Japanese curry is both easy and a crowd pleaser. I saute whatever veggies I have on hand and just add curry mix and water to it (S&B medium spice is my go to brand). Serve with flatbread or rice. It's very forgiving and customizable to personal taste.

Babish’s Panko Crusted Salmon.

It’s stupid easy & relatively quick. The hardest part for me was the egg white. Had never done it before.

If you’ve never done it before, & break the yolk on the first try… don’t dump the egg, just save it for breakfast. Yes, I dumped the egg.

Link to video, I think it’s the second dish, towards the middle.

Link to recipe is in the video description.

Edit: PipedBot shamed me.Link to recipe if you don’t want to go to YouTube.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch and a glare. If you have to work on the glare, go watch Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josie Wales.

Risotto. I make one with panceta and mushrooms that can't be easier to make. And the principle is to just stir for 20' or so.

Ingredients (serves for 2)

• Risotto type rice (Arborio, Carnerolli or similar) 150 gr
• Chicken broth (homemade, if store bought then liquid, never in cubes) 1 lt
• Onion 1 medium
• Panceta 200 gr
• Mushrooms (fresh) 200 gr
• Olive oil
• White wine
• Parmesan cheese (grated or in very small chunks) 50gr
• Butter 20 gr

Prep

1. In a pot, put the broth to heat. It's not required for it to boil just to be hot.
2. Chop the onion in very small cubes, as small as the rice grain if possible (so when you are eating it, you don't feel it)
3. Chop the panceta in cubes (no bigger than your thumb)
4. In a big pot, at mid heat, put the panceta to brown and defat
5. Once the panceta is brown and you have a good fat source at the bottom, remove and reserve the panceta
6. Put the onion in the pot and use the same fat from the panceta to sauté it. If you need more, you can use olive oil.
7. Once the onion is almost translucent, put the rice and pearl the rice. From now on, you should always be mixing the rice with a big wooden spoon or similar. Never stop stirring. This will make the rice to let all the starch go, which will make your risotto creamy.
8. Once the rice is pearled, pour some wine to deglase and keep stirring.
9. Once the wine has evaporated and you hear the crackling, pour some broth until the rice is submerged, keep stirring.
10. Once your broth is evaporated and you start hearing the crackling again, put the panceta, the mushrooms and pour some more broth. Keep stirring.
11. When you see that you are low on broth and hear that the rice is crackling, check on the rice for the cooking point. It should be al dente, meaning that you should be able to bite it and feel some resistance, but it should be very edible. If you still feel it too hard, pour more broth and keep stirring.
12. When your rice is done, take the pot away from the fire, and put the parmesan cheese with the butter. Stir and mix until it's uniform and creamy.
13. Serve hot in small bowls or similar plates
14. Decorate with olive oil, fresh grinded pepper and parsley.

Go for some burgers, toast the buns, salt the tomatoes, setup caramelized onions, and use a nice cheese. Homemade buns go the extra mile.

Usually a sausage ragu and Brian Lagerstrom's foccacia. Honestly the foccacia is the real star, I make it for every guest the first time they come over for dinner, even the 2 hour version is delicious. The dough requires a little bit of work but it's straight forward and I've never had a bad result. Main course just needs to be something Italian or Italian adjacent that doesn't need the oven, since I try to have the bread ready a few minutes before serving. Ragu's a staple for us because you really just need five ingredients (pasta, crushed tomatoes, onion, garlic and italian sausage) and it's mostly just sitting around waiting for things to cook, so you have time to talk to your guests.

Wings

We have an air fryer so they come out super crispy without deep frying, and you can use different sauces to finish so that everyone is happy

If I’m not air frying I’m using my Asian wing recipe where the coating has garlic and ginger powder and brown sugar. It burns so you have to bake them, then sauce with a mixture of hoisin, sriracha, mirin. It hits a lot of delicious notes at the same time

Pasta aglio, olio, peperoncino.
Literally "pasta with garlic, oil and chili peppers": easy to learn, hard to perfectionate.

Shakshuka. One of the tastiest foods ever.

Risotto is not too hard and looks fancy

Spaghetti aglio e olio. Sounds fancy yet it could not be simpler. Cook spaghetti or linguine or my favourite angel hair pasta. Meanwhile peel and slice garlic. Heat good quality EVOO in a pan and when the pasta is nearly ready toss in the garlic (I also like to add in sliced red chilli). Once garlic starts turning light golden toss in the pasta with a little bit of the pasta water and mix together. Serve sprinkled with shaved parmesan and some finely chopped parsley, oregano, marjoram or any green herb of choice for a little bit of colour (optional). Nice crusty garlic bread on the side and for a couple of bucks and 20 minutes of your time you're sure to impress anyone.

My go-to approach is beef goulash, Austrian style. It's a bit laborious (although the steps are easy), but the dish can (and should) be prepared in advance, then you prepare a simple potato mash as you get ready for the person.

Vegetarian guest? Seitan goulash tastes really good.

Pulled pork. It takes a long time to smoke, but requires minimal effort and hard to screw up.

Pork chops in garlic-butter sauce with mushrooms. I usually serve them with mashed potatoes and steamed fresh green beans. If you don't do pork, you can do the exact same thing with chicken breasts.

3-4 thick-cut pork chops, preferably bone-in

1 cup mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

4 tablespoons butter

2-4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon fresh oregano, OR 1 teaspoon dried

1 tablespoon fresh thyme, OR 1 teaspoon dried

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup milk

2 cups chicken broth

Salt and pepper to taste

Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large oven-proof skillet, combine the butter, garlic, herbs, and mushrooms over medium-high heat.
3. When the butter has melted, push everything to the sides and add the pork chops. Sear until golden on both sides.
4. Spread the mushrooms evenly over everything, and put skillet in the oven. Bake for around 35 minutes, or until the pork chops are at 150-160 F.
5. Remove from oven and set the pork chops aside to rest. Tent foil over them to keep them warm. You can remove the mushrooms too if you want, but don't take away too much of the fat in the pan. You need whatever is in there for the gravy.
6. Put the skillet over low heat and whisk the flour into the fat in the pan. No lumps! Cook for 1-2 minutes to cook the flour and keep whisking. Whisk in the milk and chicken broth and cook until gravy is thick. Keep whisking the entire time. Flavor with salt and pepper to taste. If you want, you can add a pinch (1/8 teaspoon-ish) of red pepper flakes. It balances out the richness of the butter. You can also just put hot sauce on table, if you have spice-averse guests.

Mostly depends on the culture / palate of your guest. What I'd make for for someone who mostly eats takeout is quite different from what I'd make for someone that only eats Ramen and Kraft dinner.

Most likely I'd just make macaroni salad or macaroni casserole though, because everyone likes that.

I asked my mom for the family recipe, to use as an example in case you've never had it.

Cook some macaroni noodles and then cool it under running water. Cube cheese, ham, pickles. Hard boil a couple of eggs. I like them smashed to a paste and mixed in with the salad, but my family just has them as a side dish. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl with Miracle whip and seasoning salt.

If you want, you can make it a casserole by skipping the pickles + eggs, adding a cup of shredded cheese, and mixing it all together with a can of condensed tomatoe soup. Then bake it in a casserole dish until all the cheese melts.

Butter Chicken (curry), usually. It's so stupid easy, it just takes a few hours of marinade and simmer time. But you're just frying chicken cubes, boiling together tomatoes, onions, spices etc, blending it together, and serving. Couldn't be simpler, and it is always delicious.

Hoisin chicken. Adapted from a recipe I've not been able to find. Super easy, very few ingredients, ingredients are generally easy to find, and it's super quick to make. Doesn't make a huge mess, either. Goes well with simple rice and veg.

Ingredients:

• Chicken of choice (thigh is best, can substitute breast though haven't tried), diced into small chunks (three quarter- to one-inch)
• Hoisin sauce
• Garlic, minced finely
• Ginger, minced finely (I'm usually lazy and use prepared ginger paste from the store)
• Red pepper flakes (optional)
• Salt, to taste (I omit, as I find the hoisin sauce plenty salty)
• Pepper, to taste (I recommend white pepper, though black pepper can be used)
• Neutral oil, like vegetable

Instructions:

Note: you may need to work in smaller batches. Don't crowd the pan.

1. At med-high to high heat, quickly cook the chicken in the pan using a bit of oil. Cook until nearly cooked through, but just barely under. Season while cooking with salt and pepper to taste.
   • Note: I like to add the red pepper flakes halfway through cooking the chicken to hydrate the flakes in the oil/juices, which helps bring out some extra flavour from the flakes, seasoning the chicken itself. This makes it a bit spicier though.
2. Push the chicken to the edges of the pan.
3. Put approx. 1 tsp (or to taste) each of garlic and ginger into the centre of the pan and very quickly saute until golden. Do not let them go over golden.
4. Pour in just enough hoisin to coat the chicken. Pour straight into the ginger and garlic, and mix well to form a sauce. Stir quickly for a few seconds, you'll find the sauce thickens slightly at the high heat.
   • Note: if you didn't add the red pepper flakes earlier to the chicken, you can add it now.
5. Toss the chicken into the sauce. You should have a light, but thorough, coating.

Repeat in batches for all remaining chicken.

Edit to add: apologize for no measurements. As a humble home food-maker (as if I'd call myself a home chef!) I truly have no clue how much I use of much of anything. Sorry, I tried. Cook as you like it. Like extra garlic? Add more. Don't like garlic? Add only a little, or none. Hypertension? Don't add salt. Not a part of the 21st-century hypertension epidemic? Add salt to your liking.

Panna cotta is so easy to do

#food/dessert

[!summary] 👪 Serves: 6 people Difficulty: Average Time: 20 Minutes Additional Info: No Oven

Necessary Ingredients

• Cream 50 cl
• Powdered sugar 75 gr
• Baileys 45 ml
• 2 sheets Gelatine

Instructions

1. Soak the two gelatine sheets in cold water for at least 10 minutes.
2. In a saucepan, heat the liquid cream with the sugar and stir until the sugar has completely melted (without boiling the cream).
3. Turn off the heat
4. Add the Baileys liqueur and stir.
5. Add the gelatine, squeezing out as much water as possible, and stir until smooth.
6. Pour into container

Bonus information

Never put gelatine in a saucepan on the heat. For more flavour you can put a little Baileys on top

Grilled cheese. They turn out surprisingly good using a cast iron pan

Pan-seared sea scallops.

The key here is to get good scallops which were flash frozen, NOT stored in liquid.

All you need is a good skillet, a hot flame, and several tablespoons of good quality butter.

Watch a bunch of videos for various techniques. My preferred method is just basting them in butter.

Don't crowd the pan. Don't burn the butter. Don't overcook the scallops.

Master this dish and you will always have a last-minute gourmet option.

Serve with a mixed-green salad, grits, white wine.

Perfect for date night because it is classy, satisfying, decadent, but also light, and won't stain your clothes if it you happen to have a slip.

Note: the quality of this dish 100% depends on the quality of the scallops.

Sometimes, even when you pay top dollar, you can get a batch that are really bland.

Good news is that generally you can get great frozen ones from Costco, and keep them in your freezer, ready to go.

If you have time, and a lot is riding on the meal, do a test scallop in advance to make sure it's delicious. If it isn't find a new plan.

Steak. Medium. Mashed potatoes. Onion and garlic in the oven. Chopped sour salty salad.

Simple to make. All parts are ready at the same time if you prepare it in the right order.

Corn beef hash.

Fettuccine with Alfredo sauce, chicken breast, and broccoli. It's simple and delicious, while pairing excellently with an appetizer salad too. Bonus points if garlic bread is included

Max and cheese.

Without using the box instructions.

These are super simple, take under 20 minutes, and people love them.

For a dinner: Baked salmon with lemon, butter, garlic and dill. Saute some spinach on the side. For a lunch: Sandwich. Crusty baguette, a soft cheese of some sort, slices of green apples. Maybe a cured meat like prosciutto if you are feeling that. Takes no time at all to make but feels fancy. For a breakfast: Oatmeal with guava paste. It turns pink which is fun, then toast some slivered almonds in a bit of butter and server them hot on top.

Chicken Tikka with a Carrot Biryani. You marinade the chicken overnight for all the flavour and then pan sear it for a few minutes and oven in a covered dish for 25. The biryani is basically just garlic, chilli, onion and grated carrot with some turmeric and garam massala, with rice dumped in. Frozen peas and fresh coriander optional.

Both take about 30 mins cook time, prep can all be done beforehand, always turns out nicely and gets compliments.

A combination of these two recipes with some tweaks. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/carrot-biriyani https://butteroverbae.com/chicken-tikka-recipe/

I can make a mean stir fry. Basically anything on a grill or stovetop

Penne a la vodka and apple almond crunch salad

Korma based on Patak's Korma paste. Onions (1-2 depending on size), chopped Chicken breast (1000g), Korma paste. Let it brown a bit. Put in coconut milk (800ml), let it simmer for 20-30 min. Put in Korma paste to taste. Now put in cream (200-250ml) and put in more Korma paste to taste. Serve with rice.

Things to watch out for:

• The korma paste needs to be cooked for a minute or so before it tastes good. Putting some in after cooking will taste terrible.
• The cream should be cooked as short as possible or it will coagulate. That won't affect the taste, but it will affect looks and texture. So it should be seasoned as close to correct as possible before you put in the cream.

If you have more time and want to impress more: Juicy Lucy Burgers.

For the patty you need ground meat (1000g), finely chopped onions (2-3 depending on size), salt, pepper and worcestershire sauce (2-4 tea spoons).

You then spread the meat really thin on a glass cutting board (or other really smooth surface, worst case aluminium foil works too). Slice some cheese really thin and place it on the meat. Put another thin layer of meat on top of the cheese and "seal" the cheese into the meat, so that it's completely covered on all sides. Lift the meat from the board using a big knife and fry it in a pan.

Serve in a brioche bun with toppings of your choice.

Regarding the cheese: since the cheese will be getting much more heat than cheese usually does on a burger, don't use the usual processed soft cheese,but instead real cheese like Gauda (if you want it mild), Emmentaler, or if you want something really special, some harder kind of blue cheese (I am using Österkron, but I am sure it's not internationally avaliable).

I usually just go for lasagna, either classical or a vegetable lasagna. I wouldn't say it's terribly impressive, but most people like it. And it has the huge advantage of being able to be prepared in advance, so I save myself the trouble of getting extremely stressed over finishing the meal in time but not to early. The béchamel sauce might take a few times to get right but after that it's not hard to prepare.

Chicken schnitzel. Can’t really mess it up and it’s always good.

If the person can eat spicy, I really like chicken and cheese buldak. It's basically shake and bake.

I follow Maangchi's recipe minus the rice cakes and sub chicken thigh for breast (because dark meat is always better). Marinate everything in a zip lock bag and refrigerate for one day before cooking. Makes it extra flavorful and spicy. I like to eat it with rice and a side of sliced cucumbers.

It's simple but oh so good.

Pasta with a from scratch tomato sauce. Use candy tomatoes, slice in half. Heat in pan at medium high heat.

While heating, add sweet red wine until slightly covering bottom of pan. Add generous oregano, a few pinches of salt, generous black ground pepper, 1 spoonful of pre-minced garlic, 1table spoon of butter.

Use a spatula or potato masher to mash the tomatoes and stir everything together. Use a little milk to thicken the sauce if you want.

While that's going, cook pasta as normal, once ready, strain and dump pasta into the heated pan with sauce. Mix together well and add a few spoons of parmisian cheese if you would like. Otherwise, sprinkle with a little more oregano and serve in a bowl or plate.

If you wanna be fancy, place a single leaf of basil on the top of the pasta lol.

Mussels. They are cheaper than clams, easy to cook, can taste just as good, and easy to make fancy.

Get a lamb tagine recipe down, and work out all the trimmings, it’s pretty easy, and it makes a proper spread with pretty minimal effort. The tagine is the only real cooking, and it’s pretty relaxed. Then do a decent couscous (or CPU’s void as autocorrect would have it), with lots of stock, butter, and zatar, get some decent flat breads, and then bung out a whole load of mezze bits like humous/olives/stuffed bell peppers etc. It looks like loads of effort, but it’s actually cruisy, and it tastes fantastic

Beef gyudon / beef bowl

• thinly sliced shortplate
• onion
• garlic
• japanese soy sauce
• mirin
• sesame oil
• water
• salt & pepper

Gnocchi with green asparagus in butter and lemon juice and zest. Optional sage in butter. Finish with parmesan. Also easy to veganize.

I have a pasta maker attachment for my stand mixer, and it makes it surprisingly easy to make fresh pasta. So I'll knead together some semolina, egg, and warm water until I get a nice dough (using the stand mixer, of course), then feed it through the pasta maker attachment to make fettuccine. Boil and make a simple sauce with browned butter, pasta water, a splash of heavy cream, a spoonful of whole grain mustard, a spoonful of garlic paste, then topped with some freshly grated pecorino and a drizzle of olive oil.

Sounds fancy, and it does take a bit more time to make the pasta from scratch, but it's not hard at all and it's ludicrously delicious. Plus, 99% of people are impressed by even the idea of fresh pasta.

If I'm going for "easy" as in "fast", too, I'll use a package of storebought gnocchi and chop in a zucchini instead.

Chinese home cooking is great for this. One of my favourites:

• Cook some sort of long noodles. You can go fancy with this, but spaghetti are fine.
• for each person, put a bit of soy sauce at the bottom of something like a large cereal bowl, add warm-ish noodles.
• put a little pile of thinly sliced scallion greens and chili flakes on top.
• heat some vegetable oil to almost smoking and carefully pour it over — just enough to fry the chili and greens, and lightly coat the noodles.

Quick and simple, super tasty (and even vegan friendly if that matters to you).

Not really to impress, but everybody likes a good paella.

Easier on a gas than with embers as I tried the latter for first time and was quite challenging.

Just ask first if everybody is ok throwing in rabbit or chicken, not everyone is fond of rabbit.

After many failed attempts I can now semi-consistently roll a proper burrito

Chicken Broccoli Braid from Pampered Chef. Trust me, it's worth it.

I make this copycat ravioli from a restaurant I love.

Find some butternut squash or pumpkin stuffed ravioli. Fresh sage. Aleppo chili spice, some jumbo shrimp, and garlic mince or chopped fresh (like 3-4 bulbs).

Melt butter in your pan, fry up the sage. Set aside.

Boil your water for pasta. More butter to pan, cook the shrimp. When both sides are pink it's done, don't turn them to rubber by over cooking. Set aside and rinse out your pan.

Boil the pasta and when it's half done, more butter in the pan. Medium to high heat, it's called brown butter sauce. You stir and let the butter fry until frothy. Add garlic and Aleppo at the end. I sometimes add a dab of truffle oil at the end too, depending on taste and if I have it.

Drain pasta and stir in sauce. Plate, and top with shrimp and sage. Tiny pinch of truffle salt on top if you've got it, or pink salt if not.

It's fucking delicious.

Gyoza and chicken onigiri, neatly and cutely arranged of course

All my savoury stuff tends to fall flat. But I am pretty good at baking. I made a bakewell tart recently and it was killer. Also bread. I make some pretty mean breads. Also, whilst I haven't done it in a while, I used to make cheese, specifically soft rind cheeses like camembert. Not east to prepare, takes about 8 weeks, but very impressive.

One more, homemade pasta. Whilst I don't really think homemade pasta tastes any better than store bought, people do find it impressive. And a pasta roller is pretty cheap.

Beef Wellington with a red wine sauce, if I have money to blow. If not, either Mongolian Beef, Gumbo, or any number of other things, depending upon the person.

Spaghetti with Salmon.

Smores

Sushi/maki. Just need a good recipe for cook the rice

Pasta with tuna sauce was my strong card for years.

Recently I learned how to make creamy rice with no need for special purpose rice, so it became the preferred option as it can can take any toppings I can find in my fridge or pantry.

Big veggie omelet.

Cut up 2 tomatoes, 1 bell pepper, several stalks of asparagus, and half an onion into 1-inch cubes. Place in a deep frying pan, add salt & pepper, a little bit of oil, some butter, and cook them on stove top on low heat for ~5 min until all the veggies are soft and turning dark (especially asparagus.)

While the veggies are cooking, take a bowl, add 7 or 8 eggs, more salt and pepper, 1/4 cup of milk, 1 tbsp of whipped cream (optional), 1 tsp crushed garlic. Add seasoning like dried oregano and parsley, and whisk everything together.

Add the egg mix to the pan, mix well with veggies, raise the heat to high, don't mix it any more. Cook until the mix begins to rise, and the eggs on the to start bubbling. Then cover with a thin layer of shredded cheese on top.

Turn on the oven to the "broil" setting. When the cheese begins to melt, place the pan inside the oven on the middle rack. Broil for ~5 min, until the cheese starts turning light-brown. Turn the oven off, take the pan out, serve immediately.