Carrots stand up well to quite aggressive spicing, and they really deepen in colour and change texture when roasted. In this dish I use my jerk seasoning, which is a wonderful blend of earthy spices. It’s really lovely as a sweet glaze with the salty and creamy texture of the vegan feta cheese. I’m a big fan of sweet and salty flavours in the same dish. This feels like it could be a good weekday dinner with a couple of other sides.
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.)
I eat this pasta twice a week and never get bored of it. Instead of giving the dish a fishy taste, the fatty anchovies melt into the sauce and give it a salty umami note that becomes hard to place, but who cares because it’s damn delicious. The briny capers, tart lemon, and sweet tomatoes round the whole thing out, along with the red pepper flakes, which leave a subtle spicy finish. It’s downright crave-worthy.
Tejal Rao, critic at large for The New York Times, has fallen hard for luxuriously, long-cooked greens. Put away your predilection for bright green, still crisp, blanched vegetables, and give this recipe a shot.
Any green can be substituted for the broccoli rabe, from chard to collards to mustard greens. Be sure to double the recipe to have more of these greens in the fridge, ready to go the next day. You can stir them into hot pasta with lemon zest, pile them on thick toasted bread with a smear of ricotta, tuck a spoonful or two under a fried egg, add it to a rice bowl with some smoked sardines, or just have it on the side with some beans.
You can make the sauce a few days in advance—the flavor will only get better with time. Keep your pot in the fridge and reheat before serving.
Something beautiful happens when the natural juices of the tomatoes, citrus, and fish come together with the garlic and chile butter, and you’ll want some good bread on hand to capture the moment. This is the ultimate midweek summer dish, as it only takes 10 minutes to make. As ever, make sure your tomatoes are nice and ripe, it’ll make all the difference. If you can get hold of tomatillos, these are lovely in place of green tomatoes. Of course, you can also use good-quality red tomatoes, if that’s what’s more readily available.
This recipe is made in about a 10-inch cast iron or carbon steel pan on the stove. It can easily be scaled up to six eggs, or to eight, just by increasing the ingredients and cooking it in a 12-inch pan instead. If you do increase it, make sure to use two cans of tomatoes so that there’s enough liquid in the sauce that it doesn’t burn while you’re cooking the eggs.
Lupini beans are most widely known in the Mediterranean Basin and often eaten brined as a snack. I’ve only ever bought processed lupini beans because I read about how one needs to meticulously rinse them to remove the toxic alkaloids that give them a distinct bitterness not dissimilar to uncured olives, which got me to thinking about how I love olives and dark cherries together. Which, naturally, made me think about brining cherries to cure a bit like an olive. And now, here we are.
Serve with Rice and Tortillas, garnish with cilantro & lime
Pull out a big heavy stew pot and get some greens going on the back of your stove for wonderful mid-week eating à la Brittany Luse, cultural critic and host of It’s Been A Minute from NPR. Serve on top of Brittany’s Weekend Grits.