Go for the gold: What to Cook Right Now

December 6, 2021

Sarah Anne Ward for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Elise Wilson

What to Cook Right Now

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Dinner tonight might be pasta and cannellini beans with a sauce of beurre blanc (above), a recipe that Tejal Rao learned from the British cookbook author Jack Monroe. I like it because it's easy and luxurious and comes together fast. And it'll leave me time to prepare the marinade for these awesome pork gyros for tomorrow or the next day, with oven-baked French fries on the side, and ketchup spiked with hot sauce and yogurt run through with lemon juice and garlic.

It's the season of the make-ahead, after all: brandied dried fruit for cakes and braises alike; dirty chai earthquake cookies to take into the still-quiet office, to share with those who made the trek; a black cake to feed with rum until the end of the month.

But I'll make more than food for the future this week. I want to give this chocolate cake with peppermint frosting a try as well. A version might end up on the Christmas table, to follow the ham. (Here, by the way, is a hilariously specific collection of recipes we have: Breads for Ham.) I'd like to make linguine with lemon sauce one night soon. And Maangchi's recipe for cheese buldak as well.

I could go for some pasta puttanesca. I'd love to tuck into a platter of veal Pojarski. Roasted squash salad would be a lovely dinner, too, out of the fertile mind of Ned Baldwin, the chef and owner of Houseman in New York. And how about a grain frittata with chile lime and fresh herbs? Or gochugaru salmon with crispy rice? That, too!

Click your way over to New York Times Cooking to see what else you find. Thousands and thousands of recipes await. A subscription is required, it's true, but we think you'll find it worth the scratch: all our recipes, along with the tools and features we've built to help you use them, and the notes of fellow subscribers beneath recipes to help you make your choice. Subscriptions are important. They support our work and allow it to continue. I hope, if you haven't already, that you will subscribe today. (Looking for a holiday gift for someone? Consider a gift subscription!)

We will be standing by in the meantime, should anything go awry in your cooking or with our code. Just write cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. And you can also write to me if you're mad about something — or glad about something. I can take a punch, but I like friendly notes as much as anyone. I'm at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.

Now, it's more to do with professional kitchens than anything to do with making dinner for your family, but I loved this exit interview the Montreal Gazette had with the chef David McMillan, who recently announced his departure from the business after 32 years. "I never want to shave white truffles onto asparagus for someone from Toronto ever again in my life," he said.

To help celebrate the 10th anniversary edition of "The Essential New York Times Cookbook," I visited with my old colleague Amanda Hesser, who wrote it, and we cooked Momofuku's bo ssam for the cameras of Food52. That video is here.

Gift and library fodder: Please explore our listing of the 10 Best Books of 2021.

Finally, here's Morgan Wade, "Wilder Days," live from Blackbird Studio in Nashville, earlier this fall. Play that loud, and I'll be back on Wednesday.

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