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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

The New York Times Recipes

Pork katsu with pickled cucumbers and shiso.

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2016

SAM SIFTON

Let's cook without a recipe tonight, shall we? Maybe some rice and beans, with limes to squeeze over the plate, warm tortillas to scoop up the food? It's a simple business, and easy, too.
You'll need only a big can of black beans and a cup or two of rice, an onion, a few cloves of garlic, some cumin, a splash of orange juice and, if you like, some diced bacon or crumbled sausage or ground beef to round out the bowl.
Rinse the rice and cook it as Kim Severson has taught. As it steams, dice the onions and sweat them in a saucepan with a splash or two of olive oil set over medium-high heat. When the onions begin to go translucent, add the garlic and, if you're using meat, that as well, and continue to cook until the meat has started to crisp and the onions are beginning to caramelize. Add a healthy dusting of cumin, some salt and pepper to taste, and allow it all to go muddy and fragrant in the pan. Splash it with the orange juice - maybe half a cup - and allow it to cook down, almost to syrup. Then add the beans from the can, stir to combine, turn down the heat and allow the flavors to come together, perhaps using a spoon to mash some of the beans into paste as they cook.
Serve the beans on top of rice, adorned with wedges of lime and accompanied by warmed tortillas or buttered toast. We like some pickled jalapeños, cilantro and hot sauce on there, too, but they are hardly necessary.
Cheap, filling, delicious: That's what Cooking is all about, at least for today.
It is not all we're about, though. Make sure to take some time today to read Kim Severson's dispatch from a growing culinary hot spot, Atlanta, a city that she reports is coming into its culinary own. Meet the profane hip-hop star and unlikely gastronomic tour guide Action Bronson, profiled this week by J.J. Goode. And join Eric Asimov in Argentina, as he learns about a winemaking region going beyond malbec - a journey that may lead you to rethink your next trip to the liquor store.
And if you want an actual recipe to cook tonight: How about a relatively quick and definitely easy dinner of roasted chicken Provençal? Or a fast dinner of smashed chickpeas in pita, perfect with olives, lemon and plenty of parsley, with hard-boiled eggs if you have the time? Spaghetti with broccoli rabe? Some pork katsu with pickled cucumbers (above)?
Cooking is filled with ideas that we hope will inspire you to cook something delicious tonight. Please save the recipes you like into your recipe box. And please let us know how those recipes work out when you cook them. Leave a note on those you've cooked, if you like, to alert us and others to substitutions you've made or shortcuts you've taken. (If you find yourself really jammed up, you can reach out to us for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com.)
Now, let's round out these midweek musings with Jacob Weisberg's new essay in The New York Review of Books, about our societal transformation into device people: "We Are Hopelessly Hooked." Read it on your smartphone while walking around! We'll be back on Friday.