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pounded together until smooth, curry pastes are fried in coconut cream or oil, or whisked into boiling broth or coconut milk, to flavor dishes. There are five principal kinds of curry paste, each containing an ingredient or combination of ingredients that defines their appearance and flavor: yellow (includes turmeric), green (made with Kaffir lime leaves and rind, cilantro, and green chiles), red (full of dried red chiles), panang (flavored with peanuts), and massaman (pounded with warm spices like clove, cardamom, and cumin). All are available in Asian and specialty stores, as well as on the Internet, in jars and vacuum-sealed bags. One of our favorite brands in the saveur test kitchen is Mae Ploy.

Meats

Owner Peter Servedio assists customers at Peter’s Meat Market, a butcher shop on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, New York.

Whether it’s a juicy burger straight off the grill or some beautiful lamb chops we brought home from the butcher shop, our love of meat is all-consuming. This is food we treat ourselves with: a plate of meatballs braised in a rich tomato sauce; a flank steak, left to tenderize overnight in a spicy marinade, then grilled until it’s charred at the edges and reddish-pink in the middle; a chicken fried steak, with its crispy coating and creamy gravy. At once nuanced and straightforward, these dishes sate us in an almost primal way.

Lamb Chops with Salsa Verde

Bracing mint cuts through lamb’s richness. Cooks in Spain and Italy often combine mint with anchovies, red chile flakes, garlic, capers, and other herbs in a vibrant salsa verde like this one, a bold match for seared lamb chops.

4 1-inch-thick lamb loin chops (about 1 lb.) or frenched lamb rib chops

2 tbsp. plus ¾ cup extravirgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 cups loosely packed fresh mint leaves, minced

½ cup minced flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tbsp. minced fresh tarragon leaves

1 tbsp. salt-packed capers, soaked, rinsed, and minced

¼ tsp. crushed red chile flakes

6 oil-packed anchovy filets, drained and minced

1 clove garlic, minced

Serves 2

1. Put the lamb chops into a small baking dish, rub with 2 tbsp. oil, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make the salsa verde: Combine the mint, parsley, tarragon, capers, chile flakes, anchovies, and garlic in a medium bowl. Slowly drizzle in the remaining oil while stirring with a fork; set aside.

3. Build a medium-hot fire in a charcoal grill or set a gas grill to medium-high heat. (Alternatively, heat a cast-iron grill pan over medium-high heat.) Add the lamb chops and cook, turning once, until well browned and crusty and cooked to the desired doneness, 6-8 minutes for medium rare if using loin chops; about 4 minutes if using rib chops. Transfer the lamb chops to a platter. Stir the sauce and drizzle over the chops, reserving some of the sauce to serve on the side.

Lamb Varieties

The flavor and the texture of lamb can differ considerably from place to place, reflecting everything from what the animals eat to the physical characteristics of particular breeds. Because sheep farming remains a small industry in the United States when compared with those of beef and pork, your local supermarket is as likely to carry cuts of lamb raised in Australia or New Zealand—the world’s top lamb-exporting countries—as it is fresh domestic meat. Most New Zealand lamb is almost entirely pasture fed, usually in fields rich with ryegrass and clover, which accounts for the meat’s characteristic leanness. Because New Zealand lambs come to market very young, typically at only six or seven months of age, they have smaller frames that yield petite, tender rib chops. Australian lamb, though it’s slaughtered when a bit older, has a milder taste and richer marbling—the results of both breeding and the fact that the animals are sometimes fed grain during the last weeks of their lives. Free-range, grassfed Icelandic lamb is exceptionally fine-grained and mild tasting; it is prized by chefs and increasingly sold in the United