Good morning! Today we have for you:
Kimchi convenience
I don’t want to sound bossy, but: You should always have kimchi in your fridge. (Before we continue, I should say that you don’t have to make your own kimchi, of course. I’ve bought many excellent kimchis, and it’s a wonderful moment when you find a brand with the exact levels of spice and funk you want. But if you’d like to make your own — an excellent thing to do on a winter weekend, with napa cabbage at its crisp peak — Eric Kim’s recipe is great.) Kimchi is a welcome side dish, yes, but it’s also the base for a number of excellent, easy dinners. Fried rice, stew and grilled cheeses immediately spring to mind, but also kimchi and potato hash with eggs. Kimchi carbonara. Salmon and kimchi skillet. And these kimchi chicken lettuce wraps from Alexa Weibel, for which I have some ground chicken currently defrosting in my fridge. Along with the chicken and kimchi, all you need for this dinner is hoisin sauce, lettuce leaves, warm rice and bit of neutral oil (and salt and pepper, of course). The kimchi contributes salt, sour and funk, with the hoisin bringing the sweet. Several readers report adding a squeeze of lime to finish; others skip the rice and serve this as a salad. And the chicken is negotiable: I’m seeing ground pork, tofu, plant-based meat and beans as successful swaps in the reader comments. The only thing you can’t skip — again, sorry to be bossy — is the kimchi. Featured Recipe Kimchi Chicken Lettuce WrapsLet’s stick to seven ingredients or fewerMiso-maple sheet-pan chicken with brussels sprouts: This dish from Carolina Gelen employs the same funky-sweet-pairing action as Alexa’s chicken wraps above, only here it’s miso and maple syrup. A little bit of cumin adds earthy depth to ground everything. (By the way, for our ingredient-tabulating purposes here, we’re not counting oil, salt or pepper. You’ve got those, right?) Coconut-chile salmon and greens: I spent my childhood disliking coconut — ah, the folly of youth — so as an adult I’ve been making up for lost time by consuming every sweet and savory coconutty thing I come across. This new Ali Slagle recipe is inspired by thoran, a Keralan dish that combines vegetables, freshly grated coconut and warm spices. For weeknight ease, Ali calls for shredded, unsweetened coconut and leans on sautéed and roasted chard for the vegetable element. Pasta amatriciana: This is one of those situations where using the nice version of an ingredient is going to go a long way — the can of good tomatoes, the imported dried pasta, the guanciale (or pancetta) from your favorite cured meats purveyor. Not for nothing, this classic recipe from Kay Chun would be a very nice Valentine’s Day dinner.
And before you goI know winter won’t last forever — she said, desperately — so I’m doing my best to enjoy the comforts of cold-weather cooking. I’m going through this collection of 19 cozy winter dinners to warm you up and bookmarking the recipes I want to make (or make again); I can say from experience that the creamy tomato spaghetti with preserved lemon and lentil tomato soup are so, so good. The low where I live is plunging to minus 11 Fahrenheit this weekend, so I’m eyeing Millie Peartree’s Jamaican curry chicken and potatoes because, as Millie says, “There’s nothing more comforting than chicken and potatoes.”
Thanks for reading!
|
.jpg)
