What to cook when everyone wants something different

One wants the sauce, one wants it plain, one will skip the salad, and you would like to cook once. The dinners that cope are built so the differences happen after the stove: one pot or pan feeds everybody, and the sauce, salad and toppings go on at the table. Three Nourishible recipes work this way, and the table below shows what each one cooks once and what each person can leave off.

How were these three chosen?

A recipe made the list if the things people tend to disagree about (a sauce, a salad, toppings) are made separately or added at the end. Heat is the exception: it goes into the pot for everyone, apart from the chili crunch at the beef bowls. Four other recipes fail it. Easy Shakshuka and Spicy Sausage and Chickpea Stew cook everything in one pan, spices included. Tomato Egg Udon Noodle Soup finishes in one pot with nothing left to add, and Chicken Congee (Jook) has only a garnish at the table.

The lemon thyme chicken below is the weakest fit of the three and is here because its side is a real choice.

The "can leave out" column is a reading of each recipe's ingredient list and steps, so tasting is still your check. The recipes list 50 minutes (halal cart chicken and rice), 45 minutes (beef broth bowls) and 30 minutes (lemon thyme chicken), each for four.

What is the shared base in each, and what gets added?

Halal cart chicken and rice: who can skip what?

Treat the rice as made with chicken: the spice mix goes into it, chicken bouillon goes into the cooking water, and the chicken cooks on top, which matters if one person doesn't eat meat. The white sauce (mayonnaise, Greek yoghurt, parsley, dill, lemon zest and juice, black pepper) is made separately and spooned over at the end, and the lettuce and tomato sit on the plate, so whoever wants plain chicken and rice just skips them.

There is no heat at the table. The cayenne is in the spice mix, where the recipe marks it optional, so the pot has it for everyone or for no one. Anyone who wants more heat will need something of their own on the table.

Beef broth bowls: how do three separate parts help?

The rice, beef and broth are three separate pieces of cooking that only meet in the bowl, so a table can split three ways. The beef is glazed with soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and white pepper with ginger and garlic, and carries no curry paste. The red curry paste and curry powder go into the broth, so a bowl of beef and rice with no broth leaves them out, though the recipe doesn't describe that bowl. Coriander goes into the broth and onto the top, so a coriander-free bowl skips both.

Toppings are where the rest of the table sorts itself out: cucumber, sesame seeds, green onions, coriander, sesame oil and lime wedges, with chili crunch "if desired", so put that jar next to whoever wants it. The broth has no table-side heat control; if someone wants it milder, the broth-free bowl is the way.

Lemon thyme chicken: the plain option with a choice of sides

This is the quietest of the three and the least flexible. The chicken is dredged in seasoned flour, cooked for 5 minutes a side, and finished with shallot, garlic, thyme, lemon zest and juice, broth and butter, with the sauce spooned over. The recipe has no chilli or other heat. What varies is the side: the chicken breast is served "alongside rice or the tomato salad", and the recipe marks the salad optional. The salad is sliced tomato, sweet peppers and shallot, topped with feta, oregano and mint and dressed with olive oil. The shallot is also cooked into the sauce, so the chicken is not an option for someone who avoids onion. One person can eat rice and the sauce, another can have the salad, and a third can have both.

The recipe gives no method for the rice, so you would cook that separately. Anyone who skips meat can have the rice and salad without the chicken.

What do these dinners not solve?

None of them gives a vegetarian a full dinner without some extra cooking. The halal cart rice is made with chicken bouillon and has the chicken cooked on it, the beef bowl is built on beef and chicken broth, and the lemon thyme chicken's pan cooks only the chicken. The nearest to an answer is the lemon thyme salad with a pot of plain rice you cook yourself. And for the person who wants real heat, only the beef bowls have anything to add (the chili crunch). Put a jar of chili crunch or hot sauce on the table; the halal cart's cayenne and the beef broth's curry paste are decided in the pot.

Leftovers, and rice in particular

Follow the Food Standards Agency, not the recipe page, for storage. The beef bowls' note says the rice, beef and broth keep for 3 to 4 days in the fridge. The FSA says to keep rice in the fridge "for no more than one day until reheating", and to eat other leftovers within 48 hours or freeze them (chilling, freezing and defrosting food). The 48 hours applies to the cooked beef and the broth too.

Chill rice quickly, ideally within an hour, and do not leave it in the pot: the FSA says "don't leave rice in the rice cooker, steamer or pan to cool down." The halal cart rice cooks in one pot with the chicken on top, so spoon everything out once you have eaten and treat the leftovers as a next-day dinner. Reheat rice only once, until it is steaming hot all the way through. The reasoning is in can you reheat rice?, and what to make with leftover rice has ideas for the next day.

Sources

• Food Standards Agency, Home food fact checker: rice
• Food Standards Agency: chilling, freezing and defrosting food
• Recipe ingredient lists and method steps as published on the linked Nourishible recipe pages.