For our brown rice recipe, we cooked the rice in the oven to approximate the controlled, indirect heat of a rice cooker, eliminating the risk of scorching. Experimenting with proportions, we discovered why most brown rice is sodden and overcooked: Most brown rice recipes call for a 2:1 water-to-rice ratio. For our brown rice recipe, we found that 2 1/3 cups water to 1 ½ cups rice gave us perfectly cooked rice.

We found not one but three solutions to bland chicken chili recipes: To fix watery sauce, we pureed some of our sautéed chile-onion mixture and beans with the broth to thicken the base. To avoid floating bits of rubbery chicken, we browned, poached, and shredded bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, which gave our chicken pieces a hearty texture and full flavor. And to solve the problem of insufficient chile flavor, we used a trio of fresh chiles: jalapeño, poblano, and Anaheim.

For a straightforward chicken teriyaki recipe that would deliver a crisp, moist, sweet, and salty glazed chicken, we decided against using breast meat, since it couldn’t stand up to the salty profile of the teriyaki sauce. We gained back some of the time spent boning the chicken thighs by determining that we didn't need to marinate or simmer them—we could get equally good results by spooning sauce onto lightly salted-and-peppered broiled thighs just before serving. We also tried to be efficient by using bottled teriyaki sauce in our chicken teriyaki recipe, but our tasters felt that none of the brands we sampled had the bright taste and balance of our homemade version. But since ours took only five minutes to make, this was an easy trade-off.