Go for the gold: The Tofu Miracle

January 5, 2022

Kate Sears for The New York Times

The Tofu Miracle

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. I've been digging Jenny Rosenstrach's new cookbook, "The Weekday Vegetarians," and I'm not the only one. Melissa Clark picked up a cool technique for oven-frying tofu from it, and developed an excellent new recipe for crispy tofu with balsamic tomatoes (above). I think that would make a fine dinner this week. Will you give it a try?

It's endlessly adaptable. You could dress the tofu with chile oil and soy sauce instead, or use the crisp cubes as croutons on a salad. They're very good in a stir-fry. I might add chile powder, cumin and coriander to the mix, for a taco filling alongside pico de gallo. Oven-fried tofu might be the first breakout hit of 2022.

Other recipes I'm stoked to cook this week, as some of us spin back up into productivity after the last couple of weeks: this fine meal of vinegar chicken with crisp roasted mushrooms; a fragrant pot of red curry lentils with sweet potatoes and spinach; a sheet pan of sausages and brussels sprouts with honey mustard; and these black bean tacos with avocado and spicy onions.

And definitely I want to make pan pizza, lofty and buttery and rich. The recipe leaves you with three balls of dough. Freeze two of them and you've got two meals you can make later with a minimum of fuss. Just allow them to defrost in the refrigerator for a day or two before using.

Also, maple-baked salmon if I can find some wild fish at the market. Kung pao chicken if I cannot. And definitely this amazing oat milk chocolate pudding, plush and sweet. I think it may be the best use of oat milk yet.

There are thousands and thousands more recipes to choose waiting for you on New York Times Cooking, though you do need a subscription to access them. Subscriptions, as I've noted a few times in this space, support our work and allow it to continue. Thank you for yours. (If you haven't yet taken one out, would you please consider subscribing today? Thanks!)

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Now, it's nothing to do with madeleines or goulash, but I've been watching "Shooter" on Netflix, and I'm here to tell you that Tom Sizemore is superscary — and maybe that's just the distraction you need this week.

Also superscary: "2034: A Novel of the Next World War," by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis.

This Molly Young exploration of disgust and its role in humanity, in The New York Times Magazine, is required reading. It will be on the midterm exam.

Finally, see what you think of this playlist of songs and their cover versions from 30 years of the indie label Kill Rock Stars. Or just listen to Sleater-Kinney, "Don't Talk Like" on repeat. "Haven't I done enough today" is a lyric we can all get behind this year, I think. Enjoy that, and I'll be back on Friday.

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