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.
While chicken breast is undoubtedly an easy, quick and uncontroversial option for dinner, I find it often to be quite disappointing: a little bland, usually dry and just a bit boring. Except when cooked this way: the meat is browned, then lightly poached in rich tomato sauce so it stays exquisitely tender, and each piece comes enrobed in a blanket of melting mozzarella cheese. Absolutely essential with this is some crusty bread for wiping up all the juices on your plate. And depending on your mood, you might also want a light salad or a few greens.
Almost every region has its version of seasoned rice and beans, and the Middle East is no exception. For me, the highlight of mujaddara is the deeply caramelized onions that are simply irresistible. The dish also uses lentils, which largely retain their shape and give the dish its name: “mujaddara” means “pockmarked” or “pimpled” in Arabic. In this version, we cook the cauliflower rice and lentils separately to maximize texture.
Tzatziki, meanwhile, is a similar preparation to the Indian raita, but is usually thicker and creamier in consistency because it is made with Greek yogurt. I find the pairing of these dishes particularly alluring as a complete meal.
Spatchcock chicken—also known as butterflied chicken—is the easiest way to roast a whole bird, full stop. Removing the backbone and flatteningout the bird allows the breast meat and leg meat to reach their target temperatures—around 150°F for the breast and 165°F for the legs—at the same time, which is a challenge whenever roasting a whole chicken (unless you truss it, which is another lesson for another cookbook). Another trick for roast chicken excellence is rubbing the meat with an intensely flavored spice paste, and the North Afri- can-inspired one I use in this recipe is a delicious blend that will give the chicken’s skin a beautiful brown hue, and works equally well on pork, fish, and slow-roasted meats.
If you like hash browns but want something healthier, the sweet potato hash that follows is a dish I make a lot for my sons when I want to work some extra nutrients into their supper (which is always).