In much of India, a fresh salad is present at every single meal. This kind of cucumber salad was something that my mother threw together moments before we sat down to eat. Cucumbers with tiny undeveloped seeds have the best texture, but when cucumbers are growing wildly in my garden and some that hid themselves too successfully among the leaves have grown beyond the best picking size, I pick them anyway, peel them, and scoop out their seeds. They still make good eating. (Whenever I pick a particularly large, overgrown cucumber, I can never throw it in the compost heap because I think of Inder Dutt. At the age of thirteen, he came down from a poor village in the Himalayan mountains to try to eke out a living in the plains. In Delhi, he somehow managed to get into a cousin’s household where they taught him how to do odd jobs and eventually even how to cook. He became so adept that my cousin brought him to New York as her cook. Every now and then he would come over to our apartment to help out. I could never get enough of the stories about his childhood. He had spent the snowy mountain winters without shoes, huddling in the floor above the animals to stay warm at night. In the summers, he had to go work in the fields. When he got very thirsty, he would just pick the largest cucumber he could find, snap it in two, and quench his thirst with its juicy flesh.)
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
This classic 15-minute sauce is your secret weapon for homemade mac and cheese, chowder, lasagna, and more.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.
I should address the awkward truth that I don’t use butter here but cream instead. You could, if you’re a stickler for tradition (and not a heretic like me), add a big slab of butter to the finished curry.