5 Ingredients or Fewer

When we serve fried ribs at the restaurant, the reaction is always the same: “Fried ribs, we’ve never heard of those!” Well, they really are very good. We all love fried pork chops, so why wouldn’t we love fried ribs?

Charles Polite is in charge of producing our evening buffet at The Lady & Sons. I hold him in high esteem and therefore nicknamed him my “Prince Charles.” Our guests always enjoy his liver and onions. We hope you do as well.

We sometimes serve this on our buffet, if the staff doesn’t eat it all first!

Wonderful with steamed asparagus, this is also good chilled over a green salad and even with grilled chicken and fish. Try to use extra-virgin olive oil and the freshest garlic you can find. This will keep for about two weeks in the refrigerator.

Homemade mayonnaise is so much better than store-bought mayo that you’ll become a convert the first time you taste it. It’s basically an emulsion of liquid, oil, and egg yolk, the egg being the only nonvariable here. You can choose from a wide range of oils, such as extra-virgin olive or corn oil, but I prefer canola oil because it’s not too strong tasting. Though homemade mayo might seem intimidating the first time you make it, the problem is nearly always fixable with the one easy step below. Homemade mayonnaise will keep for up to one week in the refrigerator.

Here’s the foolproof version of the sauce. It can get a little hotter or a little cooler than the classic hollandaise without breaking. An added benefit: It takes less than two minutes to make, so you can leave this to the last minute.

The classic recipe for this very rich sauce goes with everything from meat and fish to eggs and vegetables. It’s usually made in a double boiler, but if you don’t have one, you can improvise. Make a double boiler by putting one saucepan over another slightly larger one and filling the bottom one with an inch or so of water. Make the sauce in the top saucepan and let the water in the bottom pan simmer—it should not touch the sauce—so the sauce will cook slowly. If your sauce still breaks, transfer it to a bowl. Off the heat in the top of the double boiler, whisk another egg yolk. Gradually pour in the curdled sauce in a stream and whisk vigorously until all the broken sauce has been incorporated into the egg yolk. Make the sauce no more than 30 minutes before you plan on serving it. Do not attempt to reheat or it will break.