Merrily we roll (meatballs) along
Good morning. I made dinner for 50 last weekend, a giant feast of chicken bog, braised kale and rice, with cornbread and Henley Tuthill's exceptional brown-butter Rice Krispies treats for dessert. I flew solo in the kitchen all day to bring it to fruition, doing the prep-cook shuffle: dicing vegetables, chicken and kielbasa, stirring roux, measuring out pounds of cornmeal and whisking eggs into milk. It was time well spent, as all kitchen hours should be. The work focused my mind even as it allowed me to daydream, exactly the sort of juxtaposition that results in relaxation, an escape from the stress of the everyday. Give yourself a food project and it can be the equivalent of going on a vacation, one that leaves you at once refreshed and exhausted, cured of the headaches that can accompany modern life. It needn't be something so excessive as a meal to serve a crowd. Take, for example, this lovely new recipe for chimichurri meatballs (above) from Ali Slagle. Rolling up a tray of these generously breadcrumbed little golf balls of sharply spiced ground beef on a weekend afternoon and then searing them in a hot pan until they're crisp and brown is just the sort of serial work that delivers an antidote to a week of stress and bother. Serve over a salad of salt-massaged kale dressed with more chimichurri and you'll see. That's the sublime you're tasting, the fruit of your labor. Featured Recipe Chimichurri MeatballsYou could keep going, make a dessert. You don't need a recipe for that. Recently I seeded a few dozen dates, soaked them in milk with a big handful of cashews and then blitzed them in a blender with a few scoops of ice cream, a shake of cinnamon and a half tray's worth of ice. This was hardly a traditional date shake — many actual recipes call for walnuts and I didn't have the bananas that some consider mandatory — but it was exceptional all the same. Other things to cook this weekend? Give Korsha Wilson's whole roasted jerk cauliflower a try, an adaptation of a recipe she learned from the chef Gregory Gourdet. I like that with curried rice. Perhaps you'd prefer to make chicken enchiladas with salsa verde, or a mild soondubu jjigae. Reserve time for a fine breakfast, too, with Melissa Clark's recipe for spiced Irish oatmeal with cream and crunchy sugar. (My father used to float a shot of Jameson's on that, in advance of a day outside in the snow.) And then you can round out the weekend with a country captain for Sunday supper, topped with crumbled fried bacon, slivered almonds and coins of banana. You'll make that a lot, once you've made it once. There are many thousands more recipes waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. You'll need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions are important. They support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven't done so already, I hope you will consider subscribing today. Thank you. Please reach out for help if you find yourself at odds with our technology. We're at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you, I promise. Or you can write to me if you'd like to share your pleasure or pain: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can't respond to every letter. But I read every one I get. Now, it's a long way from anything to do with steamed crabs or zucchini pancakes, but you should read Geoff Edgers in The Washington Post, on the man who built the world's greatest home stereo system, and what it cost. Likewise, Julian Lucas in The New Yorker, on the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. And here's Alexandra Alter in The New York Times, on Molly Roden Winter and her book, "More: A Memoir of Open Marriage." Finally, let's bring out Waxahatchee to sing us off with "Right Back to It," featuring MJ Lenderman. Listen while you labor. I'll see you on Sunday.
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Friday, January 19, 2024
Chimichurri meatballs are lively, bracing and rich
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