Good morning. Two of my favorite restaurants in New York City were closed by the health department recently. For even the most die-hard of home cooks, a delivery meal can be a balm on nights when work started early and ended late, or when there’s nothing in the fridge or pantry to spark joy.
But if a delivery meal’s not available? I’m going to make do. I’m stopping by the fishmonger on the way home so that I can make ceviche (above). Ask what’s freshest, and then cube it into a bowl with lime juice, tomatoes, onion, jalapeño and a big pinch of salt. Cover and let everything cure in the fridge for 20 minutes or so, until the fish’s flesh has gone mostly opaque. Then stir in some cubed avocado and a whole bunch of chopped cilantro. Serve with tortilla chips and celebrate summer.
Featured Recipe
Ceviche
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
Lidey Heuck’s recipe for a chopped salad with chickpeas, feta and avocado is a study in balances: equal measures of all. I love how the capers and olives bounce off the avocado and cheese into the crunch of the chopped romaine and cucumbers, with chickpeas for pop. Will I add a diced red onion to the mix? Yes.
Tuesday
Another recipe from Lidey, easily prepared after work: grilled honey-mustard chicken thighs, charred and juicy, just the thing to pair with a green salad and some early-season corn on the cob.
Wednesday
Alexa Weibel and Christina Morales adapted this recipe for halloumi, arugula and tomato sandwiches from the one Jake Marsiglia and Costa Damaskos developed at their Baby Blues Luncheonette in Brooklyn. It’s as bonkers delicious at home as it is in the restaurant.
Thursday
I like Zainab Shah’s new recipe for a sheet-pan shrimp tikka for how effectively it conjures the smoky scent of tandoori-style cooking using your broiler and judicious spicing. Serve with warm naan, roti or basmati rice alongside a cooling raita.
Friday
And then you can head into the weekend with Jocelyn Ramirez’s excellent recipe for crispy mushroom tacos, which transforms torn oyster mushrooms into something resembling (and even tasting like!) fried pork. She pairs them with an excellent pico de gallo, bright acidity against the fat that is not fat, but the rich, umami-dense flavor of the Pleurotus itself.
There are many thousands more recipes to cook this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go explore the offerings and see what piques your interest. (You need a subscription to do that, of course. Please, 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 [email protected] and someone will get back to you. Or you can write to me if you’d like to speak to a manager: [email protected]. I can’t respond to every letter. But I do read each one I get.
Now, it’s a far cry from anything to do with kombucha or tapenade, but here’s Karl Kirchwey’s new poem in The New York Review of Books, “Coyotes.” There’s a great word in it, “fumarole.”
Irina Aleksander has a fine profile of the character actor Jon Bernthal, in The New York Times Magazine.
Finally, I love reading Julia O’Malley’s accounting of life in Alaska. Here she is on Girdwood, the resort town southeast of Anchorage: “Girdwood’s soul is an 11-year-old kid in a damp, oversized sweatshirt, riding an old BMX to The Merc for jo-jos. It’s a blueberry pie delivered to the volunteer fire department. It’s a booth at the Halloween carnival where you stand in line just to pet a golden retriever. You’ll know it if you find it, because it’s magical, generous, mossy and maybe a little high.” I’ll be back next week.
Sam Sifton is an assistant managing editor, responsible for culture and lifestyle coverage, and the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.
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