Go-To Recipes

After writing the post about chasing the new, I thought about which recipes or concepts have remained in my regular cooking repertoire over the years. Many of them are weeknight meals, which is one of the reasons they are made more often. Also, the original sources are often only used as rough guidance. Although I keep fairly detailed notes on what I usually make, I don't maintain a daily log. This means this list is more of an educated guess, as no two weeks are really similar. I have some rough notes from my university days, but they only help so much.

When I was living abroad, I made so many Flammenkuchen that I became known for making them in the shared kitchen. Make a basic dough, leave it to rest, then roll it out as thinly as possible. Add crème fraîche mixed with nutmeg, salt and pepper, and your choice of toppings. Bake until crispy. Those flimsy IKEA chopping boards work well as a pizza peel in a pinch. Just make sure they don't touch the oven tray or they will melt! In my opinion, it's still one of the best recipes in terms of taste to effort, and it's still easily achievable in a home oven compared to most pizza styles.

When fennel is in season, I make an apple and fennel salad that Chefsteps published years ago. The only difference is that I add a 9:1 mix of gum arabic and xanthan gum to stabilise the dressing if I take it to work. If eaten in larger quantities as a main course, reduce the salt content. Speaking of seasonal ingredients, matjes, whether served with potatoes as a salad or on a roll, is quite common in my kitchen when it is in season. Unfortunately, I can't easily get hold of the really good ones where I currently live. Oven-roasted Brussels sprouts are a staple of my diet when they are in season, appearing on a weekly basis.

While sauerkraut has always been a staple food for me, kimchi has only recently become part of my regular culinary life. I usually make it myself as it is too prohibitively expensive to buy here. When it's hot, I often make cold buckwheat noodles with a spicy kimchi sauce and cucumbers. I first tried this in Korea last year, and it has been a staple ever since. Furthermore, bibimbap as a template is a great way to use up any leftovers.

I tried tracing back through my notes and the public record to pinpoint when my interest in Chinese cuisine began, but I can't exactly find out the first dish I cooked. It must have been 2017 or 2018 with Chinese Cooking Demystified coming up and one of their recipes. Under the first dishes I cooked was Peking Sauce pork, and I still cook it regularly, often just eating it with rice instead of the pancakes. Tianmianjiang (甜面酱) was one of those ingredients, that were a new flavour profile to me. The next in this category was Pixian Doubanjiang (郫县豆瓣酱), which is just an awesome ingredient, just make sure that you get the one from Sichuan Pixian Douban Co., Ltd without oil. It is the best variety commonly available in Europe. Mapo tofu is also a staple dish that uses this as one of its main ingredients. You can make it while the rice is cooking, and I always have all the ingredients (except for minced meat) at home. Another quick option is Dan Dan Noodles, which can be whipped up in about 10 minutes if you have all the ingredients. If I need to make something really quickly, I like to make the MSG noodles recipe or a smashed cucumber salad with chilli oil (or Lao Gan Ma when the chilli oil has run out again).

There's one recipe that I never really make in its original form: roasted carrots with couscous, pickled onions and feta. This recipe comes from The Flavor Equation, a really well thought out cookbook. I often use different flavours to roast the carrots, other than sesame and chilli, and I also use different vegetables and switch the pickled shallots for other onions. Sometimes I switch the couscous with something else, such as rice or bulgur. Partly due to this recipe, I normally always have some pickled onions in the fridge, which are a versatile topping for many things. Similarly, I often make marinated eggs in lapsang souchong, soy sauce, koji, or some other brine. They make a nice and quick addition to many meals.

I don't bake quiches that often at the moment, but when I do, I like to take inspiration from Alex the French Guy Cooking by adding spices to the pastry itself. I think it works really well and it's a technique that has really stuck with me over time. When it comes to bread and pastries, potato and onion bread is probably the most common in my rotation. Also, I started making Franzbrötchen more regularly when I first moved to a place where I couldn't get them. Fortunately, they freeze well, too.

Ultimately, everything you try expands your repertoire. This could be an actual recipe, a technique, a flavour or an entirely new idea. Furthermore, it is also a good skill to have a few things to always come back to and to become better and better at them.