Go for the gold: What to Cook This Weekend

May 20, 2022

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Victoria Granof.

What to Cook This Weekend

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Olga Koutseridi, a baker and graduate student adviser at the University of Texas, Austin, grew up in Mariupol, Ukraine, and has been transcribing and testing family recipes from across the city following Russia's invasion of the country. She said it's an act of resistance and preservation during the port city's destruction, as our Julia Moskin reported for The Times this week.

"I had this urge to record," Ms. Koutseridi said. "It suddenly seemed like it was all going to disappear so fast."

This weekend you might help ensure that doesn't happen. Make a fish borsch often eaten in Mariupol (above), with white beans, red peppers, potatoes and sprats in tomato sauce, a pantry staple of tiny herring canned in a zesty purée. Try your hand at chebureki, deep-fried turnovers filled with juicy ground meat and onions. And make ryazhanka, a sweet-tart dairy drink that won't be ready for a few days. (You bake milk until it's caramelized and toasty-flavored, then ferment and chill it.)

But that's not all we have for you. Genevieve Ko has a cool new recipe for a biscuit breakfast sandwich that's ideal weekend-morning fare, accompanied by a delicious quick raspberry jam. (I might spread some on pancakes too.) Get on that.

Later you can try Melissa Clark's latest: a gingery sheet-pan chicken with rhubarb and red onion. (And have a rhubarb macaroon tart for dessert.)

Other possibilities: Clare de Boer's grilled chicken skewers with tarragon and yogurt; Eric Kim's crispy tofu with sweet-and-sour sauce; Nik Sharma's ground lamb pulao.

At some point, though, I'm going to make like Steven Raichlen and grill the perfect steak. His recipe is for a reverse-seared tri-tip, the meat slowly roasted over indirect heat for 30 minutes or so, rested for up to an hour and then seared over high direct heat until it's sizzling, crusty and perfectly rare. Once you reverse sear, you'll never go back. Strawberry shortcake to follow, for sure.

More inspiration awaits on our TikTok, Instagram and YouTube accounts, and of course on New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to access them. Subscriptions are what make this whole operation possible. Please, if you haven't already, will you subscribe today? Thank you.

You can write us at cookingcare@nytimes.com for help with that, or with our technology. Someone will get back to you. And you can always write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I wish I could respond to everyone. But I do read every letter sent.

Now, it's nothing whatsoever to do with cumin lamb or lobster stew, but Susan Burton's Times review of Selma Blair's memoir, "Mean Baby," makes the case that Blair can write a little bit. "In the fall of 2002, I saw a tarot reader in Los Angeles," the book begins. "I had just been cast in a movie that was about to film in Prague for six months. I was 30 years old, anxious and searching."

For Taste, Cathy Erway tells the story of the La Choy brand, "The Korean Immigrant and Michigan Farm Boy Who Taught Americans How to Cook Chow Mein."

All you need to enter the Race to Alaska is a boat with no motor. The start's in Port Townsend, Wash., and the team that makes it to Ketchikan first receives $10,000. Second place gets steak knives. As Aldyn Chwelos reports for Hakai, the real reward is survival.

Finally, here's Pete Seeger introducing one of his brothers, Mike Seeger, and the rest of the New Lost City Ramblers in advance of the group playing "Man of Constant Sorrow." Watch that, and I'll see you on Sunday.

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