Go for the gold: What to Cook Right Now

January 3, 2022

Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

What to Cook Right Now

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Tejal Rao has a lovely essay in The Times about her obsession with sun-drying the hachiya persimmons that grow in a friend's yard in Los Angeles. It's a monthlong process that has her massaging the fruit daily and attending to them with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, to erase incipient bits of mold. The whole production is a reminder, she pointed out, that much of our kitchen life runs on its own time scale: "The kimchi fizzing in the back of the fridge. The salted lemons slackening in their jars. The yogurt souring pleasantly."

I thought of my kombucha, of the symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast sitting in a hotel jar of effervescence on the lower shelf of my refrigerator, my SCOBY, untouched for months. I should revive it! And I did, with sweetened black tea that will ferment over the next week or so to bring me joy.

With that small project came a promise to myself that this year I'll attend more to the slowness of cooking, and to its rewards: my own chile crisp and XO sauce; pikliz; marmalade; trotter gear; corn muffin mix; and, always, yogurt. Having those things on hand delivers a kind of happiness. It provides notice, too: It is often better to make than to buy.

So maybe you'll jump on a few of those recipes this week. But not only those. What I want to be cooking right now includes Eric Kim's new recipe for roasted chicken with caramelized cabbage (above) and, afterward, his recipe for roasted chicken stock.

Also, this lovely pan-fried trout with trout roe. And a big platter of sesame tofu with coconut-lime dressing and spinach. I'd like to make spaghetti carbonara this week as well, and this roasted butternut squash salad. How about a buttermilk marble cake? Yes, please.

There are something like 20,000 more recipes to choose from waiting for you on New York Times Cooking, at least if you have a subscription. I'd like to thank you for yours, which supports our work and allows it to continue. (If you haven't taken one out yet, I'd like to ask you to consider subscribing today. Thanks.)

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Now, it's not precisely about recipes, but every new year Kim Severson talks to the trend forecasters who stalk the edges of the culinary forest to discover what they think the future holds for those of us who thrill to all matters of food. Her report for The Times this week predicts, among other things, the rise of mushrooms, seaweed, plant-based chicken, '80s cocktails, hibiscus, retro candy, robusta coffee and a general upswing in civility in and around the restaurant world. Here's hoping!

Also in The Times, do read Priya Krishna on the evolution of one of Chicago's great foods: the Italian beef sandwich.

I loved this oral history of "Inside Track," the long-running gossip column in The Boston Herald, by Gretchen Voss in Boston Magazine. Great dish on the Kennedys, Bill Belichick, Mark Wahlberg, Cam Neely, et al.

Finally, the writer Anand Giridharadas put together a fine playlist for 2022 on Spotify. Listen to that while you're cooking. And I'll be back on Wednesday.

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