Good morning! Today we have for you:
I love you, lentils
One small, but potent delight of home cooking is rediscovering ingredients. My colleague Tanya Sichynsky recently experienced this with cabbage; on my end, I re-fell in love with lentils. I always have bags of them in my pantry — they’re cheap and in nearly every grocery store — but recent bowls of soothing dal, sturdy fridge salads and sustaining soups rekindled my awe and appreciation for these tiny little legumes. So, while it’s still very cold, I’m going to make a double batch of Zaynab Issa’s coconut kitchri with jammy eggs. Kitchri, Zaynab writes, is a popular South Asian savory porridge made with rice and lentils. The flavor adaptations are endless, and this version looks to kuku paka, an East African coconut-milk-based curry, for inspiration. An aromatic curry base, warming ground spices and coconut milk form the broth in which the rice and lentils cook. The red lentils, coconut milk and rice are immediate hooks for me — pantry powerhouses all — and my imagination is really skipping about with topping possibilities. Sliced cucumbers and radishes, absolutely, for their cold crunch. Salted yogurt is a must, and because my sour tooth knows no bounds, I might also add some store-bought mango pickle. That’s another nice thing about lentils: Their gentle earthiness and softness provide the perfect platform for whatever additional flavors and textures you’d like to highlight. This dish is the exact mix of coziness and kick I need to get me through to spring. Featured Recipe Coconut Kitchri With Jammy EggsLet’s see what else we’ve got in the pantryQuick pasta e fagioli: Canned tomatoes, canned beans, dried pasta. That gets you most of the way to Ali Slagle’s weeknight take on a classic Italian soup; a little bacon (or pancetta), garlic and chicken broth get you across the finish line. Don’t skip the splash of red wine vinegar at the end, which lifts those hearty flavors. Chile crisp chicken cutlets: The fact that I, a noted chile crisp fanatic, have not yet made this Christian Reynoso recipe is pretty wild. Add in that I always have panko on hand, as well as soy sauce, vinegar and sugar, and this omission becomes pretty much inexcusable. I’ll be correcting this shortly, if you’d like to join me. Butternut squash tortilla soup: Butternut squash isn’t exactly a pantry staple, but you’d think it is, given the way I always bring one home and then remember it a week or so later. (I store it in a cool, dark spot in my kitchen, in line with what’s recommended in our produce storage guide.) This recipe from Paola Briseño-González gets smooth sweetness from the squash, plus a nice touch of heat from as much habanero chile as you’d like.
And before you goOur newest Pizza Interview finds Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe and Erika Alexander in the New York Times Cooking Studio Kitchen talking about morning dance parties and Fool’s Gold sandwiches. (A Fool’s Gold sandwich is, as Radcliffe describes it, “a hollowed-out loaf of bread with one half an entire jar of peanut butter and an entire jar of jam and then half a pound of crispy bacon. And it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life.”) Click here or on the image below to watch the episode:
Thanks for reading!
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