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.
Indonesians eat a little sambal (a fiery chili condiment) with every bite of food. You’ll find it served with noodles and fried rice, plonked into soups and curries, dolloped over fritters, even eaten on its own with just a plain bowl of rice. When the idea struck to pair crisp, golden chunks of potatoes with sambal – a nod to the iconic Spanish dish patatas bravas, in which fried potatoes are served with spicy tomato sauce, sometimes topped with mayonnaise – I ran to the kitchen.
While traditional patatas bravas, and most Indonesian potato recipes, use a deep fryer, I’ve opted for roasting them in the oven until golden for ease. This simple sambal begins with a paste of red chiles, garlic, shallots and ginger, a quintessential base for many Indonesian meals. The sauce, once reduced, reaches a peak of tomatoey-umaminess hot enough to tingle your mouth.
Combined with the crispy, golden potatoes and a liberal coating of Kewpie mayonnaise (use vegan mayo if you prefer), it will keep you diving back in for more. Is this dish an appetizer, an entrée or a side? It could be any of these, but whatever you serve it with, it will be certain to steal the show.
My Ammamma used to say that you were already aged two on your first birthday, that wearing a bra really showed a lack of decorum, and that Jaffna’s famous crab curry should be cooked like meat. Look, we didn’t agree about everything, but on crab, or nandu, and I know everyone says this about their own granny, there just isn’t a greater authority. And of Sri Lanka’s hundreds of lovely curry recipes, Jaffna crab curry is widely regarded as our best.
Tempering the toppings in hot oil, a technique known as making a tadka, brings out their flavors and is the perfect counterpoint to the cooling yogurt in this simple, comforting dish. Be sure to use plain whole-milk yogurt, not a strained, Greek-style yogurt, for the creamiest porridge-like texture. Food & Wine restaurant editor Khushbu Shah makes this comforting yogurt rice whenever she needs some self-care after a long trip.
Similar to red-braising (紅燒 hóngshāo) , when you cover and slowly cook an ingredient in a flavorful liquid, smother-braising (燜 mèn) is simpler and shorter and often relies on more delicate, lighter-colored condiments instead of dark soy sauce, allowing the color of the vege- table to shine through.
In this dish, the squash’s natural sweetness is complemented by the salty, savory fermented black beans, and the squash is cooked until buttery and tender, on the verge of falling apart. My favorite is kabocha squash, which has a velvety, starchy softness and flavor rem- iniscent of roasted chestnut, but any firm-fleshed winter squash, like red kuri, butternut, or Hubbard, will work.
The floury texture of boiled yam makes it akin to the famous Irish potato and it can be a great addition to curries and potages. This recipe combines Zoe Adjonyoh's love of Nkatsenkwan (groundnut stew) with the two simple Ghanaian staples of yam and plantain. It makes a great alternative veggie curry!
Potatoes, chiles and shrimp sit so well together in this effortless, comforting salad. Eat it just as it is, or serve it as a side salad if you like.