Friday, June 7, 2024

Blackened chicken breasts and buttermilk pancakes, smash burgers and fish tacos

Get thee to a griddle.
Cooking

June 7, 2024

Blackened chicken is shown in closeup with two of the chicken breasts cut into slices.
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.

Griddle me this

Good morning. You can make blackened chicken breasts (above) in your kitchen if you like, but really only if you have a good exhaust fan above your stove. If you don't, you'll be opening windows soon enough, and balancing on top of a chair to reach the shrieking smoke alarm.

I prefer the outdoor method, cooking on a steel griddle set over the burners on my gas grill. (Lodge makes one version, small; Steelmade another, large; you could always fabricate your own by buying some carbon steel and placing it over your grill grates.) Using a griddle is a reminder that a gas grill is as much a stove and oven as it is a place to grill things — and a way to keep smoke and grease and heat out of your home. Invest in a griddle this weekend, and you'll be paid dividends all summer long.

First with that chicken, coated in smoked paprika, salt, cayenne, thyme, oregano and garlic, onion and mustard powders. The spices seize tight and blacken on the oil-slicked surface, releasing a powerful smoke and an incredible depth of flavor in the crust. (You could use the mixture on shrimp or fish instead, if you like, or on a steak or pressed planks of tofu.) Serve with a grilled Caesar salad, and you'll be happy as a clam.

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Blackened Chicken Breasts

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Then, the following morning? Return to the griddle to fry bacon for breakfast, to cook eggs or buttermilk pancakes. There's a lot of surface area, and you could add some sliced apples to the mix, tossing them with some of the fat left over from the bacon until they go soft and fragrant and begin to pick up some color. It's nice to cook outside in the morning, accompanied by birdsong.

A griddle's great for a weekend hot-dog party and for making smash burgers. I like it for making fish tacos, too, and for searing scallops. Make Steven Raichlen's terrific recipe for shrimp a la plancha and your conversion will be complete: You're an outdoor cook now, conditioned to the elements, ready to take on summer in all its complexity.

Not that you have to do any of that. Indoor cats are welcome here, too.

For them and for all of us: Karla Tatiana Vasquez's recipe for a Salvadoran quesadilla, adapted by our Ligaya Mishan. It's a sesame-seed-topped sweet bread made with Parmesan cheese, almost like a savory poundcake, exceptional alongside a cup of coffee at breakfast or as an afternoon snack.

You could make migas for breakfast inside, and fruit salad to go along with it. You could roast chicken thighs with hot honey and lime, and serve them with sautéed green beans. Miso-broiled tofu, to accompany roasted asparagus? That, too!

There are many thousands more recipes waiting for you on New York Times Cooking, at least if you've taken out a subscription to read them. Subscriptions are really important. They support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven't already, would you consider subscribing today? Thanks.

Ask for help if you find yourself flummoxed by the technology. We're at cookingcare@nytimes.com, and someone will get back to you, I promise. Or, if you feel the urge to say hello, register a complaint or say something pleasant about my colleagues, you can write to me. I'm at foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can't respond to every letter. But I read every one I receive.

Now, it's nothing to do with garlic scapes or how to cook quail, but Walter Mosley's latest Easy Rawlins novel dropped this week, "Farewell, Amethystine," number 16 in the series. It's 1970, Easy's 50, his family's great, his detective agency thriving. Enter Amethystine Stoller, whose ex-husband is missing. It all gets very complicated and difficult, fast.

Mark Bowden's "Life Sentence" is worth reading, too: a searing nonfiction account of the rise and fall of Montana Barronette, a murderous gang leader in Baltimore. There are shades of "The Wire" to it, and "Homicide," too. (For those just getting started on Bowden, try his "Black Hawk Down," from 2019.)

I don't like stories where the protagonist makes a bad moral choice, but the series "After the Flood," streaming on BritBox, has plenty of excellent overhead shots of pretty English towns and countryside and sometimes that's enough.

Finally, here's Girl Scout, "I Just Needed You to Know." It is what it is! Listen to that, and I will see you on Sunday.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Article Image

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes

By Alison Roman

10 minutes

Makes 4 servings

Article Image

David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Smash Burgers

By Sam Sifton

20 minutes

Makes 4 to 8 servings

Article Image

Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Chris Lanier. Prop stylist: Theo Vamvounakis.

Family-Meal Fish Tacos

Recipe from Chad Shaner

Adapted by Sam Sifton

30 minutes

Makes 4 servings

Article Image

Andrew Purcell for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Carrie Purcell.

Shrimp a la Plancha

By Steven Raichlen

30 minutes

Makes 4 appetizer servings, 2 to 3 entree servings

Article Image

Linda Xiao for The New York Times Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Heather Greene.

Salvadoran Quesadilla

Recipe from Karla Tatiana Vasquez

Adapted by Ligaya Mishan

1 hour 10 minutes 

Makes 1 (9-inch) quesadilla, about 9 servings

Seven roasted chicken thighs with hot honey and lime are on an ivory plate with squeezed lime wedges.

Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell.

Roasted Chicken Thighs With Hot Honey and Lime

By Vallery Lomas

35 minutes

Makes 4 servings

Article Image

Nico Schinco for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Fruit Salad

By Ali Slagle

20 minutes

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Fresh, delicious dinner ideas for busy people, from Emily Weinstein and NYT Cooking.

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Tanya Sichynsky shares the most delicious vegetarian recipes for weeknight cooking, packed lunches and dinner parties.

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