Good morning. It’s list-making season. I’m cataloging gifts I want to give family and friends, tabulating all the work that needs to be done on the skiff before the fish return in the spring, putting basement chores on the docket, indexing every book I’ve read this year. I’m looking forward, looking back, taking stock and making plans.
Recipes are a part of the inventorying, always. At the top of my docket for this week’s cooking: this excellent 1996 recipe from Moira Hodgson for salmon with lemon-herb marinade, cooked quickly under the broiler and served with lemon wedges and sprigs of rosemary. I like it with potato salad and undressed watercress.
Featured Recipe
Salmon With Lemon-Herb Marinade
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
Ali Slagle’s recipe for mushroom smash burgers is one of the great exercises in culinary simplicity. You substitute a portobello cap for the beef patty and then dress the result exactly as you would if you were in charge of the grill top at Hamburger America. Oven-fried patatas bravas to go with? I think so, yes.
Tuesday
More Ali! I love her recipe for beef chow fun, principally for how you really scorch the rice noodles after you’ve seared the velveted steak, so that they’re still chewy but crisp at the edges. Get the beef back into the wok after you’ve done so, add the sauce and toss until everything’s glossy. That’s a meal you’ll put on repeat all winter long.
Wednesday
I keep a few bags of store-bought tortellini in the freezer against the near certainty that on a Wednesday night I’m going to forget to shop for dinner on the way home like the proper Parisian I generally consider myself to be. Enter Dan Pelosi’s great recipe for creamy tortellini soup, which comes together quickly with Italian sausage, if you have any (I’ve substituted diced salami), cream and a handful of kale from the back of the crisper.
Thursday
I crave this recipe I picked up from the chef Chad Shaner for the Cajun-style fish tacos he used to serve at staff meals at the Union Square Cafe: blackened fingers of white fish, wilted scallions, crisp radishes and a scattering of grated Cheddar on warm corn tortillas, with wedges of lime and chipotle sour cream. Watch the heat under the pan when you’re cooking the fish. You want to blacken the spices on it, yes, but you don’t want to burn them.
Friday
I want to try out this new recipe for a celery and pecan gratin from Cybelle Tondu, in part because I think it could be an ace accompaniment to my Christmas ham. I’m not cooking a ham on a regular-degular Friday night, though. Maybe I’ll go with pork chops and onion gravy instead.
If none of those pique your interest, head on over to New York Times Cooking and make your own list. You’ll need a subscription to do that, of course. Subscriptions make this whole operation possible. If you haven’t taken one out yet, would you please consider subscribing today? Thank you.
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Now, it’s some considerable distance from anything to do with persimmons or parsley but, yes, you’re right, car headlights are getting brighter. Nate Rogers reports on that phenomenon for The Ringer, and on two activists who are challenging the LED arms race as best they can.
Here’s Jennifer Wilson, in The New Yorker, on the business of breaking up.
Dwight Garner, in The New York Times Book Review, is really good on the comedian Leanne Morgan’s memoir, “What in the World?!” “Comedy on the edge of pain is Morgan’s specialty,” Dwight writes. “She’s Appalachian, and over the elegy.”
Finally, the pianist Yunchan Lim’s performance with the New York Philharmonic sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole. Here he is in 2022 at age 18, winning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition with a breathtaking rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto. Listen to that while you’re list-making. I’ll be back next week.
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