News: The best pizza topping is salad

Friday, April 21, 2023

The best pizza topping is salad

April 21, 2023

Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

What to Cook This Weekend

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. A friend scored me some pea shoots from the farm stand that sells them only one day a week — precious green and flavorful. If you can find any, they're terrific wilted over twice-cooked duck or on their own, lightly dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt.

I love that salad best when it's thatched on top of a white pizza in a huge pile, glistening and tasting of spring. (If you can't find pea shoots, it's still fantastic with arugula or any young greens.) There's something about the combination of hot and cold, fat and astringency, that is absolutely of the moment. The dish neither looks back toward winter nor ahead toward summer. It's perfectly at rest: April on a plate.

So maybe you could make that pizza this weekend? Or pizzas? I love them all: clam-chowder pizza, for instance; or J. Kenji López-Alt's buldak pizza (above); pineapple ham pizza; or a plain pizza pie.

Of course for many in the world, today is the end of the Ramadan fast, celebrated with Eid al-Fitr feasting. You might join in with a lamb biryani or chicken kofta in tomato gravy, some spiced maqluba with tahini sauce and pistachio baklava.

Myself, I'd like to make some chicken katsu, with leftovers I can turn into katsudon for lunch on the following day. (Unless I make katsu curry, in which case: No leftovers, ever.)

Alternatively, I could fire up the grill for pulled pork or smoked chicken wings. Maybe grilled mushroom skewers with red chile paste or seared tofu with chipotle barbecue sauce? It'd be nice to cook outside.

Wherever the muse takes me, though, I've resolved on coconut pound cake for dessert, with vanilla ice cream. I hope you'll join me in that.

There are thousands more recipes to consider cooking this weekend waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions make this whole dance possible. I hope, if you haven't already, that you will subscribe today. Thanks.

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Now, it's many miles from anything to do with radishes or black sea bass, but I'm tearing through Howard Fishman's "To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse," an investigation into the enigmatic life and mysterious vanishing of a midcentury singer-songwriter whose amazing music never reached the wide audience it might have.

Also on the night stand: David Grann's "The Wager," about an 18th-century shipwreck off the coast of Chile. It's a book of horrors, but also an examination of self-interest and how it plays out in the stories we tell.

In The New York Times, please spend some time with Jason Farago's "Close Read" of the most beautiful calendar ever produced.

Finally, Jon Pareles put me onto a new track from Megan Moroney, "The Girl in the Mirror." Cook along with that, and I'll see you on Sunday.

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