- The Michelin-starred chef Josh Emett curated and re-created 300 classic recipes around the world for his new cookbook, “The Recipe.”
- Speaking with Insider, the New Zealand-based chef shared nine essential dishes that he believed every home cook should know how to make.
- The list includes some classic staples like eggs and chicken pot pie.
- But it also includes international recipes like Ireland’s colcannon dish, China’s wonton soup, and England’s banoffee pie.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
When the Michelin-starred chef Josh Emett began working on his new cookbook, “The Recipe,” he first made a list of hundreds of dishes that he considered to be classic.
“They had to be a thing,” Emett told Insider. “They had to be something that was completely embedded in people’s culture or way of life.”
It’s safe to say Emett knows a thing or two when it comes to essential recipes, having compiled more than 300 recipes from 150 chefs from around the world for his book, which is why Insider asked the New Zealand-based chef to share the dishes he believed every home cook should learn to make.
While some are beloved staples like eggs and chicken pot pie, there are also dishes from around the world that Emett believes are easy enough for anyone to add to their repertoire.
When Insider asked the Michelin-starred chef Josh Emett to share essential recipes for every home cook, the first word that came out of his mouth was "eggs."
"They definitely should know how to make decent eggs because I think that's a staple," Emett said. "Whether they're scrambled eggs, or a really good boiled egg."
There are nearly a dozen ways to cook an egg, and they all depend on your preferences. Do you like hard-boiled or soft-boiled? Hard-scrambled or soft-scrambled? Over easy or sunny side up? And don't forget poached eggs or omelettes!
However you like your eggs, just make sure to keep practicing with them.
"Practice makes perfect," Emett said. "The first time you make something you're going to cock it up, it's not going to go well for anyone. The second time you'll figure it out, the third time you'll get pretty good, and the fourth time you'll probably really start to enjoy it and really start to figure out what you can do."
You can find multiple egg recipes in Emett's book, "The Recipe"
Emett believes every home chef should master a chicken pot pie.
The origins of chicken pot pie are said to date as far back as the ancient Greeks, who served a mixture of chicken and vegetables on an open pastry shell in a dish that they called Artocreas.
Chicken pot pies were also popular in the Roman Empire, where they were served at lavish banquets and were said to sometimes have "live birds under the crust," according to the Los Angeles Times.
Meat pies of all sorts have since become staples around the world, and in America it's especially common to find chicken pot pies in our supermarket freezers.
But Emett believes chicken pot pies can be "very satisfying to make" at home, and has some tips for turning the recipe into a "quick midweek option."
"We all love a pie with a flaky pastry top, which makes this the perfect family-friendly dish that will win hearts every time," he said. "Just buy a cooked chicken and stock, both the best quality you can get your hands on - free range and organic is my preference."
You can find chef Bruce Poole's chicken pot pie recipe on pages 206 - 208 of Emett's book.
Spaghetti alla carbonara can easily be made in 10 minutes, according to Emett.
There are two main theories as to how spaghetti alla carbonara - an Italian dish of eggs, guanciale (Italian cured meat from pork cheek), black pepper, and pecorino Romano cheese - came about.
The first known reference of the dish can be found in the 1957 American guidebook "Eating in Italy," according to The Houston Chronicle. Many believe that the recipe was created in World War II, when Italian cooks combined the rations of bacon and eggs given to them by American soldiers with their own local cheese and pasta.
But others say that the dish was actually invented by the "carbonari," an Italian word for workers who made charcoal by burning wood. They say that as these workers mixed pasta, cheese, and cured meat for their meals, specks of ash from the charcoal would fall into the dish - black pepper was said to have been introduced to the dish later to pay homage to this.
However spaghetti alla carbonara came about, Emett loves that the classic Italian dish "can be knocked up in 10 minutes."
"This is a dish you could make when in a hurry or to impress friends," he said. "And it's a must-have in any cook's repertoire."
You can find chef Giorgio Locatelli's recipe for spaghetti alla carbonara on page 50 of Emett's book.
Wonton soup is a staple at Chinese restaurants around the world, but Emett advises that the recipe by acclaimed Chinese-American chef Ken Hom is "the only version you will need."
"A delicious broth with delicate parcels of pork and prawn, this is a clean and fresh soup that will erase away all the stresses of the day," Emett added.
Hom describes wonton soup as an "authentic Chinese classic" that "somehow managed to avoid being corrupted beyond recognition."
"Why this is so is unclear," Hom wrote in his memoir "Easy Family Dishes." "Of course, wontons are small dumplings, and dumplings in any form, whether fried, poached, or steamed, are universally popular. Perhaps it is simply that they sell themselves as they are, and Chinese chefs wisely stayed with the original."
You can find chef Ken Hom's recipe for wonton soup on CKBK or page 26 of Emett's book.
"Banoffee pie is such a classic, and I've never met anybody who has been able to resist a slice," Emett said. "The combination of caramel, bananas, a crunchy base, and fresh cream is brilliant."
Banoffee pie is an English dessert that was invented at The Hungry Monk Restaurant in Sussex, England, by the owner Nigel Mackenzie and his chef Ian Dowding in 1971.
Dowding revealed on his website that banoffee pie was the adaptation of an American dessert called Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie. Dowding made the dessert for Mackenzie, who told him: "Surely we can make this even better." After they experimented with adding apples and mandarin oranges, Mackenzie suggested bananas.
"Straight away, we knew we had got it right," Dowding writes. "Like the classic combinations of strawberries and cream, bacon and eggs, and sausage and mash, it is something that is more than just the sum of its parts."
Mackenzie called their creation "Banoffi," and the name stuck. In 1997, it was officially recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary.
Emett's tip? Add just "a touch of sea salt" in the caramel filling.
You can find chef Curtis Stone's recipe for banoffee pie on page 360 of Emett's book.
Colcannon is a classic Irish dish that combines mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage, as well as spring onions and butter.
The dish emerged in the mid-18th century and was traditionally served on Halloween in Ireland, according to Smithsonian Magazine. A coin, rag, or stick was cooked inside the mashed potatoes as a way to predict one's future.
"A coin meant wealth in the coming year, a rag meant poverty, and a stick meant your spouse was going to beat you," Dublin-based chef Dr. Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire told the magazine.
The trinkets have since disappeared from the dish, but Emett loves the "super simple and very cost-effective" recipe.
"This is the perfect side dish to a piece of fish or grilled meat," he added.
You can find chef Darina Allen's recipe for colcannon on page 134 in Emett's book.
Emett calls Quiche Lorraine one of his "favorite dishes of all time."
"You can eat it warm or cold the next day, and it's also great for picnics or for a light lunch with friends, served with a very simple salad," he said.
While Quiche Lorraine can be found on the menu of most cafés in France, its origins can actually be traced back to Germany (quiche comes from the German word "kuchen," which means cake).
The dish originated as an open pie of heavy cream, eggs, and bacon or chopped ham served on a brioche pastry. Cheese, particularly the soft Swiss varieties Emmental or Gruyère, was added to the recipe later on.
You can find Annie Smithers' Quiche Lorraine recipe on page 314 of Emett's book.
Pacific Island-style cured fish is huge in New Zealand.
"Coming from New Zealand, this is a dish you see a lot on menus across the country, given that we are so close to the Pacific Islands," Emett told Insider.
"When you have the ability to catch and buy extremely fresh fish, a cured fish dish is the way to go. It's simple to prepare and the coconut milk really makes it."
Emett included MasterChef judge Monica Galetti's recipe for the dish, which has been called "ceviche with a Samoan twist," in his book.
There are only six ingredients in this fresh dish: stone bass fillets, tomatoes, lemon, celery, spring onions, and coconut milk. Galetti advises using sea bass if you can't find stone bass.
You can find Galetti's recipe for Pacific Island-style cured fish on the BBC's website or page 170 of Emett's book.
Fried chicken and gravy is a favorite in Emett's home.
"Who doesn't love fried chicken?" Emett said. "This recipe is next level and, although it requires some planning - as the recipe calls for an overnight brine followed by a buttermilk marinade - it's still really simple. This is one of my kids' favorite dishes."
And his kids aren't alone - fried chicken has been beloved for centuries. A recipe for fried chicken is said to have appeared in a 4th century Roman cookbook, and the dish was embraced by Americans as early as the 1830s.
The dish is still hugely popular today, from dedicated fried chicken fast-food restaurants like KFC and Popeyes, to its many variations in Southern cuisine, where one can enjoy fried chicken in the form of chicken fried steak (the official state meal of Oklahoma) to Nashville's hot chicken (which swaps out the gravy for a spicy sauce).
You can find chef Sean Brock's fried chicken and gravy recipe on pages 202 - 204 in Emett's book.
You can buy "The Recipe" on Amazon.
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