The Wednesday Chef

Zarela Martinez's Chicken with Orange Juice and Vanilla

I made this chicken last night and thought it tasted just like garlicky chicken bathed in a sauce made of melted hard candy. (Well! Anyone still out there?)

Ben and our dinner guest, Seb, didn't agree, but now that I think about it more carefully, Ben really didn't say anything about the meal at all, and I think it's possible that Seb might have just been protesting out of politesse. The silly thing is that when I first read the recipe, I just knew I shouldn't even try it. There's just something about vanilla's cloying perfume that I find difficult, even in luscious sweet recipes. So in a savory chicken dish? I thought it best just to steer clear.

But Elaine Louie's One Pot column has a special little place in my heart and I've had success with the dishes I've tried from it so far (these noodles and this curry - which I'm just realizing I never told you about...delicious, it was!). So somehow I let myself be convinced to try it.

To think, I used two more chicken thighs than called for, a little more cayenne, and only half of the vanilla bean, and I didn't even strip out the seeds - I just split it and let it boil in the syrupy orange sauce. Oh, that orange sauce, so saccharine and sticky, even with the cayenne and vinegar and garlic, and such a strange, unpleasant combination of savory and sweet. Ooh, I'm suppressing a shudder just thinking about it again.

Thank God we had salad.

Chicken with Orange Juice and Vanilla
Serves 2 to 3

6 chicken thighs (about 2 pounds)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cider vinegar, Japanese rice vinegar, or other mild-flavored vinegar
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups fresh orange juice
1 vanilla bean, split
A few sprigs of cilantro, for garnish
Cooked rice or tortillas for serving (optional) 

1. Season chicken with the salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken pieces skin side down, and brown until golden on both sides, turning once, 3 to 5 minutes on each side.

2. When chicken is browned, pour off any excess fat from skillet and return to medium heat. Sprinkle cayenne and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper over chicken, turning pieces to coat evenly. Taste a pinch of the skin, and add more cayenne if additional heat is desired. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add vinegar, butter and orange juice. Scrape in pulp of vanilla bean and add bean. Stir liquid to blend.

3. Cook chicken skin side up, uncovered, basting occasionally with sauce, until sauce is reduced to a syrupy glaze, 20 to 25 minutes. If interior of chicken needs further cooking (it should be 170 degrees when tested in center with an instant-read thermometer), cover and cook over medium-low heat for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, or as needed. Garnish with cilantro. Serve hot, with rice or tortillas, if desired.

Liz Pearson's Yogurt-Rubbed Roast Chicken with Red Pepper Sauce

Let's start things off with a big, happy, declarative statement, shall we? It's Monday and it's awful out and despite being almost mid-May, we're dealing with March-like winds and rain instead of flowers and sunshine. I need something to cheer me up, perhaps you do, too, and I'm thinking this might just do the trick:

I may have found my new favorite way to roast chicken.

There. Things feel like they're looking up already, wouldn't you agree?

I'll always love the high-heat, Judy-Rodgers sanctioned way of roasting chicken, but the last time I did that we ended up having to live with the stench of scorched chicken fat in our apartment for nigh on a week. Since then, I've been banned from preparing chicken that way. Apparently, until we have a little elf living with us whose sole purpose is to run around silently behind me, cleaning up in the wake of my cooking endeavors and periodically scrubbing the inside of the oven (and while little elf is at it, also mopping), I won't be roasting at high heat again.

(Tragic, I know. How do I stand it?)

But over the weekend I found myself repeatedly coming back to a recipe printed in the LA Times a few weeks ago that has you stir Greek yogurt together with some herbs and spices and then massage big handfuls of the stuff onto (and into) a chicken, before letting it marinate for an hour and then roasting it at relatively average heat until cooked through.

See, doesn't that sound good? Something about spiced yogurt and marinating chicken... and I'm bewitched all over again.

Yogurt tenderizes chicken, don't you know, and the herbs and spices infuse the meat subtly. The marinating time and then the relatively long, slow roasting ensure an incredibly juicy bird. And to gild the lily - but this gilding I found absolutely necessary - the recipe has you roast shallots and red peppers beneath the chicken. After the roast is done, you gingerly peel the peppers (watch your fingers, they'll be hot!) and then puree them with the shallots and a disc of puckery goat cheese into an ochre-tinged sauce.

The original recipe has you do a fancy pan sauce with drippings and stock and flour and whisking, but is it a surprise to any of you at this point that I was far too lazy to follow suit? It was late, we were hungry, and that burnished bird was sitting on its platter making our stomachs growl. So I scraped up the pan drippings, separated the fat as best I could and dumped the drippings into the creamy sauce before whizzing it one last time.

And it was fabulous. Sweet and savory and with the faint funk of goat cheese about it. We slathered the sauce onto our forkfuls of chicken, dragged the chicken through great puddles of the stuff on our plates. If we hadn't been in the presence of dignified company, I might have even taken a spoon to the bowl. Best of all, while the chicken disappeared in a flash, there's sauce to last us another night at least.

I'm planning on using this yogurt-marinade technique over and over again - committing it to memory, even handing it over to the lamination files, if you will! The chicken was dreamily moist and juicy and would make fantastic leftovers.

This is the perfect Sunday supper - one you can start as the sun starts its slow descent in the late afternoon and can have on the table by the time the light is gone, but the birds are still out doing their early evening calls. I love this time of day in spring and especially where we live now, where we can actually hear the birds over the sounds of the city. If I go out on the balcony, I almost feel like I'm back in Berlin again - close enough to the city that I see the sunlight sparking off the buildings in Manhattan, but far enough away that I hear more birds than sirens; birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees around our building.

And there we go! Suddenly this cold, gray day doesn't seem so bad anymore. I have red pepper sauce, Ben, and a movie waiting for me (how to choose: Scarface on DVD or Iron Man at the theater?).

Happy Monday, folks. I hope it's a good week for you all.

Yogurt-Rubbed Roast Chicken with Red Pepper Sauce
Serves 3 to 4

Note: I made a half-recipe - the original makes two birds, and enough sauce to last for a week's worth of sandwiches, I think. Also, I omitted the steps and ingredients for the pan sauce. Click here for the original.

1/2 cup plain Greek-style yogurt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped thyme
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 (3- to 3 1/2 -pound) chicken
1/2 pound (about 8) shallots, peeled and left whole
3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2 red bell peppers, halved, cored and quartered
1 2-ounce piece goat cheese, softened

1. In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the dry mustard, thyme, coriander, 2 teaspoons salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Loosen the skin around the breasts and thighs, then rub both chicken all over (beneath the skin and inside the cavity, too) with the yogurt mixture. Refrigerate the chicken, uncovered, for 1 hour.

2. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the shallots, carrots, peppers, the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste into a large roasting pan and toss well. Arrange a rack over the vegetables.

3. Arrange the chicken on the rack, breast-side up, and roast, basting occasionally with pan juices, until the vegetables are very tender and the chicken is deep golden brown and cooked through, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Transfer the chicken to a large platter and tent with foil; set aside.

4. Drain the pan drippings into a bowl, then skim off and discard the fat; set aside.

5. Remove and discard the skin from the peppers (it should peel off fairly easily), then transfer them to a food processor. Add half the shallots and pulse until roughly chopped. Add the goat cheese, salt and pepper to taste, and pan drippings and puree until smooth.

6. Carve the chicken and transfer to plates. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of the red pepper and goat cheese sauce over each serving and serve with the remaining roasted shallots and carrots on the side.

Russ Parsons's Salt-Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary and Fingerling Potatoes

Oh yes, I know what you're thinking. Doesn't that look lovely? All burnished and brown and crusty? All herby and earthy and fragrant? Pork tenderloin, baby, and soft little potatoes, baked in a salt crust. Oh yeah. You don't even know how good the house smells right now. So good. Yes, it does.

I'm alone in the kitchen, heating up braised cabbage on the stove, while the pork and potatoes roast quietly in the oven under their thick cloak of herbed salt. The apartment's all warm and cozy and I'm waiting for my fella to come home and sit down to dinner with me - cold beer in hand, square meal awaiting, love all around.

Keys in the door. He's home! The man walks in, peels off his wool coat, shouts out a "Honey, I'm home!". I'm dancing in the kitchen, pulling the pan out of the oven, happy, so happy. He rinses off the back of his neck, plastered with little hairs from a quick trip to the barber, walks into the kitchen (that haircut, that face, oh, it's good), kisses me hello. We're all so-nice-to-see-you, oh-goodness-how-I've-missed-you, oh-lordy-how-awesome-are-you, no-no-how-awesome-are-you, and then suddenly - with no warning - all this huggy-bear-kissy-face, domesticated-bliss fest comes to a shrieking, gear-grinding halt.

One finger stretches out and points. Lips curl. The music stops playing. Readers, the world practically stops turning.

"What. Is. That."

(Now is probably the time to tell you that if there's one thing that Ben dislikes more than salt (well, except for anchovies - and the feeling for them is more like abject loathing, so it's not even up for discussion), it's pork. So pork and salt, together? You can only imagine the horror.)

Come on, baby, pork is tasty, so tasty, and really, not at all bad for you, as long as you're not snarfing bacon down every weekend and having pulled pork sandwiches on a weekly basis. Would I try to hurt you, honey, would I? I think you might be getting a little unreasonable about the whole thing, trust me, baby, trust me and if you don't trust me, then trust Russ, because Russ - well, it changed his life, this salt-roasting pork thing and if Russ says something's life-changing, I have to sit up and pay attention, I just do.

Ben stands in the kitchen in accusatory silence. I wield the butt of our heaviest knife and crack open the salt crust. Fragrance, the earthy scent of rosemary and potatoes and roasting meat, wafts aloft. I peek a sideways glance. Ben's impassive but for the tiny glint of interest now shining in his eyes. I lift up the browned tenderloin, brush off the clinging salt, set it down and carve it into moist, pink slices. The potatoes, tender with appealingly wrinkled skin, emerge from the white, sandy dome.

Three small potatoes on each plate, three slices of juicy pork, a riotous, purple tangle of cabbage, too. The knives sink easily into the flesh of the potatoes, the plates run pink with juices. The pork is tender and tastes, as Russ says, hugely of itself. A suggestion of rosemary fills the air, but the potatoes are just their best possible version, as potato-ey as it gets. I do my best to enjoy the meal subtly. I don't want to bang Ben over the head with the triumph of the pork tenderloin. It's bad enough to have forced him into eating something he usually spurns - I can't then also have it be the best meal of the week, can I?

What a silly question. Ben's plate is empty, as is mine. I get up for more cabbage and he holds out his plate. "More pork, please." I knew you'd come around, honey, I'm so glad you did.

Salt-Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary and Fingerling Potatoes
Serves 4

2 tablespoons snipped rosemary leaves
6 cups coarse salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (1 1/4 -pound) pork tenderloin
1 pound fingerling potatoes, scrubbed but unpeeled
1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon minced shallots

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the rosemary and the salt in a large mixing bowl and stir in 1 cup of water until the texture is that of gritty snow.

2. In a large skillet, heat the oil until the surface ripples. Pat the pork tenderloin dry with paper towels and sear it in the hot oil until it is browned on all sides, about 8 minutes.

3. While the pork is browning, spoon a layer of salt about one-fourth-inch thick in the bottom of a gratin or baking dish just big enough to hold the pork and the potatoes in a single layer.

4. When the pork is browned, pat it dry with a paper towel to remove any excess oil and place it in the gratin dish, laying it down the center. Arrange the potatoes around the outside and cover everything with the remaining salt.

5. Roast until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees, about 20 to 25 minutes. At this point, the pork will be quite moist but still a little pink. If you prefer the pork to be more cooked, push the temperature to 150, about 5 more minutes. Remove the baking dish from the oven and set aside 5 minutes to finish cooking.

6. With a sturdy metal spoon or chef's knife, chip a crack around the base of the salt crust and carefully lift off the top. Use a dry pastry brush to brush away any salt on the surface of the potatoes or the pork, turning the pork over to brush all sides. Transfer the pork to a carving board. Slice the pork into medallions one-fourth-inch thick and arrange on a serving platter. Place the potatoes in a medium bowl and toss with the shallots and butter just until coated, discarding any excess butter. Arrange the potatoes around the outside of the pork and serve immediately.

Regina Schrambling's Chicken and Orzo with Lemon and Olives

The block continues, I'll be honest, though at least complaining about it seems to have unleashed some crazy sort of energy in me. After my last post, I suddenly felt freed - marched myself over to the corner salon and got a pedicure (Essie Bordeaux - so hottt), then planted myself determinedly in front of the computer on Friday night, with two lukewarm, sweetish, perfectly chewy char siu bao for dinner. Two episodes of The Office and one of Grey's Anatomy (does anyone agree that this show has jumped the shark? I am losing interest, swiftly - or maybe it's just tough to follow the genius of Steve Carell) later, I felt somewhat renewed. The next day, using all this new-found energy, I scoured the apartment within an inch of its life - cable wires and armoire carvings and window ledges have never sparkled with such lustre.

I also cooked like a madwoman - applesauce (recipe here, sans meringue, and next time I'd use less vanilla or none at all - but other than that it was delicious, lip-smackingly so) and chocolate-chip cookies (these, which in my opinion are The Best, though I didn't have enough brown sugar or time, so they didn't turn out quite as perfectly as they usually do, but if you follow Debbie's instructions, you will be on Chocolate Chip Cookie Cloud Nine, I promise), and apple butter (much tested in the blogosphere, but originating here and oh-so-wonderful - especially in plain Liberte yogurt, try it if you don't believe me... it might be my best snack yet), but also this one-pot meal from the same article as the collard squares.

It was tasty and easy - who knew that oven-cooking orzo with chicken broth rendered the orzo practically creamy? The lemons gave the dish an interesting, bitter bite and the olives provided a pleasing, salty kick. It kept us fed for two days and is the kind of meal you can get on the stove while you simultaneously zip up and down in your building feeling a little bit like Eloise though minus the pet raisin-eating turtle and hardy English nanny, to get your laundry in and out of the machines while your boyfriend scrubs the tub and moans for respite every once in a while (oh please, like I'm taking pity on you, I scrubbed the cable wires, for crying out loud, though actually, after reading this, I've decided that's the last time we clean with our old, toxic cleaning supplies - it's Blog Action Day, people! I'm taking action.) which, if you think about, is a pretty good kind of dinner to have in your arsenal.

(Is anyone else wondering where I'm going with all of this?)

(Nowhere, is where! Absolutely nowhere.)

The best part of the weekend, which was already shaping up to be pretty great (apparently cleaning and television-watching is all I need for happiness - tragic, I know), was that Deb and Alex and Shauna and Danny and Shauna's sweet friends all trekked out valiantly to Forest Hills, where we had a completely delightful meal at danny brown Wine Bar & Kitchen and talked gluten-free flours and flopping flans until we were gently nudged out the door (not only was our waiter, Tim, so super-charming, but the staff let us linger far past their Sunday closing time and had nothing but smiles and thanks for us when we left - gracious and delicious, that place is a gem). There's nothing like spending time with your Internet buddies, really.

And with that, mercifully, this manic post comes to an end. Thanks for reading, everyone! Let's hope things improve soon. I'm off to eat my weight in chocolate-chip cookies. Maybe that will inspire me.

Chicken and Orzo with Lemon and Olives
Serves 4

8 chicken drumsticks (I used four whole chicken legs)
Salt, pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups orzo
3 cups chicken broth
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small lemon, cut into 8 wedges
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives
1 large bay leaf
3 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano, divided (I used 1 tablespoon of dried oregano)

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the chicken legs well on all sides with 1 1/2  teaspoons salt and  1 teaspoon pepper.

2. In a Dutch oven or large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the legs well on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan.

3. Add the orzo, chicken stock, garlic, lemon wedges and juice, olives, bay leaf and 1 tablespoon of the oregano. Stir to combine all the ingredients, then return the chicken to the pan. Cover and transfer to the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is done (the meat will be firm and its juices will run clear). Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, sprinkle with the remaining oregano and serve.

Diana Kennedy's Meatballs in Tomato and Chipotle Sauce

I am a changed woman. I spent four days in Mexico last week and had nothing less than an epiphany while I was there.

What was it, you ask? Well, it turns out that I adore Mexican food.

Yes, me! The girl who hates cilantro and always wrinkles her nose when her boyfriend suggests Mexican food, so much so that he's stopped asking and only occasionally complains about it. The girl who never understood why burritos and tacos and enchiladas draped with strings of goopy cheese and stuffed with pallid bean mush were practically the national food for kids of her generation. The girl who tried very hard to be a good sport and find something - anything - to like about the Mexican food available to her and who finally just threw in the towel and resigned herself to disliking it - an unpopular stance at best.

The truth is, I still don't like the Mexican food in New York or that stuff listed above - I'm still convinced it's not worth my time or my money. But the Mexican food in Mexico? The flaky, fragrant tortillas, the myriad salsas glittering red, green, pink and burgundy in the sun, the chewy, lean meat, charred and blistered on an open grill, the pure, clean flavors, the freshness and the spice - oh, the blessed, blessed spice - well, like I said, it was almost a religious experience.

And. The moment I realized I had fallen, hook, line and sinker: lost in thought while chewing on a mouthful of salad that topped a crunchy tostada, I crunched down on a cilantro leaf and it was like sunlight bursting through a shaded glen or something - suddenly, I got it! Bright and earthy at the same time, the flavor exploded in my mouth, tying all the other things together - the crispy tortilla, the unctuous crema, the spicily dressed salad. For those of you who know just how much and how long I've loathed the stuff, unhappily so, you can only imagine my glee. If I hadn't been sitting at the table with people to whom I couldn't admit my sudden discovery for fear of sounding like an utter fool, I would jumped up right then and there and shouted to the heavens, "Cilantrooooooooooo!"

Yeah. It was a momentous couple of days, for sure. Now that I'm back home again, I've done nothing but pore over the few Mexican recipes I have in my house and tried to find somewhere in Queens (there must be somewhere, right? A taco truck, a hand-pulled cart?) that will sell me the kind of food I ate in a little dot of a town in Baja, at an outdoor stand where a bowful of roasted jalapenos cooled next to the blackened grill and our tacos came filled with chopped, grilled meat, a shower of diced white onions and chopped cilantro, and a fluid avocado salsa, unlike anything I'd ever seen or tasted before.

For Ben, this conversion is like the Second Coming.

Last night, I triumphantly held aloft a long-clipped recipe from the LA Times for Diana Kennedy's meatballs that I'd been hoarding all by its lonesome, since it's one of the only Mexican recipes I've clipped over the years. The meatballs are made from a flavorful mix of pork and beef and stuffed to the gills with chopped zucchini and onion - the meat barely binds the vegetables together, making for light and flavorful little albondigas. Even better, the meatballs aren't first seared in a pan, like so many polpette of my youth, but rather braised directly in a simmering sauce. It makes for an easier clean-up and lighter, brighter-tasting meatballs.

Better still, the sauce: plum tomatoes whizzed together with a few canned chipotles (my mother bought us an immersion blender while she was visiting - thanks, again! - and that thing is a powerhouse. I didn't even bother peeling my tomatoes and they liquefied in a matter of seconds) and gently simmered with some olive oil and chicken stock. That stuff is addictive - I could have eaten just the sauce on rice for dinner. Except not really, because those meatballs were completely delicious - spiced with restraint, tender and sweet from the braising, the perfect tasty foil to the spicy sauce. I gave the leftovers to Ben today and am regretting it wholly.

Oh, Mexico. I'm sorry it's taken me so long. But I'm here now! Consider this my first entry into a whole new world I cannot wait to discover. I haven't yet bought my own cilantro, but that day is coming and soon.

Meatballs in Tomato and Chipotle Sauce
Serves 6 to 8 (about 34 meatballs)

Meatballs
12 ounces ground pork
12 ounces ground beef
1 medium zucchini
8 peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Place the ground pork and beef in a food processor and pulse several times. Transfer to a large bowl. Trim the ends of the zucchini and chop finely. Add to the bowl.

2. Finely grind the peppercorns and cumin seeds in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and add to the meat. Add the oregano, eggs, onion and salt and gently use your hands or a spatula to thoroughly combine all the ingredients.

3. Gently form the mixture into 1 1/2 -inch meatballs. Place on a baking sheet and refrigerate while making the sauce.

Sauce and finish
2 pounds tomatoes
2 to 4 chipotle chiles en adobo, more or less to taste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup chicken broth
Salt

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Core the tomatoes and place them in the boiling water. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the tomatoes and cool for a few minutes.

2. Process the tomatoes and chipotle chiles in a blender or food processor until smooth.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the tomato sauce. When it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the chicken broth. When the sauce comes back to a simmer, add the meatballs.

4. Cover the pan and simmer the meatballs over low heat until they are cooked through, about 50 minutes. Adjust the seasoning by tasting and adding salt just before the end of the cooking time. This dish can be prepared a day ahead or can be frozen and reheated.

Amanda Hesser's Rib Steaks with Parsley and Crouton Salad

I don't mean to be hopelessly materialistic, but I bought a platter (well, actually three - a smaller one and two larger ones, for a grand total of eight dollars) at a thrift store the other day and it filled me with deep-seated satisfaction and joy. I'm kind of into all that stuff, you see. Plates please me, as do tablecloths from flea markets and silver salt shakers from my mother and etched glasses in green and yellow crystal that we bought as seconds a few years ago in Berlin. For years, I've been making do with a few Sarreguemines plates I bought on Ebay years ago (they reminded me of my puces forays in Paris), with glasses that roommates contributed to the apartment, with a hodge-podge assortment of forks and knives, with paper towels instead of linen ones. But now that we've found our place in Queens, I've been thrilled to leave those things behind.

It was fine, at first. After all, at twenty-three, I was far too busy staying up until 6 am with my girlfriends in bars and eating hors d'oeuvres for dinner at book parties in the East Village and Tribeca to care about the state of my kitchen. I'd visit my mother and she'd show me the wonderful things she'd started saving for me, "for when you have casa tua", and I'd admire them, an antique ceramic bread box, linens she'd salvaged and starched, her grandmother's silverware, champagne coupes bought piece by piece at the flea market. But casa mia was a faraway concept, one I didn't particularly long for yet. I liked having roommates, a communal home, the freedom to break a glass or eat with a plastic fork. Linen towels would have been awfully annoying to launder compared with the disposability of a paper napkin. So I'd stow the treasures away in her closet and go back to New York to resume my life.

The years progressed, though, and as is wont to happen, I grew up a little and started hungering for a home of my own. One in which I could assume that the dishes would always be actually clean after being washed. One in which I didn't have to worry about an old plate being stuck carelessly in the microwave. One that made me want to wash linen towels and vacuum more than once a month and not to have to serve dinner directly from the pots on the stove. For years, I shied away from thrift stores in New York precisely because I didn't want to be tempted to buy anything I wouldn't be able to use. My life felt temporary. Why would I need to bring anything more into that life but the essentials?

Hence my joy the other day about finding those platters. It was an unexpected gift. Oh, I know I sound so bourgeois. But it's the truth - the collection of all those little things that I've been storing away for years and the release to be able to make this apartment my home, our home, well, nothing could please me more.

So I brought the platters back to Queens, the weight of the bag digging a red stripe into my shoulders, and washed the price stickers off in hot, soapy water. Then I made dinner - a punchy salad of watercress and parsley, dressed with horseradish and capers and two kinds of mustard, and topped with slices of broiled steaks. Arranged on that clean, white expanse, the salad really shone - glossy, green leaves, crisply browned croutons, juicy, pink meat with those perfectly crusty pockets and corners, while the capers provided briny little pops of flavor. The sensation of croutons crunching and rare meat yielding and fresh greens folding was totally sublime. (Though when I make this again, because I will, I'll use skirt or hanger steak instead. The rib steaks were a little fatty, and I prefer a chewier cut with salad.)

I know that stuff doesn't define us, that if all of those "precious" things were gone tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. Love, family, health - that's what counts. And on those points, well, all I can ask is how I ever got so lucky. So, of course a good thrift, then, is just icing on the cake, a midday treat, an excuse to make a little victory jig in public, if anything. But it can also make you stop and think about life, its small yet profound changes, the immeasurable gratitude you have towards the universe, and the funny fact that sometimes all you need to do is serve dinner on a simple, white, oval plate and contentedness is yours.

Rib Steaks with Parsley and Crouton Salad
Serves 4

4 rib steaks, about 1 inch thick (this was far too much meat for us - I'd suggest 3 rib steaks instead)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons salt-cured capers, rinsed thoroughly
1 tablespoon horseradish, more to taste
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon coarse-grain mustard
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups day-old bread cut into 1-inch cubes, lightly toasted
Leaves from 1 large bunch of parsley
Tops from 1 bunch of watercress

1. Line a broiler pan with aluminum foil and heat broiler. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Put steaks on broiler pan and broil for 5 minutes on each side, for rare.

2. Meanwhile, in a salad bowl, whisk together capers, horseradish, lemon juice, mustards and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add toasted bread cubes, parsley and watercress and toast until lightly wilted.

3. When steaks are done, let them rest for 5 minutes on a cutting board. Pour a tablespoon of the steak juices over the greens and toss. Arrange the dressed greens on a platter. Slice and arrange the steak on the salad and pour remaining juices over the steak. Serve.

David Pasternack's Tuna Meatballs

These past few days have been my favorite kind of New York days. The air is crisp, odd for July, and the sun never gets too hot. The sky is a kind of piercing blue that we usually don't see until September and the puffy clouds floating across the heavens are as light and airy as marshmallows. At night, it's cool enough to pull a thin cardigan around my shoulders.

The city empties out around holidays, which is always a treat. It's not that I don't like having my fellow New Yorkers around, but the calm that descends upon the city on a holiday is something that I'm loathe to share. The steady rumble from the streets dies down, the buzz of construction sites and the hum of air conditioners cease, and you can hear birds in Manhattan again.

There's something kind of special about this other New York, the one that only those without summer shares and highway dreams have. When I pass the few people on my street who have stuck around as well, we smile at each other and nod. Usually, we don't even acknowledge each other's presence. But we're special now, we're in a club together - at home, in this city, on a holiday when everyone else has fled for clogged roads and beaches. The check-out girl at the supermarket where I've just bought five pounds of ground beef ignores me on most days, but today we're both having people over for a celebration, so she decides to share her mother's burger method with me and we share a conspiratorial smile.

I don't care about fireworks and I'm doing my best to ignore the threat of a terror spectacular. This slowing down, this different pace, this is what the Fourth of July is all about for me. Trying not to break my rickety grill as we load it up with hot dogs and burgers, sipping a chilled beer with friends who've come from uptown, downtown, crosstown and Queens, (hoping that the mouse doesn't choose this particular moment to come out and play), introducing a little monkey named Charlotte to the pleasure of afternoon barbecue - this is how we'll be celebrating.

As for the meatballs I'd so much looked forward to making, they were nothing more than just fine. Surprising, right? After all, you'd think that garlic oil and pancetta and red pepper flakes would have done quite a good job of perking up this rather pedestrian concept of a dish. Not to mention the tuna! But the meatballs were nothing special. You couldn't taste the pancetta (which never gets browned), the garlic was almost too faint to be noticed, and parsley was entirely the wrong herb to use alone here. The tomato sauce helped a good deal towards pepping them up, but I won't be making these again, not when there's Jamie Oliver's recipe for tuna meatballs that sounds like it will be far more satisfying.

Wouldn't you agree? Happy Independence Day, everyone.

Tuna Meatballs
Serves 4

3/4 cup bread cubes from stale baguette
1/2 cup whole milk
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds tuna, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 ounces pancetta, finely diced (1/4 cup)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 cups mild tomato sauce
1 pound spaghetti

1. Soak bread in milk in small bowl for 30 minutes. Place work bowl and blade of food processor in freezer.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in medium pan over medium heat. Add garlic and stir occasionally until translucent, about 3 minutes. Set pan aside to cool.

3. Squeeze bread to remove excess milk, put in chilled food processor bowl with tuna and pancetta. Pulse until just coarsely ground and combined. Refrigerate briefly. Add garlic and its oil, 2 tablespoons water, egg, parsley and red-pepper flakes. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grindings of pepper. Lightly but thoroughly mix with hands.

4. Make a small meatball and sauté in a bit of oil over medium-high heat to taste for seasoning. Adjusting seasonings if necessary.

5. Heat sauce in a 6-quart pot over low heat.

6. With moistened hands, form 20 meatballs, each about 1 3/4 inch in diameter (about 1 1/2 ounces). Heat remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil in pan on medium high until hot but not smoking. Cook meatballs in batches until well browned all around, 6 to 8 minutes. When done, transfer to sauce with slotted spoon. When all the meatballs are in sauce, partially cover pot and gently simmer for 1 hour, stirring carefully occasionally.

7. Bring large pot of salted water to a boil and cook spaghetti until almost al dente. Drain and serve in bowl with sauce and meatballs spooned over.

Donna Deane's Curried Chicken Salad on Naan

Subpar curried chicken salads have practically become a bad dining cliche. Texturally questionable meat, possibly some raisins (truly a horror), all bound up in loathsome mayonnaise and then folded into a cold, inflexible flatbread wrap (tomato-flavored! or perhaps spinach, for health. Am I the only person on this planet who thinks those things should be abolished forever?). What you're left with is a gloopy, chewy nightmare of a lunch. Just thinking about it makes me a little queasy.

So why would I even entertain the thought of making something like that for dinner?

I'll tell you: the L.A. Times Encore feature. I'm totally in love. The editors find older recipes in the archives and put them back online for a repeat. Something about being featured a second time convinces me that the recipe must have really been good, that it's important I pay attention this time around, and not dismiss something as grody as a curried chicken salad sandwich with a wrinkled nose and an impatient click of the mouse. Would Donna Deane lead me astray, twice? I should think not.

So after cuddling a delicious little baby for a few hours after work, I headed to the grocery store, head awash in a fog of happy hormones (what is it about those little feet and fuzzy heads?), and bought chicken legs, lemon grass, fresh naan (now available at Whole Foods!) and limes. A promising start to the meal, I thought. At home, chicken legs poached in boxed chicken stock doctored up with chopped lemon grass, while I stirred together plain Liberte yogurt with lime zest, juice and curry powder, and tiny dice of red pepper, celery and scallions.

When the chicken had cooled, I pulled the meat off the bones, folded it into the tangy yogurt sauce and piled the salad onto the warmed naan. A few chopped peanuts went on top (I eschewed the cilantro, oh, and the sliced lime for garnish - it was a plain old weeknight, after all) and the soft, warm naan rolled easily around the cool, faintly spicy filling. It was a bit of a mess to eat, but the pillowy bread was a lovely counterpoint to the silken salad and the occasional crunch of peanut or pepper. Ben ate two of the sandwiches, stopping only to say happily, "this is exactly what I wanted for dinner".

Sometimes, satisfaction comes so easily.

Curried Chicken Salad on Naan
Serves 4

2 whole chicken legs, about 1 3/4 pounds
4 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped lemon grass
8 ounces low-fat plain yogurt
2 teaspoons chopped lime zest
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 cup sliced green onions
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup diced celery
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro plus 8 whole sprigs
1 teaspoon salt
4 pieces naan
1/4 cup chopped salted peanuts
1 lime cut into wedges for garnish

1. Place chicken legs, chicken stock and chopped lemon grass in a medium saucepan. Bring the stock to a gentle simmer over low heat. Poach the chicken for 30 to 40 minutes until cooked through. Remove from the stock and cool. Remove the skin and bones and shred the meat into bite-sized pieces.

2. While the chicken is cooking, stir together the yogurt, lime zest, lime juice and curry powder. Add the green onions, red pepper, celery, chopped cilantro and salt. Gently stir in the shredded chicken.

3. Place the naan in a 350-degree oven on the rack and heat until warm but still flexible, 1 to 2 minutes. Do not allow it to crisp.

4. Place each piece of naan on a plate and spoon one-half cup of chicken salad on top. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon chopped peanuts and lay 2 sprigs cilantro on top, extending out the sides. Roll the naan around the filling.

Paula Wolfert's Moroccan Chicken Smothered in Olives

I've got ants. There's no way to beat around the bush here. I've got a thin and irritating line of small, black ants marching their way in and out of my apartment and getting perilously close to my food supply. I know they're not dirty, like roaches, or pesky (and dirty) like mice, but I prefer my ants outside in nature, thank you very much, and not disturbing the gentleman's agreement we humans have with bugs: you stay outside in the field and we'll stay inside where it's warm and cozy. If we break the agreement, the ants have every right to march into our picnic baskets or even bite us, if they are of the angry, red variety. If they break the agreement, I reserve the right to annihilate them with every kind of spray, poison, and sheer brute force available to me (the palm of my hand being quite potent in these moments).

A result, obviously, of all this activity, is that being in the kitchen has become a bit less attractive as of late - I'm sick of seeing black specks moving about with impunity and I don't want to eat anything near the vaporous fumes I've unleashed on those little specks. Hence some of the... reticence around these parts. But this self-imposed (arguable!) exile had to come to an end eventually and so tonight, I made my way back to the stove again.

After our great success with exotically-spiced chicken thighs a few weekends ago, I was happy to find an old New York Times clipping for a dish from Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Cooking in my tattered notebook. All it required was a pot filled with sliced onions, skinless chicken thighs laid on top, a generous dusting of cumin, sweet paprika, turmeric and ground ginger, and a chicken-broth bath. The pot simmered away quietly (while I had to boil olives, which seemed on par with the craziness of boiling bacon) until the gravy turned a rich, rusty red. The boiled olives and the juice of one lemon went in at the end to brighten the flavor of the sauce while it reduced.

We ate our parsley-strewn stew over plain white rice (and boiled peas). It made for a good enough Sunday dinner, but there was something missing from our plates. Was it salt? Not with all those luscious olives. We couldn't figure it out and anyway, the stew was tasty enough. It nourished us well and that's all that really mattered.

But when I got around to typing up this post, I found the original recipe online. Strangely enough, it was totally different from the one I was working from. Far more labor-intensive (grated onions! spice pastes! stove-top and oven time!), the recipe also called for different amounts of ingredients (two pounds of olives! two entire chickens!). With all these changes, it seemed rather obvious that the original version would have made for a more deeply-flavored result than The Times version.

Who knows why The Times changed the recipe for their publication? Who knows if Paula's original version would have tasted much differently? I leave you with all these questions and no answers. Because I think I see another ant I need to eliminate.

Paula Wolfert's Moroccan Chicken Smothered in Olives
Serves 4

8 skinless chicken thighs with bone
2 onions, peeled, halved and sliced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 tablespoons Spanish sweet paprika
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup cilantro leaves, chopped (I used parsley, and only as a garnish)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
11 ounces pitted green olives in brine
Juice of 1 lemon

1. In the bottom of a large, flameproof casserole, arrange onions and top with chicken pieces. Sprinkle with ginger, turmeric, cumin, paprika, garlic, and cilantro (if using). Pour chicken broth over all.

2. Place over high heat to bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, turning once. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine olives with several cups of water and bring to a boil. Boil 2 minutes, drain well and set aside.

3. Add olives and lemon juice to chicken, and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. If desired, simmer for additional time to reduce and thicken sauce. Serve hot.

Suvir Saran's Spicy Roasted Chicken Thighs

I'm cutting straight to the punch today. This chicken recipe is delicious. Ben wouldn't stop talking about how good it was. The last time he was this enthusiastic was when Amanda Hesser's Lemon Chicken entered our lives, and we all know how good that was (don't we?).

It's simple (you process a bunch of spicy, aromatic ingredients and smear the paste onto raw chicken thighs, then roast them until they're juicy and fragrant, and a gorgeous little gravy has created itself at the bottom of the pan) and very tasty, makes for stellar leftovers, and is cheap, cheap, cheap, considering that chicken thighs cost less than practically everything else in the market.

(Can I stop here and ask what steps any of you contact lens-wearing jalapeno-eaters take when the time comes to deal with these things? I always end up having fiery fingers for at least a day or two, which makes contact insertion and removal nothing short of torturous, but I can't bring myself to use surgical gloves. Am I being foolish?)

I have a feeling we'll be making this again and again - it's just one of those staple recipes you can't help but revert to all of the time. But do you know what's even more exciting that discovering something as good as this hidden in a clipping about cooking with chicken thighs from none other than Mr. Minimalist? (The recipe comes from an Indian chef, Suvir Saran, whose restaurant is mere blocks from where I live and work, so it is a total mystery why I haven't gotten myself there yet. I'm stumped. And hungry. Consider this problem solved quite soon.)

Millet! That's what's so exciting. That fluffy, pale yellow pile of toothsome grains underneath the spicy chicken thigh is no pedestrian accompaniment, oh no. It's the glorious ancient grain, millet, my new favorite pantry stale. Move over, rice. Take a hike, couscous. We've fallen head over heels for millet, and think it's here to stay.

I used Nigella Lawson's recipe (but left out the cumin) and it turned out fantastically. The cooked millet was nutty and substantial, holding up well to the strongly-flavored chicken thighs. Plus, it had the added benefit of making us feel virtuous as we ate. I quite like that feeling.

This morning, I used up the remaining millet to make Mollie Katzen's Crunchy Millet Muffins and I'm pleased to tell you all that I seem to have finally found a muffin that doesn't make me feel like a larded animal after I've eaten one (is it just me? Don't muffins give you a stomach-ache, too?). They're very plain, spiced with just a fillip of cinnamon and a small amount of brown sugar, but the millet goes into the simple batter raw, and the muffins bake up into soft, yet crunchy domes that go quite nicely with a glass of orange juice or a mug of milky tea.

Millet for breakfast, millet for lunch, millet for dinner. Millet! I think I love you.

Spicy Roasted Chicken Thighs
Serves 4

8 chicken thighs, with skin, pierced all over with a small knife
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 2-inch piece fresh ginger root, peeled
1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded
Juice and zest of 1 whole lemon
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander seeds or ground coriander

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put chicken thighs in a bowl. Mince garlic, ginger and pepper. Toss with all remaining ingredients or put in a small food processor, and grind to a paste. (It is O.K. if the coriander seeds are not fully pulverized. They will add a little crunch.)

2. Rub mixture thoroughly into chicken. At this point, you can cover, and refrigerate for up to a day.

3. Put thighs, skin side up, in a roasting pan. Roast for 45 minutes or until done.