This is a meatless riff on one of my all-time favorite sheet pan dinners: a spicy harissa-slathered chicken loaded with lemony leeks, crispy potatoes, and a salty, garlicky yogurt topping. Here, roasted cauliflower stands in for the poultry, and almonds are tossed in for crunch. Added bonus: without the chicken, this lively, highly festive meal comes together in a flash.
You can use any salmon, swordfish, cod or tuna for this recipe, as capers, fennel, celery and lemon juice are great accompanying flavours for just about all fish. If using tuna, remember it only needs to be seared for a very short amount of time, as you don’t want to overcook and ruin a fine-quality cut.
Hot or cold, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—things don’t get much more versatile than this fiber-filled frittata. Mix up the veggies to keep it seasonal and interesting for endless weekday options. It’s earned a regular spot on my menu.
Make the labneh: Line a medium sieve with muslin or finely woven cheesecloth and place atop a container large enough to catch any drips. Transfer the yogurt to the muslin and place the whole thing in the refrigerator overnight. The liquid that separates is whey and can be saved for another use, such as baking sourdough, adding to salad dressings, or fermenting. Store the labneh refrigerated in a sealed container for up to 10 days.
Serve hot, warm, or cold. You can double this recipe and make it in a medium (10-inch) skillet. Don’t be alarmed by the quantity of oil and salt; most of it will be drained away. Save the strained oil in the fridge for future tortillas or low-temperature cooking, like sweating vegetables. Have a quick tapas party by serving the tortilla alongside canned fish, salad, crusty bread, and lots of wine.
The truth is, most tomato salads don’t need a recipe. Vinegar, olive oil, plenty of crunchy salt, and call it a day. If you have some herbs on hand, throw those in. What would a tomato salad look like if it deserved a recipe? Something like this. Very savory. Topped with garlic-chile crisp and dressed with its delicious oil. Anchovies and fennel seeds heighten the tomato’s flavor while bringing even more savory undertones. It’s spicy, with the chile flakes. This isn’t a simple caprese that you whipped up on a summer afternoon. It’s still simple but steals the show.
The greatest failure when making potato salad is overcooking the spuds—creamy mashed pota-toes is a no-go for any potato salad recipe. You want a waxy variety like fingerlings, Yukon Golds, or red potatoes; these varieties will keep their shape and texture when cooked right. Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, said it well in his 1988 cookbook Barbeque’n with Bobby, where he wrote under a recipe titled “Hunky Crunchy Potato Salad” that his mother’s potato salad was a “tasty quasi-mashed potato salad.” My pro tip is to season the potatoes while they are warm. Begin your training to be a queen.
Daniel almost always has steaks sitting in the freezer, but he rarely has the forethought to plan on cooking one (and setting it out to defrost) the night before. One evening, after a particularly vigorous jujitsu match (he wrestles competitively), he was famished and had a strong hankering for a steak. Without the time or patience to defrost one, he tossed the seasoned, though still frozen, block of icy beef under the broiler for ten minutes. To his surprise, the steak cooked beautifully this way, with rendered, crispy, golden fat and a deeply browned crust. As with all meat cookery, resting the steak for a few minutes when it comes off the flame is key to redistributing the juices and getting an even medium-rare cook temperature from edge to edge.
THE MAN’OUSHE (SINGULAR for mana’eesh) is the quintessential street food of the Levant. Wherever you go in the streets of Damascus, Beirut, or Jerusalem, you’ll see professionals, students, families, and their children all enjoying piping hot flatbreads, usually slathered with herbaceous za’atar. They’re eaten while walking down the street on the way to work or school, sitting in cafés, or around the breakfast table. Among my favorite memories in Syria and Lebanon is heading to one of the corner bakeries and ordering flatbreads by the dozen. Slid right out of the oven into pizza boxes, my cousins and I would rush back to an aunt or uncle’s home and devour them without a single word exchanged.
Shortly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrated Italian chef Massimo Bottura launched a fantastic daily cooking show on Instagram. One of his ideas? Cook something today and use the leftovers in another dish tomorrow. This pasta with tomato and tuna sauce serves two, with enough to also make my Pasta al Forno.