Gruyère

Layers of potatoes smothered in cheese and mushrooms provide cozy comfort at any winter or holiday meal. This side—rich and creamy on the inside, toasted and crunchy on the top—will definitely warm you on a cold night. Gruyère cheese, sweet and salty, affords this dish its smooth texture, while the mushrooms add a distinctive flavor that will keep the family asking for seconds.

Fondue may have been trendy in the 1960s and 1970s, but cheesy goodness has never really gone out of style. This recipe is straight from the Alps, and calls for the classic combination of Gruyère and Emmental. Melt them in a cast-iron fondue pot with the simmering wine before transferring the mix to your fondue stand. Of course, you can serve this with cut-up veggies and fruit, but bread is the true classic partner. Just know that if you lose your bread in the cheese, you’ll need to kiss your neighbor. That’s Swiss tradition.

Traditional pâte à choux—cream-puff pastry—gives these addictive cheese puffs their light and airy consistency. The recipe calls for Gruyère and crushed dill seeds, but experiment with different cheeses and seasonings to create your own signature appetizer. The gougères can be made ahead and frozen for up to a week. Simply reheat and serve warm, paired with a flute—or two—of Champagne.

The sister-in-law of Epicurious member Connie Sainato of Smyrna, Delaware, introduced her to these eggs at a holiday brunch. They most closely resemble a baked frittata, but what makes the recipe a winner is that you can completely prep it the night before. “Since I am not a morning person, I always make at night and bake in morning,” Sainato says. She suggests using only nutty Gruyère in this, as it melts beautifully, but in a pinch you can use whatever Swiss you have on hand.

After Hugh and I got married, just before I started writing this book, I started experimenting with vegetable dishes that could qualify as "man food." I came up with this dish featuring the fabulous combination of barely sweet squash and savory onions. At this point I count on one hand how many times I had made a tart, so I was pleasantly surprised when this went over as well as it did. I will not lie; this tart has a fair number of steps and will leave you with a sink full of dishes, but it's well worth it. If you like, you can make the tart shell, roast the squash, and sauté the chard a day in advance, then bring everything to room temperature before assembling it. Make sure that there are no holes in the tart crust and that it is completely cooked before adding the filling. I've had the egg mixture leak through the crust before, so hopefully I'm sparing you the same frustration.

Braising the fennel and simmering the potatoes in cream before assembling the gratin infuses them with extra flavor.

Cheddar, Gruyère, and Brie help push this over the top. Use local, artisan-style cheeses, if you can.

Make the filling ahead of time and you'll need only a few minutes to go from shucking to eating.

Here's a soufflé that can stand up for itself. Michel Richard, of Citronelle in Washington, D.C., ignores tales about soufflés that collapse when the oven is opened (a myth). Instead, he focuses on what matters: a well-seasoned base that infuses the soufflé with flavor, and properly whipped whites that achieve optimum volume as they bake. Whip the whites until firm, but stop before they get too stiff, says Richard, or the soufflé will be grainy. And quell your jitters with his 21st-century trick: Add xanthan gum to the whites. It acts as a stabilizer— resulting in the most dramatic soufflé we've made in a while.

This pizza is one of my most popular dishes, a kind of warm spinach salad on a crust. I've been serving it since the earliest days at Sullivan Street (its origins—how I came to make it—are now lost in the mists of memory). But, even today, to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one who offers it. Try it at home, and right after that first bite, you'll see why it's one of the most popular pies I've ever devised. When I make the Popeye in my home kitchen, I deviate from the usual system in this book and bake it (as called for here) rather than placing it under the broiler. The image of that mound of spinach directly under flame just seems wrong—I'm not even sure what would happen, but it wouldn't be good.

You might imagine that this dish was a modern creation, but its history dates back to the 1700s, when dried macaroni—one of the few staples that could survive a year aboard ship—was brought from Italy to Britain and to the American colonies. Because there was a lack of other (Italian) ingredients, the imported pasta would often be served with a simple white sauce—milk thickened with flour and butter; sometimes it was baked in a casserole with bread crumbs on top. The earliest recorded recipe was in the Boston Cooking School Cookbook in 1896. This recipe uses a classic variation of béchamel known as sauce Mornay, made by whisking the flour into sautéed onions to form the roux (which is what thickens the sauce; see page 62 for more); then milk is added and the sauce is left to simmer until thick and creamy. Grated cheese is the final touch. Béchamel—and any sauce where flour is used as a thickener—is typically cooked for about 30 minutes to give the starch molecules in the flour enough time to absorb as much liquid as possible (so the flour goes from being granular to smooth, or gelatinized). In this recipe, the sauce is simmered for a much shorter time, since it will continue to cook in the oven after being stirred into the dish. For variety, top some or all of the servings with thin slices of roasted tomato and fresh thyme.

One of the best reasons to make your own basic brown stock is that it means French onion soup from scratch is within easy reach. (You can also make the soup with white beef stock, page 42.) Like many other bistro classics, French onion soup has humble origins as a staple of thrifty households, where a pot of stock—itself born of frugality—was the foundation for many family meals. Even those with limited resources could make soupe a l’oignon since it calls for little else: pounds of inexpensive and readily available onions, a crusty baguette (providing a way to use up day-old bread), and a chunk of sharp Gruyère cheese, grated to turn a little into a lot. Because there are so few components, each one is enhanced in some way to contribute to the final dish. The homemade stock provides both color and robust taste, as well as ensuring a silky consistency. Caramelizing the onions gives them a wonderful sweetness (and more dark brown color). Toasted bread adds a textural note, while gratinéed cheese introduces another pleasing component. Similar to the burnt-sugar shell atop crème brûlée, the molten, golden crown invites tucking into with a spoon. This recipe can be halved, but since the soup freezes well, it is worth making the full amount.

Using both Gruyère and fontina gives this savory dish complex flavor—and they melt beautifully. If you use only Gruyère, just double the amount. You can assemble most of this dish up to 1 day ahead and refrigerate, covered; then add the batter, and bake.

For a less formal but equally appealing presentation, you can spoon rather than pipe the filling into the shells.

This recipe can be made a day ahead and refrigerated; reheat before serving.