The sun smiled down over Brooklyn last weekend. The temperature gently hovered around 75 degrees, and on Prospect Park’s Great Lawn, picnickers spread themselves out like asparagus on a sheet pan. We’re eating outside again: Summer is a-comin’ in!
To tee up alfresco dining season, Tanya Sichynsky (she of the The Veggie) has assembled a collection of our best “portable and shareable recipes built for the backyard, the beach and the communal barbecue.” She may not say it in so many words, but the list definitely works for picnics and park hangs, too.
Tanya has lined up two dozen absolute bangers to pick from, but high on my list is Yewande Komolafe’s recipe for chewy strawberry jam bars with cardamom. Yewande is a shortbread sorcerer, ever coaxing new flavors, shapes and colors from her exquisite, buttery dough.
These simple bars with a nubby, crumbly topping hold up well for travel, easily feed a crowd and are maximally adaptable. Substitute any thick jam for strawberry — ideally something tart to balance the sweet crust. And if these treats, like most shortbreads, tend toward crumbliness, well, you’re eating them outside. The squirrels, ants and sparrows will be more than happy to tidy up.
Featured Recipe
Strawberry Jam Bars With Cardamom
More food for thought:
Grilled harissa shrimp: Another hit on Tanya’s list, in which Yossy Arefi applies a traditional North African spice paste to succulent pink shrimp and sweet cherry tomatoes, then grills it all until charred and juicy. The aroma alone gives festive vibes.
Chickpea, spinach and feta pie: Hetty Lui McKinnon takes inspiration from two classic Greek pies — spinach-filled spanakopita and leek-laden prasopita — and remixes them into a single, stunning skillet dinner, with chickpeas thrown in for protein and heft. Working with phyllo can seem daunting, but Hetty’s guidance makes it a snap: Just scrunch and crumple up the dry phyllo sheets and scatter them over the filling. A half-hour in the oven turns them golden and shatteringly crisp.
Stir-fried lettuce with crispy garlic and fried eggs: The secret to stir-frying lettuce is using leaves sturdy enough to stand the heat and keep some crunch. Hetty suggests iceberg or romaine here, both of which have plenty of brawn for the job. Then she tops it with garlic chips for even more texture and flavor, and fried eggs with runny yolks to create a silky sauce.
Lemon-pepper chicken breasts: Fresh lemon juice, zhuzhed with store-bought lemon seasoning, gives Lidey Heuck’s weeknight chicken breasts a smack of brightness and verve. Since they call for minimal prep work, even a beginner cook can whip them up in about 20 minutes. Vivid and zesty in no time at all.
Palak paneer: Farideh Sadeghin’s take on a Punjabi classic has cubes of fresh paneer cooked briefly in a purée of spiced greens seasoned with fresh ginger and chiles. Tofu cubes make a fine substitute for the paneer, and you can even skip the cream at the end to keep this on the lighter side.
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That’s all for now. I’ll see you next week.
Melissa Clark has been writing her column, A Good Appetite, for The Times’s Food section since 2007. She creates recipes for New York Times Cooking, makes videos and reports on food trends. She is the author of 45 cookbooks, and counting.
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