• I decided to cook five of the top-rated recipes of 2024 on The New York Times' Cooking app.
• Some dishes were a hit — while others left me frankly confused.
• Following the ranking, which is based on a popular vote, allowed me to broaden my food horizons.

As a personal treat this year, as part of Black Friday sales I finally took the plunge on something I've long coveted: a subscription to NYT Cooking.

The recipe juggernaut celebrated 10 years of publishing in September, following a massive expansion in 2021 and the development of a wildly successful app.

As a product, it's bolstered The New York Times' business model. Other publishers have tried to get in on the act, including The Guardian, which launched its own subscription-based food app, Feast, in April.

NYT Cooking says it published around 1,000 recipes in 2024, and it's clear that much of the appeal is on comfort food, un-fussy recipes, and shrewd attention to social media trends.

Last week, it released its annual top 50, which I took as a challenge.

I chose the five recipes with the highest number of ratings and which all had five stars at the time of writing (I couldn't obtain a key ingredient for one, so skipped to the sixth in that instance.)

Some recipes wowed me — while others left me frankly puzzled.