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Roti Pizza (aka Whole Wheat Tortilla Pizza with Cheddar and Cilantro Chutney)
Every once in a while I come across a recipe that feels as familiar as if I’ve been eating it my whole life. These roti pizzas (which I usually make on whole wheat tortillas) from Priya Krishna’s cookbook Indian-ish, combine the types of food I loved as a teenager, a mixture of grilled cheese sandwiches and Indian food from Rajun Cajun, the best (and only) Indian takeout spot in Hyde Park. These pizzas – with the brightness of red onion, the saltiness of sharp cheddar cheese, and the tang and spice of cilantro chutney – bring together my favorite childhood flavors in a weekday work-from-home lunch (or dinner or snack).
One underrated ingredient in this – and most – recipes is salt. Salt is fascinating, such a minor but important ingredient in all food. It is key to everything we eat, yet we rarely think about it. It not only gives food its own salty flavor, but it also brings out the flavor in other ingredients. James Beard once asked: “Where would we be without salt?” To which Samin Nosrat answered: “Adrift in a sea of blandness.”
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Buckwheat Crepes
A few years ago, my parents started a tradition of cooking a big breakfast every Sunday. Whenever I was home, I thrilled at the idea of pancakes and a peaceful moment during the morning, as the sun shines into the kitchen, shimmering on the countertop. After being home for many of these Sundays during the pandemic, I began to experiment. Eggs and pancakes are great, but variety is essential. The challah I like to make never lasted until Sunday for French toast, and I still haven’t found a frittata I love. That’s where these buckwheat crepes came in – they are simple, fast, and pretend to be healthy.
I found this recipe through a circuitous route. Like everyone else, I hopped on the sourdough bandwagon in the early days of the pandemic. In Sarah Owens’ fantastic cookbook, Sourdough, there is a recipe for buckwheat crepes – inspired by one of my favorite food bloggers, David Lebowitz. After hunting down the original recipe on his blog, I knew I had to try it. The crepes are thin but have a deep nutty flavor that tastes great with maple syrup, fruit, or jam.
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Vietnamese-Inspired Caramel Bluefish
This year, as the weather gets chillier, it’s more difficult than usual to welcome the fall. This fall doesn’t feel like a new start, as the fall often does, but instead feels like the beginning of a more difficult period of the pandemic, when gathering outside becomes less and less of an option. And so, even though it’s almost October, I’m posting a recipe about bluefish, a fish that conjures up images of summer and grilling and allows me to hold on to summer for one more moment.
There are so many ways to cook bluefish. You can marinate it and grill it. (A marinade of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, and mustard, plus salt and pepper, is easy and delicious.) You can wrap it in aluminum foil and either cook it over the grill or in the oven, and then enjoy the soft and flaky meat, which turns almost white. You can eat smoked bluefish on crackers or as a pate. The world of bluefish is large and should be cherished. This recipe, from Melissa Clark, is cooked on the stove. It’s simple and can be made on a rainy day when you don’t want to go outside to grill. You just add everything to a pan, cook the fish in the sauce, and serve it. (You can also use other fish like salmon and mackerel for this dish.)
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Herring, Beet, and Potato Salad
Last summer, in what feels like an eternity ago, I visited a friend in London. We spent the days roaming the city, eating goat cheese and lox on baguette, and browsing through second-hand bookstores. In one of these bookstores, I spotted Luisa Weiss’s My Berlin Kitchen. Although my next flight was on EasyJet (which has notoriously terrible limits on carry-on luggage), I knew I had to buy the memoir – and somehow fit it into my already overly-full backpack.
This summer I pulled out the memoir to reread it, and one recipe stuck out: a potato salad with herring and beets. I don’t know what drew me to this, since I was never a huge herring fan. But the recipe kept calling to the Eastern European Jew in me, so one day I grabbed some beets and decided to make it. And I’m so glad I did. This salad is perfect for a hot summer day: filling, yet summery, sweet and a little salty, with just the right amout of crunch. Every time it has been above 90 degrees this summer, I find myself craving this potato salad. For the herring skeptics out there, it’s really good without the herring. But if you eat fish, please try it with the herring. I don’t think that you’ll regret it.
