What's Cooking? Vol. 12
Bi-weekly recipes links, techniques, and more
What a crazy two weeks! There’s a first time for everything, and this is the first time I am drafting my newsletter from scratch on Thursday evening. Wish me luck because I am really not a person who performs well under pressure. I have my mushroom-powered non-alcoholic Negroni in hand and “Friends” on in the background. But, if at any point I say “your” but mean “you’re”, just know that at some point later today I will figure it out and I won’t be happy.
This is going to be a short and sweet edition of my newsletter, however. After sixteen months of working from home, my husband started back in the office this week — only two days a week (but still) — and he had a work trip to Boston. There was plenty of time to cook, but a little less time to write.
I made some yummy food, though, so I am going to share each of those recipes below alongside a one-sentence blurb about what makes the recipe special. Then, I’ll introduce our next technique: slow-roasted fish, and that’ll be it for the week. I’ll find my new rhythm by my next newsletter.
The Survey
Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey from the last newsletter! I have only just started looking at them but the responses are really helpful. I will send out emails next week to play some recipe matchmaking.
Recipes
Carla Lalli Music’s Caramelized Onion and Tuna Pasta: I’ll do just about anything for caramelized onions, including trying a pasta dish with canned tuna. I loved it!
Ali Slagle’s Paprika-Roasted Chicken & Potatoes: A recipe from the NYT cooking app perfect for hosting, big families, and meal prep (hint: you’re slow-roasting two chickens at once)!
Ali Slagle’s Shallot & Black-Pepper Stir-Fry: A cheap, versatile, veggie-packed weeknight meal that can easily be made with ground meat instead of tempeh.
Alison Roman’s Baked Pasta with Artichokes, Greens, and Too Much Cheese: With a little bit of extra work, you can have a delicious pasta bake that feeds 8 and tastes exactly like spinach and artichoke dip, plus kids love it.
Special Brownies: Don’t judge me for putting black beans in my brownies. I have a sweet tooth, but I also like to eat clean 87.5% of the time. These brownies — which have zero refined sugar and no flour whatsoever — were a home run!
Technique of the Moment: Fish
Sometimes I worry that I overhype too many things, and as a result, you might find it difficult to discern which recipes are the good ones — worthy of your time — and which recipes are the great ones that will change your life and/or make you fall in love with cooking. I think this is also true for techniques. So, I want to say for the record that I think poaching is a good technique and the recipes I shared from Vol. 10 and Vol. 11 are worth your time and attention.
Slow-roasting fish, however, is one of the all-time greats! Back when Molly Baz worked at Bon Appetit she wrote an essay: “How To Cook Fish (Without Stinking Up Your Kitchen or Splattering Oil Everywhere).” It’s a short essay. It’s worth a read, but here is the highlight:
Here's why it works. Cooking fish at a low temperature reduces the risk of overcooking it by leaving you with more wiggle room with regards to cooking time. An extra 2-3 minutes at high heat on the stove top could be the difference between a perfectly cooked piece of fish and one that is tough, mealy, and grossly overdone. But at lower temperatures, that ideal window of doneness widens significantly, giving you the time to calmly and repeatedly check for doneness.
I love slow-roasting fish for the flexibility it provides, but also because it’s completely hands off, yet miraculously and perfectly ready to eat in 15 minutes. It’s the ideal cooking method for those nights when you truly have little to no time.
I made Ali Slagle’s Salmon To Get Your Groove Back, which utilizes a slow-roasting method.
It is soooooooo good. Not only did it taste phenomenal, but I am in regular, daily search of my groove and I felt seen with this recipe. My groove gets lost a lot these days when both of my 14-month-old twin girls are loudly and ferociously playing tug of war with their Mary dolls….even though they both have one, so there’s really no need to fight over either of them. Anyway, making this recipe this week was truly a highlight of my week amidst the chaos and change of schedule.
One Non-Food-Related Thought
I forgot how good the soundtrack to the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie is! In addition to making the abovementioned salmon, the soundtrack has also been helping me find my groove.
See you in the kitchen!
Xo,
Rach
The salmon looks amazing😍
That salmon looks soooo good!! Definitely going to give it a try!