Dishes I've made exactly once

Some of them you'll probably want to make, maybe soon!

Happy Friday, inquisitive cook!

Back when Google was a wee search engine, in the early days of the internet, there was an amusing game. The object was to try to think up a search term for which you’d get one and only one result. Do you remember? For instance, you could type something that seemed wacky but possible, like “chicken ice cream.” Maybe you’d get no hits, maybe a few (this was way back in maybe 2004), but the goal was exactly one hit. Such an outcome is no longer possible because along with an exact phrase, you’ll get a gazillion tangential hits. I just tried it for said phrase (chicken ice cream) and got 386 million.

A couple that are cracking me up:

I thought about that game because I was just recalling dishes I’ve made, over the course of a long cooking life, exactly once.

Some were just too labor-intensive, such as croissants and vol-au-vent when I was about 19 and imagined that laminating pastry was a life skill I needed. Or tempuraed shrimp and vegetables, also when I was a teen. Better to eat stellar tempura at a great tempura bar (higher chance of ethereal batter and impressive crispness).

OK if we have a little fun and I run through a few others that jump to mind? I’ll supply recipes for those I’ll want to cook again, and that you might want to make.

Baked Potatoes Stuffed with Vegetables

This dates back to one of my earliest cooking adventures, when I was still in high school. My best friend Juliet and I played hooky one day, and decided to spend the afternoon cooking. (Other truants were going surfing, or smoking weed; cooking was our tiny rebellion that day, while my single mom was at work.) We flipped through Joy of Cooking looking for something delicious to make, settling on a potato dish. Why that particular thing? Probably we didn’t have money to shop for ingredients, so had to conjure a recipe with stuff on hand. I don’t remember much about the dish, except I remember roasting and scooping the potatoes, dicing vegetables, stuffing things back in. Presumably there was more to it. Cheese? It was good. It’s not in recent editions of the ever-evolving book, so probably it wasn’t great.

Side note: Juliet and I are still besties; she’s the designer of Cooks Without Borders the website. When we were in our late 20s and both living in New York, we made gefilte fish one year for Passover at a friend’s brother’s apartment — so good! But so involved. I never attempted that particular Eastern European recipe again (don’t remember where we found it). But I could sort of image doing so, if I were ever moved to celebrate Passover again, which seems unlikely.

Fried Chicken

Deep frying has never been my thing; I spent most of my life avoiding it. Then, during early Covid — when there was nothing to do but cook, and all the chefs were live-streaming cooking classes, Wylie (who was then 23) and I made Ludo Lefebvre’s LudoBird chicken, following along with his livestream. It was insanely delicious. Will I make it again? I don’t know, maybe. It’ll help if I can think of a good use for all that frying oil afterward. If you’re a fried chicken fan, and up for a project, I do think you should treat yourself.

Bánh Xèo

Pictured at the top of this missive is a dish that’s been on my list of things to develop for way too long. It’s a thin and crispy-edged Vietnamese crèpe tinted with turmeric and filled with shrimp, pork, mushrooms and bean sprouts. At the table, you wrap it in a lettuce leaf with herbs tucked in, dip it in nuoc cham, and swoon. My dear friend An-My Lê talked me through her method ages ago, and I just have to test the recipe one more time.

Definitely on my to-do list for development later this year. Stay tuned!

Evan Funke’s Ragù Bolognese

This ragù, from Funke’s 2019 book American Sfloglino, took all day to make (including grinding all the meat and veg in a hand-cranked grinder). The actual name of the recipe is Tagliatelle al Ragù della Vecchia Scuola. Its meaty ingredients include 2 1/4 pounds of beef chuck, 1/2 pound pork shoulder, 5 oz. pancetta, 5 oz. prosciutto, 5 oz. mortadella and 5 oz. strutto — pork fat. I rolled out and cut the pasta by hand, using a rolling pin, obeying Funke’s #fuckyourpastamachine admonition. It was absolutely delicious — and so rich we couldn’t eat more than a few bites.

Hungry for Bolognese? Try this recipe instead: