My Plan
Lay out a week, one dish a day. Pick as many days as you like — the plan merges their ingredients into a single shopping list, grouped by store aisle so you shop each section once, and tells you which dish to start first because it takes the longest.
Your week
0 of 7 days planned
Shopping list
Plan a day to see what to buy.
Prep order
Plan a day to see what to start first.
Pick dishes
Add a dish to a still-empty day (first empty day, top to bottom), then adjust on the grid above.
Chinese
黑椒雞丁Black pepper chicken
The fast work of the section, with the salt-and-sweet glaze of the black pepper and the thin-cut of the chicken and the green of the onion doing the balance. A 1–2 min of the wok-heat, and the whole dish is the marinate half of the chicken, the stir-fry half of the green, and the salt-and-sweet coat of the black pepper over the whole thing.
Chinese · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
饺子Boiled dumplings
A two-water wrapper dough, a pork-and-cabbage filling that's beaten until it gels, half-moon wraps with a pleated seam, and a hard boil with three fresh-water "dunks." The full method, from flour to table — it's the one recipe on this site where the dough is half the dish.
Chinese · ~120 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 3
叉烧Char siu pork
A pork neck marinated in red fermented yeast, sugar and soy, baked until the outside is a deep, sticky caramelized glaze and the inside is still rosy, then rested and sliced thin. The glaze is the whole point: caramelization and Maillard working in exactly the order the pan-heat article says to make them work.
Chinese · ~75 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
炒河粉Chow fun
The flat, wide, glossy rice noodle of the stir-fry — cooked briefly in a little water (the chow fun softening), drained, and then brought into a hot wok with a 2 min of fast work. Same wok-heat and same soy-and-sesame as the lo mein, but the flat, wide surface of the rice noodle is the one that browns and shatters at the edge, and the thin-cut of the bean sprout and the leaf of the cabbage is the 30 s that sets the balance.
Chinese · ~25 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
粥Congee with preserved vegetables
The rice of the section, but the one where the stir-fry is replaced by the long, slow simmer — a 60–90 min of the rice-to-water 1 : 10 that pulls the 300 g of rice through to a clear, silky, even-thinned surface, and the salt of the preserved vegetable and the fragrance of the five-spice doing the balance.
Chinese · ~100 min · difficulty 90/5 · serves 4
雞蛋炒飯Egg scallion fried rice
The plainest of the wok's fried rice, and the one that separates the cooks who know the wok from the ones who don't. Cold, day-old rice, the egg in as loose strands, the scallion in at the very end, and a two-part soy seasoning that has to coat the grain, not pool under it. No chilies, no fish sauce, no paste — the whole dish is the 2–3 min of fast work and the 180 °C of the oil's browning window.
Chinese · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
紅燒肉Hong shao rou
The red-braised pork — the long, covered braise of the section, and the one where the sugar is the color and the depth at once. A 2–3 cm cube of pork belly, a 45 min of slow, covered simmer in a soy-and-wine broth, and the 30 min of open reduction that pulls the liquid to a thick, glossy, salt-and-sweet glaze on the surface of the cube. A moo hong (the Thai braise) is the same 3–4 hr logic with the Thai spice underneath.
Chinese · ~90 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
火鍋蘸料Hot & cold dip plates — the hot-pot's table
Two little bowls at the edge of the pot — the hot plate (the rich corner: the chili crisp, the sesame paste, the garlic, the soy) and the cold plate (the fresh corner: the cucumber, the knife-skills cut of the cilantro, the soy, a thin edge of the rice vinegar's acid against the salt-and-depth of the soy). The pot does the cooking; the two dips do the seasoning, and the meat comes off the table with whichever corner it wants on it.
Chinese · ~10 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 4
火鍋Hot pot
The table-side simmer — a clear or a red broth at a slow, rolling boil, and the whole dinner is the act of lowering things into it, one pair of chopsticks at a time. The meat in for 30–90 s, the vegetable in for 1–2 min, the noodle in last. The broth isn't a sauce to reduce, it's a bath that has to stay clean and moving, and the balance of the dish is split between the broth (the salt and the depth) and the two dips (the fresh edge and the rich edge).
Chinese · ~120 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 3
宫保鸡丁Kung pao chicken
Diced chicken, deep-red dried chilies and green pepper in a glossy sweet-sour-salty sauce, with a scatter of roasted peanuts. The clearest example on this site of the wok-heat method at full speed: everything is on the bench before the wok is lit, because once the heat is up, the dish is a matter of seconds between "good" and "burnt."
Chinese · ~30 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
擈面Lo mein
"Tossed noodles" — the egg noodle cooked firm, drained, rested, and then brought into a hot wok with a 2 min of fast work. The wok-heat does the job of browning the surface of the noodle and setting the soy to it, and the stir-fry is the sequence: the egg and the aromatics, the protein, the green of the vegetable, the noodle, the soy, and the final balance check before the plate.
Chinese · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
麻婆豆腐Mapo tofu
Silken tofu, gently braised in a meat-and-black-bean sauce, thickened twice, and finished with ground Sichuan pepper for the má (tingling) that gives the dish its name. The technique that matters most is what you must not do: you do not stir the tofu, and you do not let it scramble.
Chinese · ~35 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
葱油饼Scallion pancakes
Laminated-style flatbread: a half-hot-water dough wrapped around a layer of scallion-and-oil, rolled thin, pan-fried until blistered and crisp on the outside, and folded on the inside so each bite has a soft leaf and a crackly edge. The scallion oil is the flavor, not the scallion.
Chinese · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
春卷Spring rolls
The crisp, rolled, deep-fried wrapper of the thin-and-flat family — a thin, uniform sheet rolled once over a shredded vegetable and stirred, seasoned meat filling, sealed on the last edge, and fried 2–3 min at the right temperature to glass and shatter. The whole dish is the 30–60 s of the roll and the 2 min of the fry — one tight roll, one clean fry, and the seal that holds it all together in the oil.
Chinese · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
蒸水蛋Steamed egg custard
Two to three eggs, beaten with warm water at 1.5:1, steamed at the dry-steamer temperature until the set is soft and the surface is glassy, then finished with the soy, the sesame oil, and the scallion. The whole dish is temperature: the water ratio decides whether it is silk or sponge, and the heat under the pan decides whether the silk has holes in it. Everything else is the finishing.
Chinese · ~20 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 2
糖醋排骨Sweet & sour spare ribs
The deep-fry of the section — a 8 min of the 180 °C oil to set the surface of the 3 cm rib and the battering and double-fry of the glaze, so the acid and the sweet and the salt sit on a crisp, even, deep gold surface.
Chinese · ~40 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
云吞面Wonton noodle soup
A clear, light stock with shrimp-and-pork wontons in it, and a tangle of al dente egg noodles tossed with sesame oil on the side. The Cantonese rule of the dish: the noodles are never cooked in the soup, and the soup is light enough to taste the shrimp in. Everything else is in service of those two points.
Chinese · ~50 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
小笼包Xiao long bao
The soup dumpling, in two moves that do the same work: the jelly — pork skin, boiled down and jellied, minced so fine it disappears into the filling — that melts into the soup when the steamer does its work; and the pleat, sixteen of them, that holds the soup in while the wrapper sets. The soup is not in the juice; it is in the jelly, and that is the whole trick.
Chinese · ~120 min · difficulty 5/5 · serves 4
Japanese
照り焼きChicken teriyaki
The name is tere-yaki: the shine and the grill. The chicken is poached gently in a thin soy-sake-sugar liquid until done — which is why it never dries out — and then the cooking liquid is reduced to a lacquer and the pieces turned in it until they hold the shine. The sauce is the recipe; the chicken is mostly in the way of the sauce.
Japanese · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
大福Daifuku
The Japanese sweet: a soft, chewy, glutinous-rice mochi skin, wrapped around a clean, sweet, red bean (or a few drops of sweetened huai) centre, the whole thing dusted with a little of the starch so the skin does not stick, and the whole thing served a little cold. The whole dish is the moisture window (the glutinous rice is the gloss half), the steam logic (the steam is the set of the glutinous rice), and the knife work that sets the shape of the mochi skin and the sweet of the red bean centre.
Japanese · ~30 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
出汁Dashi
The clear, deep, quiet broth that sits under almost everything Japanese: kombu first, bonito at the end, heat only where it belongs. Everything below — the miso soup, the ramen, the niku udon, the katsudon — is a seasoning poured over or cooked in this liquid, so the broth is the one thing in the section worth learning until you can make it from memory.
Japanese · ~35 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 8
餃子Gyoza
The half-boiled, half-fried dumpling: a thin, round wrapper around a lean, juicy pork-and-cabbage filling, stood in a single row in a hot pan, steamed under a lid in the 120 ml of water, then un-lidded to the crisp flat on the bottom — and served with the dipping sauce on the side, and the crisp, even, deep gold bottom is what the dip is for.
Japanese · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
カツドンKatsudon
The Japanese cut-cutlet-over-rice bowl: a breaded, deep-fried pork loin (the batter and fry half), the marinated soy-and-mirin tsuyu (the salt-and-sweet half), the egg (the fat half), and the plain rice (the balance of the bowl against the crisp, even, deep gold cutlet). The whole dish is the bread-and-fry decision (the breaded cutlet) and the marinate-and- reduce decision (the tsuyu), with the egg and the plain rice the balance of the plate.
Japanese · ~45 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
味噌汁Miso soup with tofu and wakame
A broth you assemble in under ten minutes, built on the same quiet dashi that everything else in this section stands on. The miso goes in off the heat. That is the one rule in this recipe — the miso ferments, and once it hits a rolling boil it turns grainy and breaks the surface.
Japanese · ~15 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 4
肉うどんNiku udon
The quiet, thick, wheat-udon soup: a clean dashi base, the broth logic of the whole move, marinated pork shoulder (or a pan-heat-seared cut) and a small load of shredded vegetable, and the thick, soft, udon that has been boiled, drained, and set in the broth, not on top. The whole dish is the dashi logic, and the noodles logic (boil, drain, and the salt-and-sweet of the balance), with the knife work that sets the vegetable and the pork.
Japanese · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
お好み焼きOkonomiyaki
The Osaka street-stall "savoury pancake": a thin batter of flour + egg + water that carries shredded cabbage, and one thin, clean slice of pork, cooked in a hot teppan (a flat, heavy, pan-heat surface) until the underside is a crisp, even, deep gold and the cabbage is done and the batter is set, then turned and finished on the second side — and the whole thing finished with a four-layer of balance: a salt-and-sweet okonomi sauce over the top, a salt of the mayo (the fat edge), a dusting of katsuobushi (the smoke note), and one clean stripe of aonori (the green, oceanic top note).
Japanese · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
おにぎりOnigiri
Rice shaped by hand while it's still warm, a strip of nori on the outside, and nothing on the inside — this is the version that is supposed to taste like rice. If you can cook rice well, this dish is 90% done before you make it.
Japanese · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
ラーメンRamen
The broth-first build: a deep bonito-and-kombu dashi carried over pork shoulder, seasoned with a tare of soy and miso, and served over thick wheat noodles with the toppings — the egg, the menma, the sliced chashu — each one cooked separately and set on top. The whole thing comes down to the order the pieces go in and the length of the braised bone.
Japanese · ~180 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 2
鮪の刺身Sashimi — procedure first, then a clean tuna plate
This is the most safety-sensitive page on the site, so it's written in the order it's built: selection and the safety window first, the knife and the cut second, the plate last. The plate is the easy part. If the fish in front of you passes the first section, the rest is practice.
Japanese · ~30 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
卵焼きTamagoyaki
The Japanese sweet egg roll: three eggs, beaten with the dashi and the salt of the soy and the sweet of the mirin, layered in a square maki pan (or a thin, flat pan-heat surface), one thin layer at a time, and each layer rolled up onto the last so the whole thing is a single, clean, even, neat rectangular roll. The whole dish is the pan-heat decision (the browning layer at a time) and the layering logic (each layer sets the balance of the egg, the dashi, the salt, and the sweet).
Japanese · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
海老の天ぷらTempura shrimp
Cold batter, hot oil, and a fry that lasts ninety seconds. The shrimp is seasoned in the batter, not before; the crispness is the dish, and the only thing between the plate and a plate of greasy dough is the oil temperature and the length of your attention.
Japanese · ~25 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 4
鮭の照り焼きTeriyaki salmon
The soy-and-mirin glaze on top of the seared salmon fillet: the pan-heat surface, the salt-and-sweet glaze of the marinated soy-and-mirin (the glaze family), and the knife work that sets the cut of the fillet. The whole dish is the browning decision and the salt-and-sweet of the marinated glaze, and the balance of the plate against the crisp, even, deep gold surface of the fillet.
Japanese · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
焼きそばYakisoba
The street-stall noodle: thick wheat noodles, shredded cabbage, and one thin slice of pork, rolled in a thick sweet-salty sauce and finished with a snowfall of aonori and katsuobushi. The whole dish is cooked in the time it takes the first batch of cabbage to change color, and the only question that decides it is the order the things hit the pan.
Japanese · ~18 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Thai
เฝ่าทอดBanana fritters
เฝ่าทอด (fan tor) — the fried banana sweet of the stall. Slices of over-ripe banana, a thin batter of rice flour and a little wheat flour, and a deep fry to a crisp, pale gold with a center that is still soft and sweet. The whole point is the contrast: a hard, crackling shell around a banana that is barely cooked, and the batter thin enough that the fry is fast and the oil doesn't have time to soak in.
Thai · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือBoat-noodle soup
A small, thick bowl of dark, deeply savory pork stock — made from marrow bones and a long, skimmed simmer — with the thinnest rice noodles, a topping of braised or minced pork, a soft egg, coriander and chives, and a drizzling of chili-lime-fish-sauce at the table. The whole dish is about concentration: small bowl, strong stock, and the balance of the drizzle adjusted by the eater, not the cook.
Thai · ~90 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 2
แกงส้มGaeng som
The thin, sour, un-curdled curry of southern Thailand — a fried paste of dried red chili and turmeric thinned with coconut milk and tamarind, carrying a fish or a squash. No thickening, no creaming: the sourness does the work that a heavy curry does with fat.
Thai · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 3
แกงเขียวหวานGreen curry
Chicken in a coconut-milk broth with green-aromatic curry paste — Thai chilies, kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, and galangal — and a scatter of Thai eggplant, long beans, and fresh green chilies. The name is the color of the paste, and the method is one sentence long: fry the paste, add the liquid, build the dish.
Thai · ~50 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
ข้าวมันไก่Khao man gai
Poached chicken on jasmine rice, with cucumber and the three-dip plate — dark soy, fresh chili and the ginger paste — that the whole dish balances on. The chicken is poached, not boiled: it comes out of cool water, not a boil, and that is the whole game.
Thai · ~105 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
ข้าวผัดKhao pad
The Thai fried rice — egg and aromatics in the wok, the day-old rice broken up and charred at the edge, a two-sauce seasoning of fish sauce and dark soy, and the greens added last. The whole point is the contrast: a grain of rice that has a soft center and a seared, slightly bitter edge, and the dish is the contrast, not the rice.
Thai · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วงMango sticky rice
The glutinous rice, soaked, steamed, and worked into a thick coconut-cream syrup while it is still hot, then set against the ripe mango, the toasted sesame, and the last few drops of raw coconut. The dish is two halves — the rice, which carries the coconut, and the mango, which does not need to — and the only trick is the syrup, made thick enough that the grain coats, and made hot enough that the rice drinks it.
Thai · ~270 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
แกงมัสมั่นMassaman curry
Beef (or chicken) in a thick, slow-simmered coconut-and-spice broth with potato, shallot, and kaffir lime leaf — the "dry spice" curry, where the flavor comes from a ground-roast of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise rather than the fresh-aromatics paste of the other Thai curries. It's a braise in a coconut broth: long, low, and the meat is the point.
Thai · ~80 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 4
หมูฮ้องMoo hong
The northern Thai (Lao-Thai border) braised pork belly — a long marinade of fish sauce, dark soy and the bruised aromatics of the region (lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, black pepper), then a slow, covered braise in which the belly's own fat renders into the liquor until the edge sets into a soft, glossy gel and the meat is just tender enough to pull apart. The "luak" version on the menu, and the dish that turns a weekend morning into a two-day table centerpiece.
Thai · ~180 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
หมูย่างMoo yang
Grilled Thai pork — the yang, "grilled," being the whole point. A marinade of fish sauce, dark soy, palm sugar, garlic and chilies (the "nam yang," the same family as the dipping sauce in nam yik), a hard sear over direct heat, and a crisp, slightly charred edge that a pan can only imitate. Thin-cut, quick, and the dish that turns a grill into a Thai counter.
Thai · ~90 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 3
น้ำยิกNam yik
The Thai dipping sauce, and the dish it's named for is the dip itself. Fish sauce, lime, and the fresh chilies — with a little of the sugar and the garlic or the roasted shrimp that a given dish wants — and the whole thing is a balance in a small bowl: salty-sour on top, a little sweet to round it, and the heat or the garlic or the nut of the dish underneath. Every grilled and fried dish on the section carries one of these, and the sauce is there to do the work the dish itself can't.
Thai · ~10 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 4
ผัดกะเพราหมูสับPad krapow moo
The wok-fried basil and minced pork of the daily Thai home — the dish that is the default over rice when there isn't anything else going. Garlic and chilies in the wok, the pork broken and browned, the fish sauce and dark soy added, and the basil dropped in last so the leaves just wilt and release their oil. Fast, hot, and the whole point is that it happens in the space of a few minutes.
Thai · ~10 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
ผัดซีอิ๊วPad see ew
The wok-fried noodle dish of the home kitchen — flat, wide rice noodles (khanom jeen) in a two-part soy sauce with cabbage and Chinese cabbage, and a protein of your choice. The whole point is the char: the noodles are meant to go dark and a little bitter on the edges, not stay pale and soft. That char is the flavor.
Thai · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
ผัดไทยPad thai
Rice noodles stir-fried with shrimp, dried-shrimp, shallot and egg in a tamarind–fish-sauce–palm-sugar sauce, served on a bed of fresh sprouts with lime, crushed peanuts and chili. The whole plate is a balancing act — sour, salty, sweet, hot, umami — and the wok work gives it the char you can't get any other way.
Thai · ~35 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
สะเต๊ะSatay
The chicken, minced with the lemongrass, the kaffir lime leaf and the shrimp paste, worked with the oil into a paste that holds the skewer, and grilled fast and hot until the outside is charred and the center is just set. The peanut sauce, the cucumber, the sliced shallot and the puffed rice are the table, and the sauce is the half of the plate that is not cooked.
Thai · ~75 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
ส้มตำSom tum
Julienne green papaya pounded in a mortar with a dressing of fish sauce, lime, palm sugar, raw garlic, and raw chili — and a scatter of long beans, cherry tomato, and a few green grapes for the pop. It's a dish about ratio as much as technique: the dressing is the whole thing, and the papaya is what it's built around.
Thai · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
ปลาเนื้อนิ่มSteamed fish
The sea bream, laid over the lemongrass and the kaffir lime, steamed on the gentle 90–100 °C heat until the center flakes with the back of a spoon, and the fish-sauce–lime–chili dip doing the seasoning instead of the heat. The fish is not cooked by the fire; it is set by the steam, and the dip, made on the side, is the half of the plate that carries the salt.
Thai · ~27 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
ต้มข่ากุ้งTom kha kung
The lemongrass–galangal–coconut shrimp soup, and the dish that carries most of Thailand's kitchen aromatics in one bowl. Shrimp in a clear-but-silky broth built on bruised lemongrass, sliced galangal, kaffir lime leaf and chili, rounded with coconut milk and finished with fish sauce, lime and coriander at the stove.
Thai · ~35 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 3
Vietnam
bánh xèoBanh xeo
The Southern crêpe: the rice-flour batter, the lemongrass and the green onion, a little of the turmeric for the yellow, cooked on the hot oil until the edge lifts and the shell cracks into shards. It is folded around the shrimp and the pork and eaten wrapped in the lettuces and the herbs, with the nuoc cham dipping sauce of the sauces 101 article.
Vietnam · ~60 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
bún bò HuếBun bo Hue
The Hue beef noodle soup: the stock, the annatto, the lemongrass, and the chili in the paste, the brisket and the tendon done to their pull in the 90–95 °C hold, and the rice vermicelli underneath. The dish is the stock article, on the spicy side, and the braise article, in the pot instead of the oven.
Vietnam · ~150 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
bún chảBun cha
The minced pork patty, seared hard on the griddle until the outside is charred and the center is just set; the belly, braised in the fish sauce and the sugar to its pull. Both lie over the rice vermicelli, with the herbs and the lime, and the nuoc cham dipping sauce does the sauces 101 article's salt on the bowl.
Vietnam · ~50 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
cao lầuCao lau
Hoi An's noodle bowl, built for one plate and not repeated: the yellow rice noodle, the pork, the chả lụa or the nấm mushroom, the daikon, the fried crouton, and a little of the sauces 101 article's fish-sauce broth. The noodle article's rice strand, on the dry side, is the base, and the bowl is finished with the hand, not the pot.
Vietnam · ~55 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
gỏi cuốnGoi cuon
The summer roll: the rice paper, soaked to the soft, laid flat, the vermicelli and the shrimp and the herbs in the last third, rolled tight enough that the cut through the filling is the plate. No heat on the dish — the wrapper article's one family that does not need the oven — and the nuoc cham the sauces 101 article's dip on the side.
Vietnam · ~20 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 4
phở bòPho
The beef bones, the toasted spice, and the caramelized onion, simmered three hours into a stock that carries the coriander and the anise. The rice noodle goes in the bowl first; the raw beef lies on top and rides the steam of the broth to its pull. The dip, the lime, the basil and the bean sprout come at the table, and the bowl is finished with the hand, not the pot.
Vietnam · ~210 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
Mexican
Al pastorAl pastor, home-cut
Pork shoulder cut into thick slices, marinated overnight in an adobo of dried chiles, charred on the grill until the edges hold a caramelized crust, and finished with a ring of the same chile rehydrated and blended with pineapple. The street-cart dish done at home — the marinate does the work, the grill does the flavor, and the pineapple does the finish.
Mexican · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Chilaquiles
Corn tortillas cut into triangles and fried until crisp, then simmered in a bright cooked salsa until they are soft-edged but not a mush, and topped with a soft-cooked egg, cream, and onion. The Mexican breakfast that is really just the tortilla, given a second life.
Mexican · ~35 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Churros
A cooked dough of flour, water, and a little butter, pushed through a star pipe into hot oil, fried until they have color and structure, and tossed in cinnamon-sugar before they cool. The Mexican merienda, done at home — the same move as the choux-family extrusion and the youtiao, and the pairing partner for the rest of the section.
Mexican · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 8
Tortillas de maízCorn tortillas, nixtamalized
Masa harina, water, and a pinch of salt, worked by hand into a masa that holds, pressed to a disc, and turned over a hot comal until the moisture inside blisters the surface. The tortilla is the whole platform of Mexican food — this is the method that makes it, and every other plate in the section sits on top of it.
Mexican · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 12
Huevos rancheros
Firm corn tortillas, toasted in a little fat until they have color and a little crunch, laid under eggs cooked just past set, and finished with a bright cooked salsa and beans on the side. The signature Mexican breakfast — a study in how few moving parts a dish needs when each one carries a job.
Mexican · ~35 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Mole negro
Dried chiles toasted and rehydrated, a long list of aromatics and spices ground with a little oil and a little chocolate, and the whole mass cooked down slowly with stock until it is thick, glossy, and bitter-sweet. The dark mole is the signature of the tradition — the dish that takes a day and rewards the patience with the deepest sauce in Mexican food.
Mexican · ~195 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 6
French
Crêpes
A thin batter of flour, eggs, and milk, rested until it pours, and tilted out into a disc you could read through. No leavening, no kneading — the batter is mixed smooth, rested thin, and set in a minute or two on both sides. The rest does the work, the pan does the colour, and the crêpe stays a plain, light vehicle for whatever you put on it.
French · ~45 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 10
Gratin dauphinois
Thin slices of potato, laid in tight rings, and baked low and slow in warm cream until the outside holds a faint golden crust and the inside has gone soft enough to fall apart on the spoon. France's classic potato side, and the one where the slice is the technique: thick slices are a boiled potato, thin ones are a gratin.
French · ~80 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Quiche Lorraine
A plain short-dough shell, browned lardons at the bottom, and an egg-and-cream custard baked until the edges are set and the centre still moves when the pan is shaken. The original quiche — no vegetable, no cheese — and the dish that defines how a baked custard is cooked: by its jiggle, not by its setting.
French · ~80 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 6
Ratatouille
Eggplant, courgette, onion and tomato, each softened one at a time in olive oil until it is just soft, then layered in a deep pan and braised down together until the flavours have blended into a single, deep sauce. The method is the recipe: every vegetable wants a different amount of time, and the dish that cooks them all in one go ends up as a mush.
French · ~105 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 6
Tarte Tatin
Apples softened in browned butter and sugar under a disc of short dough, baked until the top is golden, then — while it is still warm — turned out onto a plate so the caramelized apples that were the base become the top. The whole dish is an inversion: cooked one way, served the other, and the caramel pools over the cut apples as it falls.
French · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 6
Vichyssoise
Leeks and starchy potatoes, cooked until the potatoes fall apart, puréed to a pale, fine silk, then chilled until it holds on the spoon. The only thing in the French set that is served cold, and the one where the potato does the work: its starch is what thickens the soup, and the cream just makes it smoother.
French · ~160 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Italian
Pollo all'aranciatachicken in orange
Bone-in thighs set skin-side down to a gold, garlic taking the edge of the pan, orange juice and the white wine taking the pot, and the whole thing braised until the sauce comes off the chicken on a thin, glossy coat — the glaze doing the finishing the orange does. A pan dish that reads as a plate: the chicken and the sauce in one coat.
Italian · ~55 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Carbonarapasta, guanciale, and the egg
Spaghetti, guanciale fried to a crisp-edged gold, and an egg-and-pecorino crumble that folds into the pasta on the starchy water, off the heat — a sauce built in the last minute of the cook, not made in advance. The whole dish is the mantecatura, and the egg's window to a coat instead of a scramble is the move the whole page is about.
Italian · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Ragù alla bologneseragù with its egg-cut pasta
Beef and pork mince over a cooked-down soffritto, built round a long, low simmer — wine out, tomato in, milk rounding the edges — until the pan reads as the color of a deep, dry walnut and the sauce clings to the fork in a thin, even coat. The classic ragù on a classic plate: no cream, no sugar, the mince doing the work the tomato and the length of the day do.
Italian · ~180 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
AranciniSicilian fried rice balls
A firm risotto — the same grain as the milanese, made a day early — pressed into balls around a core of quick ragù (or a cube of mozzarella), set in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried until the shell comes off the hand and the centre comes out hot and dense. Why the rice has to be made the day before, why the seam goes under, and why the fry runs on a temperature rather than a guess: the frying page and the rice page do the work.
Italian · ~30 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 12
Risotto alla milanesethe saffron risotto
Carnaroli rice toasted until it reads as a clear, dry glass, wine off the pan, warm stock in by the ladle until the grain holds a loose, wavy coat, and a final off-the-heat fold of butter and parmesan that does the finishing. The dish is the grain and the liquid; the saffron is the color, and the stock is the body.
Italian · ~35 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
Tiramisùtiramisu
A mascarpone cream set with beaten yolk, built up through layers of ladyfingers given a one-second coffee dip, resting overnight, dusted with cocoa when the plate is near. The name means "pull me up," and the dish does two small moves: a soak that has to stay short, and a cream that has to set cold — the custard page does half the work, the marinating page does the other.
Italian · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 6
Baking
Browniebutter, sugar, and the two bowls
The dense chocolate slab: butter and dark chocolate melted together, the two-bowl split — the egg-sugar aerated in one, the flour dry in the other — brought together as few times as they'll go, and baked just past the wet centre. Where the sponge wants the air held to the end, the brownie wants it broken: the dough logic stops earlier, the crumb stays dense and glossy, and the egg-sugar ribbon gives the surface its shine. The butter is the note — the fat, in the crumb.
Baking · ~50 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 8
Country loafsourdough, the wild-yeast leaven
The whole-leaven loaf: no commercial yeast, no sugar, a stiff levain and a wet dough doing all the rising. The flavour is the point — the levain carries a mild tang and the deep, toasty, almost nutty note that a commercial dough can't, because a living culture works on the crumb over hours while a packet yeast only puffs it. The dough logic is the same as the rest of the site's breads — the gluten develops in gentle folds, and the shape is the seam and score — but the schedule is a day, not an afternoon.
Baking · ~1440 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 1
Croissantthe lamination, in full
The lamination, in full: a four-ingredient dough, a sheet of cold butter trapped inside it, rolled and folded until the two are stacked a few hundred layers deep, then baked until the butter steams the pastry into a honeycomb. It is the site's most temperature-disciplined page — the whole craft is a narrow window, a few degrees wide, between the butter cracking and the butter melting. The dough itself is the simplest on the list (flour, water, a pinch of sugar, a little yeast); everything after that is the sequence, and the sequence is the recipe.
Baking · ~1440 min · difficulty 5/5 · serves 12
Shortbreadthe one-to-two ratio biscuit
The ratio is the whole recipe: one part cold butter to two parts flour, a little sugar to taste, and no leaven of any kind — the biscuit's only rising is the butter melting into the crumb in the oven, and the only technique is the dough logic stopped dead: cut the butter into the flour, press it into shape, and bake it pale. The crumb is what happens when the gluten is left undeveloped and the butter keeps the layers flaky. That is the entire page.
Baking · ~60 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 16
Focacciathe pan bread, dimpled and oiled
The Italian dough at its most relaxed: flour, water, yeast, salt, and enough olive oil that the crust stays soft and the crumb stays open. What you see on the table — the dimples, the oil pooling in them, the salt sitting on top — is not decoration, it is the move: the dough goes in a well-oiled pan, gets dimpled while it's still slack, and bakes into an oil-soaked sheet that is pulled apart by hand rather than cut. The dough logic is there in full, but the finish is the section's: the yeast does the rising, the pan does the shaping, and the oil does the crust.
Baking · ~120 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 6
Muffinthe two-bowl rule
The fast leaven, done right: the wet and the dry are each mixed to just combined, and then the two are brought together as few times as they'll go. That is the whole technique — the dough logic on the fast side, where the leaven is a chemical lift (baking powder) instead of a living one, and the batter's job is to hold the air the powder releases, not to develop a gluten net. Overmix it and the air collapses into a dense, gummy muffin; undermix and it's lumpy. The 12–15 s between the two bowls meeting and the spatula stopping is the difference.
Baking · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 12
Victoria spongetwo layers, jam, and cream
The cake, in its purest form: two layers of aerated batter, stacked, with one thin layer of jam and cream between. The whole technique is on the muffin page, but run in the opposite direction — the egg and sugar beaten to the ribbon, so the dough logic runs to the end and the aeration is the lift. The cream and the jam do the middle layer, and the cake is the base. That is the whole page.
Baking · ~50 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 8
Restaurant
Baguette
The four-ingredient dough of water, flour, salt and yeast, done right: mixed, rested, folded, rested again, shaped on the counter, scored, and baked with a steam that holds the crust open for the first ten minutes. The corner-bakery loaf is not a secret — it's a schedule, and the schedule is the recipe.
Restaurant · ~180 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
Bistro onion soup
Four onions, sliced fine and sweetened the long way — a good half an hour on the low side, in a browned butter, until they are deep gold and soft — lifted by the white wine, built on a long stock, and topped with a slice of baguette under a browned mornay cheese. The whole flavor of the soup is in the first forty minutes, and none of it is hot.
Restaurant · ~55 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Boeuf bourguignon
The beef, browned and buried in wine, the stock, the mirepoix and the herb, and braised at the gentle 90–95 °C hold until it pulls from the bone with a twist. The pearl onion and the mushroom come in the last 30 min, and the sauce is reduced to the glaze before the plate is set. The dish is the braise and the stock, in one pot, and the one that the meat temperature article's slow world does for the collagen.
Restaurant · ~180 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 4
Béchamel, the exemplar
A bechamel made once, and made for the *why*: the roux cooks out its raw taste before the milk hits, the milk goes in in thirds so it can't clump, and the butter at the end is what keeps the whole thing from tasting like a paste. The dish is the sauce, cooked once and used in a dozen.
Restaurant · ~15 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Cassoulet
The white beans, soaked, parboiled, and layered with the duck and the country sausage in the deep pot, and baked slow at 160 °C while the liquid is taken in and the crust is set over the top. The dish is braise and bake on the same register: the braise article's slow world, done in the oven instead of the pot, and the meat temperature article's collagen, in the duck, at the temperature the bake holds.
Restaurant · ~840 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
chicken tikka in a masala sauceChicken tikka masala
The British-Indian workhorse, the way it's actually made: the chicken is marinated, cooked hard and dry (the tandoor step) until the outsides are charred and the insides are still a little dense, and then the masala sauce is built separately — onions, tomatoes, the dry masala fried in oil, cream at the end — and the chicken is dropped into it in the last two minutes of the plate. The chicken is not cooked in the sauce, and the sauce is not a thing the chicken is marinated in. That distinction is what separates the restaurant version from the home version, and it's the whole dish.
Restaurant · ~45 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Creamy mushroom tagliatelle
The trattoria's funghi della casa: mushrooms seared hard in batches until they brown, the pancetta taken off the heat and set aside, the wine lifting the first brown off the pan, and the cream — which is the last thing that goes in, not the first — folded into the starchy water of the tagliatelle off the heat, with the parmesan and a long grind of the black pepper on the plate.
Restaurant · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Escargots de Bourgogne
The Paris-bistro first course: snails in their shells, baked in a brown (beurre noisette) butter with plenty of garlic and parsley and cracked pepper, eaten with a little escargot fork out of the shell and the last of the butter mopped up with a piece of toasted bread. The butter is the sauce and the sauce is the butter; when the garlic and parsley go into it they're not a coating, they're the flavor, and the whole dish is the same one as the one at every bistro you've had it at.
Restaurant · ~30 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
foldedFrench omelet
Three eggs, whisked with a pinch of salt and a little water (about 1–2 tbsp), set in a low pan and folded out onto the plate in about a minute and a half — the Paris-bistro breakfast in its plainest form: soft, pale, lightly browned, and finished with a knob of cold butter. The whole difficulty is the temperature, and the whole flavor is the butter.
Restaurant · ~5 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 1
갈비찜Galbijjim — bone-in braised beef short rib
Bone-in short ribs, marinated in soy, garlic, brown sugar and a coarse grind of black pepper, then braised fully submerged until the meat gives but still clings to the fork — and the braising liquid reduced at the end until it glazes. The bone stays on the plate for a reason: it is the plate's edge, and the glaze pools around it.
Restaurant · ~120 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Grilled ribeye
A thick ribeye, seared hard on a fierce surface, then rested off it until the juices settle — the steakhouse plate, written to the resting method because that is the move that separates the plate from the grey, wet slab it becomes without it.
Restaurant · ~35 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Lobster & cheddar mac and cheese
A proper mornay — flour, brown butter, milk, two cheeses — baked over elbow macaroni in a thick sauce and a browned top, with the lobster added at the end so it stays sweet and uncooked-looking. The whole plate is the same dish as every other mac & cheese on a menu; the difference is that the sauce was built at the pass, not mixed from a packet.
Restaurant · ~50 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4
Order of operations — a bistro two-course dinner
A two-course dinner — a steak tartare ahead of a steak frites — run the way the bistro runs a service: one clock, two stations, and the raw course plated first and held cold while the seared course starts on the schedule and lands second. Same food, different order; the order is the meal.
Restaurant · ~50 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
Pâtissier flan
Six yolks and a cream-and-milk custard, set slowly in a water bath, cold for hours, and unmolded at the last second so the caramel that was cooked first and poured down comes up as the sauce on top. The patience is the whole method — the custard is set by a heat too gentle to spoil it, and it is held until the setting finishes on the cold side of things.
Restaurant · ~300 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Pommes de terre au fourRustic baked potatoes
Starchy spuds, oiled and salted before they go in, baked until the centers read 96 °C — then split and finished with brown butter, crème fraîche, and chives. Crisply salted skin, fluffy inside, no paper bag required.
Restaurant · ~75 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Salmon in brown butter
A skin-on fillet, seared hot on one side and rested off the heat, with the sauce built in the same pan: the butter taken past its foam into the nut-brown, the wine lifting the first brown off the bottom, and the whole thing finished off the heat with the lemon and the capers, poured over the fillet while the coat is still a sheet. The fish is the plate; the butter is the sauce.
Restaurant · ~25 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Spatchcock roast chicken
A whole bird flattened — the backbone out, the breastbone pressed — so it roasts flat on a sheet in the time a whole chicken takes to brown. Everything sits the same distance from the heat, the legs do not shade the breast, and the same pan ends with a jus on the side. The move is a knife move first, and the oven takes it from there.
Restaurant · ~60 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Steak frites
A thick steak, seared hard on a hot pan, rested, and finished with a simple butter-garlic-thyme pan sauce — served with twice-fried french fries that are crisp outside, fluffy inside. The plate is the same one at every corner bistro; the difference is that the fries were cooked twice, and the steak was rested before it met the pan sauce.
Restaurant · ~40 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 2
Steak tartare
The beef cut by the knife, no hotter than a room, and mixed in a light hand — the Paris-bistro first course, with the seasoning that goes in before the plate and the ring that holds it on one. The dish is the knife work and the plate; there is no cook to hide behind.
Restaurant · ~25 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 2
Steakhouse burger
A thick patty of 80/20 chuck, seasoned only with salt and pepper, seared hard without being touched, turned exactly once, and finished under a weight with the cheese on it, served on a butter-pressed bun. The whole dish is the restraint — the patty gets almost no attention at all, and that is the one thing the steakhouse does that a home kitchen keeps not doing.
Restaurant · ~20 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
The club sandwich
Three slices of toasted bread; roast chicken or turkey, crisp bacon, tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise; built in the order that keeps the moisture in the middle; cut into quarters and pinned with frill picks before it leaves the pass. It's the plate at every American diner, and once you know why it's built the way it is, it stops being a thing the diner does and starts being a thing you can do.
Restaurant · ~18 min · difficulty 1/5 · serves 1
Indian
Dal makhaniblack lentils, the long slow braise
Black lentils, overnight, and the long slow braise — the lentils and the tomatoes go into a single pot for hours, and the only move left is the tadka that goes in at the very end: a little ghee, cumin, a dried chili, the cumin doing the blooming and the ghee doing the body. The stock underneath — the lentils' own body, released over hours, thick and glossy — is already doing most of the sauce work. The butter and the cumin on top is the finish that ties the two ends together: the body underneath, the aroma on top.
Indian · ~300 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 6
Chana masalachickpeas, tomato, and the bloomed cumin
Chickpeas in a tomato gravy that runs on the tadka — the cumin, the garlic, the chili, all bloomed in the ghee at the start of the cook, then the onions and the tomatoes brought in over them. The sauce underneath is the tomato reduced to a deep, dark red; the body that clings to the chickpea is the lentil starch that comes off in the simmer. The ghee and the cumin on top are the finish, and the whole dish is the blooming move, run at the front of the cook rather than the back.
Indian · ~60 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Samosacrisp pastry, spiced potato
Two moves: the filling (potato, peas, the tadka bloomed through it) and the pastry (a dough that's folded, cut, and deep-fried). The deep-fry is the move that does the section's heat work — the pastry's browning edge is the sign of the oil temperature, and the biryani's sealed pot reads the same stock the other way: the bloomed spice underneath, the butter on top.
Indian · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 8
Phirniset rice milk, the cardamom on top
Rice milk, set with a cold custard logic — the rice does the rice work (the body underneath), and the coagulation is the structure that lets the dal makhani's stock sit on top without the chana masala's sauce coming through. The ghee on top is the finish, and the samosa reads the section's dough logic the other way: the bloomed spice underneath, the butter on top.
Indian · ~270 min · difficulty 2/5 · serves 4
Chicken biryanithe layered rice, the sealed pot
Rice and chicken, in layers, under a sealed lid — the rice is half cooked, the marinade is already bloomed, and the last move is the steam that finishes the rice through the meat. The rice underneath is the body, the tadka on top is the finish, and the sealed pot is the move that does both. It reads the stock of the dish — the body underneath, the aroma on top — and the chana masala's blooming in the other direction: the marinade, bloomed before the meat goes in, is the sauce of the rice.
Indian · ~120 min · difficulty 4/5 · serves 6
Naanthe tandoor dough, the blistered top
A dough that's thin, high-hydration, and cooked fast over high heat — the heat is the rule (the tandoor's equivalent, on a home pan or grill), and the blisters on the top are the sign of the heat doing the . The yeast underneath is the structure, and the ghee on top is the finish that ties the chana masala's sauce to the dal makhani's stock — the body underneath, the aroma on top.
Indian · ~75 min · difficulty 3/5 · serves 4