Merlyn Cafaro

A handful of cheap ingredients. The exact perfect temperature and timing. And a little patience, please, while spuds are elevated from simple to stellar.

Yes, bourbon-inflected fried chicken. It’s in the brine. And oh, baby, are you gonna wish you’d been doing this all your life.

Shatteringly crisp skin. Tender, juicy meat. And pan juices you're gonna wanna sop up or soak up rather than let a drop go to waste.

Slightly sweet, fudgy, and full of bittersweet chocolatey goodness. Certain to satisfy both the kid and the grown-up in your house—and in you.

Because, actually, yes, it is sometimes essential to have precise measurements to create even the simplest recipes. Here's proof.

Pantry ingredients and barely any effort yield you something that's sweetly tangy and spicy that you'll want to slather on ribs, wings, pulled pork, smoked or grilled chicken, burgers...

We're not kidding about these being perfect French fries. We're also not going to lie to you. Perfection takes time. We swear it's worth the wait.

A make-at-home version of your fave diner-style burger but with the added smokiness from just the blissful amount of chopped pastrami mixed in with the beef.

Crisp-skinned and sinfully succulent, a grilled whole chicken is the surprise way to go for summer suppers. It'll be the talk of the table.

Let us introduce you to the most Googled recipe of 2019. No, it doesn't have cauliflower. And it's certainly not keto. It's a not-quite-classic shepherd's pie gilded with sweetly caramelized onions and smothered with Cheddar. To heck with tradition.

Store-bought puff pastry makes this elegant baked Brie a cinch to pull off. (But that can be our little secret.)

Stilton, the famous blue cheese, gets rolled up into a puff pastry pinwheel and topped with walnuts and honey for a sensuous, rich tasting appetizer.

Sorta like apple pie without the crust, this simple autumn dessert comes together with absolute ease...and will earn you quite a lot of accolade.

The iconic summer cocktail. Gin. Lemonade. Ginger ale. Citrus. Cucumber. Mint. Yes, please.

For vanilla ice cream purists, nothing competes with a recipe that relies on just the essentials: milk, sugar, vanilla bean, eggs, and cream.