Culinary no-brainers

[Shalmanese]

I was in the middle of making up a batch of kalbi short ribs today when I started thinking: sometimes, cooking is about skillfully ekeing out deep flavors from humble ingredients and impeccably balancing tastes. But with what I call "culinary no-brainers", it's just about piling on various different forms of deliciousness on top of each other in a largely haphazard way, secure in knowing the end result is going to turn out tasty no matter what.

Kalbi short ribs, with their sweet & salty & fatty & meaty & charred from sugars caramelizing on the grill flavors is a perfect example of this. Of course, Bacon is the ultimate culinary no-brainer with it's salty, fatty crunch and it's pretty easy to improve upon virtually any recipe by adding some bacon into it. But I'm interested in other favourite culinary no-brainers.

Truffles (both kinds) are great culinary no-brainers for me. When I don't have any particular inspiration for dessert, chocolate truffles are an excellent lazy way to impress people. As long as you make sure to get excellent chocolate and make the ganache correctly, you can pretty much just throw any random flavor in there and it will turn out great.

What are all of your favorite culinary no-brainers?

[Darienne]

Off the top of my head: strictly no brainer quick dessert: fresh warm scones, whipped cream, fresh fruit.

[Moopheus]

Anything with enough butter and/or whipped cream and/or chocolate is going to work for me. But you can't assume that something that is a "no-brainer" for you is universal: when it comes to taste, almost nothing is universal. You might think bacon is the ultimate, but personally I find it easy to live without. For me, I'd say cheese: good cheese, and you don't even have to cook. See, I'd make almost the same comment: most things can be improved by adding some cheese. For just about everything, there's a cheese out there that it can go with.

[Special K]

Chicken, and eggs - or should that be Eggs, and chicken?

[Peter the eater]

Pizza on the gas grill. In fact, any home made pizza will usually be as good or better than the sum of their parts.

[snowangel]

Pot stickers, perfectly pleated.

[IndyRob]

For me it's pot roast. Sear the meat on each side, come up with a braising liquid and simmer for a long time until it looks like you want to eat it. For my braising liquid I usually use some sort of beef base, but canned tomatoes are among a ton of other things that will work. Once I just wanted to get on with the simmering stage so I opened the cabinet, looked around, and came out with a couple of cans of alphabet soup. It all works. And a bit of heavy cream at the end never hurts.

[Chris Hennes]

Brownies. Undercooked? Still good. Overcooked? Still good. Beat too long? Still good. Beat too short? You get the picture.

[Jmahl]

What about Sabayon? Eggs, sugar, some liquor and heat. Served warm it makes you crazy.

[Peter the eater]

Chicken, and eggs - or should that be Eggs, and chicken?

Funny, and profound.

When we think of eggs for breakfast they're accompanied by bacon, sausage, ham, maybe a beef steak, but NEVER chicken. Why's that so in the diner world?

Were you talking about breakfast? Or was I influenced by the words Special K?

[NadyaDuke]

I remember my Dad telling me that adding sour cream to anything was like cheating, because it made everything good. Not everyone agrees, but I do!

[rooftop1000]

Lobster with butter. Now you can disect a restaurant meal with lobster being over cooked or under cooked but pretty much any lobster with butter is Good

Tracey

[Moopheus]

When we think of eggs for breakfast they're accompanied by bacon, sausage, ham, maybe a beef steak, but NEVER chicken. Why's that so in the diner world?

As a guess, I'd say it has to do with the way eggs are usually cooked in a diner: on a big steel griddle. The stuff sharing space on the griddle is often starchy (potatoes, pancakes) or fatty (sausage, etc.). Chicken isn't enough of either. Note that some relatively fatty fish (salmon, trout) also go well with eggs for breakfast.

Edited December 8, 2009 by Moopheus (log)

[IndyRob]

I'm having a hard time imagining any combination of chicken and eggs that would be appealing to me. Okay, maybe some diced chicken in an egg salad (but with a bunch of other stuff). Maybe some spiced chicken sausage masquerading as pork?

No, wait. Chopped chicken gizzard/heart/offal - properly cooked, could I think, work well in scrambled eggs.

[OliverB]

roast pork or chicken. Can't go wrong.

[Tri2Cook]

When we think of eggs for breakfast they're accompanied by bacon, sausage, ham, maybe a beef steak, but NEVER chicken. Why's that so in the diner world?

Actually I've seen quite a few diner breakfast menus that have fried chicken and eggs as an option... grits and/or waffles are usually part of the package as well. And fast food places in the south usually have chicken and egg (with or w/o cheese) biscuits on the menu. They were popularly eaten with strawberry jelly added where I lived though I prefered mustard on mine.

[Little Colleen]

caramelized onions are a no-brainer -- easy, delicious in many variations with many different things (in a tart, on a pizza, atop a meat/chicken etc). On the sweet side, whipped cream on anything, and chocolate in any form with anything.