A sweet, sour, tangy, spicy, perfect chicken dinner

Pan-seared chicken with harissa, dates and citrus is a lovely weekend closer.

View in browser|nytimes.com September 22, 2024 Yewande Komolafe's pan-seared chicken with harissa, dates and citrus. Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Weekends are for chicken dinners and very big sandwiches By Sam Sifton Good morning. An hour before noon in the Hudson Valley, fog burning off the river in the sun, and it seemed entirely appropriate to tack east from the Catskill foothills toward Poughkeepsie and an early lunch from Rossi & Sons, where the muffuletta sub is beyond compare. This was a good call. To eat that monster in the riverbank park at the foot of Main Street, watching the Clearwater prepare for an afternoon's sailing as turkey vultures soared and children gamboled, was as complete an explication of the Hudson River School as you're likely to get from a sub shop. It offered the sublimity of those paintings, their sense of the divine. Of course, you can make that sandwich at home. You can make all measure of Italian heroes at home, including the traditional grinder and torpedo-like numbers with sausage and peppers or meatballs. They're all fantastic. But there's something about eating a store-bought sandwich the size of a house cat off wax paper in your car that helps define weekend deliciousness for me. Patronize your local hero shop, please. But do so early in the day! A size-large hoagie will lay out even the hardiest of trenchermen. If you don't plan accordingly, such a sandwich can interfere with the consumption of a proper Sunday supper, not to mention its preparation. And, as I've argued for years, that meal is an important one — perhaps the most important of the week. This week's repast: Yewande Komolafe's excellent recipe for chicken with harissa and citrus, sweet and sour with a peppery kick you can mellow out with dollops of yogurt, to serve over steamed rice. Heroic! Featured Recipe Pan-Seared Chicken With Harissa, Dates and Citrus View Recipe → As for the rest of the week. … Monday Eric Kim picked up a neat trick for frying rice from the chef Brendan Liew, coating leftover rice with a smidgen of mayonnaise and then frying it without oil. He uses it brilliantly in his new recipe for mayo corn fried rice, which allows the flavors of the rice and corn to shine, free of cooking fat. Chris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas. Mayo Corn Fried Rice By Eric Kim 15 minutes Makes 2 servings Tuesday I always keep a bag of frozen tortellini in the freezer in case work runs late and I need to get dinner on the table fast. If you do the same, and you ought to, you could make Lidey Heuck's recipe for tortellini soup — and you ought to! Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. Tortellini Soup By Lidey Heuck 55 minutes Makes 4 to 6 servings Wednesday I love Kay Chun's recipe for egg foo young, which I make with ground pork if I don't have shreds of leftover roast pork on hand, along with a slightly heavier hand with the oyster sauce. Doused in hot sauce and rice vinegar in addition to the gravy, it recalls sunset meals at the original La Caridad on West 78th Street in Manhattan, before a show at the Beacon. Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Egg Foo Young By Kay Chun 40 minutes Makes 4 servings Thursday Sun-dried tomatoes are back? Carolina Gelen makes the case with this awesome recipe for a creamy sun-dried tomato pasta that mellows the fruit's tartness with cream and Parmesan. It's like a complex vodka sauce. You'll see. Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta By Carolina Gelen 30 minutes Makes 4 to 6 servings Friday And then you can run out the week with Molly O'Neill's time-tested recipe for old-fashioned beef stew, which has received five-star ratings from more than 20,000 subscribers. I'll double the recipe so I can freeze the leftovers for use if Covid comes calling again. Craig Lee for The New York Times Old-Fashioned Beef Stew By Molly O'Neill 2 hours 45 minutes Makes 4 servings You can find thousands and thousands of other recipes to cook this week on New York Times Cooking. And to celebrate our 10th anniversary this month, we're letting subscribers send recipes to anyone they'd like for free. Just tap the "Give" icon on any recipe to create a paywall-free link that you can share with family and friends. We are standing by like beadles at a 19th century college should you run into problems with our technology. Just write to cookingcare@nytimes.com and someone will get back to you. If you'd like to speak to a manager, 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, you won't find them anywhere on New York Times Cooking (yet!), but I've been thrilling to the recipes of Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook in their new book, "Zahav Home." A Pittsburgh wedge salad with pickle-marinated oven fries, grated Cheddar and tahini ranch dressing? Yes, please. Product reviews: Margaret Eby, in The Strategist, makes a strong case for the Ninja Slushi, and Wirecutter stands tall for the Escali kitchen scale, which has taken my pizza-dough game to a new level of excellence. Say yes to one of those, anyway. Finally, it's Nick Cave's birthday. He's 67. Here's "Frogs" from his new album, "Wild God." "In the Sunday rain!" I'll be back next week. Sign up for the Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter Fresh dinner ideas for busy people who want something great to eat, with NYT Cooking recipes sent to you weekly. 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