6 recipes
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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Breakfast
A breakfast burrito is three small jobs, crisp potatoes, browned sausage and soft eggs, timed to land in a warm tortilla together. It teaches you to run two pans at once and to roll a burrito that holds, and it freezes well, so one batch can cover the week.
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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.
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Eggs
A frittata is an open-faced omelet that sets slowly instead of being folded, so it forgives you in ways an omelet won't. It happily takes whatever vegetables and cheese are in the refrigerator, and it teaches two things every egg dish depends on: getting the water out of the filling, and setting eggs with gentle heat.
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Breakfast
Fried eggs on warm corn tortillas, with creamy beans underneath and a cooked tomato and chile sauce spooned around them. Everything here is simple on its own; the dish comes together because each part is seasoned and hot at the same moment. It teaches charring vegetables for a salsa, frying the salsa to deepen it, and cooking eggs under a lid.
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Potatoes
Crisp, lacy edges and a tender middle, from little more than potatoes, onion and a hot pan. They're the classic Hanukkah latke and an everyday side across Central and Eastern Europe. They teach you how to get water out of grated vegetables, keep the starch that comes with it, and shallow-fry at a steady heat.
View recipe · 4 servings