Go for the gold: What to Cook This Week

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Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Sunday, July 18, 2021

What to Cook This Week

Sam Sifton

Good morning and I’m sorry to be bossy about this, but I think you ought to clean your refrigerator today. It won’t take long, but I promise it’ll make you feel better, and that’s true even if you woke up whistling and ready to dance, and especially if you’re blue. It’s a reset. Take everything out and evaluate it for usefulness and age. Tip the parsley scraps out of the crisper. Wipe down the surfaces so they gleam or get as close to a gleam as you can manage. Then return what remains to its right place in the fridge.

There’ll be some space now for groceries, for a week’s worth of cooking. And that’s what we’re here to do.

Look at that open corner where the quarter ounce of soy milk was languishing in its half-gallon jug. Use that space for a covered container of steak in adobada, the tangy Mexican marinade made with guajillo peppers. That could be dinner tonight, with rice and warm tortillas. And see the area beside it, where two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes had been fermenting in an enormous bowl for a week? Perfect for a strawberry gingersnap icebox cake (above)! You’re working on a clean slate.

For Monday’s big meal, I’m thinking spicy glass noodles with shiitake mushrooms and cabbage. You may prefer glazed tofu with chile and star anise. Or, if heat’s not your game, a Greek salad with goat cheese.

On Tuesday night, how about these sausages with tangy, gingery pineapple for a Hawaiian pizza vibe? (Some people can’t abide fruit and meat. I’m sorry for them but offer solace in the form of this risotto with sausage and parsley.)

I like the looks of this one-pot spaghetti with cherry tomatoes and kale for Wednesday night. But I could see bailing on it in favor of a sandwich made with deli turkey, Swiss cheese, shredded cabbage and Thousand Island dressing in place of my usual mayonnaise.

Thursday night looks good for fish cakes with herbs and chiles. I like that with a green salad and a super-lemony vinaigrette.

And on Friday, you might take a look at this skillet chicken with black beans, rice and chiles, or these sesame-crusted pork cutlets with cabbage, nice under tonkatsu sauce.

Thousands and thousands more recipes to cook this week await you on New York Times Cooking, at least if you’ve availed yourself of a subscription to our site and apps. If you haven’t yet taken one out, I hope you will do so today. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue.

Like and subscribe, you guys: We’re on YouTube, as well as on Instagram and Twitter. (I’m @samsifton on those channels, if you’d like to see links to news stories and pictures of fish.)

And do get in touch with us if anything goes sideways in your cooking or our technology. Write: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you.

Now, it’s absolutely nothing to do with spot prawns or spicy brown mustard, but if you’re looking for a midsummer novel to read, I’m going to put you onto Peter Carey’s “A Long Way From Home.”

Jason Zengerle is in The New York Times Magazine this week with a fascinating look at Black Rifle Coffee Company as it positions itself as the Starbucks of the political right. Read that as well.

Spend some time with Paolo Veneziano, “Art & Devotion in 14th-Century Venice,” a new exhibition up at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Finally, here’s some new old music to play us off: Thom Yorke’s “Very 2021 Rmx” of Radiohead’s “Creep.” That’ll get you through the fridge. I’ll be back on Monday.