5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.
Editor's Note: James Oseland is the editor-in-chief of Saveur Magazine. The October issue is their 150th issue.
When we were putting together the list of 150 recipes that comprise our October issue, we were faced with a deceptively straightforward question: What is an essential recipe? What I've always said - and what was reaffirmed over and over again in the production of this issue - is that a classic recipe is one that that can completely withstand the test of time.
Classic recipes are also intensely representative of the place that they come from, something that these five recipes all particularly embody. But despite their strong sense of place, they're also versatile, dishes that would work on virtually any table. Plus, and this is perhaps the most important part, they're just friggin' delicious.
Five Essential Recipes for the Home Cook
1. Cream of Tomato Soup
As North Americans, canned tomato soup is so much a part of our lives that it's almost background noise: we've cooked it, we've eaten it, we've seen the Warhol painting. But what's special about this recipe is that while making it, you as a cook start to understand how it is that this humble food has come to hold such a lofty cultural position: simple ingredients come together to make a flavor we all know deep in our souls.
2. Dry-Fried Green Beans
To really broaden your fluency as a cook, it's imperative to understand some of the basic tenets of Chinese cooking. What's interesting about this particular dish is that it operates on two levels: on one hand, it's a straightforward stir-fry, but then with the addition of a little extra oil, the entire texture of the green beans changes. They pop and blister, which creates an experience that's lightly soft and tooth-yielding on the exterior, while the inside stays crunchy. For me, that quality of contrast sums up the singular intrigue of all Chinese cooking.
3. Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
I first came to know this dish when I was 13 years old, leafing through a James Beard cookbook, and immediately it took on this connotation of extreme cooking: back in the 1970s, one clove of garlic was a lot, let alone 40. But the real revelation of this dish is that the garlic, which can be so brutally sharp when raw, becomes something else entirely as it stews and braises. It's perhaps the most important lesson a cook can learn: heat, applied properly, is almost magically transformative; even the most pungent, in-your-face ingredient can become sweet and subtle.
4. Spaghetti Carbonara
If there's one pasta dish to master beyond spaghetti and red sauce, this is the one. Garlic, pancetta, eggs, and cheese: the luscious ingredients are so simple, yet together they function as a fantastically complex and comforting whole. It's a great example of the magic that Italians do with flavor, creating foods that are robust and casual and refined all at once.
5. Chocolate Mousse
If I had to pick one dessert to eat for the rest of my life, my desert-island dessert, it would be chocolate mousse. This is another shockingly simple recipe that produces a beautifully complex result. And once you've mastered the technique (which doesn't take much work, honestly) you've got what is probably one of the two or three best things you can ever put in your mouth. It's the Ur-dessert. It's quite simply the best.
Let us know in the comments what classic recipes you think every home cook should know.
Is there someone you'd like to see in the hot seat? Let us know in the comments below and if we agree, we'll do our best to chase 'em down.
