Monday, March 4, 2024
Good afternoon!
So are Oeufs Mayo [Grub Street]
Daylight savings time doesn’t begin until this Sunday but as the title might suggest, I already plan to handle the time change my trademark equanimity and grace. Who among us doesn’t rejoice at the chance to wake up a whole hour earlier on a Sunday?
It always takes me a few days to adjust so this week, I’m focusing on faster recipes that are perfect for right now, or for when your schedule has been pulled out beneath you. But that’s not all! This week there’s also a new very weeknight-friendly tomato soup recipe, and it includes my favorite way to make grilled cheese these days. And, there’s an interview with the authors of a new cookbook coming out tomorrow, Hot Sheet — all about sheet pan cooking.
Cheers!
Deb
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers when you’re tired of winter but spring won’t be here anytime soon? I thought you’d never ask! The soup section is one of my absolute favorites with everything from a perfect weeknight ginger garlic chicken noodle soup, simple black bean chili, winter squash soup with red onion crisp, slow-simmered lentils with kale and goat cheese that you scoop onto grilled bread, and a creamy tomato chickpea masala I could probably live on if allowed. To finish, I recommend the oatmeal date shortbread, better-than-classic pound cake, and/or toast with chocolate olive oil spread. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
My new podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, launched this past week and our first episode is all about Stovetop Mac-and-Cheese. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and I’ve set up a new podcast tab/page where you can keep up on it here, too. We will have new episodes every two Mondays. We’ve been working on this behind the scenes for the last year — I hope you enjoy listening along.
weeknight tomato soup
New! This is my new go-to weeknight (i.e. everything is done, including the nonnegotiable grilled cheese alongside, in under an hour) tomato soup. Storebought — yes, even mediocre and off-season — grape or cherry tomatoes do the heavy lifting here, providing flavor, nuance, and sweetness I just wasn’t getting from a can. I hope you enjoy this right away.
crispy cabbage and cauliflower salad
A crispy cabbage and cauliflower salad with a sharp tahini dressing that is fully inhale-able; we've never had leftovers. Don't skimp on the charring; the best moment is when the vegetables just begin to soften against the dressing -- each bite is both crackly and tender.
scrambled egg toast
Everyone has an opinion on how to make perfectly scrambled eggs and this is mine: I like a ribbony heap that comes from a push-pause motion in the pan, forming small and larger bites that are never, ever overcooked or rubbery. Heap it on a thick piece of toast with soft cheese and chives and enjoy it with an exceedingly strong cup of coffee on the side. Shall we?
cannellini aglio e olio
A 10-minute meal from doctored-up cans of beans and artichokes, treated like pasta. The result is a warm, almost creamy bean salad that you can finish with parmesan and eat with a fork straight out of a bowl, or ladle over slices of toasted baguette.
eggs in purgatory, puttanesca-style
Who likes meals you can make in 15 minutes? Me me me! Classic eggs in purgatory with a sauce that's more puttanesca (spicy and bright) than the usual marinara. Make, eat, and keep the recipe in your back pocket for the next time you want a perfect quick-fix meal.
quick, essential stovetop mac-and-cheese
Quick, stovetop mac-and-cheese that you can have 15 minutes from now, or when an intense need for pasta with a sauce of salty melted cheese strikes and nothing else will do. [Drop broccoli florets into the boiling water for 2 minutes, scoop it out, and continue with the pasta as written. Cheese, carbs and green vegetables? We're set.]
soy-glazed chicken
A quick skillet chicken with a soy sauce reduction that gives the cutlets a lacquered glaze. This is such a family favorite that it's gone in the regular rotation. We serve it with rice and a quick vegetable slaw.
crispy tortellini with peas and prosciutto
Did you know that you could cook frozen tortellini like potstickers and they get crispy and awesome? This riff, with peas, prosciutto, mint, lemon and cream looks and tastes fancy and took about 12 minutes to make.
sheet pan chow mein
A crispy-soft, vegetable-full sheet pan spin on chow mein from Hetty Lui McKinnon that's going to be a favorite, I am absolutely sure of it.
blondies, infinitely adaptable
My favorite blondies are quick, one-bowl, require no butter to be softened or advanced planning, and are infinitely adaptable with chocolate or nuts or dried fruit or, yes, all of the above. They are exactly perfect for right now.
salted peanut butter cookies
The best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever made have only five ingredients, no flour, no butter, can be mixed by hand in one bowl, and have a perfect salty finish.
AN INTERVIEW WITH OLGA MASSOV AND SANAË LEMOINE
My shelves are full of wonderful cookbooks I don’t get to talk about enough so I’ve added this section so you can get to know the cool people behind them. Today we're chatting with Olga Massov and Sanaë Lemoine. Their cookbook, Hot Sheet: Sweet and Savory Sheet Pan Recipes for Every Day and Celebrations, comes out tomorrow, 3/5.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
Olga Massov: The idea for the book started out in the summer of 2020. It was the first year of the pandemic and we (the Post Food team) were trying to brainstorm how to cover Thanksgiving in this unprecedented time. No one was traveling, no one was having people over. But the holiday is so important to so many people, we wanted to help our readers celebrate, albeit in a smaller, less work-intensive way. I was really grousing around at our team meeting and was grumpy and mad about how I couldn’t have all my family and friends over for my favorite holiday, but that not even the pandemic was going to take it away from me. On a lark I suggested a sheet-pan Thanksgiving – we make several meals all on sheet pans and hope that this helps readers celebrate in this smaller but no-less-meaningful way. The idea struck a chord with my colleagues, and with readers, too. After that issue, I couldn’t stop thinking, “What else can I make on a sheet pan?” I started playing around with various ideas, to see if adapting them for a sheet pan would make life easier, and tastier — and with fewer dishes to clean at the end of the meal. (I swear half the time I order takeout is because the thought of cleaning up at the end of the night kills my soul.) I shared my sheet pan thoughts with Sanaë. “Would you buy a cookbook on this?” I asked her. “Yes!” she immediately responded. I shared a spreadsheet with her of my recipe ideas – to see if any were appealing to her, and Sanaë started adding so many of her own, that it felt like we were already collaborating on a book. It felt wrong to pass these ideas as my own, and I thought it would be amazing to partner up and bring our diverse backgrounds to this book. I was so nervous about asking her and was so relieved and delighted she said yes. (I felt like I was asking her on a date!)
Sanaë Lemoine: When Olga first shared this sheet pan cookbook idea with me, I was thrilled to give her my recipe ideas. I thought, maybe she’ll use one or two in her book, or they’ll inspire other dishes. I was just excited to be included in some capacity. I’m fairly sure I told her, “Take the ideas, you don’t even have to credit me!” A few weeks later, when she asked if I wanted to write the book with her, I almost didn’t take her seriously. We were so completely on the same page when it came to sheet pans and this book, that drafting a proposal together was a breeze. (Of course, the book itself took a lot more work…)
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
SL: It’s hard to choose one recipe, as there are several that took a lot of tinkering to get exactly right. (The paella for the rice-liquid ratio, the pecan-ginger granola bars for the perfect crisp-tender texture; the mille feuille for its unwieldy filling…) The recipe I might be most proud of, and nervous for readers to try because I hope they’ll love it as much as I do, is the Lamb-Stuffed Tomatoes with Fancy Hats, aka tomates farcies. My father is French, and I ate countless tomates farcies growing up in France. It’s such a ubiquitous and popular dish that you often find them pre-made at your local butcher. I love the festive look of the tomatoes: Those little hats perching on a delicious meat filling; the round tomato, its skin almost bursting from the oven. They taste even better reheated the next day, which is a gift when the recipe itself requires some labor. I had such high standards for the tomates farcies and tested them over and over again until I was satisfied with the result. Most recipes call for cooking the filling on the stove top first, or at least the aromatics, which I wanted to avoid so the only cooking you had to do was on the sheet pan. But still, I wanted the most tender filling, barely held together within the tomato, one you could easily cut into with a fork. And so, I turned to heavy cream and egg yolks. Then I packed the meat with spices, raisins, lemon zest, feta, and fresh herbs. I chopped the onion as finely as possible, so it would release some of its liquid without ever overpowering the rest. (No hard raw onion bits!) The filling is much like a tender and flavorful meatball, ensconced in sweet, soft tomatoes. I also had to get the amounts just right, which can be tricky for a stuffed vegetable. I still remember the day of my “final” test. Somehow, I managed to wait a few minutes for the tomatoes to cool. I ate one, then a second one, and couldn’t stop myself. They were so good. I credit Olga for coming up with the playful English name. One of my close friends, who ate several iterations of this recipe, likes to call them “tomato fancies.”
OM: For me, there were a few “sticky wickets” so to speak – recipes that were just kind of tricky to nail down. For some reason, I really dug my heels into making sheet pan chili and getting the recipe down. I’ve gotten so many questions why anyone would want to make chili on a sheet pan, which requires stirring and adding ingredients to layer flavor. And the reason I wanted to make sure that there was a recipe like that in the book was because I was thinking of a few folks I’ve spoken to who told me they can’t lift heavy pots, such as Dutch ovens, anymore due to injuries but that sheet pans were so helpful in how light they were. That said, the recipe that nearly broke me was the Matcha Swiss Roll with Mascarpone Whip and Strawberries. I wanted a one-bowl cake, I wanted to do away with separating egg whites and yolks, and I wanted a marvelously tender crumb. I took inspiration from the wonderful Jessie Sheehan in whipping the eggs together and made the recipe over a dozen times, before I had it tested separately!
3. What recipe is so low-effort, high-reward that it's worth cooking for dinner tonight, even if we're tired and don't want to cook?
OM: There are a few that come to mind, but the one that’s a weeknight staple in our house is my Quesadilla for a Crowd (or Hangry Kids). It takes literally five minutes to throw together, requires no chopping or mixing of any kind, and just goes in the oven. You layer burrito-size tortillas on a greased sheet pan, scatter some grated Mexican blend cheese and drained and dried black beans, fold the bottom tortillas over, top with another tortilla, brush with a little oil, and set another sheet pan on top. And then you don’t think about it for half an hour – you make a few sides, such as guacamole and/or pico de gallo, pickled jalapenos or chipotles in adobo, sour cream or crema, and your dinner is ready. The best part – unlike with the regular method of making multiple quesadillas – is that everyone eats at the same time and everyone, including the cook (ahem) gets a warm, gooey quesadilla with melty cheese. (If I had to pick a contender, it’d be Baked Potatoes with Smoked Trout Crème Fraîche and Trout Roe, which channel my Russian upbringing and love of potatoes, smoked fish, and creamy, decadent toppings, but the potatoes take about an hour to bake in the oven, and if I’m coming home from the office, I don’t tend to cook something that takes that long – only if I am working from home that day.)
SL: Again, there are so many, but if I had to choose one: the Arrabbiata and White Bean Cheesy Ravioli. It’s so incredibly easy and uses pantry staples that you hopefully have on hand—jarred tomato sauce (we love spicy arrabbiata, but any kind works well), capers, a can of beans, cheese. You mix and layer the ingredients on a quarter-sheet pan, cover in a blanket of cheese, and bake. There’s no boiling or draining; the ravioli cooks directly in the sauce. And although it’s the simplest recipe ever, the flavors are surprising and varied. Sharp saltiness from the capers (this was Olga’s brilliant addition when she tested the recipe), sweetness from plump raisins, heat from the sauce, and a gloriously melted cheesy topping. It scales up easily—just double everything and use a half-sheet pan—if you want to feed a crowd. Yes, you could absolutely serve this for a dinner party, accompanied by an arugula salad dressed with a bracing vinaigrette to cut all that lovely richness.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
SL: Perhaps this is a universal answer from a writer of books, but how much work and care went into every step, from defining the table of contents to tinkering and testing each recipe. Olga and I are both perfectionists, and as former cookbook editors, we set high standards for ourselves. We wanted this book to reflect our unique personalities and backgrounds, our close friendship, and our obsession with the sheet pan, while also being immensely practical for the home cook. We didn’t want to make just another pretty cookbook—though the photos by Johnny Miller couldn’t be more beautiful—we wanted this to be a hard-working, timeless cookbook that you could return to time and again. We spent more than two years on this project, from the book proposal to reviewing the final proofs. This included weekly Zooms, since we don’t live in the same city, sending each other photos and texts as we developed the recipes and tested them, editing and re-editing each other’s work, always with kindness and generosity. We both had a lot happening in our personal and professional lives, so sometimes one person shouldered more weight than the other, and almost intuitively we knew when to step in or when to lean on the other. Maybe what I continue to be most baffled and delighted by is how easy it is to talk about a recipe with Olga. We always find common ground when discussing a dish or sharing a meal. That deep understanding and love of food is the beating heart of this cookbook.
OM: I echo everything Sanaë wrote above! But really want to highlight how seamless a process this was. We worked so much in sync and it was so important to us to ensure that we had a balance between recipes that came from me, that came from Sanaë, and that came from both of us. We were so focused on being equitable and deferential. We also wanted to make sure that we acknowledged the talented people, including you, Deb, who have inspired us along the way, whether with a specific recipe – everything I know about shortbread I learned from the wonderful Melissa Clark! – or if a cookbook recipe gave us a jumping-off point for an idea, such as Ruby Tandoh’s orzo bake inspired my own version with mushrooms and lots of melty cheese. And, perhaps lastly, we tested these recipes (and cross-tested them) over and over as we really wanted this book to be useful to so many different kinds of home cooks: college students on limited budgets, new and inexperienced cooks, busy grown-ups who may need to feed themselves or their families, older folks and those with mobility issues, and so many others. Sheet pans are so affordable, so easy to store and to maintain, and so (lower case d) democratic.
Thank you, Olga and Sanaë! You can order Hot Sheet right here.
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most. I recently added several new favorites I’ve bought in the last year. For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!