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1.29.21

Enchanting Weekend Project!

Is the forecast chilly where you are? That’s the best excuse for spending quality time in the kitchen — soaking up beautiful scents, trying new things. Like our soup of the week. After that, we’ve got few ideas up our sleeve for great weeknight cooking (and eating!) — linked from Cooks Without Borders and around the web.

Chilly weather is also a great time to celebrate lemons — whether it’s slices scattered (with limes, oranges, onions and thyme) on and around roasted branzino that evokes the Amalfi Coast, or in the form of deliciously optimistic lemon-centric almond cake.

Soup of the Week: Persian Chicken Soup with Chickpea and Lamb Meatballs

Dried rose petals, chopped garlic and parsley or cilantro: That’s the garnish that goes on Abgusht-e morgh ba kufteh-ye nokhodchi, the Persian Chicken Soup with Chickpea and Lamb Meatballs that’s shown at the top of the newsletter.

It takes the better part of an afternoon to make it, but what an afternoon! Saffron, cardamom, cumin — playing with all those beautiful spices is truly transporting. The recipe is adapted from Najmieh Batmanglij’s Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies. It’s part of our Around the World in Chicken Soup series. Here’s the story. And here’s the recipe:

What? Okonomiyaki-Style Brussels Sprouts, again?!

We usually have a pound or two of Brussels sprouts rattling around our crisper drawer. Well, make that crammed into our crisper drawer — there’s never enough room in there for things to rattle around. 😂

The question is always: What to do with them? Last night Wylie took charge, and turned up this recipe for Okonomiyaki-Style Brussels Sprouts from Bon Appétit, inspired by Chuko in Brooklyn. The idea is to sear the Brussels sprouts, toss them in okonomiyaki sauce (similar to tonkatsu sauce, with lots of Worcestershire, honey, ketchup and such) and dress them with the garnishes popular for okonomiyaki: squiggled mayo, sliced scallions, nori bits and bonito flakes — plus togarashi and toasted sesame seeds.

It turned out great! We followed most of the recipe faithfully, though Wylie seared the Brussels sprouts on top of the stove in a cast-iron pan rather than in the oven (I think either way is probably fine). I vetoed the idea of covering the whole thing in mayo — we squiggled it on, covering about a third of it. Also, we didn’t have Kewpie mayo (the Japanese brand that comes in a squeeze bottle), so Wylie made home-made mayo, put it in a plastic zipper bag, cut off a little corner and squeezed it from there.

We’ll definitely make this again. It can be either a plant-forward main course, or a fancy side dish if you have a simple main course, like roast chicken or simply seared pork chops.

Now for something much simpler: Roasted branzino with citrus and thyme

👇👇👇

This is probably my favorite way of making branzino, Mediterranean sea bass. I especially love it in winter, when I’m dreaming of the Amalfi coast and lemons, limes and oranges are at their peak.

It takes all of about five minutes to prepare — just slicing onion and citrus, strewing fresh thyme, shoving into hot oven). And it’s pretty stunning, as well as light and healthy.

Weeknight dinner for two? Definitely. Could you make this for friends once Covid is behind us? Absolutely.

Mac and cheese craving strikes again

I know I’ve been craving it, so maybe you have been, too. There are a million recipes for mac and cheese out there. Please forgive me for saying so, but I secretly think ours is the best. Part of me would like to dive into a gooey, cheesy, bread-crumb-topped crock of it and stay there until the pandemic is over.

Lemon-Almond Butter Cake: Hello, sunshine!

Last time I made this — and the only time I took a picture of it — pools of lemon curd that you’re supposed to see shining through on top sunk into the middle of the cake; normally it looks a lot more lemony. But it was just as fabulous. My old friend Regina Schrambling wrote about it long ago (before I knew her) in The New York Times, and it was introduced to me a few years ago by our mutual friend, Michalene Busico. Michalene’s always turns out much more beautiful than mine.

Regina wrote that “It's like the ultimate citrus tart, without the heartbreak of pie crust.” She adapted it from a cookbook (now vintage), “In the Hands of a Chef,” by Jody Adams. It’s very sweet as written, so I cut back the sugar a bit, both in the curd and in the cake.

Have a sunny, lemony, saffrony, cardamomy, togarashi weekend, and a delectable, stress-free week!

Love, Leslie

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Have a comment, or want to tell us about something you’d like to see covered here? Drop me a line at leslie@cookswithoutborders.com.