (fish sauce) plus something for heat (like sambal oelek), and I use the freeze-dried noodles my partner is partial to, which don’t need to be boiled separately. If I use anything but cabbage, carrots, onion, and garlic, I would be run out of my kitchen, but you should feel free to raid your crisper. Just don’t forgo the citrus finish—these noodles need their tang. —Joe Sevier, senior editor, cooking & SEO

Craveable chocolate cake

It’s silly to think that a craving for chocolate cake can be solved by anything other other than chocolate cake. I turned to my pantry and discovered that, thankfully, I had all the ingredients for a recipe I’ve been wanting to make: Jesse Szewczyk’s Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, part of his brilliant Bon Appétit Bake Club with fellow senior test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic. I cheated—I’m sorry—and skipped the frosting out of laziness. It’s still spectacular plain or, as I did, topped with whipped cream. And it lasts for days. I gave some to my parents, who forgot the slices in their car. By the time they remembered, the cake was still perfectly moist. —E.L.