17 root beer recipes

A very moist cake with the zippy flavor of root beer. Best served with vanilla ice cream or simply dusted with confectioner's sugar.

Rosemary's root beer tonic: a traditional herbal decoction made with sassafras, dandelion, burdock, ginger, cinnamon, and orange peel. Old-fashioned homemade root beer.

Root beer baked beans with bacon, barbecue sauce, dry mustard, and hot sauce simmered together on the stovetop. A sweet, smoky, slightly spicy side dish ready in 40 minutes.

Classic black cow root beer float with vanilla ice cream in a frosted glass. Two ingredients, one minute, pure nostalgia in every fizzy sip.

Beef chow fun stir-fries marinated flank steak with fresh wide rice noodles, fermented black bean paste, garlic, ginger, onion, and peppers. A 15-minute Cantonese wok classic.

Crispy deep-fried samosas with spiced curried meat filling wrapped in homemade pastry. Seasoned with garam masala, fresh ginger, and mint, these golden triangles shatter at first bite.

A South African-style spiced mince filling for samoosas: beef or mutton braised dry with jeera, ginger, garlic, turmeric, fresh coriander and mint. The keep-it-dry method that stops samoosas from going soggy.

Thin-sliced flank steak marinated in white wine, soy sauce, fresh ginger, and brown sugar, then threaded on skewers and grilled. Makes 30 to 40 crowd-ready teriyaki beef skewers.

Chinese vegetable soup with shiitake mushrooms, napa cabbage, soba noodles, and a ginger-tamari broth. A low-fat, brothy noodle bowl with savory mushroom depth.

This is a very healthy soup, with several kinds of vegetables and seasonings, nutritious and tasty.

Swiss kuttle soup from Ticino: a rustic Alpine tripe soup with carrots, leeks, celeriac, cabbage, bacon, red wine, and parmesan. Old-country comfort food at its most honest.

Chinese grilled short ribs butterflied into a single accordion strip and marinated in peanut butter, curry, sesame oil, soy, and rice wine. Smoky, tender, unusual.

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb marinated in Burgundy wine, fresh ginger, soy sauce, honey, and lemon. Bold, savory, and charred over medium coals.

Szechwan spiced beef stew braised with star anise, hot bean paste, crushed peppercorns, and dry sherry. Deeply aromatic Chinese-style comfort food.

Asian-style beef and couscous with flank steak in an apricot-ginger sauce, bell peppers, and mushrooms. A sweet-savory microwave meal with crisp-tender vegetables.

Beer and beef stew from Granite Brewery with cubed beef, root vegetables, Dijon mustard, and a dark chocolate-brown roux. A pub-style stew thickened with a proper French roux.