Made This For Dinner, Issue #8
Chicken with lentil rice, rice noodles and baked tofu, fusilli alla vodka
Hello!
Lots of chicken chat here this week. Let’s dive in.
What I made for dinner
Adas polo o morgh: I don’t know if this is a relatable anecdote, but I go through stages with Samin Nosrat’s chicken recipes from her book “Salt Fat Acid Heat.” There’s her buttermilk-brined roast chicken, my #2 roast chicken recipe*. And her poulet au vinagre (chicken with vinegar) recipe, and her fried chicken recipe. I’ve had intense obsessions with all three.
Now I’m in my adas polo o morgh (chicken with lentil rice) phase. You have to babysit the pot initially, as you brown the chicken pieces and caramelize the onions, but then you get to throw everything back in and let it quietly simmer. When you lift the lid about an hour later, all of the supporting players — the rice, the lentils, the dates and the raisins —will have plumped up and your chicken will be suffused with cumin and onion. It’s a very grounding dish, with equally savory and sweet bites from the addition of dried fruit, but it’s not so heavy that it necessitates a nap afterward. I took the extra step of crisping the thighs back up under the broiler, which was nice but not at all a requirement. A word of warning: this makes a TON of food, probably 8-10+ servings? Halve it, bring some to a friend or be prepared for leftovers.
Roasted cauliflower and mushrooms with kalamata olive dressing: This is a no-recipe recipe. I tossed a half a head worth of cauliflower florets and a few handfuls of oyster mushrooms with oil and then roasted them at 425° until crispy. Then I drizzled everything with kalamata olive “dressing,” which was a scoop of prepared olive tapenade thinned with a bit more oil and dijon mustard. I still had a metric ton of lentil rice from the adas polo o morgh so I served it over that. It was tremendously ugly, all browns and shades of purple-grey, and absolutely delicious.
Cold rice noodles with baked tofu and peanut sauce: I’ve made and tweaked this enough to feel comfortable calling it a house recipe. I never make the additional dipping sauce anymore — the peanut sauce alone is sufficient. The protein is variable. While grilled chicken is great in warmer months, I make tofu most often (thank you, Western New York’s six-months of winter). I freeze my tofu, thaw it, dredge it in cornstarch and then shallow-fry it for extra-crispy results.
Fusilli alla vodka: The last big trip I took before the pandemic was to California, back in December 2019. The majority of our time was spent in Los Angeles, eating our way from Highland Park to Santa Monica. On our last night there we got takeout from Jon & Vinny’s. I think we may have also grabbed a pizza, but honestly the only part I remember was their fusilli alla vodka. It was the best vodka sauce I’ve ever had — not thick or chunky (I shudder), but glossy and just substantial enough to coat the noodles entirely. Thankfully, I am not alone in my devotion. The recipe has been published in several places online and it’s a nearly exact approximation. It’s one of the times where restaurant food is actually better at home, because one else is there to judge if you lick the plate clean.
*Zuni Cafe’s roast chicken with bread salad will always and forever be my #1.
What I made that wasn’t for dinner:
Small-batch buttermilk biscuits: I made these one evening after dinner for dessert and served them with strawberries and whipped cream. The next morning I used them in an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. These biscuits have range!
Other dinner ephemera from this week:
The (Surprising) Rise of the Sheet Pan: How did this unflashy piece of equipment become a home cooking star? (It has something to do with Martha Stewart.)
Speaking of Martha, I loved this profile of her in Harper’s.
Spring cookbooks are on the horizon! My preorder of Julia Turshen’s newest book, “Simply Julia,” should arrive this week, and I also have my sights on “Super Natural Simple,” “To Asia, With Love” “Jew-ish” and the U.S. release of “Greenfeast: Spring/Summer.”’
On my way out, I’m going to plug a call for questions and requests again. How can this newsletter better serve you? More weeknight dinners? More project dinners? Do you have a dinner dilemma? Do you really want me to make the TikTok feta pasta? Leave a comment, reply here or DM me on Instagram (where I am mostly posting photos of my dinners, my cat and the slow renovation of our soon-to-be office/mudroom).