Most weeks I cook four meals, on rotation, with small variations. Not because I am disciplined about it — because I stopped treating dinner as a decision.
The four
- Rice, a fried egg, greens, chilli oil. Twelve minutes. The default when the day has gone badly.
- Noodle soup with whatever the market had. The broth is made on Sunday and lasts four days.
- A pan of vegetables and tofu, browned hard, with rice. This is the one that varies most — it is really a technique, not a recipe.
- Pasta, garlic, oil, chilli, and far more greens than is traditional. The homesick meal.
Why this is not boring
It sounds monotonous written down and it isn’t, for a reason that took me a while to work out: the market changes the meals for me. In March the greens are one thing, in July another. I am not choosing variety, but I am getting it, and it arrives without any effort on my part.
The other thing is that cooking the same dish two hundred times makes you good at it. My fried egg is genuinely excellent now. This is not a skill I set out to acquire.
The failure mode
Guests. Four meals is a fine repertoire for one person and an awkward one when someone comes to dinner, because all four are quietly designed to be eaten alone, standing near the stove. I have started keeping a fifth in reserve for company. It is a braise, it takes three hours, and I make it about six times a year.