Hello! Mia here. Melissa Clark and I swapped days this week, and she’ll be with you on Saturday with a very special Cooking newsletter.
My colleague Priya Krishna has a wonderful new article for The New York Times, writing about how cooking has connected her and her mother. Priya writes: “There’s something about cooking together — doing menial, repetitive tasks like washing vegetables or measuring spices (not that my mother did any measuring) — that makes conversation and connection easier. It lowers the stakes.” Food has been a central part of her life “because it didn’t just open up a world of different cuisines — it opened up the world of my mother.”
Priya also has a new kid’s cookbook out: “Priya’s Kitchen Adventures,” a collection of kid-tested recipes that she calls “the little sister to ‘Indian-ish.’” She’s shared four recipes from the book with us: tea sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, salmon onigiri and shahi toast, all of which would be great projects to do with the kids come Mother’s Day.
But sometimes a recipe is too good to share: It’s a closely guarded secret that gives its owner power, mystique, a sense of sorcery. Such was the case with these garlic-ginger chicken breasts with cilantro and mint, a recipe that Priya’s aunt Sonia wouldn’t even share with her daughter. But Priya got it out of her — being a daughter also means gradually and lovingly wearing down the mother figures in your life — and now we can all make these charred, spicy, slightly funky, juicy chicken breasts to tuck into rotis or to top rice or salads.
Featured Recipe
Garlic-Ginger Chicken Breasts With Cilantro and Mint
Also bright and boldly flavored: this rhubarb roasted salmon from Melissa Clark, which balances rich salmon fillets with a tangy ginger-rhubarb sauce. Nargisse Benkabbou’s merguez and kale pasta gets its punch from plenty of fennel, cumin and coriander seeds, plus paprika and dried mint. Stirred into your favorite jarred (or homemade) marinara, those spices help to create a comforting, Bolognese-ish sauce with a warming kick.
We all know what to do with frozen edamame in their pods: Boil them, drain them, salt them almost excessively and eat right away (preferably with a frosty Asahi). But what about frozen shelled edamame? Those can go into Hetty Lui McKinnon’s new chile crisp fried rice, which gets a double dose of plant-based protein from the edamame and crumbled tofu. No edamame? Use frozen peas, corn or mixed vegetables.
Let’s wrap things up with these white beans with radishes, miso and greens, a quick vegetarian main or side that makes the most of your farmers’ market haul. It’s a part of our spring cooking bucket list collection, where you’ll also find top-rated, must-make New York Times Cooking hits like Julia Moskin’s best chicken salad and Yotam Ottolenghi’s crispy coconut, asparagus and green bean salad.
