Is it me, or is a clear sky bluer in winter than in summer? Maybe it’s because, on my daily jaunts in the park, everything else is muted with little or no greenery or blossoms to compete with, so the blue always seems ready to burst between the bare branches.
In daylight-starved January, I also want that brightness on my plate. Not just colors, but also lively, pungent flavors that cut the chill. Give me enough pickles, chiles, spices and citrus, and I know I can make it to spring.
Samantha Seneviratne seems to be on the same page. Her new recipe for horseradish roasted salmon with mustard potatoes is exactly where my head is at right now. She coats a soft fillet of salmon with horseradish and lime zest and roasts it alongside mustardy potatoes. This dish sparkles with flavor, a bracing note on a winter evening.
Featured Recipe
Horseradish Roasted Salmon With Mustard Potatoes
Catch another glimpse of warmer times and climes via the green chiles, tomatoes and olives in Nargisse Benkabbou’s chickpea-chicken salad with green harissa dressing. The recipe is based on tayb o’hari — a Moroccan street food of chickpeas usually served in paper cones and topped with spices — and Nargisse turns the mixture into an exuberant salad that’s equally appealing warm or at room temperature.
For something gentler in flavor but just as richly hued, Rick Martínez brings us a soupy mix of beans and greens with toasted breadcrumbs, inspired by French cassoulet. Rick replaces the usual duck and pork with Swiss chard and celery, and the traditional white Tarbais beans with frozen lima beans or edamame. Rick notes that the broth, infused with thyme, garlic and olive oil, is the real star here, so serve this with crusty bread for sopping it up.
Rick’s dish is not just pretty, it’s also packed with healthy beans and vegetables. If eating better is one of your goals for 2024, a Mediterranean diet might be just the thing to inspire all kinds of healthful habits in the kitchen. To help get you there, our friends at Well have just started a weeklong Mediterranean-diet-focused newsletter full of tips, information and recipes curated by our New York Times Cooking team; you can sign up for it here.
My easy lentil soup is a perfect fit for this kind of Mediterranean meal plan. You could also decide to make it because it’s warming, filling and about as adaptable as a recipe gets. Creamy and earthy on its own, it’s an excellent canvas for all kinds of toppings; avocado, browned onions, sour cream, crumbled nori or bacon would all find a happy home floating on a bowl of this fragrant elixir. And if you make it in a pressure cooker, the lentils will cook through in 12 minutes flat.
Also apropos to a tasty-healthy life, Kay Chun’s vegetable yakisoba is a Japanese noodle dish stir-fried with a heady sauce of Worcestershire, ketchup and soy sauce. Packed with vegetables (carrots, kale, bell peppers and mushrooms), it’s got a colorful mix of textures and flavors, ready in 30 minutes.
Now to reward ourselves for all that bright, good-for-us cooking. For something sweet that works for breakfast or dessert, Genevieve Ko’s lovely whole-grain banana yogurt muffins are best served warm, either straight out of the oven or toasted until the edges of those crackly crusts crisp. You can get creative with the toppings, sprinkling on oats, seeds, chopped nuts, coconut or cacao nibs in whatever combinations you like. Let the kids help! It’s a cozy way to spend a chilly winter afternoon.
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That’s all for now. See you on Wednesday.
