Let us now praise the lettuce wrap! Depending on what you fold inside, the frilly green leaves can make hand rolls without the rice, sandwiches without the bread or tacos without the tortillas. Who needs forks in the summer?
Cybelle Tondu’s new recipe for ground turkey, shiitake and cashew lettuce cups combines salad with stir-fry to make finger food full of soy and oyster sauce-y notes, with sweet hoisin sauce for dipping. You can use any kind of lettuce as the wrap. Cool, crisp iceberg and romaine have snap, while butter lettuce is silkier, softening slightly as it meets the warm filling. A bowl of rice on the side isn’t technically necessary, but it’s good for catching those bits that tumble out.
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Ground Turkey, Shiitake and Cashew Lettuce Cups
I like to think of the stuffed pepper as the lettuce wrap’s brawnier, flashier cousin. Both dishes include savory fillings dressed in vegetal garb, but peppers have a certain sturdiness instead of a leafy delicacy. I have a new meatless recipe for peppers stuffed with cumin-scented chickpeas, topped, of course, with Cheddar cheese. The peppers become velvety soft as they bake, almost collapsing. Still, the best bits might be the grated cheese and chickpeas that fall to the bottom of the baking pan, becoming crunchy and alluringly oily tidbits. I love these peppers as they are, but a little salsa or some salted yogurt on the side would be an excellent addition.
Cumin also stars in David Tanis’s roasted eggplant salad, a dish best not eaten with your fingers, though wielding a wedge of pita to grab the slippery, smoky eggplant pieces works nicely if you just can’t bear a fork. Whether you opt for the broiler or the grill to cook the dish, make sure to let the eggplant’s skin get black and wrinkly and its flesh pudding-soft for optimal flavor and texture.
You won’t mind turning on your broiler for Ali Slagle’s salmon with garlic butter and tomato pasta, because it’s only briefly and the results are well worth it. She smartly broils salmon fillets and cherry tomatoes together on one sheet pan until the tomatoes blister and the salmon skin sizzles and crisps, all in under 10 minutes. Perched on top of buttery angel hair pasta, the cherry tomatoes burst like “water balloons of sweetness,” as Ali evocatively writes in the headnote, leaking their juices onto the noodles and fish. It’s a playground of delightful flavors.
Or maybe revisit an evergreen, minimalist classic from the aughts with Mark Bittman’s five-star adaptation of Gary Danko’s baked mustard-herb chicken legs. Simply paint some good Dijon mustard on chicken legs, then coat them in an herby, garlic-spiked breadcrumb mix and bake. It’s a satisfying, fuss-free crowd-pleaser.
For a dessert that really makes the most of summer fruit, Rebecca Charles’ blackberry nectarine crisp (as adapted by Matt Lee and Ted Lee) is filled with syrupy fruit covered with crunchy nuggets of cinnamon-scented oatmeal streusel. Try to serve this warm from the oven, with scoops of vanilla ice cream melting into a runny custard sea amid islands of fruit. Can there possibly be a better sweet for July?
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That’s a wrap! See you on Wednesday.
