Weeknight Kitchen

There are endless tasty ways to tackle cooking ribs, but as an indoor enthusiast, I appreciate the ease, predictability, and seasonless nature of this trusty low-and-slow oven to broiler method. The entire process is mostly hands-off and delivers flavor-blasted, fall-off-the-bone ribs every time. Please note that this foolproof barbecue sauce is made with mostly pantry staples and begs to be used on everything from these ribs to grilled chicken, meatloaf, and wings. To round out your rib party, I recommend serving them with Cauliflower-Potato Mash (page 220) or Caramelized Onion Potato Salad (page 230) and a big salad during the cooler months, or with Zucchini Cornbread Muffins (page 207) and “Summer Mess” (page 210) or Heirloom Tomato and Watermelon Salad (page 212) when summer strikes.

I love using filo pastry in my cooking – it’s so satisfyingly crunchy, which means
it acts as a brilliant base for tarts like this one. Pastry is yet another one of those things that people swear off because it’s ‘bad’ for them. But in the context of a healthy diet, I’m a firm believer that there’s room for all the foods you love – and
I love this filo tart. Loaded with vegetables and topped with eggs, feta and pesto, this is just one combination that works. Feel free to get creative and try it with other ingredients, like tomatoes and mozzarella, or butternut squash and goats’ cheese. The filo world is your oyster.

Tuna fishing in Sardinia is a historic tradition. In Carloforte, tuna is still caught according to ancient methods that respect the rhythms of nature and the tuna stocks. The combination of tuna and tomato is commonly found in Mediterranean cuisine and this tonno al pomodoro is a simple but very tasty secondi that is great paired with a seasonal side dish and a glass of Vermentino white wine. I also recommend some nice sourdough bread at the table for a bit of scarpetta, to mop up all of that delicious tomato sauce.

Not sure what to feed your F•R•I•E•N•D•S at your next social gathering? Make sure the menu includes this relatable, reliable, really delicious mix of crunchy veggies, toasted almonds and crushed ramen noodles with an addictively sweet, sesame-ginger dressing.

Popular for decades, yet not exactly gourmet fare, people always go nuts for this retro recipe.

Serves 6 | 40 minutes

The dish known as gígantes pláki epitomizes traditional Greek food and occupies a place in the hearts of most Greek households. The name comes from the ‘giant’ beans – often butter beans or a variety of extra-large white runner beans called fasólia gígantes – that are baked in a gorgeous chunky tomato stew. For ease, I’m using canned butter beans here, so that all that needs to be made is the hearty sauce to accompany them. I love to top my gígantes pláki with crumbled feta and bake until the cheese is beautifully golden and crispy.

One of the things I struggled with in writing this book was coming up with reasonable recipe yields for most home cooks. You see, growing up in a household of twelve with a mother who loved to cook, our yields were always enormous. Take this chicken shawarma, for example: When my mom originally developed the recipe, it called for 10 pounds of chicken! She would keep the cooked shawarma in the fridge, and whenever one of us would tug at her clothes and say we were hungry, she could say, “There’s shawarma in the fridge; go make yourself a sandwich.”

I scaled this recipe back to use 5 pounds of chicken, which may still seem like a lot . . . but the Arab in me cannot tell you to make less. The warmly spiced, vinegary chicken is great in a sandwich, on a salad, or on its own—perfect for meal prep.

Though its exact origins are debated, this unique sweet and savoury sandwich, often packed with egg, cabbage and sugar, is now a ubiquitous sight on the streets of Seoul, and an iconic street food breakfast to fuel busy mornings. It’s the ultimate grab-and-go meal that perfectly captures the dynamic energy of the city.

When I crave a little warmth and comfort, I revert to a Greek style of cooking called yiahni, in which you slowly cook seasonal veggies in oil and tomatoes. Forget crunchy vegetables, I want them tender, sweet and delicious. In the summer, I will gently cook fresh flat beans and green beans in lots of garlic, onions and tomatoes; in the winter, I resort to using frozen peas and green beans. Either way, I will eat them with fresh bread and capers. A really nutritious and wholesome meal.

Like with Tadashi’s Perfect Steamed Rice on page 60, here we share, basically, Tadashi’s perfect Japanese-style fried rice. You can’t go wrong with this method. This dish, also known as chahan, uses leftover rice and cooks hot—and fast. Watch a few wok-cooking videos on YouTube to get hyped up! Woks are great, but a cast-iron, carbon steel, or quality nonstick skillet works fine too. (We used Harris’s trusty 11-inch cast-iron Lodge skillet to cook this dish.) Okay, so you might be wondering: What’s the difference between Japanese fried rice and its famous Chinese cousin—the global fried-rice standard? The Japanese variety uses less soy sauce, resulting in a lighter color and milder flavor, and relies on Japanese short-grain rice as well as local ingredients like shiitake and kakuni (lots of other ingredients work too; see the list on page 77). But ultimately, this dish is, in fact, an adaptation of Chinese fried rice, which was introduced to Japan in the 1860s by Chinese immigrants and evolved from there. Some practical considerations: If you don’t happen to own a chuan (a special Chinese wok spatula), use a big ol’ cooking spoon to turn the rice; you’ll be stirring throughout the cooking. Make sure to ventilate, because it could get smoky. And remember, hayai—move quickly