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I’ve loved shirred eggs ever since I first sampled them in a Paris brasserie years ago. But I didn’t know exactly how to make them until I came across the carefully instructive recipe in Julia Child’s masterful tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, where they were called oeufs sur le plat or oeufs miroir (in deference to their shimmering surface). Here’s my favorite version, which I invariably make when I have plucked the packet of giblets from the cavity of a chicken. It should always include a plump liver—the cook’s treat.

The difference between a frittata and an omelet, as I see it, is that the frittata cooks very slowly and will be somewhat more firm, so that it can suspend a number of different garnishes nicely arrayed in a pattern, with their flavors complementing one another. I always slip my frittata under the broiler at the end, so that the cheese scattered on top browns. This is another dish that welcomes improvisation.

Here’s a soup to warm your heart even on the bleakest day of winter. Use it as a guideline, and make your own innovations according to what you have on hand. The beans are very nourishing, the meat accent lends heartiness, and the greens are healthy, giving balance and color. It’s interesting how cooks of the past just knew these things instinctively.

This mock bouillabaisse is so scrumptious that you would never know it had anything “left over” in it. You do have to stop and pick up a dozen or so fresh mussels and a few clams the day you’re making it, but otherwise everything else is at hand, and you can put this together in half an hour. I am assuming, of course, that you have a good fish stock in your freezer; if not, plan to make this after you’ve had a lobster or a supper of steamed mussels and have some of that intense lobster or mussel broth left. Otherwise use clam juice, diluted by Half with water because it is quite strong.

Steamed mussels make a lovely dish to eat alone slowly, plucking the plump flesh from the shells as messily as you like and sopping up the heavenly liquor with chunks of French bread.

Make this simple shrimp dish often, but only recently did I discover how good it is served on a bed of farro (see page 190), which Lidia Bastianich introduced me to. It’s also delicious with rice, grits, or polenta. You’ll get a good two meals out of this amount.

When I spotted this appealing whole fish at Citarella, just about a pound, I thought that it would take well to roasting, and it did. I love to tackle a whole fish by myself because it is such pleasantly messy work. I made sure the fishmonger left the head on when it was gutted and scaled, because I wanted to relish the cheeks, as Irene Kuo’s husband taught me to do when we went out for a Chinese dinner to celebrate the publication of her book, The Key to Chinese Cooking. He carefully plucked out the cheeks with his chopsticks and offered them to me ceremoniously.

Those little bits of fish that you didn’t finish, or that you purposely put aside for another meal, take on new life in these scrumptious fish cakes. My rule of thumb is to use equal parts cooked fish and potatoes. If the fish you are using has been fried, scrape off the crusty exterior, because you want the cakes to be smooth inside.

Salmon is probably the fish that Americans cook most often. It is readily available, quick to prepare, and can be dressed in many different ways. I always buy a bigger portion than I need, so I have some for the next day. I find searing the fillet in a hot skillet on both sides, and then letting it finish in the oven briefly, is a good way to keep the salmon tasty on the outside and moist inside.

Bluefish and mackerel are both rather fatty fish, and they take well to broiling, particularly when the fillet sits on a bed of flavorful vegetables and they exchange flavors. I also like this preparation because it requires only one pan. If it’s a handsome fireproof baking dish, it can come right to the table. Otherwise, scoop everything up with a spatula and serve on a warm plate.

We used to get as a Christmas present from James Beard a whole genuine Southern ham, and it sustained us throughout the winter months. But it’s not so easy for the person living alone to cope with that much ham. My solution is to buy about a 1-pound slice of ham and bake it. I can enjoy it in this old family recipe, which gets rid of the usual watery, over salted taste that most of our commercial hams have today and gives the meat a wonderful flavor. You can have a few good slices of it the first night for dinner, and the leftovers are there to be used in all kinds of ways.

Recently I stumbled upon a package in the meat counter of my nearby supermarket that contained 1/3 pound each of ground beef, pork, and veal—just enough to make a small meatloaf for two, or for one with some welcome leftovers. I was elated, not only because I wanted to make a small meatloaf and I’d found it so hard to get the mix that I needed in modest amounts, but also because I felt it was a sign of the times. Maybe supermarkets are finally waking up to the fact that so many New Yorkers live alone and should be catered to, instead of forcing us to buy more than we need. So I took the package home and made myself this meatloaf, sneaking in a few French flavors to jazz it up a bit.

This is a nice dish for summer, when zucchini is abundant and the fingerlings are delicate

I recently saw something labeled “Snapper Lake Victoria (Kenya) Farm Raised,” and it looked glistening and fresh through its plastic wrap. Because the slice, just under a pound, was rather plump and not firm-fleshed and fatty, I felt it would take well to braising with some vegetables. I happened to have about half of a small fennel in the vegetable bin, and some roasted red peppers (from a jar, another good standby item, or put away your own [see page 242]), so I decided to make a bed of those aromatics and, when they were cooked semi-soft, to tuck the fish in and let everything finish cooking together. It was particularly delicious with leftover cooked potatoes browned in duck fat.

One cold Saturday in January, I was looking for something that would be a change from the usual—something meaty that would provide good fuel and also stoke some pleasant taste memories. To my surprise, I saw a fresh veal tongue in the meat counter of the local supermarket, and I remembered that as a child I could always find a jar of Derby tongue packed in its own naturally jellied juice on our kitchen cupboard shelf. It was a standby for making a good luncheon sandwich, and I suddenly longed for just that. First I had to prepare the tongue, because, alas, those Derby days are a thing of the past. The tongue was small, just over a pound, and it looked fresh. But since it was shrink-wrapped, I couldn’t give it the smell test. I always remember Julia Child’s admonition: when you get to the checkout counter, just tear off the plastic, and if your fish or meat doesn’t smell impeccably fresh after you’ve given it a good sniff, don’t pay for it. I wasn’t feeling up to such a confrontation that day, but fortunately when I got the tongue home it passed muster. First I scrubbed it under running water, then I soaked it for an hour in water to cover, with a tablespoon of salt mixed in.

For a dinner party, I often serve a roast leg of lamb, studded with garlic cloves and slathered in mustard French-style. I make sure the meat when cooked is always rosy—in fact, saignant at the bone—and therefore good to use in any number of dishes that ordinarily call for raw lamb. And I always find myself with plenty of leftovers—one forgets how hefty a leg of lamb is these days. I wrote about some of my experiments with leftover lamb in my book The Tenth Muse in a section called “The Nine Lives of a Leg of Lamb.” So, if you are confronted with this happy dilemma of too much lamb, you’ll find nine recipes there, which can be cut down to serve one. I don’t want to repeat them here, but I have since experimented with this lamb curry for one, which I find delicious.

This is a favorite dish of mine that I would make often when I lived in Paris in the late 1940s. I’ve learned to simplify it a bit and make relatively small portions. I am partial to leeks, no doubt because of my Welsh husband, who called them the poor man’s asparagus, and they marry particularly well with delicate veal.

Lamb shanks lend themselves to slow cooking, so I like to make this hearty dish-in-one on a weekend and then have it later in the week in a second incarnation. Shanks are often found two to a package in the supermarket, so it’s less hassle to buy the whole package and enjoy them twice. I’ve adapted this recipe from Claudia Roden, who taught me always to have a jar of my own preserved lemons in the fridge to give that final spark to so many Middle Eastern and North African dishes, and I’ve followed her advice.

Scott Peacock, the gifted young chef from Alabama who worked with and cared for the legendary Virginia cook Edna Lewis during her final years, once told me that one of the great lessons he learned from Edna was “the way she slowly coaxed the essence of flavor” from ingredients, be they meat, poultry, vegetables, or a combination. This slow braising of shoulder lamb chops is a good example of the technique that Scott worked out by observing her. Very little liquid is used, and by smothering the meat in a covering of parchment, then foil, and a tight-fitting lid, you make sure the juices that are “leached out” don’t evaporate but fall back into the pan, penetrating the meat and vegetables. As a result, you get an intensity of flavor that is breathtaking. I have adapted their recipe here to make two servings, not only because such chops are invariably vacuum-wrapped two to a package, but because the dish is so good that I always want to use it for a second round. Every time I make it, I want to give thanks to Edna and Scott, who seemed destined to cook together to bring new life to Southern cooking.