21 recipes, showing 12
Breakfast
A Belgian waffle is thick and crisp outside, light and almost custardy inside, with deep pockets that hold butter and syrup. The lift comes from egg whites whipped on their own and folded in, so this is the recipe that teaches you to whip and fold, two skills you'll use again in cakes, soufflés and mousse.
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Breads
A good blueberry muffin is tall, tender and crackly on top, with berries all the way through. This one teaches restraint: a lumpy batter, a few quick folds and a hot oven do more for you than any special ingredient.
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Breakfast
Buttermilk and blueberries belong together: the tang sharpens the fruit, and the acid gives the batter an extra lift. This recipe teaches the one move that keeps blueberry pancakes from turning gray-purple and lopsided: the berries go onto the batter in the pan, not into the bowl.
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Soups
A thick, cheesy soup that comes down to one skill: getting cheese to melt into hot soup smoothly instead of turning grainy or stringy. Along the way you build a roux-thickened base, the same method behind many cream soups and cheese sauces, so what you learn here carries over.
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Salads
Raw broccoli, crisp bacon, a sweet-tart creamy dressing and a handful of crunch. It teaches you how to make a raw vegetable a pleasure to eat: cut it small and give the dressing time to soften it.
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Soups
This version gets a fuller, rounder pot in about an hour by simmering bone-in chicken thighs in store-bought broth, so the bones and skin add body while the meat cooks. It teaches you to sweat vegetables, keep a simmer gentle, skim, and save the seasoning for the end.
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Salads
A Cobb is a chopped salad laid out in rows, so every forkful can be a little different. It's a good way to practice several small jobs, each done well, that come together on one platter: chicken poached gently enough to stay juicy cold, bacon rendered crisp, eggs cooked just firm, and a vinaigrette you taste and set yourself.
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Salads
A creamy, tangy slaw that stays crunchy instead of sitting in a puddle. The lesson here is salting: pulling the water out of a vegetable before it ever meets the dressing.
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Soups
Make this when sweet corn is piled high at the market. It teaches you to get every bit of flavor out of the ear: the kernels, the milky pulp you scrape off the cob, and the bare cobs themselves, simmered right in the pot. Blending part of the chowder gives it body without a heavy hand of flour.
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Salads
Thin, cold cucumber slices in a sweet-sour dressing with red onion and dill. It teaches two moves you'll use again and again: salting a watery vegetable so it stays crisp, and taming raw onion in vinegar.
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Brunch
Eggs Benedict is a lesson in timing as much as cooking: a warm butter sauce, poached eggs, browned Canadian bacon and toasted muffins, all landing on the plate hot at the same moment. The hollandaise here cooks its yolks to temperature first, then takes the butter, which makes it steadier to hold while you poach.
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Breakfast
French toast turns bread that's a day past its prime into breakfast. It teaches two things you'll use far beyond this dish: making a simple custard, and cooking something egg-rich gently enough that the center sets before the outside burns.
View recipe · 4 servings