Despite my love for charred vegetables and steaks, I’m a fair-weather griller. If I lived in a more temperate climate, you’d probably find me kebabbing shrimp in the middle of January. But since I typically hang up my grill tongs as the autumn leaves fall, I think of these final summer weeks as one last, fiery hurrah.
At the top of my to-grill list are these galbi and tteok skewers (above), a recipe from David Shim, the executive chef at Cote in New York City. Threaded with batons of soy and ginger-marinated short ribs and chewy-crisp rice cakes, these skewers make a hearty dish that you’ll be happy to cook well into sweater season, or even longer if you’re an all-year griller. You do need to plan ahead (marinating the meat makes a huge difference), but once you’ve gathered your ingredients, they’re easy to assemble.
Featured Recipe
Galbi and Tteok Skewers
If you’re short on time or more in the mood for a plateful of colorful vegetables, Sarah Copeland’s 30-minute any vegetable stir-fry is about as speedy and adaptable as recipes get. Use whatever veggies you have in the fridge: that bunch of celery at the bottom of your produce drawer, the forgotten radishes, the half-wilted greens — all are welcome here. Sarah seasons them simply with a little rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and optional hot sauce, and tosses in sesame seeds and toasted nuts for crunch. Serve it over rice for a meatless meal, or perhaps alongside some bronzed and crispy chicken breasts.
And speaking of, Ali Slagle’s got just the recipe for those: her beloved pan-seared ranch chicken. She marinates the boneless white meat in a tangy, herby ranch dressing, some of which is saved to drizzle on top. Any leftover dressing can be tossed with greens for an instant salad the next day.
Or perhaps you’re on the lookout for a salad with verve and heft? I’m smitten with Ligaya Mishan’s latest column for The New York Times Magazine and its accompanying recipe for green salad with warm goat cheese (salade de chèvre chaud).
In the article, Ligaya recalls a spontaneous dinner on the Côte d’Azur. It was the kind of late, lingering night fueled by conversation and bottles of wine that is so easy to drift into when you’re young and far from home. The salad, she writes, is “a careless toss of greens under rounds of goat cheese with the sheerest veil of bread crumbs, gently crisped in a hot pan.” I plan to make it to bring back some past summer nights of my own, and because it’s simply an excellent and classic French dish well worth revisiting.
For a dessert that you’ll reminisce about in years to come, David Tanis’s plum crostata made with crumbled amaretti cookies (or almond flour) takes full advantage of the sweet stone fruit at its peak right now.
Naturally, you’ll want to subscribe to read all these recipes and more. If you need any technical help, the brilliant people at cookingcare@nytimes.com are there for you. And I’m at hellomelissa@nytimes.com if you want to say hi.
I’m so happy to be back, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all here again on Monday!
