You have an aesthetic choice to make in preparing this dish, which is great as part of a cool meal in summer. Add a couple of Asian-style salads, like Tomato Salad with Ginger (page 173) or Green Papaya Salad (page 174), and you’re in business. The coconut sauce, with its sugar, lemongrass, and chile—all typical Thai flavors— is wonderfully flavorful but stark white. Adding a large pinch of saffron turns it a glorious yellow and adds the distinctive complexity of that spice, a nice touch. If you prefer, you can use some ground turmeric—whose flavor is bitter but not at all unpleasant—or curry powder. Or just leave the sauce as is. See page 500 for information on Thai fish sauce (nam pla).
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
Serve a thick slice for breakfast or an afternoon pick-me-up.
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.
Reliable cabbage is cooked in the punchy sauce and then combined with store-bought baked tofu and roasted cashews for a salad that can also be eaten with rice.
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 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.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.