True New York–style cheesecake is a beautiful thing: the dense, velvety, tangy-sweet filling is supported by a crunchy graham-cracker crust. But with a dessert this rich, a full-size cake in a two-person household will mostly go to waste. We wanted to make foolproof individual cheesecakes for two. We started with a simple graham-cracker crust, prebaked to ensure it wouldn’t turn soggy once we added the filling. We thinned the cream cheese with just a little tangy sour cream. One whole egg plus an extra yolk gave the cakes a lush texture that was dense but not heavy. A pinch of salt, a small dose of vanilla, and a squeeze of lemon juice perfected the flavors. Finally, we baked the cheesecakes using the classic New York method—first at 500 degrees to get a nicely browned top, then at 200 degrees to cook through gently
Typically, black pepper dressing either tastes nothing like pepper, or it makes your eyes burn with too much spice—a common conundrum when working with raw black pepper. We certainly wanted to taste the black pepper and feel some fire, but adding a ton of freshly cracked stuff left us with a mouthful of chewy, acerbic pepper bits. To tame the intensity, we turned on the stove: We simmered coarsely ground peppercorns in the fat left from cooking some bacon for our wedge. Gently cooking peppercorns in fat tames their heat by pulling out the fat-soluble compound piperine, which packs that heat, leaving a more mellow pepper flavor but plenty of presence. We drained the mellowed peppercorns before adding them to a creamy and tangy—but not gloppy—base of olive oil, sour cream, mayo, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, and red wine vinegar.