077: Recipes that are 50 times hotter in person
It's truly unreal how fucking long it's been. Like it blows my mind.
(JS) Well… we’re back! Shana tovah, y’all! For the first time in two and a half years, your humble narrators indulged in a proper hiatus - first, for a little summer vacation, and then, for the sake of “bandwidth” as the kids like to say. For better or for worse, the past six weeks have been a blur. On the front end, I ate rather well (Breakfast burritos! Pintxos! Fruits de mer aplenty!). More recently, I’ve eaten… in a less inspired manner! At the risk of beating a dead disco horse, I’ve sustained myself on a steady diet of Renaissance, supplemented with a lot of soft tofu, savory yogurt preparations, and salted late summer tomatoes.
I’ll spare you the sentimental reminiscences of what now feel like distant vacation meals, though if and when I gather the stamina to recreate some you’ll be sure to hear it here first. Here’s a bit of what I’ve eaten most recently:
Roasted chicken with white beans, apricots, and olives, a loose adaptation of the Silver Palate’s famous marbella from Anna Stockwell’s For the Table. There’s a lot I’m eager to cook in this book, especially as we head into the cooler months.
Claudia Fleming’s apple crumb crostata, and Claire Saffitz’s challah - two solid weekend projects to kick off a sweet new year.
My family’s inexplicably goyische Rosh Hashanah meal, in which chopped liver and matzo balls are followed by prime rib and yorkshire pudding. Boyfriend of the newsletter David hosted the second night at his place, serving Michael Solmonov’s hawaij-rubbed short ribs, Persian rice, and my favorite spicy fennel salad (more on that below).
(SB) Hey Hi Hello, sweet readers! It’s nice to be in your inbox today – in fact, it’s a little bit like flying through time and space between paragraphs, because this is mostly an introduction I put together during a long layover more than a month ago. In the weeks since, I’ve been to India and back, enjoyed some revelry in the Sierra Foothills and along the Central Coast, and learned just the right amount about Adam Levine’s sexting habits.
In any case, before my departure in August, I had quite a bit of time to revel in what was effectively my “last week” of summer in the City. I took in an outdoor movie, I caught the Basement Bhangra 25th anniversary party in the park, I ate borscht on the beach, and, most importantly, I spent a lot of really great time with my friends. As I rode off to JFK in mid August, the slightest strange whisper of Autumn in the air, all I could think was “What a great City, what a sweet life!” I’m sure I’ll be hanging on to that sentiment for dear life come the dreaded darkness of winter on the academic job market. In the spirit of Endless Summer, here’s what I’ve enjoyed eating in the last several weeks:
What felt like every prepared food that Tashkent Market had to offer (except, there’s so much more!!!). I especially enjoyed the Tashkent style plov, chicken pastry, and a bevy of spreads. I look forward to returning in the winter for some more obscure soups.
This corn risotto, which friend of the newsletter AF Cooper put me on to. It’s probably going to get a separate write up one of these days, but suffice to say it’s really good – we enjoyed it plain, with blistered cherry tomatoes, and with crumbled bacon in different combinations.
Friend of the letter Anna went all out for our pre-Ghostbusters-in-the-park picnic; I can’t stop thinking about some cheese stuffed sweet peppers and the Brooklyn Meat Hook chicken Liver mousse, both of which I believe came from The Brooklyn Pork Store.
An unbelievably delicious griddled donut at Sequoia Coffee Co – a must try if you’re in Three Rivers – and a fun, vibe-y meal at Rory’s Place in Ojai.
FENNEL SALAD REVISITED
(JS) I know we’re technically a mere week into fall, but I am already feeling the soul-sucking effects of dwindling daylight, combined with increasingly ambitious professional and social plans as the city springs back to life. What this has meant for my cooking and eating is an increasing reliance on tried and true faves - permanent rotations, as they’re often called around these parts. Lately I find myself leaning on recipes that I’ve nearly memorized or can wing with some confidence, and - ideally - those which can be batched, slightly remixed, and zhuzhed with fridge and pantry aids over a few days to keep me nourished with adequate variety.
A couple years ago I wrote about green schug, a fresh and herbaceous Yemeni hot sauce layered with warmth from cardamom and cumin and a lemony zing. I first encountered the stuff in Michael Solomonov’s debut book and have prepared versions of it countless times since, tinkering with the amount of chiles or herbs to use up whatever’s withering away in my crisper. Schug remains a top tier salsa verde in this house, and there is perhaps no more revered use for it than the Zahav spicy fennel salad. I’ve taken a fast and loose approach to the recipe of late, forgoing the additional fresh herbs in favor of more schug - two tablespoons is good, three even better. The result is undoubtedly more potent than the original, but it mellows after a night’s rest in the fridge, so go ahead and prep a double recipe to enjoy throughout the week. With time, the fennel relaxes and the slaw-like salad skews increasingly toward a proper pickled condiment, equally delish piled high on a sandwich, or snuck by the forkful straight from the fridge.
TRY IT: Jackfruit Carnitas
(SB) Despite being very fond of both sweet and savory Indian preparations of jackfruit, I have been skeptical of the kind that comes in a can for years now. Perhaps I was scared of being disappointed, perhaps I was just dragging my feet– in any case, I finally got over myself and made these jackfruit carnitas last week and cannot recommend them enough. As the linked blog post notes, there are two keys to this recipe's success: you should be careful to purchase jackfruit in brine and not syrup and then be sure to wring out the water from the jackfruit using a dish towel or cheese cloth. My wrung-out jackfruit looked alarmingly like drained canned tuna, but I’m glad I looked past this uncanny (pun intended) resemblance and kept it moving.
Once your jackfruit is drained, the recipe comes together quickly: caramelize some onions in a heavy-bottomed pan, add in your jackfruit and a little soy sauce, lower the heat, and stir-fry until the mixture is mostly dry. Then, add in a combination of cumin, Mexican oregano (shoutout to the Rancho Gordo oregano), chili, and paprika and let things get nice and crispy. The recipe calls for a little sugar, but I found that a blast of high heat on my cast iron charred the jackfruit plenty. Top with cilantro and a generous squeeze of lime and prepare to wish you doubled the recipe. I served it on top of some wannabe burrito bowls with black beans, zucchini, and a little pico de gallo and found it to be one of the more satisfying weeknight meals I’ve thrown together.
ACTUALLY SPICY (BUT ALSO CREAMY) RIGATONI
(JS) Seasoned readers are well aware of my weird hangups about making pasta at home, but a couple weekends ago I found myself facing a one-two punch of early onset seasonal depression and a hangover that only spicy rigatoni could fix. I’ve been burned by the promise of spicy rigatoni before - first popularized by C*rbone but now a fixture of the new Italian joints gentrifying Brooklyn and beyond (Ridgewood), it’s usually something like vodka sauce that’s been gussied up with pepper flakes. To refer to such dishes solely by the adjective “spicy” is perhaps misleading - usually there’s a dash of red pepper or a dab of Calabrian chile, but let’s not kid ourselves - these dishes are creamy first and foremost. And that’s okay!
But back to my ailing thirty-one-year-old body - Joy Cho’s tomato gochujang cream pasta - a quick, pantry-friendly, and evidently adaptable recipe was the ideal cure. Friend of the letter (and bona fide pasta wiz) Ava served this at a dinner party last year, finishing hers with short rib that had been braised in the style of galbi jjim. I had some sweet Italian sausage in the freezer, so I browned some of that and used the drippings as a base for my sauce. I added some butter and sauteed my garlic, then added the tomato paste and a hefty squeeze of gochujang, stirring until caramelized. I didn’t have any chicken stock, so instead I deglazed with heavy cream thinned with water. I simmered this for a few minutes until thickened, then stirred in some parm, honey, and ample black pepper. I had also confited some cherry tomatoes earlier that week, which I used in lieu of the roasted tomatoes, along with some of their garlicky oil and the crispy browned sausage. The final product - thique, glossy, and decently spiced - clung to my rigatoni with ease. I wasted no time digging into this straight, but would be eager to experiment further, perhaps baking it with a couple of cheeses and finishing with a flurry of chopped scallions, Smitten skillet-baked style.
PERMANENT ROTATION: This time of year always gets me (SB) going for Smitten Kitchen’s miso sweet potato bowl.
WISH LIST
(JS) Instagram continues to serve me ads for this “smart” showerhead and like a moth to the DTC flame I am barely resisting. Tragically “Citron” does not go with my bathroom color palette but if anyone wants to surprise me I think “Moon” could work well.
(SB) Okay, I’ll bite, I have a coveted shower head of my own to share. I saw the Men’s Health-award winning “Jolie” showerhead on TIkTok and am not not curious about if it’s going to eliminate my frizz and clear my skin.
(JS & SB) One of our favorite Los Angeles microbakers has her eyes set on a brick and mortar. Lara’s cookies have charmed the likes of Issa Rae, Lena Waithe, and Oprah - donate to her GoFundMe and help bring her sweets to the masses.
Unfortunately we are technically still on Instagram, should that be something that interests you.