Recipes! Warm Broccoli, Chickpea and Rice Salad; Egg Bites With Mixed Vegetables and Cheddar; Angel Food Cake With Jam Whipped Cream

What to cook during the week ahead, from Post Food editors.

Cooking is as much about managing the environment as it is about manipulating ingredients. Among the largest factors we have to contend with in the kitchen is temperature. Butter that's not warm enough won't cream properly. A skillet that's not sufficiently heated won't brown meat. Bread dough will stubbornly refuse to rise in a chilly spot.

The great thing is that as much as temperature can feel like your enemy, you can use it to your advantage, as Food editor Joe Yonan did in his Warm Broccoli, Chickpea and Rice Salad. It started as a rushed attempt to get his teenager to eat a green vegetable. "Anybody who's dressed a vinegary potato salad while the spuds are still warm knows what happened next: The broccoli, its cells open like pores during a steamy facial, absorbed the flavors of the dressing into every nook and cranny." Now it's a favorite preparation, and you can build your own preferred combination of vegetables, legumes and grains. As Joe says, "The only nonnegotiable is the temperature. Dress it while everything is cold instead of warm, and you'll miss the whole point."

Pay attention to temperature in cookbook author Jessie Sheehan's Angel Food Cake With Jam Whipped Cream, and you'll be handsomely rewarded. When she says you need the egg whites at room temperature, you need them at room temperature — only then will they whip into the billowy clouds that form the basis of this tender, tall cake. When you're whipping the heavy cream for the frosting, use it straight out of the fridge, so it, too, gains maximum volume. (Bonus level: chill the bowl first.) The jam used to flavor and color the whipped cream needs to be cold as well.

Hot pans are essential in two more recipes this week: Aaron Hutcherson's Lamb Chops With Minty Pea Puree and Pomegranate and the Mushroom Pancit that Julia Turshen shared from Harana Market in Upstate New York. For the lamb, you need the skillet good and hot before you sear the chops, and don't overcrowd them either, if you want beautifully browned, flavorful meat. For the pancit, a Filipino noodle dish, a hot wok (or skillet) brings together the sauce and gives that char-kissed flavor you want in a stir-fry.

But as with life in general, discretion is sometimes the better part of valor with cooking temperatures. That's certainly the case with Ellie Krieger's Egg Bites With Mixed Vegetables and Cheddar. Eggs can overcook in a flash, so pay attention. You want these savory bites to be just set when you pull them out of the oven — if you're worried about them getting tough, a gentle hint of a wobble is okay, as they'll finish heating through in the pan for a few minutes.

Want even more hints and tips? Join Aaron and me on Wednesday at noon Eastern for our live (and lively!) weekly chat. We'll be answering your cooking questions and sharing your helpful advice with fellow readers. You can submit your questions now.

Until next week, happy cooking.