5 Ingredients or Fewer

Very simple to make, this dish goes well with all kinds of brunch meats, such as steak or pastrami, and with eggs. It is easy to double or triple when you’re serving a lot of people. Red-skinned potatoes have a moist, less starchy texture than baking potatoes and are ideal for boiling. Use the smallest ones you can find.

Another great make-ahead dish, this is an appealing way to serve zucchini at room temperature or chilled. Salting the zucchini and letting it sit for about 30 minutes gets rid of excess liquid and keeps this dish from becoming watery. If you make this ahead of time, remove it from the refrigerator about thirty minutes before serving and taste it. You may find that you need extra shakes of salt and pepper, and an extra squeeze or two of lemon juice.

Bacon is a natural fit with Brussels sprouts because the salt in the cured meat complements the earthiness of the vegetable. This dish is particularly hearty due to the meaty bâtons of bacon. You may have to have a good butcher slice 1/4-inch-thick strips from the slab of bacon. As for the Brussels sprouts, choose tightly closed sprouts with no yellowed leaves; the ones that seem heavy for their size are the freshest and best.

To make this dish, you’ll need a mandoline, which is a hand-operated slicing appliance with assorted blades for thick to thin slicing. A metal kitchen utensil known as a spider, which vaguely resembles a spider web with a long handle, is handy when frying because it lets you quickly remove hot food from the oil without removing much of the oil. It’s inexpensive and sold in most kitchenware shops. Soaking the julienned potatoes before cooking them removes some of the starch and yields a crisp shoestring effect.

While the classic fried potato dish served with bacon and eggs in diners everywhere is excellent on its own, the “smothered and covered” variation is more decadent, blanketing the crusty brown potatoes with caramelized onions and cheese. Thanks must be given here to the Waffle House chain for their inspired innovation!

A robust and filling variation on classic home fries, this pretty vegetable dish gets color and crunch from the asparagus. It pairs especially well with Crispy Crab Cakes (page 198) and Scrambled Eggs (page 75), though potato lovers may decide to eat this as a main course. This is a great way to fit vegetables into a brunch without its being too healthy.

What would bacon and eggs be without a side of home fries? These “homers” are too good to be called simply a “side.” Many Bubby’s customers prefer to eat them in great quantities with an accompaniment of bacon or sausage.

For the best grits, choose good stone-ground hominy grits, found mostly at high-end gourmet shops. Good-quality grits can be yellow, white, even blue, and they have a lively, crunchy texture. Just for the record, most regular folks down South use quick grits. And also for the record, that’s what we use at Bubby’s. But at home I cook from a bag of stone-ground hominy grits from Hoppin’ John’s, a small mill in Georgia (www.hoppinjohns.com). The Tabasco in the recipe really adds a zing to the grits, which go especially well with Smithfield Ham with Red-Eye Gravy (page 189).

Fried oysters are essential in a Hangtown Fry, which also includes eggs and fried bacon. The dish is thought to have been created during the California gold rush in a camp called Hangtown, near Sutter’s Mill in the Coloma Valley. The town acquired its gruesome name because of frequent hangings, often carried out by vigilantes. For this recipe, you can either shuck the oysters yourself or buy fresh shucked oysters from your fishmonger.

The taste of homemade smoked trout is incomparable, making this recipe well worth the effort. Trout, like all fish, must be brined before smoking, so plan on several hours’ worth of brining time before you actually do the smoking. Unlike salmon, trout is hot smoked. Obviously, you’ll need a smoker for this recipe. The choice of wood is up to you: At Bubby’s, we strictly use apple wood. Once you’ve got smoked trout on hand, you may serve it as is or make it into some delicious Smoked Trout Cakes (page 195), a Smoked Trout Scramble (page 101), or Smoked Trout and Scallion Mousse (page 196). Figure that you need to start this recipe about five hours in advance. The salmon is best when smoked the day before you plan to serve it, so that the flavors can blend. To serve, cut the smoked trout into fairly large 2-inch chunks and arrange them as part of a smoked fish platter, along with Smoked Salmon (page 191) and herring (page 196).

A thick steak is essential in order to get nice rare slices for your buffet brunch. Be sure to let the steak rest for at least 15 minutes before slicing. This allows the juices to disburse throughout the meat and not go running all over the cutting board.

Smoking a whole side of salmon may seem like a lot of effort, but it is worth it, especially if you are having more than eight people for brunch. Not only is the salmon better tasting than many commercial products available, it is also about 80 percent less expensive. Smoked salmon is cold smoked. In other words, it is not smoked in a hot smoker; the smoke does not cook the fish. The fish is cooked through the brining process. Cold smoke imparts a subtle smoky flavor. With practice, you can develop your own levels of curing and smoke. This is an ancient way of preserving food, and there are myriad subtleties to achieve. Smoked salmon keeps in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. The process of curing and smoking salmon takes a couple of days. You need a refrigerator with enough room to let the salmon sit inside, unobstructed. The process involves curing, rinsing, crusting, smoking, and saturating in oil. Bubby’s uses a combination of maple syrup, sugar, and kosher salt to cure salmon. Besides these ingredients, you’ll also need a vented tin can, a piece of charcoal, apple wood chips, a barbecue grill large enough to hold a whole salmon fillet, and 4 quarts of canola oil.

A beautiful and elegant starter to have on the table when guests arrive, these are easy to prepare. Toothpicks are optional; you can also just seal the rolls with a firm hand. Make these up to six hours in advance, if you like, and store them, tightly covered, in the refrigerator. These are meant to be eaten in one bite from your hand.

Crêpes can be sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and served flat, like regular pancakes; or rolled up around fruit, Nutella (chocolate hazelnut butter), or chocolate; or topped with fruit, fruit compotes, whipped cream, or jam. You can make this batter ahead of time and refrigerate it in an airtight container for up to two days. Use a crêpe pan, which has a very long handle and slightly sloping slides, or a small to medium nonstick skillet. Prepared crêpes can be frozen for up to a month and defrosted at room temperature for a couple of hours. For best results, place crêpes between layers of waxed paper or parchment paper before freezing. Rewarm them by removing the waxed paper and baking them, tightly covered, in a baking pan in a preheated 300°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Torta—Spanish for “cake,” “loaf,” or “sandwich”—is also a substantial brunch entrée in which the eggs are baked, often with vegetables. In this version, caramelizing brings out the natural sweetness in the onion and red bell pepper. Serve this torta either hot or at room temperature with sourdough toast and slab bacon.

In the spring we go to the farmers’ market for morels and in the fall for chanterelles. Either mushroom is wonderful in this dish, as are cremini, oysters, hen o’ the woods, trumpets, porcini, and portobellos. One cautionary note: Know your mushrooms, and never eat any that you pick yourself unless you are absolutely certain they’re edible. See Alice in Wonderland for the effects of eating the wrong mushrooms or speak to someone at your local emergency room for details.

Those who like a little extra kick in their eggs will enjoy this dish. Customize it by adding a little extra jalapeño, which will increase the heat. The clean, bright flavor of cilantro is excellent here, and it adds color as well.

This egg dish is bursting with generous chunks of ham and scallion and bound with an abundance of sharp Cheddar. Be sure your ham is sizzling nicely before adding the eggs, and don’t overcook this scramble: The eggs are just right when they’re still a little wet. Serve with Blackberry Corn Muffins (page 39).

Cheddar and apples are great together, and the combination gets even better when you add some superior-tasting slab bacon. Any sweet-tart apple—Macoun, Mutsu, Greening, Winesap—works well here.

The key to making a great broccoli omelet is to slightly overcook the broccoli. One of the best cheeses to pair with broccoli in many a dish is Cheddar because of its sharp, tangy taste.