Citrus and oregano make this grilled chicken taste sophisticated. It is inspired by my mom’s traditional pollo en oregano, which is usually fried. (You can find that recipe in our first cookbook Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.)
SERVES 4 TO 6
Tsukune is a Japanese-style meatball that is typically cooked yakitori style over live coals and accompanied by a rich dipping sauce. They are most often made with ground chicken thighs for rich flavor. At my parties, however, I have switched to ground turkey—US groceries sometimes won’t even sell ground chicken, let alone ground thighs, and turkey is both readily available and inexpensive. The following recipe finishes the meatballs under the broiler, but they are also marvelous grilled.
YOU’LL NEVER GO BACK to cooking a whole bird after making this recipe. I’ve broken the turkey into its primal cuts, which allows the meat to cook more evenly—in half the time! The meat turns out perfectly cooked, classically flavored, golden brown, and delicious every time—with far less babysitting than a whole turkey. This method frees up the oven sooner, plus the carcass can be simmering into stock for the gravy ahead of time.
I’ve used my spice cupboard staples for the seasonings so the drippings make tasty gravy, and all you’ll need is a standard half-sheet pan and a metal rack that fits inside it.
You get a double dose of harissa spices in this super-easy party dish, which uses both ground harissa spices and liquid harissa. Despite all that bold seasoning, this isn’t overwhelmingly fiery, as the fatty fish has a mellowing effect. It makes a striking centerpiece for a buffet table and is a lot more interesting than the typical poached salmon with dill sauce. Watch it win over those who claim they don’t like fish! Should there be leftovers, they are excellent in a grain bowl, which is how we serve it at our Industry City café.
This is my absolute favorite way to eat pineapple. Beautifully caramelized on the outside and even juicer and sweeter on the inside after roasting.
This version of eggy bread comes from Kolkata, where street vendors set up their street food stalls on Park Street and Fairlie Place in the business district at noon each day, collectively they will feed the hundreds of workers who pour out of their offices in search of tasty nourishing foods—this simple snack is filling and super delicious.
While working at Food & Wine magazine in my early twenties, some of the editors were raving about Hatch green chillies as we chatted, and, not wanting to seem like a total idiot, I nodded enthusiastically and then immediately went to search what these things were. They are, in fact, pretty awesome, and come from a town called Hatch in New Mexico, USA. You can add them to soups, stews, salsas or use as toppings for burgers or pizzas for a great depth of flavour. They range in heat level (and also offer a subtle sweetness to them), so buy whichever are better for your palate.
I was fortunate enough to have Matty participate in one of my Food Salons in New York. I was consistently impressed by the way he wove together serious topics and those that were not so serious. He talked about his family and how food was a unifying force early in his life. He talked about moving from a small town to Toronto and taking in the energy of the city. He talked about the stresses of a chef’s life. We also talked about sneakers, which we both collect, and which raise some of the same creative issues as food—how to innovate while also respecting tradition, for example. This was still in my mind when I asked him to join in on the potluck, which is why I’m sending him Run-D.M.C.’s “My Adidas,” one of the legendary songs about shoes, stress, energy, and unifying forces.
Is there anything more fantastically homey than that most marvelous of soft-baked cookies, the snickerdoodle? The name is thought to have come from nineteenth-century New England, deriving from the word Schneckennudeln, a type of snail-shaped German cinnamon roll. Snickerdoodles are famously associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Amish communities of Indiana, which explains how they made their way to the Midwest and have long been a homespun favorite here.
For the best marinated olives recipe, we started with good brined olives that still contain their pits, which have a better flavor than pitted olives. For the marinade, we started with a base of olive oil and added garlic, herbs like thyme, and red pepper flakes. In addition to these basics, we liked thinly sliced shallots, which softened in the mixture and contributed their welcome allium bite, and grated orange zest for a lively citrus kick. The real surprise in our marinated olives recipe came when we added a splash of anise-flavored (or Pernod), which enhanced all the other flavors.