Go for the gold: What to Cook This Week

December 5, 2021

Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophie Leng.

What to Cook This Week

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Dorie Greenspan was in Paris this summer and came across an artful, amazing cookie at Le Comptoir, François Perret's pastry shop in the Ritz hotel on the Place Vendôme. For The Times this week, she wrote about the giant, kind-of-chocolate-chip cookie he had made into a cake for his children, with the mix-ins strewn across the top, alongside her recipe for a home-style version (above) that is "surprising and playful, novel, delicious and satisfying."

I think it might be just the thing for dessert tonight, after a dinner of beef Bourguignon if you have the time, or a simple omelet mousseline if you don't.

For Monday's repast, take a look at this new recipe for pasta with andouille sausage, white beans and collard greens, a one-pan meal of great deliciousness.

On Tuesday, I'm thinking you might try Zainab Shah's recipe for aloo anday, a spicy Pakistani breakfast dish of potatoes and eggs that happens to make for a terrific weeknight dinner.

And on Wednesday, try cooking without a recipe. Just riff on a prompt: store-bought cheese ravioli, say, in a creamy, cheesy, white clam sauce fortified with miso. Say what? Melt some butter in a pan, and add to it a couple of glugs of milk, cream or half-and-half, along with a few tablespoons of whatever miso you have on hand. Let that simmer, and add to it a can of chopped clams (including the juices!), then thicken the sauce with a handful of grated Parmesan. It'll come together nicely, but you may wish to add a little more milk. Season to taste (I like red-pepper flakes for that.) Now tip the ravioli into the pan to cook with the sauce, and serve it strewn with chopped parsley and some bread to mop up the sauce.

Three-cup vegetables for Thursday, with rice? Or ginger-cauliflower soup?

And then you can run out the week with bacon-wrapped dates, followed by vinegar chicken with crushed olive dressing. Willie, one of our subscribers, noted below that recipe: "This dish has one of the best effort- (low) to-deliciousness (high) ratios of any chicken dish I've made." You may find this true yourself.

Thousands and thousands more recipes to make this week await you on New York Times Cooking, though, yes, you do need a subscription to access them. Subscriptions are the fuel in our stoves. They allow us to continue this work that we love. I hope if you haven't gotten one already, you will subscribe today. (N.b.: You can also buy gift subscriptions for your family and friends.) And you'll find more inspiration on our Instagram page and our YouTube channel.

Please reach out if you find yourself jammed up in your kitchen or by our technology. Just drop a line to cookingcare@nytimes.com and someone will get back to you. You can also write to me if you're exercised about something or would simply like to say hello. I'm at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.

Now, it's nothing to do with whole-wheat flour or the taste of Irish butter, but I think you should read Peter Kiefer's cover story for Los Angeles Magazine, about how psychedelic drugs are all the rage in Los Angeles right now. What could go wrong?

Please read Ellen Barry's heartbreaking story in The Times, about the five years Maine police and prosecutors spent chasing a domestic violence case, and what happened in the end.

It's a little hard to find, currently, but as my colleague Krysten Chambrot points out, this cookbook by Demetria Glace is kind of incredible: "Leaked Recipes: The Cookbook: A Collection of Over 50 Recipes Found in the World's Biggest Email Leaks and the Stories Behind Them."

Finally, here's Mitski, "The Only Heartbreaker," which is what I want to listen to while I prep dinner tonight. Won't you join me? I'll be back on Monday.

Continue reading the main story