What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times

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What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times

What to Cook This Weekend - The New York Times

Posted: 21 May 2021 07:30 AM PDT

Good morning. Gabrielle Hamilton took a close look at the economics of restaurant brunch this week in The Times, reflecting on the two decades she spent working the shift at Prune, her jewel box of a dining room in the East Village, before putting the place to sleep at the start of the pandemic. It's a delicious read as it always is when Gabrielle takes to the keyboard — "that 10-burner egg station during a rocking, relentless, 230-covers brunch, holy smokes!" — and reflective, too. If she ever brings her business back, she writes, it won't be to serve brunch, not in a city where the word has become a verb and the waiters make four times what those cooking the eggs do. She's already thrown out the pans.

But Gabrielle misses the big batches of ranchero sauce (above) that she made every Friday in advance of the weekend rush. "More than shaved truffle," she writes, "more than freshly peeled oranges or chocolate-cake baking, simmering ranchero sauce is the scent that I still miss and crave."

You can use the stuff for huevos rancheros, obviously: simmering sauce in a pan and cracking a couple of eggs into it until their whites have just set, then scattering shredded Chihuahua cheese over the top and broiling it, to serve with tortilla chips, avocado, cilantro leaves and hot sauce. That'd be an excellent thing to do this weekend. But Gabrielle has other uses for the sauce, too: "Poach shrimp in it, or cubed swordfish," she writes. "Use it as a sauce under batter-fried fish with quick-pickled red onion; reheat shredded roasted chicken or pork in it for a loaded nachos lunch for your kiddos, add it to Cheddar-scrambled eggs and roll it up in a flour tortilla."

And you'll have a lot of it. The recipe's for three quarts. Gabrielle wrote it that way in the hope that you might share ranchero sauce around your community of friends now that we're starting to see one another again. It's an excellent host gift that pays dividends at the table, at brunch or dinner.

Maybe you'll get to grill this weekend, in a park or campsite if not on a deck or in the backyard. I like these grilled chicken skewers with tarragon and yogurt. Also this grilled eggplant salad. And this coffee-rubbed grilled fish. But I could also see my way to a simple hot-dog party, with toppings and condiments galore.

These are good days, as well, to make a simple strawberry tart, to make the blueberry cobbler from Chez Panisse, to make apricot bread pudding.

Or are you in the Pacific Northwest and seeing morels everywhere? Make this shockingly good pan-roasted chicken in cream sauce I learned to make at the elbow of the chef Angie Mar. Maybe make it this weekend even if you can't find morels in the forest, but only at the store.

Thousands and thousands more ideas are waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go search among them and see what inspires. Then save the recipes you want to cook. (Which, by the way, you can do even if the recipe you want to save doesn't come from our site. Here's how to do that.) Rate the recipes you've cooked. And leave notes on them, as well, if you'd like to remind yourself of something you've improved or substituted, or want to tell the world of your fellow subscribers about it.

Yes, you need to be a subscriber to enjoy all the benefits of the site and apps. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. I hope you will, if you haven't already, subscribe to New York Times Cooking today.

Country Cooking with Lou Ann: pasta salad - Record Herald

Posted: 21 May 2021 07:24 AM PDT

photo

Hello! This week's recipe is one of my newer finds—however, it is not disappointing. It is light, refreshing and goes well with a family cook out.

Go prepared because if you take this dish to a get-together, you better bring the recipe also. It seems to have just the right "everything" in it. The flavors, the soft tortellini, the fresh taste of the vegetables compliments this dish oh so very well.

I prefer to chill this for several hours before serving (even the night before you plan on serving it). It will bring the flavors together in complete harmony.

Summer Corn, Tomato and Tortellini Pasta Salad

Lemon Vinaigrette

-1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

-1 clove garlic finely minced (I have used 1 teaspoon powdered garlic instead)

-1/4 teaspoon Salt

-1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Whisk the above ingredients in glass bowl and set aside.

Pasta salad

-22 ounces cheese tortellini

-2 cups cooked corn

-1 cup halved grape or cherry tomatoes

-1 large zucchini halved and thinly sliced

-2-3 tablespoon crumbled feta cheese

-5 leaves fresh basil torn or chopped (I have used 1/2 dried basil)

-Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook tortellini according to package instructions. Once it has drained, drizzle a little olive oil over the pasta to keep it from sticking. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Once cooled, combine tortellini, corn, tomatoes, zucchini, feta, basil and dressing. Toss gently to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate. Enjoy!

Viral photo of woman cooking while on oxygen support triggers debate online - The Indian Express

Posted: 22 May 2021 12:43 AM PDT

As India continues to grapple with a second wave of Covid-19, social media platforms have been abuzz with SOS alerts and calls for donations. We've seen the power of humanity, with strangers coming forth to held one another. Now, a striking photograph of a woman cooking while on oxygen support has triggered a heated debate online.

The image, which has been circulated widely across platforms, is of a woman cooking in the kitchen while breathing with the help of an oxygen concentrator placed nearby. The photo came with the caption, "Unconditional love = mother. She is never off duty."

The origins of the photograph remain unclear and questioned over its authenticity have been raised. However, the post has triggered a conversation on women, mothers, and their "duties".

Many on social media were concerned whether the image was real as going near a gas stove with oxygen is hazardous. Some commented that even if the photograph was staged, the toxic mentality behind the image of glorifying motherhood was sickening. Amid the debate, many shared their own experiences on how it is often difficult to convince mothers to prioritise themselves, especially when they are unwell.

Mother and grandmother lessons in Chinese cooking cookbooks - Los Angeles Times

Posted: 20 May 2021 10:15 AM PDT

In the last couple of months, three fantastic cookbooks that contextualize what it means to cook Chinese food from a second-generation perspective have been published. Taken together, they provide a snapshot of how the authors of these books detail the push-and-pull of assimilation into Western culture as children while also maintaining connections to previous generations' cultures and traditions by learning to cook from the most important women in their lives.

In "My Shanghai: Recipes and Stories From a City on the Water," Boston-based blogger and author Betty Liu details the cooking of Jiangsu province, or "the land of water" just north of Shanghai, with influences from the Zhejiang province to the south and the "hard-to-describe" cooking of Shanghai proper. As Liu states, "Shanghai's culinary borders are blurred, drawing deeply from its neighbors."

Liu learned to cook her family's recipes for this book by watching her mother, just as her mother had done growing up in the communal kitchens of her youth with the other families she lived with. "She picked up the basics just by watching, helping out, and taking on every role in that kitchen," Liu writes. "She learned by doing."

Shanghai cooking, Liu states, relies heavily on the aromatic trio of fresh scallions, ginger and garlic, and those vibrant flavors are on display in many recipes in "My Shanghai," most notably in a simple recipe for clams that calls for the trinity in three ways: as perfume while steaming the clams open, for caramelization in a quick stir-fry and, finally, as a hot garnish piled atop the clams and then sizzled with hot oil drizzled over the top.

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In a different part of the world, author Hetty McKinnon grew up as second-generation Chinese Australian — her parents immigrated to Sydney from Guangdong province — and her recipes in "To Asia, With Love" capture that "third-culture cooking" in her simple, mostly vegetarian recipes that celebrate easy, quick dishes inspired not just by Chinese cooking but by the myriad influences she's picked up through her travels and from now living in Brooklyn.

Ramen noodles are coated in an umami-rich miso and Vegemite butter sauce, potato salad gets an aromatic punch from a lively lemongrass pesto, and her vegan spin on dan dan noodles eschews the pork in favor of caramelized celery, mushrooms and leeks for an intensely savory, chilled noodle dish. "The way I cook is … a cross-pollination of ideas and techniques that are grounded in my Chinese heritage, yet greatly influenced by growing up in the Western world," McKinnon writes.

Like Liu, McKinnon describes how learning to cook from her mother helped marry those worlds. "The more I cooked, the more connected I felt to my mother and her cultural heritage," writes McKinnon. "Cooking alongside [her] allowed me to understand the confluence of culture, how we can be a mixture of a lot of things and still exist in harmony."

For chef Brandon Jew, author of "Mister Jiu's in Chinatown" (with writer Tienlon Ho), his lessons on Chinese cooking also came via his family matriarch, his grandmother Ying Ying. She lived in San Francisco's Richmond neighborhood and often would bring Jew along on trips to the city's Chinatown to get ingredients. After her death, he turned to a library of Chinese cooking texts to embed himself in the rich culinary heritage of his family's cooking and pay homage to her legacy via his cooking at Mister Jiu's, his restaurant in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Mister Jiu's connects everything that I've ever learned — from Ying Ying, my mentors, from all the parts of the world where I've lived and eaten," Jew writes. "It is a place that celebrates all those influences, standing in the heart of Chinatown, the place where Chinese American food began."

Indeed, the cooking in his book is filled with modern interpretations of Chinese American classics, as well as simple preparations influenced from all over China. His Taiwanese-style eggplant uses a familiar staple in a complex composition; he shows you how to re-create its ideal texture via an initial brine, a quick deep-fry and, finally, a searing stir-fry, each technique influencing the one after it to create a harmonious dish imbued with history and reverence to its makers before him.

Get the recipes:

30 minutes

Serves 4

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30 minutes

Serves 4

25 minutes, plus 1 hour brining

Serves 4

How to Guide to Sous Vide Cooking - Real Simple

Posted: 19 May 2021 11:37 AM PDT

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