BBQ chicken is always the move
Good morning. Happy Father’s Day. I hope you were out on the river yesterday, floating the East Branch under cloudy skies. I hope you netted a big brown trout and were able to gather with friends afterward to grill chicken and talk smack about all that happened and all that did not. That was my day, and it was excellent — even if I did not net a big brown trout. (Tough fishing!) There’s a lot to be said for embracing an experience that puts you out of cellphone range, watching eagles soar on thermals high above your head. Try to make something like that happen for yourself this summer, even if it’s just a long, solo drive from where you’re at to somewhere remote, even if it’s just a walk through your city without your phone. The solitude of the journey is healing. It makes the return, and the meal you cook after that, all the more delicious. I mentioned chicken. The other weekend, my pal Jamie marinated a family pack of bone-in thighs in unthickened teriyaki sauce, and made barbecued chicken (above) on a gas grill deep in the woods after a long day spent outdoors. It was glamping food, crisp and succulent, great with slaw, and it immediately rose in my ranking of best summertime feeds. That’s dinner tonight even if all I get up to today is a trip to the market for ingredients. Featured Recipe BBQ ChickenAs for the rest of the week. … MondayI love Melissa Clark’s recipe for miso-chile asparagus with tofu for how quickly it comes together under the broiler, and for how flavorful the miso glaze is, spiked with mirin, rice vinegar and hot chiles, over the lightly charred asparagus and crispy-soft tofu. Serve over rice or alongside chile-oil noodles with cilantro. TuesdayAlison Roman’s recipe for vinegar chicken with crushed olive dressing is a fantastic weeknight dinner, especially if you line your sheet pan with foil so that cleanup’s a breeze. A few years ago, a subscriber left a great note below the instructions: “Perfect. Suggest not tampering with it. If you don’t like the ingredients, find another recipe before un-creating this one.”
WednesdayThese fish tacos, which I learned to cook from a recipe by Chad Shaner, are not particularly Mexican. The spice rub is Cajun. Charred scallions take the place of cabbage. But the combination is lovely, everything piled into warm tortillas and paired with sliced radishes and limes, along with a crema of sour cream and chipotle.
ThursdayKeeping a bag of frozen dumplings in the freezer ought to be part of your pantry protocol, as you’ll see the moment you serve Hetty Lui McKinnon’s recipe for dumpling and smashed cucumber salad with peanut sauce. I like the dumplings fried, but steaming them has its merits — the dough’s left softer, and more prone to sucking up the nutty deliciousness of the sauce.
FridayAnd then you can push into the weekend with one or all of David Tanis’s new recipes for an early summer meal: chilled cucumber-spinach soup followed by miso crab cakes with quick summer pickles, and a melon-mint sorbet for dessert. I generally feel as if I’m 19 and in need of a visit home to have mom do my laundry. Cooking David’s recipes makes me feel considerably more mature, as if I have a thriving psychotherapy practice and listen to Britten while I cook.
There are thousands and thousands more recipes to cook this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go browse the aisles and see what you find. (You need a subscription to do that, of course. If you haven’t taken one out yet, would you think about subscribing today? Thank you!) And please reach out for help if you find yourself jammed up by our technology or your account. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. Or you can write to me in delight or despair: hellosam@nytimes.com. I can’t respond to every letter. But I read each one I get. Now, it’s a far cry from fettuccine or spelt, but Robert Sullivan is very good, in New York Magazine, on the perils of beech leaf disease, and what scientists are doing to stanch it. In The New York Times, I loved Sam Dolnick’s profile of the disgraced memoirist and comeback novelist James Frey. The interviews Sam conducted with him were Frey’s first in 17 years. They got a little testy at times. “Did I fundamentally change publishing and literature?” Frey asked Sam at one point. “It’s a yes or no question. You’re asking me a bunch. I’m asking you one.” LA Weekly published a cool collection of photographs of the Los Angeles punk scene made by the photojournalist Maggie St. Thomas. Finally, here’s James Brown to play us off, “Papa Don’t Take No Mess.” I’ll be back next week.
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