Broccoli Cheddar Soup
A thick, smooth broccoli cheddar soup that stays velvety instead of grainy: a light roux, small florets simmered just tender, and sharp cheddar stirred in off the heat.
- Total time
- 45 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Stovetop
Pans, hobs, and one-pot dinners.
Pans, hobs and one pot meals. A good share of these are built on what sticks to the base of the pan after searing, which is the most concentrated flavour in the kitchen and the thing most often washed away.
Where a recipe says to scrape the pan, that instruction is doing real work.
Chicken and Dumplings
Southern chicken and dumplings: bone-in thighs simmered into a rich, lightly creamy broth, topped with fluffy drop dumplings that steam under a closed lid until light all the way through.
- Total time
- 1 hr 35 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Lasagna Soup
Everything good about lasagna in one pot: Italian sausage and tomato broth, broken noodles cooked right in the soup, and a spoonful of seasoned ricotta and melting mozzarella on every bowl.
- Total time
- 55 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Chicken Tortilla Soup
A brick-red broth built from blended charred tomatoes, onion and chiles, simmered with chicken thighs and finished with crisp homemade tortilla strips, avocado, lime and cotija.
- Total time
- 1 hr
- Yield
- Serves 6
Fettuccine Alfredo
The American restaurant-style fettuccine alfredo: butter, cream and real Parmigiano-Reggiano tossed with hot pasta and a splash of its cooking water, so the sauce is silky instead of clumpy or oily.
- Total time
- 25 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Beef Vegetable Soup
A hearty, old-fashioned vegetable beef soup: chuck browned hard and simmered until tender in a tomato-beef broth, with the vegetables added in stages so none of them turn to mush.
- Total time
- 2 hr 25 min
- Yield
- Serves 8
Egg Drop Soup
Restaurant-style egg drop soup in fifteen minutes: seasoned chicken broth lightly thickened with cornstarch, with beaten eggs poured in a thin stream for long, silky ribbons.
- Total time
- 15 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Mexican Rice
Restaurant-style Mexican rice with separate, fluffy grains: long-grain rice rinsed, toasted golden in oil, then simmered in a blended tomato, onion and garlic broth and left covered to steam.
- Total time
- 45 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Egg Roll in a Bowl
All the filling of an egg roll without the wrapper: ground pork browned hard, cabbage and carrots stir-fried just until crisp-tender, and a ginger-garlic soy sauce, ready in twenty-five minutes.
- Total time
- 25 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Red Enchilada Sauce
A smooth, brick-red enchilada sauce made from toasted dried guajillo and ancho chiles, blended with garlic and onion and simmered in broth, with a quick chili-powder version for busy nights.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Yield
- About 3 cups (710 ml)
Creamy Garlic Chicken
Thin chicken cutlets seared golden, then simmered briefly in a garlic, Parmesan and cream pan sauce built on the browned bits in the skillet. One pan, thirty minutes.
- Total time
- 30 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Loco Moco
Hawaii's favorite plate lunch: a bed of white rice, a seared hamburger steak, a rich brown onion and mushroom gravy made in the same pan, and a runny fried egg on top.
- Total time
- 40 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
French Onion Soup
Onions cooked slowly to deep brown, simmered in beef stock with a splash of wine, and finished under the broiler with toasted baguette and bubbling Gruyère.
- Total time
- 2 hr 5 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Wild Rice Soup
Creamy, mushroomy and thick with grain. The wild rice cooks separately because it takes three times as long as anything else.
- Total time
- 1 hr
- Yield
- Serves 6
Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding
Stovetop, stirred, and finished with egg yolks off the heat. Loose when it comes off, set by the time it reaches the table.
- Total time
- 50 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Creamy Sausage Pasta
Italian sausage browned hard for its fond, deglazed with wine, and finished into a clinging sauce with cream, Parmesan and pasta water.
- Total time
- 35 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Farmhouse Chicken Noodle Soup
A whole chicken poached into its own stock, then shredded back in. The noodles cook separately and that is not fussiness.
- Total time
- 1 hr 50 min
- Yield
- Serves 8
Beef Spring Rolls with Peanut Lime Sauce
Rice paper, herbs and seared beef, rolled cold. Nothing is cooked except the meat and the noodles.
- Total time
- 50 min
- Yield
- Makes 12 rolls
Creamy Spinach Tortellini Soup
Twenty-five minutes, one pot. The cream goes in off the heat and the tortellini go in last.
- Total time
- 35 min
- Yield
- Serves 6
Creamy Mushroom Sauce
Built in the pan the steak came out of, in the time the steak needs to rest. Ten minutes, five ingredients that matter.
- Total time
- 17 min
- Yield
- Serves 4
Chinese Sweet and Sour Sauce
Clear, glossy and sharp enough to cut through fried food. No ketchup, no food coloring, ready in eight minutes.
- Total time
- 13 min
- Yield
- Makes about 1½ cups (350 ml)
Big Mac Wraps
The familiar burger combination — tangy sauce, shredded lettuce, pickles, onion and melted cheese — rolled into a tortilla around seasoned ground beef.
- Total time
- 55 min
- Yield
- Makes 4 wraps
Homemade Barbecue Sauce
A thick Kansas City-style sauce built on tomato, molasses and smoked paprika. Twenty minutes on the stovetop and it keeps a month.
- Total time
- 35 min
- Yield
- Makes about 2½ cups (600 ml)
Homemade Eggnog
A cooked custard base, chilled overnight, thick enough to coat a spoon. Nothing like the carton.
- Total time
- 8 hr 30 min
- Yield
- Makes 5 cups (1.2 liters), serves 8