Good morning. Not to put too fine a point on something I’ve been saying for years, but the purpose of this newsletter is to seek out and champion the delicious. I’m here to provide comfort at times, to offer counsel, to instruct and to cajole. But I’m always here as an ambassador of succulence, an envoy of the flavorful. I want you to cook, yes, but also to experience the joy of serving — and eating — really good food.
For instance, take a look at Ali Slagle’s new recipe for ginger-scallion steamed fish (above), adapted from the chef Connie Chung of Milu in New York. Here, fish that is usually steamed whole or in fillets is instead cut into cubes, which allows it to luxuriate in the salty piquancy of the sauce. (If you’d like to roast the fish instead of steaming it, I’ve prepared some notes to share.) Serve with rice and sautéed greens, and close your weekend with a satisfied smile.
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
Kay Chun’s recipe for mushroom piccata is as filling and fantastic as a piccata made with chicken or swordfish, and Kay provides a neat suggestion for grilling the mushrooms for a smokier note. (I might try that with cauliflower piccata.)
Tuesday
I learned to make these bulgogi sloppy Joes at the elbow of the chef Hooni Kim, who served slider versions at his restaurant Danji in Manhattan. They are mind-blowingly saporous, the enemy of bland takeout.
Wednesday
Here’s a true springtime delight: Melissa Clark’s pasta primavera with asparagus and peas, best with a bouncy egg pasta, slightly underdone. The recipe calls for fresh English peas. I always use frozen, to no ill effect.
Thursday
Samin Nosrat’s adaptation of the cookbook author Jessica Battilana’s recipe for the greenest green salad is a luxurious weeknight delight, especially accompanied by boiled eggs, toast and salted butter. “Holy cow,” one subscriber wrote in a note. “This salad was so good I nearly forgot my own name.”
Friday
And then there’s Ali Slagle’s awesome recipe for crispy baked chicken, a masterpiece of low-and-slow cooking that results in fork-tender meat and shatteringly crisp skin. What a way to end the week!
Thousands and thousands more recipes to cook this week are waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions make the work that we do possible. Please, if you haven’t already, I hope you will subscribe today. Thanks.
You are not alone. Write to us at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you run into trouble with our technology. Or write to me at foodeditor@nytimes.com if you’d like to offer an apple or throw a dart. I cannot respond to every letter. But I do read every one.
Now, you’d have to do a lot of math and narrative dancing to make it have anything to do with food, but you should read Lauren Oyler’s dispatch from the Goop at Sea cruise, in Harper’s, “I Really Didn’t Want to Go.”
For The Bitter Southerner, Michael Adno has a smart profile of Robert Palmer, the orchid king of Central Florida.
Pete Wells, who is The Times’s restaurant critic, has delivered his definitive list of “The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City” and it’s awesome — a stirring defense of New York as a restaurant powerhouse and a brilliant portrait of the diversity of the city’s cuisine.
Finally, give a listen to “FaceTime” by Billy Woods and Kenny Segal, featuring Samuel T. Herring. Life on the road: “Continental breakfast, stick and weave, tuck and roll.” And I’ll be back next week.
