Good morning! Today we have for you:
Make mine a mushroom stroganoff
Hello, all. Here, in the middle of the short shoulder season between Christmas and New Year’s, there’s maybe a moment to finally rest. Gifts have been given; it’s not quite time to pop the champagne. When I have this small space to relax, I often want to fill it with ambitious cooking projects I’ve had to put off. This year, however, I’m just too exhausted to pull off anything big, but I still crave a meal that feels like a holiday. Thanks then, goes to Hetty Lui McKinnon for this mushroom stroganoff. It has all the meaty depth of beef stroganoff without any meat, an elegance that hints at its supposed aristocratic origins and conjures a Season 1 “Mad Men” dinner party. Hetty suggests soaking a handful of dried porcinis in hot water, then adding them and their liquid to the fresh mushrooms for even more umami. I’m going to do that and take a suggestion from the commenters who used dry sherry in place of white wine. To accentuate that fortified wine’s nutty notes, I’ll spoon this stroganoff over a celery root purée, which offers an earthy complexity to a mash that’s still creamy and mellow with potatoes in the mix. This pairing, I think, doubles down on midcentury party chic — the writer Joan Didion prepared the purée from a Craig Claiborne column in The Times for her holiday menus. Featured Recipe Mushroom StroganoffThat 30-minute stroganoff would stun as a main dish at a dinner party and is simple enough for a weeknight dinner at home. Here are more dishes that work in any setting: Murgh chole (chicken and chickpea curry): Another dish that’s also affordable and feels luxurious is this tomato-based curry, warm with ginger, garlic and green chiles. In a Punjabi legend about the Emperor Shah Jahan’s time in prison, cooks were said to have created this opulent dish for his majesty out of humble chickpeas. Zainab Shah offers this streamlined version, using boneless chicken thighs to help it come together in under an hour. That’s enough time to build a palace of flavors. Warm rice salad with salmon and arugula: I’m always looking for a novel way to use up a box of baby arugula, so I’m excited to try this brilliant one-pot meal from Ashley Lonsdale. She folds the greens into a pot of steamed rice and mustard-smeared salmon along with a lemon-caper dressing. The arugula wilts just enough to make it forkable, but retains its peppery bite to accentuate the fresh dill that runs through the rice. The whole meal takes as much effort as cooking a pot of rice, but tastes like the kind of $38 entree you’d have at a sun-dappled brunch spot. Baked croissant French toast with blueberries: Speaking of brunch, this feels like the week for late morning leisure every day. Ifrah F. Ahmed combines the French toast toppings of blueberries and maple syrup in what is essentially a breakfast bread pudding. It’s a great way to use up any stale or leftover croissants, maybe from a flat that you got at a big box store. I picked up too many packs of Hawaiian sweet rolls at Costco, so I’m going to use those instead and reduce the amount of syrup to compensate for the bread’s sweetness. Migas breakfast tacos: For a quick, savory morning meal, you can throw together these breakfast tacos with tortilla chips folded into the egg filling. I originally created this recipe to have a portable way to eat the need-a-fork scramble of migas; it has since become a canvas, a daily favorite. Sometimes I’ll add mushrooms, bacon or sausage to the mix, or even hash browns. On the morning after New Year’s Eve, that extra bulk may be just what you need. Have a great week cooking. I’ll see you in the new year!
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