Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a side
There are few things in life more welcoming than the scent of a roast chicken –
it has to be the ultimate comfort food, the sort of dish that brings people together around the kitchen table. This recipe for pot-roast chicken is good-mood food, and good-mood cooking, too. You just throw everything in the pot and let it roast away merrily. A wonderfully simple way to honour a whole bird.
These are so over-the-top fantastical. I already told you unironically that sandwiches are my favorite food, and this right here is why. This Italian sub is soft and melty and rich and saucy and toasty. It is gorgeous to look at. It smells divine. You know instantly you are about to be a delighted eater. I want these on football days with giant piles of salty chips and freezing ice-cold Shiner beer. Voilà! Perfect game-day food.
Want to “wake up” your white fish with full flavor? Look no further than George McCalman’s recipe for fried jacks. Jacks is a local tropical fish indigenous to the Caribbean, but you can substitute with any mellow white fish. With a dish so simple and quick, we recommend seeking out a Grenadian curry, which differs from its Indian counterpart, with roots going back to the slave and spice trade. We promise this dish is bound to take your tastebuds to the Caribbean.
One of my favorite things to do with a batch of Sunday Focaccia is to dunk it into this simple Mediterranean-inspired soup. It features a combination of fennel and dill, which evokes the food I grew up with in a Greek American home. The best thing about the soup is that it’s quick to make (it’ll only need 20 minutes to simmer), and like most soups, it tastes even better after a day or two.
If the flavors of autumn could be rolled into one, this meringue roulade would be the result: warming cinnamon, burnt honey, sweet apples, and tangy orange come together to make a dessert fit for the festive season. Make sure all your individual components have completely cooled before assembling—you don’t want to create any excess moisture in the roulade. Get ahead by preparing the apples and cream the day before, keeping them refrigerated until needed.
My mother got this recipe from her friend Judy, a Korean woman who immigrated to Argentina before making her way to the States. Judy’s empanadas are like grown-up hot pockets, neatly packaged meals of tomato-y beef, melty cheese, hard-boiled egg, and a single olive tucked into each like in a dirty martini (which makes all the difference). Stored in the freezer, they feed the family happily throughout the holiday season.
This frittata is a take on both the Persian kuku sabzi (herb frittata) andkuku bademjan (eggplantfrittata). Once the eggplant is burnt, it really is just a matter of making the egg batter and sticking the whole thing in the oven, leaving you to prepare a few other bits (if you like) for a quick and easy show stopper of a brunch.
The savory taste of this lemon, butter, and white wine sauce with capers over fish has made it a melt-in-your-mouth favorite in our family. The secret addition of cornstarch to the flour really helps the light coating stay on the fish while it cooks. Where we live in South Florida there is a wide variety of snapper available, such as red, hog, mutton, and yellowtail. All are delicious, and if you don’t have access to those varieties, another mild, white, flaky fish will work nicely.
Mapo tofu has been on the menu since back when Mission Chinese Food first popped up in San Francisco. Over the years, we’ve tweaked the recipe approximately one hundred times, and this vegan version is the best yet, not to mention the easiest for the home cook. What used to take days to make is ready in less than an hour.
Note: This recipe calls for doubanjiang, a coarse reddish paste of fermented soybeans, broad beans, and chilies common in Sichuan cooking. Look for “Pixian” on the label, which means it hails from a town in Sichuan province known for making the product.