Good morning. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all those who celebrate. I like corned beef and cabbage myself for the holiday — Irish American food to ship up to Boston with, soda bread on the side. But I get it if that’s not in the cards, either for reasons of memory (the dank, humid scent […]
Read MoreTag: Cooking and Cookbooks
An Easy Chicken Dinner Recipe, Rich With Greens
If the overabundance of root vegetables like sunchokes, black radishes and kohlrabies the size of my head is the late-winter scourge of my C.S.A., the steady supply of braising greens is its redemption. No matter how many bunches of curly kale, sturdy collard greens and steely chard arrive each week, there’s always a place on […]
Read MoreHow to Make Crispy Tofu
About 1,500 years ago, in the mountains of northern China, you might have found bamboo mats lined with slabs of tofu, resting in the snow overnight. Once frozen solid, “the structure and basic character of the tofu underwent a radical transformation,” William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi wrote in “The Book of Tofu” (1975). Like the […]
Read MoreYour Grilled Cheese Needs Toum
Good morning. I’m embracing nostalgia today, luxuriating in memories of a Brooklyn I never experienced, even though I’m borough-raised. Imagine egg creams at the soda fountain, a long trip on the rattan seats of an old-timey subway car, then the mechanical horse races at Coney Island and a visit to Ebinger’s afterward, for blackout cake. […]
Read MoreMax Hardy, 40, Dies; Helped Bring Chef-Driven Cuisine to Detroit
Max Hardy, who helped bring a new level of chef-driven yet accessible cuisine to his native Detroit, and who was widely considered among the most promising of a young generation of Black culinary stars, died on Monday. He was 40. His publicist, David E. Rudolph, announced the death but did not provide a cause or […]
Read MoreA Hearty Irish Bread Absolutely Anyone Can Make
The first time I had brown bread from Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork, Ireland, was at a welcome lunch for students. The menu was simple: Loaves of the bread accompanied poached Poole prawns from Ballycotton Bay, a 15-minute walk from the farm where the school sits. Darina Allen, the school’s co-founder, buzzed around the room, […]
Read MoreThis Persian Lentil Rice Recipe Only Feels Expensive
A bowl of lentils and rice is essential comfort food across so many cultures, be it South Asian khichdi, Middle Eastern mujadara or Greek fakorizo. No matter how traditional recipes differ, combining lentils and rice always results in a dish that’s thrifty, hearty and infinitely adaptable, inspiring as many appealing variations as there are inventive […]
Read MoreGo Big With Bibimbap
Good morning. On Sunday, I like a project in the kitchen more than on any other day. It’s a chance to work at the stove without the need to get something on the table in 45 minutes, a time to stretch my skill set. Mostly, it’s an opportunity to explore recipes rather than simply following […]
Read MoreMacaroni and Peas, Buttermilk Roast Chicken and Shabu Shabu
We know that frozen peas are a freezer staple — they’re just as good as their fresh counterparts, and they’re always ready to add little pops of sweetness to skillet greens with runny eggs and vegetable pulao. But … what makes them such a good freezer staple? Why do they freeze better than, say, apples? […]
Read MoreThe Night Owl’s Special: Midnight Spaghetti
I recently moved in with a man. Until now, for the last decade, I lived alone in a shoe-box studio apartment on the north end of Manhattan with my dog, Quentin Compson. Now the man, the dog and I live in a shoe-box one-bedroom in Brooklyn. It took awhile to get used to having another […]
Read MoreA Sweet-and-Sour Tofu That Balances It All
As 2023 gave way to 2024, the weather snapped, and I was suddenly drawn to very particular kinds of food: comforting, restoring, reassuring. As I leafed through Najmieh Batmanglij’s wonderful book “Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies,” it was her khoreshes — delicate, refined braises — that were clearly calling, […]
Read MoreI Love You, but I Hate Your Cooking
Food and love go hand in hand. For Valentine’s Day, we’re exploring this fiery connection in all stages of a relationship, from a first date to living together to breaking up. When Marta Hurgin first met Lisa Wolford, she loved Ms. Wolford’s sharp legal mind, her sense of humor and her empathy toward animals. And […]
Read MoreChili for the Championship
Many will make chili (above) today, one of the great foods of National Football League cuisine, up there with wings and nachos. Ali Slagle’s recipe is top-drawer: deep in flavor, spice and smokiness, and fairly easy to prepare. I like to make it with coarsely ground beef from the butcher instead of the more finely […]
Read MoreHow to Make Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
Remember the last time you bit into a chocolate-covered strawberry? If the shell snapped audibly, pooling on your tongue as it melted, then chances are that chocolate was tempered. Tempering, essentially melting and cooling chocolate, is why that thin shell of chocolate yielding to a juicy berry cracks with such a crisp, satisfying sharpness. No […]
Read MoreHow to Make Pistachio Cheesecake, 2 Ways: Easy and Showstopping
Winsome and delicate with an intense perfume, pistachio is having a moment, adding its pale green charm to cream puffs and croissants, lattes and cocktails. But how, I wondered, would it fare in a cheesecake, that timeless queen of rich and plush desserts? To find out, I made pistachio cheesecakes the subject of the latest […]
Read MoreTraditional Lunar and Chinese New Year Foods
If Jan. 1 didn’t feel like quite the annual reset you were hoping for, you can celebrate now by cooking for the Lunar New Year. For this Year of the Dragon, it begins on Feb. 10, and the inaugural feast commences the night before. In China and other Asian countries that recognize the holiday, such […]
Read MoreFrito Pie, Seven-Layer Dip, Queso and More Super Bowl Foods With a Tex-Mex Influence
As Americans crowd around the television to watch the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers play the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, they’ll dunk chips in salsa, guacamole, queso, chili and seven-layer dip. They’ll scarf down jalapeño poppers and Frito pie as cameras pan between touchdowns and Taylor Swift. The appetizers are almost […]
Read MoreGingery Longevity Noodles to Make Again and Again
Good morning. We’re a week out from Lunar New Year and I don’t know if noodles really will make for an auspicious year for me, but I’m not taking chances. Today is for rehearsal: Julia Moskin’s adaptation of a recipe for longevity noodles with chicken, ginger and mushrooms (above) that she learned from the cookbook […]
Read MoreAre These Recipes Good, or Is the TikTok Chef Just Good-Looking?
I follow a lot of cooking accounts on TikTok and Instagram, which means that I get served ever more cooking content, and over the past few years, I’ve noticed a stylistic change. My feed used to be dominated by a style of video popularized by BuzzFeed’s “Tasty” series in the 2010s: The action was generally […]
Read MoreEasy Recipes for Salad, Mussels and Pistachio-Almond Cookies
Both celery root and mussels are at their best right now, so here’s a bright-green menu that welcomes them — a cool weather meal with verve and brightness, best eaten near the warmth of a fire or reasonable facsimile thereof. This dish employs two kinds of celery: the tender hearts of branch celery and so-called […]
Read MoreA Chocolate Fondue to Remember
The summer after college, I worked briefly as a shoe model. By briefly, I mean that I was fired after one day. I had sublet a basement room somewhere in the hundreds on the West Side of Manhattan, and my belongings, mostly books, remained unpacked, in duct-taped boxes stacked around the bed. I had to […]
Read MorePlush, Perfumed Pepperpot
Good morning. Time was, a goodly part of my correspondence was with readers annoyed with me or with The New York Times for publishing recipes calling for ingredients unavailable to them, either for reasons of geography or because they didn’t wish to stray beyond the aisles of their local supermarket. Online shopping and better supermarkets […]
Read MoreGordon Ramsay Isn’t Going Anywhere
Gordon Ramsay insists he never wanted to be the bad boy. His image as the brash, bellicose chef and restaurateur, as the master of the culinary meltdown, was, he said, largely a matter of getting off on the wrong foot. Ramsay was introduced to British viewers on “Boiling Point” (1999), a five-part series on Channel […]
Read MoreHow to Cook With Coconut Milk
As much as I worship the seasonal and the fresh when it comes to ingredients, there are a handful of canned products that are sacred in my kitchen. Coconut milk is one of them. The creamy yet dairy-free foundation of so many dishes, it adds its subtly sweet flavor and richness to countless curries and […]
Read MoreThe Best Bowl of Beans I’ve Ever Had
Hillary Sterling is home for dinner just three nights a week. The other nights, she works as the executive chef of Ci Siamo, a bustling restaurant in Manhattan, where her team serves the best bowl of braised beans I’ve ever had. Every day before the beans are served, Sterling, 45, tastes them, topped with a […]
Read MoreDid a Delicious Mistake Result in Sopa Paraguaya?
If you ever order sopa, or soup, in Paraguay, don’t expect to be served a steaming bowl of broth. What you’ll get instead is a dense and cheesy hunk of cornbread. This bread, also known as sopa Paraguaya, is one of the country’s most popular dishes. Cornmeal, onion, cheese, milk and eggs are mixed together […]
Read More24 Breakfast Recipes
I didn’t grow up in a breakfast household — not in any traditional sense, anyway. It was both a requirement and an afterthought: a stop at the gas station for some packaged muffins or the Cuban bakery for a ham croqueta in a roll, often eaten in my dad’s car on the way to school. […]
Read MorePoet Crystal Wilkinson Explores Black Appalachia Cooking in Her New Book
When Crystal Wilkinson wants to summon her kitchen ghosts, she retrieves a fuchsia-hued dress from her closet and hangs it in the doorway. The sturdy, double-hemmed garment invites her grandmother Christine, who sewed it by hand and wore it often before she died in 1994, to join her. The dress acts as “a literal and […]
Read MoreSundays Are for Bolognese
Good morning. If there’s a better scent in the world than Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce (above), I’m unaware of it. Well, apart from fresh-baked apple pie, that is. And wooden boats, spit-roasted lamb, fresh-cut hay and Jamaican black cake. But Bolognese is pretty great: that milk-calmed tomato over a bass line of beef, with a […]
Read MoreWhen There’s Pasta in the Soup, Everybody’s Happy
How big is an appetite? Your appetite? My appetite? My children’s appetites? I constantly return to these questions at home, when I cook for my family or plan a dinner party, and at work, when creating recipes or judging portion sizes in my restaurants. I want people to feel satisfied and well looked after, but […]
Read MoreThis Easy Chicken and Rice Recipe Uses a Simple Trick
My first attempt at crunchy rice was not entirely on purpose. I was a young, multitasking cook with a pot of rice left on low heat until … wait, was something about to burn? I salvaged what tender grains I could and was about to plunge the pot and its residual crust into a sink […]
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